.•^°^ \ / *afe*- %./ -M^'". ^^-^ V ".T^' ..V'. <:> V .. •e^ A^ ''j$M. < o V ■•■ o*^ »-. '"•^^ '•••■ 4>^ , ^-^ '°-'' ♦^ ^ '? ^^ "•• ^° ^ ^^-o" ^, 50, 51. 38 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL to discover, in the ministry of Jesus, characteristic fea- tures and indubitable proofs of His Messianic dignity. The glory of the risen Lord threw new Hght on the memories of His early career. Thence arose a kind of idealization of His discourses and His acts, and a tendency to systematize them. . . . Thus everything assumes, as it were, a relation to the Messiah, and all contributes to prove that Jesus was the Christ." ^ He even claims that " this inevitable and legitimate idealization of Christ . . . must have affected, to a certain extent, the form of legendary development, and presents itself as such at the first glance of criticism, although actually it is nothing but an expansion of faith, and an attempt, thought an insufficient one, to set Jesus on the height that is His rightful place." ^ Thus, he believes that " the narratives of the child- hood of Christ are for the historian only an expres- sion and an assertion of faith in the Messiah." The manifestation on the banks. of the Jordan, the tempta- tion in the desert, the acclamations of the demoniacs, the multiplication of the loaves, the transfiguration, the rending of the veil of the Temple, are but so many figures or symbols whereby the early Church expressed its faith in Christ; the Church, however, in most in- stances, grounded its belief upon early facts and real data which it was content to interpret in the light of actual historic • realities, and to adapt, as it were, to the condition of the immortal Christ.^ What shall we say of this theory? From the view- point of our projected study of Christ, we may say that, even in the light of the conclusions of the fore- going contemporary critics, the Synoptic gospels main- tain their incomparable value as history. First of all, they are at least the authentic and as- sured witnesses of the faith of the early Church, alike during the second generation of Christians, when they 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 38, 39, 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 41. ^ Loisy, op. cit., pp. 39, 50, INTRODUCTION 39 were presumably edited, as during the first Christian generation which furnished those traditions and docu- ments for their compilation. In these gospels, in fact, the idea of Jesus is as extraordinary as the parallel view of Him which we find in S. Paul's Epistles. Jesus is more than a great prophet : He was not content with teaching His disciples the loftiest truths : by His miracles He has shown that He wields a divine power ; by His death He has become the redeemer of mankind ; by His resurrection He has wondrously shown Himself to be what He declared that He was whilst still on earth, namely, the Messiah and Son of God. Thus did the early Christians esteem Jesus. But, we may ask. Whence came their persuasion? Was it not due to the impression made by the Divine Master upon those who had lived with Him? Must we not suppose that there was an essential correspondence be- tween such primitive belief and the object thereof? This much is granted by several critics. Thus, to quote Jiilicher : " H the total picture of Jesus which we obtain from the Synoptics displays all the magic of reality, (in Luke just as much as in Matthew and Mark), this is not the effect of any literary skill, often indeed defective, on the part of the Evangelists, nor is it the result of the poetic and creative power of the au- thorities lying behind them; but it is rather owing to the fact that they, while modestly keeping their own personalities in the background, painted Jesus as they found Him already existing in the Christian com- munities, and that this, their model, corresponded in all essentials to the original. . . . The true merit of the Synoptists is that, in spite of all the poetic touches they employ, they did not repaint, but only handed on the Christ of history. . . . The tendency towards legendary amplification contented itself m His case with adding some brightly colored ornament to the original picture." ^ ijiilicher, op. eit., pp. 371, 374. 40 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Similarly, O. Holtzmann, alluding to the miraculous episodes, which in fact appear to him to be partly legendary, says that '' they do mirror the sentiments which the infant Christian community entertained re- garding Jesus . . . and in so far they contribute to the historical understanding of the personality of Jesus. They show clearly that even in the circles which specially preserved the historical meaning of His life, the image of Jesus early outgrew all human measure ; and that can only have been due to the im- pression which Jesus originally made." ^ Loisy, too, with regard to the Saviour, thinks that " His grandeur was not perceived until after His death " ; that the idealization of Christ after His death was " inevitable and legitimate . . . although actually it is nothing but an expansion of faith, and an attempt, though an insufficient one, to set Jesus on the height that is His rightful one." And again : " If the point of view is new, and differs from that of the immediate witnesses it is none the less true in a certain sense. - And elsewhere we are told that " the glory of the risen Saviour threw new light on the memories of His earthly career, so as to adapt them to the condition of the immortal Christ. This perspective, which may be called Messianic, has covered over the properly historic basis of the gospel. It has not altered it substantially : from the viewpoint of faith, it even places the work of Jesus in a truer light than does the reality." ^ Nor is this all. The Synoptics, as critics admit, are not only an expose of the belief of the early Church, but are also an entirely authentic and substantially faithful account of Jesus' words and deeds. So that to obtain a correct idea of Christ, there is no need to enter into a critical discussion of the respective merits i Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. yy. 2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 40, 41. 3 Loisy, Autour, p. 84. INTRODUCTION 4I of the elements composing these writings. We may justly take these writings as they stand; and if we are careful to base our study not upon this or that isolated detail, but upon the sum-total of the accounts, we may rest assured of coming to one solid and cer- tain conclusion, namely that our study will be essen- tially based upon that substantial history which critic- ism admits as the fundamental germ of these docu- ments; whilst those chance elements, supposedly clinging to this basic nucleus owing to the progressive effort of Christian reflexion, may have influenced the result attained, only so far as to give it some sort of relief, to make its full meaning appear, and not to corrupt it in any essential respect. Influence of Tradition. — We may accordingly ex- amine more in detail the proposed theory and find to what extent the Synoptic accounts may have been af- fected by tradition. To ascertain the authentic historical element as also the result of possible idealization in this matter, only three methods of procedure are available. Thus, we may take each gospel separately and en- deavor to find if it was arranged after a systematic plan, or even in accordance with a secret mental pre- occupation whereby an intentional coloring may have been deliberately or perhaps unconsciously imparted to the editing of events and of discourses. Or again, by comparing the three gospel records, we may try to find out which one represents the original tradition and what elements contained in the others have been ap- parently added to the primitive. Lastly, we may com- pare these gospels with other writings of the early Church, such as the Acts of the Apostles and the vari- ous Epistles, in order to see in what measure we can perceive an influence of facts and of ideas, of sub- sequent history or of later theology, upon the process of editing the gospel material. This task of verification evidently presents some difficult features and may be easily hampered by pre- 42 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL judice as also lend itself to arbitrary methods. " It is impossible," says Lagrange, " for the critic not to be guided, when choosing what belongs and what does not belong to primitive tradition, by his ideas of his- torical evolution." ^ Where, indeed, we may ask, can we find in the gospels the alleged traces of a systematically designed plan which lessens the fideHty of the account? No critic now thinks of questioning the sincerity of the gospel writers. The very archaic character of the language, the exactness of the portrayal of life in the Palestinian world prior to 70 A. D., prove how ex- tremely faithful they were in making use of tradi- tions and documents. Such fidelity is especially not- able on the part of S. Luke. " Their sincerity," writes Lagrange, " is no longer questioned, and it would be a waste of time to defend it. . . . We have put their absolute sincerity beyond all attack. It is the honorable trait of actual criticism not to doubt it at all." ^ . " The three Evangelists are all found to write in a uniform style," says Batiffol, " to write Greek in short, disjointed phrases 'wherein', as Renan remarks, ' the old syntax is totally shattered, wherein are to be found the clear and simple sweep of the Hebrew narrative, the fine and exquisite tone of the Hebrew Proverbs, and wherein we feel that we hear, as it were, the same popular yet peculiar accent that must have been used by Jesus and His Galilean apostles." ^ Thus the editor of the third Gospel is evidently the author of the Acts of the Apostles, and in each work he reproduces many discourses. There is, however, a 1 Lagrange, Jesus et la Crit.; art.: Bullet, de Litt. EccL, Jan., 1904, p. 21. 2 Lagrange, loc. cit., pp. 18, 21. 3 Batiffol, Jesus et L'Hist., p. 18.. INTRODUCTION 43 noticeable and complete difference between those which he assigns to Jesus in the third Gospel and those which, in the Book of Acts, he ascribes to the apostles. In the former we find the primitive and original method of teaching by way of parable and example, whilst in the latter work the style of dis- course assumes the more derived quality of a com- mentary. Whence comes this divergence, we ask, un- less it be owing to the very fact that the historian was careful to reproduce exactly his sources of informa- tion and to adhere scrupulously to facts ? S. Luke, moreover, was the disciple of S. Paul and his writings show that he was greatly influenced by his master's teaching. And yet, as we shall see later, he allows himself to be very little influenced by that apostle's theological opinions about Christ the Word of God when, in the third gospel, he describes the per- son of Christ Jesus and mentions His personal mani- festation. Assuredly, this is a very remarkable fact! The EvangeUsts, indeed, shared the belief of the early Church in Christ as the Son of God, the Re- deemer of mankind, risen and dwelling in the glory of His Eternal Father, and certainly they wrote partly in view of establishing and confirming the faithful in this belief. Nay more, the documents employed for the editing of the gospels, — summaries of narratives and collections of discourses, — had been perhaps also edited with the didactic purpose of instructing the early group of Christians. But is it not also true that such educational purpose may accord with his- toric fidelity? It supposes, of course, a special point of view, a determined choice of materials, and a particular arrangement of the same, but not necessar- ily a real partisan spirit, an effort towards exclusive system that would serve to transform and to denatur- alize the true historical outline. If, then, the Evangelists' sincerity is undoubtable, — as is that also of those primitive editors whose docu- 44 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ments they had consulted, — perhaps we may suppose a work of slow transformation, of progressive ideaUza- tion, which affected the Christian conscience owing to the secret influence of dogmatic endeavor? But, where locate this mysterious process? This development cannot be ascribed to the Synop- tic authors themselves. Criticism tends more and more to place these gospels in dependence upon the oldest sources and primitive documents. The aim of the Synoptic editors was not so much to reproduce the prevailing belief of their times, but rather to ground the faith upon most certain foundations in keeping with the testimony of a duly verified tradi- tion and by aid of the best guaranteed data. Naught is more decisive on this point than S. Luke's state- ment at the beginning of his gospel and which is borne out by an examination of his work and those of the other Synoptists. Or, again, may such an idealizing process have been due to the influence of that oral tradition which had preceded the editing of the documentary sources? Are not these very documents, however, as indeed the third Evangelist apparently wanted peo- ple to understand, ancient, original, dating from the dawn of the Church's life, and belonging to an epoch when dogmatic idealization and, more particu- larly, a legendary transformation was rather impos- sible? At all events, they pertain to the first Chris- tian generation ; we might even say that, in part, they were edited in order to aid the ordinary catecheti- cal methods of instruction. Now, at a time when Jesus' contemporaries were still living, when the Christian communities were still being evangelized by His own disciples, or at least by those preachers of the gospel who were closely acquainted with His immediate witnesses, may we not rest assured that the then current system of cate- chetism h^d a solid basis and was wisely managed? INTRODUCTION 45 Is there not reason to believe that, like our present Evangelists, the editors of those primitive document- ary sources related, not a fluctuating and anonymous belief, but precisely the exact tradition of witnesses then living and known, namely the apostles and dis- ciples of the Saviour? Everything tends to prove that such was the case : in the days of SS. Peter and Paul, of SS. Mark and Luke, it had ever been sought to base the faith upon the reality of history ; and the endeavor of the apologist, or the interest of the theo- logian, far from darkening the insight of the critic and the conscientious care of the chronicler, must have served rather as their encouragement and support. Furthermore, a comparison of the three gospels will prove that they do not reproduce the Saviour's life and teachings exactly in the same manner, the ac- counts showing notable divergences both in substance and in form. But, although to some extent this is true, and although modern critics do not sufficiently consider it when they assert the mutual dependence of these writings, we may ask if we have in this case anything different from the constant divergences found in the works of chroniclers who give indepen- dent versions of the same events or discourses? How many omissions are met with in the writings of historians who are usually most exact! How many implied meanings on the part of those who are most conscientious, how many variations in the details and expressions, how many apparent contradictions, — all such features being explained by the mere fact that the narrators are different, or that the witnesses upon whom they depend are different, or by the fact that the conditions and the viewpoints are various ! Now, we ask, is the case different with the Evan- geUsts? Are not most of the evident divergences in the choice and arrangement of materials, in the de- tails of the accounts and discourses supposed to be merely casual, in nowise irreconcilable, mutually sup- 46 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL plementary and explanatory rather than contradictory ? Therefore they do not really affect the accuracy of the information given by historians, but, in attest- ing their reciprocal independence and the independ- ence of testimonies which they present, rather confirm the general exactness and fidelity of the documents. Now, if we do not succeed in settling some ap- parent contradictions, nor in harmonizing, in a fully satisfactory way, some particular fact or other, must not this circumstance be due to the anecdotal and fragmentary character of our writings? The omis- sions, the dissimilarities, the lack of connection or of harmony would require for their explanation further information which is lacking; but because it is lacking, we surely should not infer the inaccuracy of our Evangelists. Are we not, indeed, too often inclined to allege errors and contradictions where, after more careful scrutiny, a new bit of information later leads to a sound and exact solution, or, at least, a well-founded explanation? The danger of subjectivism and of arbitrary methods, however, is especially to be feared when one endeavors to ascertain the influence exerted upon the Gospel content by the events or the beliefs of the Christian Church. That the spectacle of events, ac- complished as a fulfilment of the Saviour's predictions, should have contributed to place in fuller light some of His prophecies; that a familiar knowledge of Christian theology, so splendidly developed by S. Paul, should have guided historians in their choice and setting of materials, all this we may concede: it is, after all, quite natural. But is it not arbitrary to claim that the Saviour's prophecies of His Passion, of His resurrection, of His disciples' missionary labors were arranged after the event, as though Christ's knowledge were merely of an ordinary and natural character? Is it not also an un- critical prejudice to claim as a Pauline influence all INTRODUCTION 47 that part of Jesus' teachings which agrees with the pecuhar points in S. Paul's theology? As if the apostle had not declared his dependence upon the teaching of Christ Himself, as if the assent which the early Church gave to his special teachings and its approval by the Saviour's immediate disciples did not rather imply that he was really inspired by the blas- ter's words, that he had merely to announce and sustain what had already been outlined in Jesus' teachings ? Loisy who, like J. Weiss, finds considerable Paulin- ism in the second Gospel, on this very pretext did not hesitate to recently express his disagreement with the tradition which accepts S. Mark as the final editor of this gospel : " We do not readily imagine," he says, '' the same man recording, first of all, S. Peter's confession as gathered from the current re- miniscences of that apostle, and then, like Paul, com- menting thereon in the way that we find." ^ It need hardly be said that the foregoing consider- ations do not at all imply that the historian need not verify the truth of the precise manner in which the gospels relate the Saviour's life and words. The de- mands of apologetics may now render such a process of verification timely and necessary for the various points at issue. Yet, it remains true that the con- siderations presented are enough to guard us from going to the extremes of a novel criticism, at once dubious and conjectural, and warrant us in rightly and seriously supposing that the historical exactness of the gospels is far more perfect than has been claimed. This presumption, indeed, amounts to an absolute confidence as regards a number of difficult and important points in connection with which the work of critical verification is conducted under con- 1 Weiss, J., op. cit., 1903; Loisy, art.: Rev. d'Hist.. etc., 1904, p. 82. 48 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ditions of a very favorable sort and leads to con- clusions at once significant and serving to fully con- firm the general results. The character of the popular Messianic ideal, for in- stance, which is presented in the Synoptic gospels as circumstances required, is quite remarkable. . The eagerness of the multitudes and of the disciples them- selves for temporal power, their hope for a Messiah, son of David, an earthly and conquering king, their haste to seek after the first places in the Kingdom, which they imagined like that of this world, — all is graphically portrayed and corresponds exactly with what the non-inspired documents of that period men- tion about the Messianic hopes of the ancient Jews. And this fact is surprising enough when we think of the transformation which was wrought in the Church after Christ's resurrection and the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. For, assuredly, if any per- spective might be changed by the influence of new ideas, it was the ancient Jewish view of the Messiah, as cherished at this epoch. It seems that the early Christian preachers and catechists of that time should have inevitably tended to allow to pass into oblivion the chimerical hopes of olden days, and especially to con- ceal and to dissimulate the earlier imaginings of the disciples, if not to correct and to ennoble them in accordance with the new realities of the Christian dispensation. But, let us repeat, it is the national Messianism, fully described in its ancient coloring, which the Synoptists portray as filling the hearts of both the apostles and the people. Is it not a very significant fact, — this freedom of our sacred writers from the ideas current in their day on a matter where their in- fluence must have made itself felt so powerfully? The Synoptic description of the apostles them- selves, moreover, is no less interesting to consider from this same view-point. It is nowadays generally INTRODUCTION 49 admitted that, in some way, the second gospel de- pends on the tradition handed down by S. Peter, by whom S. Mark, his companion, was employed as an intermediary. It is also commonly held now that the first, as also the third Gospel are based upon the collection of Logia, of Sayings of the Lord, of which S. Matthew is usually considered the editor. In a general way, it is recognized that the original docu- ments, comprising collections of narratives and dis- courses which underlie the present text of the four Gospels, are closely akin to the memories which the early Christians treasured of the Apostles, and that, at any rate, they were compiled at a period when the personality of the apostles themselves was held in the highest estimation among the members of the early Church. Is not, then, the very manner in which the apostles are described by the Synoptists a striking proof of the accuracy and historical sincerity of these inspired writers? We are told in detail about the apostles' vices and virtues, of their faults and good deeds, of their timid ways and their generous impulses. We are told of their humble origin; of their slowness to understand the meaning of the words of their Divine Master; of their occasional opposition to His views; of their resistance to His ways of acting; of their cowardice in the Garden of Olives, in the Pretorium, on Calvary; of their discouragement after His death; and, lastly, of their doubts about the reality of His resurrection. Certainly, such a picture must be the work of none but accurate and truthful wit- nesses, of those who do not wish to write unnatur- ally, nor to conceal anything really important, of those who want to view events in the light of current reali- ties, as also from their own personal impressions, in order the better to record the facts of history. And what shall we say of the Synoptic portrait of Jesus Himself? Some claim that the gospels are 4 50 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL rather an expression of Christian faith than an exact statement of facts. How is it, then, and this thought occurs instantly, that the well-known early Christian belief in Christ's preexistence and divinity is appar- ently so little reflected in these gospels, so little, indeed, that some critics have supposed that the Saviour's divinity is not really revealed therein? This tends to show that our Evangelists knew how to abstract from their personal convictions and to keep them- selves free from the theological ideas of their day, in order to reproduce faithfully the facts of history: this fact, to be sure, is especially significant as re- gards the third Evangelist who was so familiar with the teaching of S. Paul. It tends also to prove that the basic documents and memoirs of the- Synoptic ac- counts, that the editor of the Logia, and that all primi- tive tradition had retained intact the Christ of history, and preserved the real human outline of Him who, on the day after His resurrection, was already deemed to be the triumphant Messiah who shared the power of God. In particular, as regards S. Luke, Jiilicher re- marks that *' where we should have undoubtedly been obliged to recognize the Disciple of Paul, i. e. in the doctrine of a pre-existing Christ or of the atoning value of His death, Luke fails us altogether Luke related the Gospel history from the viewpoint of the later Gentile Church, without any infusion of the theology of his time." ^ Sanday also notices the remarkable contrast be- tween the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistles of S. Peter and of S. Paul. "And yet," he says, " these writings are practically contemporary with the com- position of the gospels. The two streams, of his- torical narrative on the one hand and theological in- ference on the other, really run side by side. They do 1 Jiilicher, op, cit., p. ZZZ- INTRODUCTION 51 hot exclude but rather supplement, and indeed critic- ally confirm each other. For, if the gospels had been really not genuine histories of the words and acts of Christ, but colored products of the age succeeding His death, we may be sure that they would have re- flected the characteristic attitude of that age far more than they do." ^ It is claimed, of course, that the glory of the risen Lord cast new light upon the memories of His earthly career, and that we must ascribe to a posthumous idealization the features tending to exalt Christ above mere humanity by attributing to Him knowledge and power of a supernatural character. This claim, how- ever, is an a priori prejudice rather than a conclusion drawn from strictly critical observations. The selec- tion which the critics make, among the elements of the Synoptic portrait of Jesus, is essentially based upon their preconceived idea of Him: they picture to themselves, beforehand, a diminished Christ, more or less conscious of His mission, of His future, of His divinity. Such prejudice, indeed, is very evident in the case of most of the so-called independent critics. Thus Schmiedel says that '' it would clearly be wrong, in an investigation, such as the present, to start from any such postulate or axiom as that * miracles are impossible ' " ; but he also adds : " it is quite permissible for us to regard as historical only those of the miracles which, even at the present day, physicians are able to effect by psychical methods, as, more especially, cures of mental maladies." ^ The views held by Jiilicher, O. Holtzmann, and Harnack also betray the same animus. While Wrede holds as a principle that, for all those who admit 1 Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 649. 2 Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B., par. 137, col. 1876. 52 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL only historical criterions, miracle and prophecy are utterly excluded from the field of history/ The untenable character of such prejudice on the part of some critics will be apparent from several observations. If we are to believe Loisy, among others, " the Synoptic Christ is a being of flesh and bone. He deals with men as one of themselves, despite His conviction of His exalted mission, or, perhaps, because of such persuasion. He speaks and acts as a man: He sits at table with the Pharisees and Publicans. He allows the Magdalen to touch Him. He talks fami- Harly with His disciples. He is tempted by the devil. He becomes sorrowful in the Garden of Gethsemane. He works miracles through a spirit of compassion, hiding rather than proclaiming them guarantees for His mission. Before His very judges He stands calm and stately, although He allows the soldiery to strike and wound Him. In dying. His expiring cry is one of distressful agony. If in His discourses, in His deeds we perceive the touch of the divine which hfts Him above mankind, even its best exemplars, no less true is it that all His words, all His deeds are very human, and, so to say, fully charged with hu- man vitality and, despite the underlying wonderful reality, quite naturally corresponding to His times and surroundings." ^ It would seem, then, unwarranted to assert that, as regards detail, the current theological ideas had influenced historians who thus present Christ's hu- manity at an epoch when all of the faithful beheld Him crowned with the aureole of the divinity, and who describe Him as being seemingly ignorant of the hour of final judgment, as declining the title of '* good " which belongs to God alone, as persecuted, 1 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 371 ; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., Gr. ed., pp. 58-59; Harnack, op. cit., p. 30; Wrede, op. cit., r. 7. 2 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., 1903, p. 72. INTRODUCTION 53 mocked, crucified, and abandoned by all, even by His Father. Why should we accept the evidences of His humiUty and yet reject the proofs of His divine grandeur? Is not the unquestionable truth of the former a guarantee of the like historical value of the others? So appropriate, so skillful, and so natural withal is the Synoptic portrait of Christ's divinity that it fully agrees with what is said of His human characteristics, the whole picture leaving a deep impression of liv- ing reality. We may add, moreover, that only a historical reality corresponding to the entire portrait sketched by the Synoptists, only a historical Christ an- swering to the Christ of the faith, a Christ at once man and God, sufficiently explains the unusual im- pression which He made upon His disciples, the exalted idea which He had imparted of Himself to His immediate witnesses, the extraordinary influence which He had exerted upon the primitive Church and which has not ceased to make itself felt in the lives of individuals and in the history of the world at large. The historical character of the entire Synoptic pic- ture of Jesus is, then, well attested. The dim light that suffuses His divinity comes not from a process of later idealization ; whilst His human character is placed in such bold relief as to afford a very con- vincing proof that these accounts were immune from theological tendencies. But if, although the early Christians believed in a glorious Christ who was the true Son of God and true God, the Saviour himself is represented as manifesting His true personal char- acter with such discretion and reserve ; if He is said to have, usually called Himself "the Son of Man," a title which, probably. He alone employed to designate Himself, and which nobody else, not even the early Christians, apparently ever applied to Him; if, in relation to God, He is yet said to have uttered such 54 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL human expressions as those complaisantly alleged by modern critics, such as : " Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, that is, God ... Of that day and hour, no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. . . My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"; if, in fine. His disciples kept, of His agony, of the torments of His passion, of His death upon the cross, such a precise, and, so to speak, such a realistic memory which gives the humiliating details with no effort to dissemble or to idealize, but with startling truthful- ness : this is a sure guarantee of reliable and independ- ent Gospel history. In this connection, it may be noted that the title " Son of Man," which Jesus so often appHed to Him- self, is not used by the Evangelists themselves in those discourses which they composed. It is found only in a few texts which allude more or less directly to Daniel c. vii. 13; or, like Ac. c. vii. 56; Apoc. c. i. 13 ; xiv. 14, to the Saviour's own expressions. Euse- bius, also, records it, as we find in the Fragment of Hegesippus on the Martyrdom of S. James.^ Dalman says " it is probable that substantially the same feeling which to-day deters the Church from naming and invoking Jesus as the ' Son of Man,' must have been active from the beginning." ^ Schmiedel remarks that the text of S. Mark, c. x. 17; xiii, 32; -XV. 34, and others, such as Mt. c. xii. 31, referring to the pardon of blasphemy against the Son of Man, as also Mk. c. iii. 21, where the Saviour's own kinsmen apparently deem Him to be the victim of insanity, " might be called the foundation-pillars of a truly scientific life of Jesus." ^ 1 Hegesippus, Euseh. Ch. Hist., Bk. II, c. xxiii ; cf. Acts vii. 56; Apoc. i. 13; xiv. 14; Daniel vii. 13; Lk. xxvi. 69; Mt. xxvi. 64. 2 Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 252 ; Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah, 1886, p. 242. 3 Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B., par. 139, col. 1881, INTRODUCTION 55 Of the process of idealizing the Saviour's sacred humanity, JiiUcher says : " Nor was the Messiah who, in His night-watch in the Garden of Gethsemane, though His soul was sorrowful even unto death, yet won through prayer the strength to go forward to the end in spite of the blindness of His disciples, the wickedness of His foes, and the agony of a hor- rible death, — such a Messiah was not the creation of the idealizing fancy of any class of believers which would have employed far different colors. . . . Who could have possibly invented the story of the denial of Peter, for instance, or the cry of Jesus on the cross : ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"'i " The teaching of our Lord," says Stanton, *' is much of it such as could have been given only by Himself in His own lifetime, or is marked by the prominence of terms and ideas which speedily came to be much in vogue in the Church. This serves to show that the character of the record generally can have been comparatively little affected by the thought and language of the Church in a subsequent gener- ation." 2 In a similar strain, Batiifol thus states his opinion: " During the first generation, the Apostolic teaching rapidly developed into that theology which, to cite but two documents, had appeared in the Epistle to the Hebrews, (65 A. D.), and in the Epistle to the Romans, (58 A. D.), and which, moreover, to con- vey the content of this new world of ideas, had created a new mode of Hnguistic expression; but, strangely enough, the Synoptic accounts are free from all traces of such style and ideas : they retain such obsolete terms as * Son of Man,' applied to Jesus, although never by the Apostles themselves, or such ex- 1 Jiilichcr, op. cit., pp. 371, ^yi. 2 Stanton, art. : Gpspels, H. D., p. 248, 56 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL planatory terms as ' Christ/ used as a synonym for ' Messiah/ and not for ' Jesus/ of which the Apostles had deemed it the equivalent. The archaic character of the record given by the Synoptists attests the firm- ness of the tradition which they proclaim." ^ We may say, then, by way of conclusion, that on those points where we can readily make the im- portant comparison between the Synoptic gospels and the faith of the early Christians, the historical worth of the Evangelists is wonderfully evident, and that such evidence is a weighty argument in favor of the accuracy of the entire account presented in the four canonical Gospels. It is surely in keeping with the wisest and truest method of criticism to accept these gospels as we find them and to place the utmost confidence in their entire content. The famous Catholic scholar La- grange evidently commends such a method of pro- cedure when he says : " Instead of making, under the influence of a preconceived theory, a selection of so called primitive historical details, based upon a com- parison of texts, would it not be wiser, first of all, to take the documents just as they stand? "^ Outline of Work. — In our study of the Synoptic Christ we have the same purpose in view. The general basis for this essay is the gospel of S. Mark, which is commonly viewed as being the earliest, and the facts thereby supplied shall be completed when required by those afforded by the other Synoptists. The parallel texts, moreover, will be indicated, and the 4th edition of Nestle's New Testament in Greek used as a reference. In accordance with the requirements of modern criticism, we have endeavored to assure the authen- 1 Batiffol, Je^us et L'Hist., p. i8. 2 Lagrange, art.; Jesus et la Criti,: Bullet, de Lift, EccL, 1904, p, 22, INTRODUCTION 57 ticity of special texts and to ground general con- clusions, not upon some rare and doubtful passages, but upon such a general survey as must necessarily rest upon that substantially historic basis which un- questionably underlies these writings. This study, moreover, is especially interesting in this : it will en- able us to examine closely the exactitude of the evan- gelical records on the very point in which such an examination should be both very easy to make and leading to conclusive results, namely on the value of the historical portrait of Christ Son of God. We have sought to outline the Messianic hope at the dawn of the Christian era, to show in what light the Messiah was portrayed, what idea people had of His mission, especially of His suffering destiny, what they thought of Him, particularly of His divine character, and next to consider the Alessianic manifes- tation alike at the crib of Bethlehem as during the childhood of Christ. This study will follow the texts of the gospels according to SS. ]\Iatthew and Luke respectively, the historical value of which we have also sought to establish both by the aid of internal criticism and by the very character of the Saviour's recorded revelations of Himself. Next in order comes Jesus' public life. x\nd here we meet with the vital question at issue between in- fidelity and the Christian faith, namely. Did Jesus claim to be the expected Messiah? Like other Ra- tionalists, Renan admits as much, and, in fact, the personal manifestation of Jesus as the ^lessiah shall appear to us as carrying along with itself the irrefut- able proof of its own authenticity. A hard problem, a real stumbling-block is also presented in the further query: What is the source of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship? Some would explain it, as did Renan, to be the merely human evolution of His ideas under the natural influence of His surroundmgs. But such an explanation is wholly 58 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL out of proportion with the actual facts, although it is the most clever, the most captivating, the most artis- tically set forth theory which rationalism has ever been able to produce. Liberal Protestants, also, while not denying the reality of Jesus' Messiahship, adduce a theory on this point which is very like Renan's, but, as will be seen, is not based either upon an accurate criticism of the Gospel documents. Here is, finally, the capital question : In what sense did Jesus call Himself the Son of God ? Can we con- clude, from the Synoptical Gospels critically inter- preted, that Jesus manifested Himself as the true Son of God, and that, consequently. He was really con- scious of being God? Some critics, Renan among them, say No ; while, in his wake we notice critics of the Liberal Protestant school, and more recently Al- fred Loisy. The Synoptic testimony, therefore, will be discussed in detail. From special texts which will be shown to be authentic although Loisy, especially, has questioned this very point ; from the sum-total of the Gospel texts, as also from the most historically assured portions of the Saviour's discourses, we will see that Jesus was aware of His divinity, and that in His discourses He revealed this doctrine cautiously although sufficiently. Moreover, this personal manifestation of Christ as Son of God is, as we shall see, of such a character as to carry along with it, just as His Messianic mani- festation, the visible proofs, not only of its historical truthfulness, but of its intrinsic correspondence with facts. May this study help to strengthen those who al- ready possess the grace of faith, to further enlighten those who are loyally seeking the truth! May it serve to make better known and more fondly loved Him who, above all others, should be known and loved, Jesus, the Messiah, Son of pod, true God ancj true Man! CHAPTER I. The Dawn of Christianity. The Messianic Hope. — For over fifty years, Palestine had been a tributary kingdom of the Ro- man Empire. The princely successors of Judas Mac- cabaeus had fallen into so many internal disputes that a Roman army under the command of Pompey was despatched to Jerusalem, and in 63 B. C, this great Roman general captured the Holy City. But as Palestine still continued to enjoy a semblance of poli- tical liberty, the Maccabean princes, despite their many troubles, maintained their influence even while under the suzerainty of Rome. Soon, however, namely in 40 B. C, an obscure foreigner, Herod the Idumean, was given the title of King of Judea by the Roman Senate. Finally, less than fifty years later, even that shadow of autonomy disappeared. For, after a short reign, Archaelaus, son of Herod the Great, was de- posed in the year 6 A. D. ; the kingdom of Judea be- ing thereupon annexed to the vast province of Syria. Thenceforth a Roman procurator, acting as Vicar of the Provincial Legate in Syria, ruled the ancient realm of David, and thus was destroyed forever the inde- pendence of God's chosen people. And yet Israel, even whilst groaning under the yoke of the despised pagans and amidst despairing grief and the throes of wrath, still clung to an un- conquerable hope. Israel was awaiting the Messiah, the Son of David whom the Prophets had foretold, the Supreme King foretold ages before, the Peace and (59) 6o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Joy vouchsafed to earth, the dawn of God's eternal, world-wide reign. How intense was this hope may be seen from every page of the gospels, beginning with the records of the childhood of Christ. Thus, whilst watching their flocks upon the heights of Bethlehem, the Shepherds knew full well the meaning of the glad tidings heralded by the Angel : " This day is born to you a Saviour who is Christ the Lord." And forthwith, without seeking further explanation, they hastened to the spot indicated. Within the precincts of the Temple itself, the Prophetess Anna had told of the Messiah to all who were expecting the near redemp- tion of Jerusalem from its pagan bondage. And when the Wise Men from the East, on reaching the gate of the Holy City, had asked : " Where is He that is born King of the Jews?", they were at once under- stood; for, amid the general excitement, Herod be- sought the chief priests and the scribes to tell him " where Christ should be born." ^ The story of the Saviour's public life, moreover, attests the depth of this expectancy. " He who is to come. . . . He who cometh " : thus is the Messiah often styled. From the Jordan's banks, the Baptist had hardl^^ proclaimed his message, " Behold, the Kingdom of God is at hand," when the people took that austere hermit for the expected Messiah. John soon dispels their illusion; but the hope in the Mes- siah's coming grows the more ardent within the hearts of his disciples. When Jesus of Nazareth appears in His turn, astounding the people by His miracles and eliciting their wonder by His discourses, immediately the great question is asked: Is He not the Messiah? People recall the traditional Messianic ideas and even consult the teaching of the Doctors of the Law con- cerning the Christ. And, afterwards, on His entry 1 Lk. ii. II, 38; Mt, ii. 14. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 61 into Jerusalem as the Messiah -King, He received from the multitude an ovation, at once generous and enthusiastic, which, while in contrast with His former reserve in asserting His Messiahship, never- theless serves to bear eloquent testimony to the influence which the hope in the promised Messiah had acquired in popular esteem. The ardor of this prevailing persuasion was also shown when the- Sanhedrin questioned Jesus concerning His self- asserted character of " Christ," and when the rabble uttered its shouts of derision at the crucified King of Israel upon the summit of Calvary.^ The history of the early Church, finally, as found in the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and other writings of the New Testament, fully shows how wonderfully strong the belief in Christ the Saviour was in the hearts of the Jews. The Apostles con- stantly appeal to the Messianic idea. Their chief care is to prove that whatever the Prophets had fore- told of Christ, Jesus had realized ; that He is surely the Messiah expected and so ardently desired.- Such is the character of the testimony afforded by the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament to the condition of the Messianic belief at the beginning of Christianity. The documents in its favor give proofs of their well-established historical value, and their testimony is so outspoken and sincere that no sane critic thinks of disregarding their veracity on this point. Nor is the evidence presented by the various pro- fane documents which bear upon the origins of Chris- tianity less interesting to read. The careful investiga- 1 Mt. xi. 3; Lk. vii. 20; Jo. vi. 14; Lk. iii. 15; Jo. i. 19, 25; Mt. xii. 23; xvii. 10; Mk. ix. 10; Jo. vii. 26, 31; x. 24; xii. 34;" Mk. xi. and par. ; cf. Mt. ix. 27 ; Mk. x. 47 and par. ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 62, ; Mk. xii. 32 ; Mt. xxvii. 39 ; Lk. xxiii. 35. 2 Ac. iii. 18; V. 42; viii. 37; ix. 22; xvii. 3; xviii. 5; xxviii. etc. 62 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL tions to which they have been submitted, chiefly during the second half of the nineteenth century, fully support the testimony given by the Sacred Scriptures/ Three writings, especially, preserve an echo of the Messianic hope during the years prior to Christ's advent: the Book of Enoch, the Psalter of Solomon, and the Sibylline Oracles. The Book of Enoch, named after the famous Patriarch, is supposed to contain his revelation • of the future judgment of the world. In its entirety, it is the work of a Jewish writer of the second cen- tury B. C, although the middle portion is perhaps the interpolation of a later editor. In the oldest section, i. e., c. xc, the Messianic kingdom and the New Jerusalem is described. The Messiah is repre- sented as a King living amidst his people, and is sym- bolized under the image of a white bull with long black horns. The pagans, who assume the figure of animals, pray to Him and are converted to the Lord.^ In the lattei* part of the book, the Messiah appears as the Son of Man foretold by Daniel, pre-existing with God, by whom he was held in reserve, even before the beginning of the world, and finally descending from heaven in order to manifest Himself on earth. ^ This Book is not extant in its original Hebrew text. An Ethiopic version, found about 1800 A. D. among the Canonical Books of the Church of Abyssinia, was edited by Dillman in 1851. The favorite edition of the text is that of J. Flemming. The best versions are 1 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, par. 29, pp. 496-556, 3rd ed., 1898 Holtzmann, H., Lehrb., vol. i, 68-85, 1897; Volz, op. cit., 1903 Bousset, Die Relig. des Jud., 1903 ; Baldensperger, Die Mess Apok., 1903; Stanton, The Jewish and Christian Messiah 1886 ; art. : Messiah, H. D. ; Drummond, The Jewish Messiah 1877; Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, 1894. 2 Hen., xc. 37-38 ; Charles, Book of Enoch, 1893, p. 258 and notes. 3 Hen., xlviii. 2; Ixii. 5-9; Ixix. 27; Charles, ihid., pp. 133, 164, 182. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 63 those of Charles, Beer, Flemming, and Radermacher. Our citations are based upon a comparison of the texts of Charles and Flemming.^ Modern critics admit that the Book has a composite character, the Symbolic Discourses being considered the work of a later writer. Beer claims that the oldest sections should be dated before 167 B. C. ; and the later parts before 64 B. C. Charles places c. i.-xxxvi as earher than 170 B. C. ; c. Ixxxiii-xc to 166-161 B. C. ; c. xc-civ to 134-95 B. C. ; the latter section, c. xxxvii-lxx to either 94-79 B. C, or 70-64 B. C. Baldensperger assigns the Symbohc Discourses to the end of Herod's reign, and the rest of the work to about fifty years later. While Kilgen- feld, Volkmar, Keim, and Vernes regard c. xxxvii- Ixxi as being influenced by Christian ideas and as an interpolation made about 390 A. D. Schiirer dates c. xc about 95 A. D., while he says that the date of c. xxxvii-lxxi is very uncertain.^ The Psalter of Solomon first appeared about 80-40 B. C. It is a collection of eighteen chants, or Psalms, fictitiously ascribed to the great monarch of Israel, but really composed by pious Jews shortly after Pompey's conquest of Palestine in 63 B. C. Of these Psalms, two are particularly remarkable for their Messianic ideas. The author of Ps. 17, taking as his model our Psalms 89 and 132, complains to God because of the sad situation into which, in his day, the chosen nation has fallen. Still, he is hopeful. And despite the fact that the national dynasty is corrupt and is giv- iDillmann, Liber Henoch, 1851 ; Flemming, Das Buck Enoch, 1902, Ethiopic text; Charles, op. cit.; Beer, apiid Kaiitzsch's Die Apok. u. Pseiidepigraphen des A. T., vol. ii, 1900, pp. 217-310; Flemming and Radermacher, Das Buch Enoch, German tr., 1901. 2 Beer, op. cit.; art.: Enoch, H. D., p. 706; art.: Apoc. Lit- erature, E. B., col. 222; Baldensperger, op. cit.; Schiirer, op. cit., p. 200. 64 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ing way before the foreign invader, he beseeches the Lord to raise up unto His people a Prince of the House of David. He sings : " Raise up unto them, in the day that Thou knowest, a Son of David for their King, who shall rule over Israel thy servant" (v. xxiii). This King, as he calls him, is *' Christ the Lord," or the '' Anointed of the Lord." He is a just king and taught of God (v. xxxv) ; free from all sin and holy (vs. xH and xlvi). God, by His Holy Spirit, has made Him powerful and wise (v. xlii). He shall judge the tribes of the nations and shall not suffer injustice among them. He will gather together a perfect people whom He himself shall lead in right- eousness and holiness (v. xxviii). In Ps. 17, we find the same Messianic prayer. The Messiah's ad- vent is near. Happy they who shall be alive on the day of His coming, who shall see the inauguration of the New Kingdom! " May God purify Israel for the day of mercy wherein He has made ready to bless us : for the chosen day when He shall lead forth the Messiah. Happy they who in those days shall see the blessings that the Lord will give to the coming race, under the teaching sceptre of the Lord Messiah " (v. vi-viii). The Psalter of Solomon was originally written in Hebrew. These Psalms are now extant only in Greek and were first published in the year 1626 by the Spanish Jesuit Louis de la Cerda. Swete inserts them in his edition of the Old Testament according to the Septuagint.^ The text edited by Ryle and James is the one we have employed.^ These editors, as also Charles, date them, at the latest, from 70-40 B. C. ; and Schiirer, from 63-40 B. C.^ 1 Swete, Old Test., in Greek, vol. iii, p. 765. 2 Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, 1891, p. Ixiv. 3 Charles art. : Apoc. Literature, E. B., col. 2431 ; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 153. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 65 The Sibylline Oracles, arranged by numerous com- pilers, also manifest the like Messianic expectation in that part written by a Jewish editor. Along with the appearance of the Kingdom of God on earth, there was announced the Advent of a Holy King, a Prince without reproach, who should reign over the world and hold the sceptre of the nations throughout the eternal years. These Books, or Oracles, are a col- lection of oracular sayings placed up on the lips of the Pagan Sibyl, although, in fact, composed by vari- ous persons. Pagans, Jews, and Christians at different periods. The entire work is written in Greek hexa- meter verse, and has been edited by Alexander, Rzach, and Geffcken.^ The Jewish portions are assigned by Schiirer and Charles to sometime before the Chris- tian era. Thus, B. 3. v. xcvii-cxviii, about 140 B. C. ; B. 3. V. xxxvi-xcii (Schiirer), or B. 3. v. i-lxii (Charles), about 30 B. C.^ These three ancient documents, therefore, preserved as they have been from the ravages of time, suffice to show, during the epoch previous to the dawn of the Christian era, the vividness of the Messianic hope, of which, doubtless, they afford but a faint reflection. During the first half of the first century of the Christian era, we find few writings, apart from the Gospels, that inform us about the Messianic hope. But the coming of the Kingdom of God is described in terms of a beautiful inspiration in both the "Assump- tion of Moses," a sort of prophecy of Israel's future which a Jewish writer, shortly before 50 B. C, as- signed to Moses, the great Hebrew legislator, and also in the " Book of Jubilees," which dates from about the same period. The former work, probably written in Hebrew, or in Aramaic, is extant only in ^Alexandre, Orac. Sib., 1891 ; Geffcken, Orac. Sib., 1902. 2 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 434; Charles, art.: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col. 247. 5 66 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Latin text, derived from the Greek, and first pub- lished by Ceriani. Schiirer dates it at the first ten years after the death of Herod the Great, namely from 4 B, C. — 6 A. D. Charles whose English ver- sion is so excellent, assigns it at y B. C. — 30 A. D.^ The " Book of Jubilees," or the Little Genesis, was first written in Hebrew. It is extant only in versions, chiefly the Ethiopic and the Latin, composed respec- tively by Charles and Ceriani. Schiirer dates it dur- ing the first century A. D., probably just before the Fall of Jerusalem. Charles, after placing its ex- treme Hmits to 60 B. C. — 70 A. D., prefers a date nearer the former and suggests even 40-10 B. C, or even 135-96 B. C. After Charles had published his translation, Schiirer admitted his own dating as being too late, although not accepting that of Charles. Baldensperger places it after 63 B. C, namely, durmg the interval following Pompey^s capture of Jerusalem.^ But from the middle and end of the first century, many testimonies bear the echo of the Messianic hope animating the Jews of Christ's time. The frequent popular revolts in the political and religious sphere are enough to show how anxiously the people expected God's miraculous intervention and the advent of His kingdom on earth. Josephus testifies that the Mes- sianic hope was one of the greatest levers in the great revolt against Rome which ended in Jerusalem's fall. He, who lived in Caesar's court, feared not to apply to Vespasian himself the Messianic prophecies.^ 1 Ceriani, Monumenta, vol. i, fasc. i, pp. 55-64; Charles, The Assumption of Moses, 1897; art.: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col. 1235; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 218. 2 Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilee, 1895; art: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col, 213, 232; The Book of Jubilees, 1902; Ceriani, op. cit., vol. i, fasc. i, pp. 15-54; Schurer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 277 ; art. : Theol. Zeitung, Dec. 5, 1903. 3 Flavins Josephus, Jewish War, Bk. VI, cs. iv and v ; Taci- tus, Hist., Bk. V, c. xiii; Suetonius, Vespasian, c. iv. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY ey The fall of Jerusalem, however, did not shatter the great hope. That hope was still most ardent towards the end of the first century A. D., as we learn from writings like " The Apocalypse of Baruch," the ''Apocalypse of Esdras," or the " Fourth Book of Esdras." The "Apocalypse of Baruch," probably first written in Hebrew, is extant only in Syriac. Ceriani, in 1871, published the Syriac text after having made a Latin version from the same in 1846. Schiirer assigns it to shortly after the fall of Jerusalem. Charles dates it between 50-90 B. C.^ The "Apocalypse of Esdras," teaches that the Messiah exists in heaven. God calls Him " His Son," and was to send him forth at the moment fixed by His sovereign will. " My son, said the Lord, My son, the Messiah, shall be revealed with those who are on His side. . , . None on earth can see my son, neither those who are with him, until the day that is set." ^ This work was originally composed in Greek, or as some critics hold, in Hebrew, and is extant in various versions. The Latin version is placed as an Appendix at the end of the canonical Latin Vulgate. It has been edited by Bensly and James. Most critics date it between 81-96 B. C.^ The " Shemoneh Esreh," or daily prayer of the Jews, received a definite form about the same epoch. It was also called Hatephillah or the Eighteen Bene- dictions. Its basic elements are older than its present ^Ceriani, op. cit., vol. v, fasc. 2, pp. 1 13-180, 1871, Syriac text; op. cit., vol. i, _f asc. 2, pp. 73-98, 1866, Latin text; Schurer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 229; Charles, The Apocalypse of Baruch, 1896; art.: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col. 217. 2 IV Esdras, c. vii, vs. 28 and 29 ; c. xiii, v. 52. 3 Bensly and James, T/i^ Fourth Book of Ezra, 1895; Schurer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 243 ; James, art. : Esdras, E. B., col. 1393; Thackeray, art.: Esdras, Second Book of, H. D., p. 765. 68 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL form, and afford a valuable insight into the Jewish mind during the first years of the Christian era. Its text is to be found in all Jewish prayer-books. In Schiirer's opinion, it reached its present form about 70-100 A. D., its basis being certainly much earlier.^ Each section of the " Shemoneh Esreh " contains a supplication for the re-establishment of God's people and the restoration of the Holy City by the Messiah, the Son of David. In the loth Benediction the pious Jew prays : " Sound the trumpet to announce our de- liverance. Raise up a standard to reassemble our captains together and to reunite us from the four quarters of the earth. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who gathereth together the exiles of Thy people Israel . . . Oh, set up again our judges as hereto- fore, our Councillors as at the beginning . . . Do Thou alone, O Lord, reign over us in grace and mercy, and justify us. Blessed be Thou, O Lord King, for Thou lovest righteousness and justice. . . . Upon Jerusalem, thy city, look down with compassion, and dwell in her according to thy promise. . . . Rebuild her without delay, in our day and forever. Set up again within her the throne of David. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who rebuildeth Jerusalem. . . . Make the offspring of David, thy servant, come forth with- out delay. Let his horn rise up in the day of thy sal- vation. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, who makest the horn of salvation spring forth." ^ This ex- pression, the horn, is taken as the symbol of power. Hence, the horn of salvation is the saving power, or the Powerful Saviour. Again we read : " Be pleased, O Lord, our God, in thy people Israel and in his prayers: Re-establish the sacrifices in the Holy of Holies, in Thy house. Receive our offerings and en- treaties with love. Let the worship of Israel, thy 1 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 463. 2 Berakah, 11, 14, 15, 17; cf. Lk. i. 69. THE DAWX OF CHRISTIANITY 69 people, please thee forever. Oh, that our eyes may see Thy return to Sion full of mercy. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who restoreth Thy glory to Sion." ^ The Targums, also, betray the last phases of the Messianic hope. As is well known, these writings are a transliteration, or rather a paraphrase of the Bible in the popular language, the Aramaic. The Targums on the Pentateuch and on the Prophets are attributed to Onkelos, and Jonathan Ben Uzziel, two Rabbis of the first century. In their present form, these Targums were not probably edited before the third or fourth century of the Christian era ; but, their claim to a greater antiquity is supported by the fact that they are based upon earlier writings and remote traditions of Jewish commentators, or targumists. Hence these Targums may inform us about the rab- binical teaching which was current in pre-Christian as well as in gospel times.. We may note that the Tar- gum editors interpret many texts in the Law and in the Prophets as referring to the Messiah. - The Rabbinic Bible of Bomberg and Buxtorf gives the texts of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan. So also does the Polygot Bible of London ^ give a critical edition of the former by Berhner, and of the second by Lagarde. The Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, says Walker, is apparently the work of several editors, and may have been compiled, at least in part, during the second or third century after Christ. The Targum on the Prophets ascribed to Jonathan, was edited finally only in the fifth century A. D. Both Targums, says Noldeke, w^ere finally edited and officially canonized only in the fourth or fifth century. 1 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 461 ; Dalman, The Words of Jesus, 1903, p. 350. 2 Bomberg and Buxtorf, Rabbinic Bibles; Polyglot Bible of London; Berliner, Targum Onkelos, 2 vols., 1884, Lagarde, Prophetae Chaldaice, 1872. 3 Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, col. 1268- 1273. 70 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL A. D. If both were published only in the third or fourth century, says Schiirer, they were probably based on former works. They were the result of the gradual development of many centuries. Thus, at the end of the second century, the " Mishna " already supposes Chaldean versions of the Bible. The New Testament, also, quite agrees with the Targums in its manner of rendering some texts " concerning the Elder." This proves that the Targums, taken as a whole, were composed as early as the Apostolic Age. The " Targnm on Job," is explicitly mentioned just before the fall of Jerusalem. Our extant " Targums " also have fragments of the period of John Hyrcanus (103-105 A. D.). The modern Targums are evidently, then, made up of gradual accretions from many gen- erations and depend upon early writings.^ Thus, Onkelos sees the expected Messiah in the " Seed of the Woman " who was to crush the serpent, and in the mysterious personage who seems to be announced in the prophecy of Jacob to Juda. " The sceptre shall not depart from Juda, nor the ruler's staff from between His feet : Until Shiloh come, and the peo- ple obey Him." ^ The term "Shiloh," which the Tar- gum identifies with the " Messiah," is even now a very obscure expression. Some have translated by " the re- pose " : The Vulgate reads Shiloah, or, the Envoy, or messenger.^ If the Hebrew text be read: Shelo, it means: "He to whom" (the sceptre should belong). So too, in the royal star which Balaam sees rising from the midst of Israel : " I shall see Him ; but not now: I shall behold Him, but not near. A star shall rise out of Jacob, a sceptre shall spring up from Israel." * 1 Walker, art. : Targum, H. D., p. 679 ; Noldecke, art. : Aramaic Language, E. B., col. 283; cf. Ephes. iv. 8. 2 Gen. iii. 15 ; Ixix. 10. 3 Aglen, art. : Shiloh, H. D., pp. 500 and 501, * Numbers xxiv. 17, THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY yi Jonathan, also, when interpreting the Prophets, ex- pressly identifies the Emmanuel with the Messiah. The Emmanuel is the one promised by God to His chosen people; the child who is to bring an eternal peace to the world; the flower of the royal root of Jesse upon whom shall dwell the Spirit of the Lord ; the ruler rising from Bethlehem, and whose origin goes back to the ancient days, to the Days of Eternity; the chosen servant in whom God places His confidence and who is to establish on earth the reign of justice and mercy, who is to be clothed, in the eyes of people and kings, with incomparable glory, although only after suffering humiliation and atoning pain/ The sufferings of the Servant of Jaweh, the aton- ing victim of his people, are described in c. liii of Isaiah. The Targum of Jonathan, in emphasizing his great and glorious character, did not venture to apply to Him the marks of humiliation and of suffer- ing portrayed in c. liii, although the Prophet had fully in view, here and there, the same Servant of Jehovah ; but, the Targumist illogically interprets this last chap- ter as referring to the Hebrew people itself. The faith of the Synagogue, intense and firm as it was, even at a time when it openly opposed the Church, can be ascribed only to an already ancient tradition. Thus does the whole collection of docu- ments, reflecting the thoughts of Jewish generations immediately following the Saviour's death, as also those wherein we find a true echo of the expectation filling the popular mind in the years just before the Christian era, evidently confirm the testimony of the Gospels. That is to say, when Jesus of Nazareth appeared, the Messianic hope was fermenting at times in the heart of the Jewish people, and all Israel was expectantly awaiting its Saviour. lis. vii. 14; ix. 5; xi. i; Micheas v. i; Is. Ixii. i; Hi. 13; c. liii; Zach. iii. 9; vi. 12. J2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL What idea, however, had they of this Messiah so eagerly awaited? We must try to settle this point. The Messiah's Character and Mission.— The title " Messiah " implies the idea of a special divine consecration. The Hebrew term, Mashiah, or the Aramaic, Meshiha, really means Anointed or Sacred, hke the Greek, Christus, and the Latin, Unctus. This title had long been employed to designate those who had been consecrated by sacred unction, namely, the Kings of Israel, who were the theocratic sovereigns of the people of God. The title ''Anointed of the Lord," is applied both to Saul and to David. ^ He who w^as in an especial sense the ''Anointed of the Lord," seemed to the Jews to be a king, or rather, as " The King," the organizer and supreme sovereign of a royal kingdom, final and incomparably glorious. The Targums often refer to the Messiah King, or Malcha Meshiha. The Shemoneh Esreh views Him as a powerful Saviour who shall come to re-establish the throne of David and rebuild Jeru- salem. The Psalter of Solomon presents Him as the King of Israel, God's envoy for the deliverance of the Holy City from its oppressors, and who shall restore the throne of David and extend His kingdom over all nations. The Targums also frequently refer to the Messiah as the " Redeemer of Israel " who was to re-establish the chosen people in their rights, to deliver them from foreign oppression, to bring peace ancj prosperity. The Saviour is recognized as the ^' Christ " ; hence they wish to forcibly lead Him to Jerusalem " to make Him king." On His triumphal entry therein, they hail Him as " the King of Israel," the " King who cometh in the name of the Lord." The Jewish populace, also, under the title of the "King ^i Sam. xii. 3, 5; xxiv. 7, 11; xxvi. 9, 11, 16, 23; 2 Sam, xxiii. i; cf. Ps. ii. 2; xviii. 51; xx. 7; xxviii. 8; Ixxxiv. 10; Ixxxix. 39, 52; cxxxii. 17; Habaeuc iii. 13; Lamen, iv, 20; Dalman, op. cit., p. 288. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY n of Israel," mockingly salute Him as He hangs upon the Cross, while the foreigners, in derision, call Him " King of the Jews." ^ The national traditions of Israel imply that the Kingdom claimed for Christ was, in a way, embodied in the name of David. It was to David that the Lord made this wondrous promise : " Thy house and thy kingdom shall be made sure forever. Thy throne shall be made firm forever." " His throne shall stand before me as the sun; as the moon it shall be unto everlasting." The Messiah-King was to be born of the race of David: He it is who was to re- store the throne of His Father, and to assure to His kingdom the eternity promised by the Lord.^ The Psalter of Solomon, also, portrays '* Christ the Lord," or the " Christ of the Lord," as a king, the Son of David. The Targum of Jonathan sees the Messiah in the " Stem arising from the Root of Jesse," in the " Righteous Branch " arisen unto the house of David. The Shemoneh Esreh beseeches the swift appearance of the *' Branch " of the great king. And Jesus Himself says to the multitude: How do the Scribes say that Christ is the Son of David? From the moment that He is recognized as the Messiah He is acclaimed under the title: Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh.^ In the tradition, moreover, of the Jewish interpreters of the Scripture, the Messiah was to be born in the very native-land of David, at 1 Lk. ii. 38; Jo. vi. 14; Lk. xviii. 38; Jo. xii. 13; cf. Jo. i. 48; Mk. XV. 32; Mt. xxvii. 39; Mk. xv. 9, iS, 2^\ Lk. xxiii. 35; Jo. xviii. 2>2>, Z7, 39; xix. 3, 15, 19, 21; Mt. ii. 2. 22 Sam. vii. 16; Ps. Ixxxix. 35. 3 Psalt. Solomon xvii. 5, 23 ; Is. xi. i ; Jer. xxiii. 5 ; xxxiii, 15; Shemoneh Esreh, 15th Berak. ; Mk. xii. 35; Mk. xi. 10; Mt. xxi. 2, 9; Lk. xix. 38; cj. Mt. xiii. 23; ix, 27; xx. 30; Mk, x, ly ; Lk. jcviji. 38, 74 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Bethlehem of Juda. Hence, the doctors of the Law, relying upon the prophecy of Micheas, reply to Herod: ''And thou, Bethlehem, land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda; for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people of Israel." So too, when the news spread abroad among the multitude that this Jesus, the pro- phet of Nazareth in Galilee, might likely be the Messiah, the objection was made: What, then, doth the Christ come forth from Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem ? ^ The Messiah, however, was not regarded merely as a conquering king and ruler like the ancient sover- eigns of Israel who He was to succeed on the throne of David. He was also looked upon as the Envoy of God, the Elect of the Most High, the Prophet par excellence. The prophetic spirit implied the knowl- edge of secret things, past, present, or future. Christ, then, the greatest Prophet, was to signalize Himself by His supernatural knowledge. It is precisely be- cause Nathaniel knows that Jesus reveals the secrets of His inmost soul that he exclaims with much emo- tion : " Master, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel." The Samaritan woman, also, al- leges to her compatriots, as a token of the Saviour's messiahship, the fact that He had just revealed to her all her past conduct : " Come and see a man who has told me all that I have done. Is He not the Christ?" So too, the soldiers in the Pretorium felt that they could ridicule Jesus' messianic claims in no surer way than by blind-folding Him and calling upon Him, as the Christ, to tell who had struck Him.^ As prophet, the Messiah was also a great wonder- 1 Targ Jonath., in Micheas v. 8; Mt. ii. 6; Jo. vii. 41. 2 Jo. iv. 29; Lk. vii. 39; Jo. i. 48; iv. 24; Mt. xxvi. 67; Lk. xxii. 64. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 75 worker. " When the Christ shall come, will He do more signs?" Thus the people wondered after wit- nessing the Saviour's miracles. It was, also, certainly a proof of His Messiahship that the Pharisees demanded from Jesus when they asked Him for " a sign from heaven." Nor is there anything more ironical than the provoking questions which the people put to Him who had claimed to be the Messiah : " Let Christ the King of Israel now come down from the Cross, that we may see and beHeve in Him. . . . He saved others: let Him save himself if He be the Christ of God, the elect." ^ The Messiah's mission was to display such eminent qualities. Hence it would be not only a kingly and ruling, but also a doctrinal and religious mission. In the Psalter of Solomon, the Messiah is a king free from sin, a great king taught of God, and to whom the Lord hath given the power of the Holy Spirit, wisdom and prudence and justice. He was to as- semble together a holy people, and in their midst He would not allow iniquity to dwell. He was to destroy sinners by the power of His word. The holy people whom He shall assemble. He will lead in justice and holiness. He would rule Israel in the fear of God, in the wisdom of the Spirit, in righteousness and power. He would direct men in the way of justice, inspiring them all with the fear of God. And this mission of justice and hoHness shall be universal. He will judge the nations and peoples in the wisdom of His equity. He shall hold under His yoke the nations to serve Him ; and He shall glorify the Lord over all the sur- face of the earth.2 The Book of Enoch, also, describes in an allegorical vision the pagan nations as beseeching the Messiah and becoming converted to the true God. 1 Jo. vii. 31 ; Mk. viii. 11 ; xv. 32; Mt. xxvii 39; Lk. xxiii. 35. 2 Psalt. Solom. xvii. and xviii ; cf. Orac. Sib., vol. iii, 49 ; agnos anax (ayvof dva^). 76 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL In the Sibylline Oracles, the Jewish Sibyl portrays the Messianic kingdom as an eternal one which ex- tends throughout all nations and all parts of the world. Men shall bring their offerings to the Temple of God : The Lord shall dwell forever in Sion, and there shall reign universal peace on earth.^ Similarly, the magnificent predictions of the Pro- phets, but faintly echoed in the foregoing testimonies, refer to the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Messiah, to His position as lawgiver, teacher, and judge, to His work of enHghtenment and sanctification in behalf of mankind.^ It seems, indeed, that the woman of Samaria supposed that the mission of the Messiah would possess this very doctrinal and religious character; for, when Jesus spoke to her of the new kind of worship desired by His heavenly Father, she re- marked : " I know that the Messiah cometh ; when He is come. He will reveal unto us all things." And it was probably the same conviction that led people to imagine that it was the expected Messiah whom they saw and heard in the person of John the Baptist as he proclaimed the baptism of penance in the desert.^ " Wherever the moral and really religious elements had begun to get the upper hand," says Harnack, " people were forced to abandon the image of the political and warlike ruler, and let that of the prophet, which had always, to some extent, helped to form the general notions about the Messiah, take its place." * It is also the impression of O. Holtzmann that " the political aspect of the Messianic hope plays no great part in the Jewish literature of the New Testament 1 Hen., c. xc. 2)7> 38 ; cf. Orac. Sib., vol. iii, 710-794. 2 Is. ii., iv., xlii., xlix., li., Ivi., Ix., Ixi. ; Soph. ii. ; Jer. iii. and iv. ; Zach. c. viii. and ix. ; Ps. Ixxii. 3 Jo. iv. 25; i. 19-25; Lk. iii. 15. * Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 147. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY yy period that has come down to us," and that '' far greater stress is laid upon the hohness of the Messiah." ^ Finally it is Baldensperger's opinion that the Jewish apocalyptic ideas current during the period preced- ing the Christian era present " the Messianic expecta- tion as freeing itself from the earthly political ideal and soaring into the region of the supernatural." ^ Christ, then, was the Man of God, par excellence, the Prophet who was to come into the world. In fact, the Rabbinic Tradition of the Targums beheld Him thus foretold in every page of the Scriptures. So that Philip the Apostle, one of the first called by Jesus to the apostolate, might well point Him out to Nathanael as the One " of whom Moses wrote, both in the Law and in the Prophets." ^ Kingly Destiny. — What opinion, we may ask, did the Jews have of the career of their expected Messiah and what events would mark the course of His hfe? On this point, the Jewish tradition was far from precise. It held that He would be born at Bethlehem, the city of the great king; but people said to them- selves : " When shall He come ? How will He in- augurate His reign ? " The prevailing belief was that He would appear only after some great prophet should officially herald His coming. Some, in fact, thought that one of the ancient prophets of Israel like Jeremias, for instance, would re-appear for this purpose. Others thought that the Messiah, whilst bearing some resemblance to the prophets of old, would Himself be a new prophet. Others, again, believed Him " the Prophet," foretold by Moses and often identified with the Messiah. But oftener the future herald of the expected Messiah 1 Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 123, n. ; art. : Neutesf. Zeitgeschichte, 1895, p. 243. 2 Baldensperger, Die Mess. Apoc. Hoffnungen, 1903, p. 173. 3 Jo. vi. 14; i. 45. 78 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL was supposed to be Elias, whom the prophet Malachy had said would appear before the great day of the Lord. The Book of Ecclesiasticus also mentions Him as being ^' held in reserve for the time of judgment." Whilst, as the disciples themselves remark to Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees had taught the people that " Elias was to come " before the advent of the Mes- siah. This is why, when John the Baptist declared he was not Christ, the Levites sent by the Pharisees ask him if, however, he were not Elias. The same opinion, in fact, was held by some among the multi- tudes concerning Jesus Himself.^ But it was also believed that the Messianic reign would begin only after a period of terrible suffering and great political commotions. Wars between the various nations, social disorders, domestic feuds, disturbances in nature, earthquakes, signs in the heavens, con- flagrations and famines: such are the events which shall precede the revelation of the Messiah and which, in Rabbinical teaching, are likened to the sor- rows of child-birth.^ The mission of EHas was in- tended to restore peace upon the earth and to reestab- lish social order. " His mission," says Rabbi Simon, " is to bring peace into the world. For it is written : * I send unto you Elias the Prophet.' " ^ The way being thus prepared, the Messiah Himself will appear suddenly. But as tradition had named Bethlehem as His birth-place, it was at first supposed that He would remain hidden and that He would reveal Himself un- expectedly. Hence, no doubt, the prevailing impres- 1 Mt. xvi. 14; Lk. ix. 19; Mk. vi. 14; viii. 28; Jo. i. 19, 25; vii. 40; cf. Ac. iii. 32; vii. 27; Mai. iv. 5; Ecclus. xlviii. 10; Mk. ix. 10; Mt. xvii. 10; Jo. i. 19, 25; Mk. vi. 14; Mt. xiv. 2; Lk. ix. 7; Mk. viii. 22>; cf. Mk. xv. 35, z^', Mt. xxvii. 47, 49. 2 Cf. the phrase; Hebelei ha Mashiah, z. e., the Suffering of the Messiah; cf. Mk. xiii. 9; Mt. xxiv. 8; Mai. iv. 5, 6. 3 Ecclus, xlviii. 10; cf. Mishna, Eduioth, c. viii. 7. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 79 sion as expressed in the text : '' When the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is." ^ Some Jewish writers also tell us that it will be the official privilege of EHas to anoint the Messiah and to proclaim Him. In fact, S. Justin represents the Jew Trypho as expressing a thought which must rest upon an ancient Jewish tradition : " The Christ," he says, *' even when born and found somewhere or other, is still unknown. Indeed, He does not know His own destiny: He has no power until Elias come and con- secrate Him, and reveal Him to all. . . . We all await Christ who is to be a man among men, and Ehas who is to come to consecrate Him." ^ The Targum on Micheas says that the Messiah is present already, although still hidden because of the sins of the people. A relatively recent Talmudic legend says that the Messiah is born in Bethlehem at the moment of the destruction of the Temple, and receives the name Menahem, or Consoler. He is forcibly taken away from His mother and carried to Rome. There, at one of the city-gates, He remains surrounded by the unhappy and the sick whose wounds he soothes, awaiting calmly and quietly the day when the conversion of His people shall enable Him to reveal Himself.^ The Messianic kingdom should begin, we are told, with the " great day of the Lord." The ancient Prophets considered the *' Day of Jaweh," as the day wherein the Eternal should judge His people and the nations opposing them. Israel would be revenged upon its enemies : it would itself be chastened for its sins and be purified from every wicked element. Never- theless, apart from and beyond this first earthly judg- ment, ending with a national renewal or resurrection, 1 Jo. vii. 27. 2 Justin, Dial., c. viii ; cf. c. xlix. 3 Targ., in Mich. iv. 8. go CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Prophets foresaw at the end of time, after a gen- eral resurrection, a universal and final judgment of which the first was only the symbol and preparation, and at which all men, summoned to appear before God, would be eternally rewarded, each according to His deeds.^ Numerous texts of the Prophets point, in some way, to this solemn judgment which shall be executed by the future King, the Son of David, in whom tradition had long since beheld the Messiah. The Christ of God, therefore, is described as inaugurating His reign by a supreme judgment which was to destroy every hostile power.^ The popular notion of this Messianic judgment was very complex, inexact, and particularly materialistic. Some thought the Messiah was to lead His armies on a march against the pagan nations, the enemies of God and of His people.^ Philo had written : " He shall enter into the field ; He shall wage war, and He shall subdue nations numerous and powerful." * In one Targum we read : " How fair is He, the Messiah King, who proceedeth from the House of Juda. He girds His loins, takes the field, gives battle to His ^ Day of the Eternal: Is. ii. 12; Ecclus. iii. 17; viii. 6; Is. xiii. 9; XXX. 27-33; Ixix. 16-19; Amos v. 18-20; Soph. c. i and ii ; Joel cc. i and ii ; Jer. xxx. 7 ; Ezech. cc. vii and xxx ; Zach. c. xiv; Mal. c. iv; Abdias i. 15; Idea of Judgment: Is. iii. 3; Ez. xxxix. 21; Joel c. iii; Dan. vii. 9, 26; Ps. ix. 8; Ixxv. 3; Ixxvi. 9; Ixxxii. 8; Ps. xciv and xcvi; Idea of Personal Re- surrection and of General and Final Judgment: Joel iii. 2; Dan. xii, 1-3; Ecclus. xii. 16; 2 Macchab. vii. 12, 43-46; Wisd. iii. 1-9 ; V. 16-24 ; Psalt. Solom. iii. 16 ; xiv. 2 ; Hen. Ixi. i ; 4 Esdras vii. 32; Apoc. Baruch. xxx. 1-5; 1. i; Ii. 6; Test. XII Patr. Judae, xxv; Benj. x; Mishna, Sanhedrin x. i; Aboth. iv. 22. 2 Is. xi. 1-4; Ps. Ixxii. 1-3; ex. 1-2, 5-6. 3 Orac. Sib., c. iii, 663 ; 4 Esdras xiii. 33 ; Hen. xc. 16 ; Dan. xi; Ps. ii. * Philo, De Praem., par. 16, vol. ii, p. 422, ed. Mang. THE DAWN OF CH^STIANITY 8l enemies and puts kings to death." ^ Others thought that the Messiah would appear less as a warrior than as a judge. By a word of His mouth, says the Psalter of Solomon, He shall put down His enemies.^ The Book of Enoch, in its figurative discourses, rep- resented the Messiah, as a memorial of the vision of Daniel, under the guise of the Son of Man who was seated beside the Lord of Souls upon the throne of glory so that He might judge men and angels. Upon beholding Him, the kings and mighty ones of earth shall be struck with fear and trembling. They shall fall upon their knees and shall ask His mercy; but they shall be cast from His face and delivered to avenging angels, and receive the punishment for the awful torments which they have inflicted upon the children of God, and upon His elect." ^ The Messianic reign, therefore, shall begin after this supreme judgment. It was usually called " the reign of God." In fact, since the beginning, He was deemed the true King of Israel, the descendants of David be- ing only His chieftains and representatives on earth. With still greater reason, God was to be the Supreme Head of this ideal Messianic kingdom which was fore- seen "in the age to come." It was in God's name^ and, in some sort, on God's account, that the Messiah was to reign over a New Israel. Hence, the inaugura- tion of the Messianic reign was to be, in a special way, the founding of " the Kingdom of God." * The sacred name of God, be it noted, was often re- 1 Targ. Pseud. Jonath. and Jerush., in Genesis xlix. ii; cf. Targ. Jonath., in Isaiah x. 27; Hen. xlvi. 426; Hi. 49; Apoc. Baruch. Ixxii. 6. 2 Psalt, Solom. xvii. 27 ; xxxvii. 39 ; xli. 48 ; Apoc. Baruch. xl. I and 2; 4 Esdras xiii. 10, 27-28, 37-38; cf. Is. xi. 4. 3 Hen. xlv. 3 ; Iv. 4 ; Ixix. 27 ; Ixi. 8-9 ; c. Ixii. * Psalt. Solom. xvii. 4; Orac. Sib., iii, 47-48, 704; Assiim. Mosis. X. I and 3; Shemoneh Esreh, nth Ber.; cf. Ps. ix. 8; xciii. I ; xcv. 3 ; xcvii. i ; xcix. i. 6 S2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL placed by the name of Heaven, that is, " the King- dom descending from Heaven," and which has its be- ginning and head in the heavens. The expression, '' may heaven preserve me," is somewhat similar ; and the term " kingdom of heaven " is the same as the term "Malcout Shammaim" used by Rabbinic writers.^ Since, then, the Messianic Kingdom, by origin and foundation, is the Kingdom of Heaven; so, by des- tination and extent, it was to be the Kingdom of God on earth. Palestine, and Jerusalem its capital city, was to be its special territory or centre. There would be reunited therein all the children of Israel, the dead as well as those at present dispersed.^ But, forth from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Mes- sianic Empire was to spread over the earth. The various nations would submit to Israel and to the Messiah-King. Throughout the world the reign of God would extend.^ Still, it was not only under the material aspect of the ancient kingdom of David, merely restored and en- larged, that the Messianic Kingdom was represented. In fact, there was expected a general renewal of the world, which would greatly modify the territory and other features of the kingdom. Isaiah had foretold the creation of a new heavens and a new earth : after " the present world," there would be " the world to come." * In the Rabbinic worship we read of " this 1 Mishna, Ber., ii, 2 and 5; Dalman, op. cit., p. 91. 2 Psalt. Solom. iii. 16; xiv. 2; xi. ; xvii. 28; Philo De Exec, par. 8-9, vol. ii, 435; 4 Esdras xiii, 39-47 ^ Shemoneh Esreh, loth Ber.; cf. Is. xi. 12; cc. xlix. and Ix. ; Sophon. c. iii; Baruch. iv. 2>^ and Z7\ c. v. 3 Orac. Sib. iii. 48 ; Psalt. Solom. xvii. 32-35 ; Hen. xc. 30 and zy^ ; xlviii. 5 ; Ixiii. i ; Apoch. Baruch. Ixxii. 5 ; Targ., in Zach. iv. 7; cf. Is. ii. 2; xi. 10; xlii. 1-6; xlix. 6; Ii. 4 and 5; Iv. 5; Ivi. i; Micheas iv. 10; vii. 16; Jer. iji. 17; xii. 14; xvi. 19; Sophon. ii. 11; iii. 9; Zach. ii. 15; viii. 20; xiv. 9; Dan. ii. 14; vii. 14 and 27. * Is, Ixv. 17; Ixvi. 22; cf. XXX. 26; Ii. 6; cf. Mt. xix. 28; 2 Pet. iii. 13; Apoc. xxi. i. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 83 world," and " the world to come." The Targum of Jonathan mentions *' the future world of the Messiah." The Mishna contrasts '' the Day of the Messiah " to " the present world." The existing order would end at the Messianic age, and then would occur a universal transformation of the world and a new order of things. *' In that day " states the Book of Enoch, " I shall have my Elect dwell amongst you, and I shall transform the heavens and make them a bless- ing and an eternal light; and I shall transform the earth that it may also become a blessing; and I shall make my chosen ones to dwell therein." ^ The New Jeriisalem, the capital of the ideal king- dom, was also to be transformed. Many, it is true, pictured it to themselves in a very material fashion. The Psalter of Solomon describes it as being restored to its former holiness by the expulsion of its pagan oppressors; while the Shemoneh Esreh pictures it as arisen from its ruins arid rebuilt forever.^ Others, however, conceived a much higher ideal. Thus, the Prophets had foretold that it would be incomparably superior to the ancient Jerusalem in wealth and glory. Aggeus, Zacharias, Isaiah, and Ezechiel had all given an enthusiastic description of it. Ezechiel had even beheld it in a mysterious ecstasy so that tradition considered it as already existing in Heaven.^ The Apocalypse of Baruch discerns it, before Adam's fall, in the earthly Paradise. From Eden, after the sin of the first man, it was transported to heaven where Abra- ham and Moses beheld it in a vision to which Esdras 1 Note the expressions: "Ha 61am hazzeh," "Ha 61am habba " ; cf. the Greek : alo)v ovrog, 6 alcjv 6 ixeTikav, or 6 ep^ouevog; cf. Mt. xii. 32; Mk. X. 30; Lk. xviii. 30; Dalman, op. cit., p. 145; Hen. Ixv. 5; cf. xci. 16; Targ. Jon.; 4 Kings iv. 33; Mishna, Ber., i, 5. 2 Psalt. Solom. xvii. 25-33 ; Shemoneh Esreh, 14th Berakah. 3 Aggeus, ii. 7-9; Zach. ii. 6-17; Is. liv. 11; c. Ix; Ezech., c. xl; c. xlviii. 84 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL also was, later on, admitted/ The Book of Enoch, also, says that the New Jerusalem shall descend from heaven on earth to inaugurate the Messianic reign and thus replace the ancient kingdom which it shall far surpass in' grandeur and glory. To Jewish minds the Messianic era, in this re- newed world, appeared ^ as a period of peace and happiness. The symbolic and highly wrought descrip- tions found in the ancient Prophets certainly enabled most people to take that ideal view under which was represented the Golden Age of the Messiah. Henceforth, no more wars, nor strifes, nor discords; but rather peace, justice, and love throughout the earth.^ Even the wild beasts, now that they have been tamed, will be at man's service.* Everywhere there shall be fertility, abundance, and plenty.^ Every- one shall enjoy health and strength; mothers shall bear children without sorrow ; harvests shall be reaped without fatigue.^ Nevertheless, this Golden Age of the Messiah is often viewed not only in the light of material welfare, but also as an era of spiritual prosperity, of moral holiness, of fervor in God's service. The new nation shall be a holy people. Christ, its King, will allow no injustice within its domain ; evil shall no longer dwell therein; for it is a holy people.^ Life shall be one 1 Apoc. Baruch. iv. 2-6 ; 4 Esdras x. 44, 59, 2 Hen. liii. 6; xc. 28 and 29; cf. 4 Esdras vii. 26; Apoc. Bar. xxxii. 4. ^ Orac. Sib., iii, 371-380; 751-760; Philo de Praem., par. 16, vol. ii, 422, ed. M. ; Apoc. Bar. Ixxiii. 4-5; cf. Is. ii. 4; xi. 6, 9; Ix. 17; Ixv. 19 and 25; Ps. Ixxii. * Orac. Sib., iii, 620-623, 743, 750 ; Apoc. Bar. xxix. 5-8 ; cf. Is. xi. 6; Ixv. 25, 5 Philo, De Praem., par. 17-18, vol. ii, 428, ed. Mang. ; Apoc. Bar. Ixxiii. 2-7 ; Ixxiv. i ; cf. Is. Iv. 20 ; Ps. Ixxii. 16. 6 Psalt. Solom. xvii. 28-29; xviii. 9 and 10; cf. Is. Ix. 18-21; Lk. xxiii. 35. '' Shemon. Esreh., 17th Ber. ; cf. Lk. i. 74 and 75. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 85 constant service in the worship of God who, more than before, shall be worshiped in innocence and jus- tice. In this religious renewal the Gentiles shall find a place. They, too, shall become subject to the Messiah. Unto His light they shall arise from their darkness. From every nation they shall offer their homage to the true God; their gifts and victims they shall bring to His sanctuary, united to the faith of Israel and happy therein.^ Nay more, a yet higher idea was implied in this conception of the Messianic Kingdom. Daniel had represented the life of the just such as it was to be after the resurrection and final judgment whereby their lot would be determined, as a life of glory wherein they would shine like stars in the sky. The Book of Wisdom describes how it is that they shall find their recompense with the Lord. He shall repay them magnificently for having borne the slight suffer- ings of the present life. Their Lord shall reign for- ever. Being a part of His kingdom, they shall be crowned with a radiant diadem: they shall rule over nations as conquerors.^ Under the same aspect also the nobler souls picture to themselves the condition of future life in the Messianic Kingdom. They view it chiefly as something apart from earth and immaterial ; or, rather, as a spiritual life incomparably exalted and affording the intimate enjoyment of God and the contemplation of His glory. Hence the place of this Messianic Kingdom was not likely to be found upon earth, but rather in an ideal sphere, like Eden, the wondrous Paradise.^ The Kingdom no longer was 1 Hen., xlviii, 4 ; cf. Is. ii. 2-4 ; xi. 6, 10 ; li. 4-5 ; Ivi. 6-8 ; Ix. i-ii; Jer. iii. 17; Ps. ii. 7; xxii. 28; Ixxii. 8. 2 Dan. xii. 2-3 ; Wisd. iii. 59 ; v. 16 ; cf. 2 Maccabees vii. z^, 3 Apoc. Bar. Ixi. 3, 7-14; 4 Esdras vi. 1-3, 68-72; Bensly, The Missing Frag., pp. 55, 69; Assum. Mosis. x. 9 and 10; Test. 12 Patr. Dan. v.: The Eden; Test. Levi: The Paradise, from the Persian: pardes, garden; cf. Lk. xxiii. 43; 2 Cor. xii. 4; Apoc, ii, 7. 86 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL viewed in its origin and starting-point, but also in its destination and final abode, as the Kingdom of Heaven. Indeed, its joy was thought to be unfailing and eternal. The Prophets had promised Israel that God would make it dwell in the Land always ; that the throne of David would endure forever. Daniel had called the Kingdom granted to the saints of the Most High an eternal Kingdom and had shown the risen saints as shining like brilliant stars until the end of ages. Hence the popular idea that the Messianic King- dom would never end. In this sense, then, did the Jews answer Jesus : " We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth forever." ^ Thus did the Jews, as far as we can see, regard the Messianic Kingdom. It should be noted, however, that they did not all attempt to assign the origin of the expected Kingdom only at the general resurrec- tion and last judgment. Many saw it already real- ized, even in its totality, before that event. They be- lieved that its earthly duration was to be limited, that it was to be absorbed after the final judgment in a yet grander era of heavenly happiness. Thus, the royal reign of the Messiah is said to last " to the end of this corruptible world " ; and again " until the end Cometh, the day of judgment." Christ's reign was supposed to last for the space of 400 years, as we find in one text of the Talmud; while, elsewhere in the same work, it is supposed to last for 1000 years. This interval of four hundred years, by the way, seems to answer to the duration of the Jewish servitude in Egypt. Hence while most people regarded the Messiah as immortal, others, who believed that His reign would be of a limited duration, said that He 1 Jer. xxiv. 6; Ez. xxxvii. 25; Ps. xlv. 7; Ixxxix. 30; Dan. vii. 27 : malcout olam ; Dan. xii. 2 and 3 ; Orac. Sib., iii, 49-50, 766; Psalt. Solom. xvii. 4; Hen. Ixii. 14; Jo. xii. 34; cf. Targ. Jonath., in Is. ix. 6: Man abiding forever: the Messiah. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 87 would die like other men at the close of the Messianic era and before the final resurrection/ The Suffering Servant.— Did they go a step further and even conclude that the Messiah was to die before His Kingdom had been established fully and that He would die in order to found it? This view is forcibly suggested by Isaiah. The lat- ter part of his prophecy represents the Servant of Jaweh as expiating, by His sufferings, the iniquities of His people, and as being recompensed by God for having offered His life as an atoning sacrifice. More- over, the Jewish traditions held that this Servant of the Eternal could be none other than the Messiah. Thus, the Targum of Jonathan interpreted of the Messiah the first verses of the passage relating to His triumph and glory : " Behold, my Servant cometh, the Messiah. He shall be exalted and extolled, and shall be exceeding high." Of this text, Abarbanel says : '* Jonathan, son of Uzziel, has applied this pas- sage to the Messiah who was to come, and this is also the opinion of our scholars of happy memory." ^ So strong, however, was the hope in a Messiah Triumphant that the exclusive view of His power and grandeur tended to set aside, as not applying to Him, every idea of suffering and humiliation. So that the same Targum, which so clearly beheld Christ in the Glorious Servant, does not discern Him in the Suffering Servant , it interprets the remainder of the text as referring to the Jewish people, not carmg for the want of logic implied in such a misinterpretation of the text itself. Among modern critics, there are some, like Budde and Marti, who interpret the whole text as referring 1 Apoc. Baruch. xl. 3; 4 Esdras xii. 34; vii. 28 and 29; Targ. Sanhed., 99a ; cf. Gen. xv. 13 ; Ps. xc. 15 ; Targ. San- hed., 97a; cf. Apoc. xx. 4-6; Jo. xii. 34; 4 Esdr. vii, 28 and 29. 2 Ps. xxii ; Dan, x^vi ; Is, Hi, 13 and 15. 88 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL to the Jewish People, the nation being personified in the Suffering Servant. Cheyne thinks that this per- sonage represents a chosen portion of the people, the upper classes of Israel. Bertholet perceives in him a type, the type of the doctor of the law. But a larger number of critics insist upon the individual and personal character of this Servant. Sellin, for in- stance, identifies Him with Zorobabbel, and then with Joakim. Kittel believes Him to be a real, historical personage, perhaps Zorobabbel or the like. Duhm suppose him to be an unknown doctor of the law, a martyr of zeal for the pastoral education of His peo- ple. So that, the traditional Messianic interpretation favors the individual character of the Suffering Ser- vant of the Lord.^ Hence we see how, under the influence of the learned Jews, the crowd that surrounded Christ, and especially the Apostles disliked to be told of the Messiah's sufferings and approaching death. When Jesus had spoken to the people about His crucifixion, they replied that they had been taught He would abide forever; and when He had thus spoken to His Apostles, they also were surprised and indignant at the idea.^ But we must not imagine that this ofiicial teaching of the Synagogue was forced upon everyone. Many persons who, like the Eunuch of the Queen of Can- dace, had been aroused by the strangely vivid grandeur of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah must have thought of the Messianic sense of this text and felt inclined to ac- 1 Budde, Die Sogen. Ebed. Jeweh-Lieder, 1900 ; Marti, Der Buck Jesaia, 1900; Cheyne, Jewish Ret. Life, American Lec- tures, 1898; art.: Servant of the Lord, E. B., cal. 4409; David- son, Old Testament Prophecy, 1904; Bertholet, Zu Jesaja^ 53, 1899; Sellin, Serubabbet, 1898; art.: Studien zur Entsuchung. der Jud. Gemeinde, 1901 ; Kittel, Zur Theol. des A. T., 1899; Duhm, Da6 Buch Jesaia, 1892, 2d ed., 1902, in Handkom, Z. A. T. (Nowack). 2 Jo, xii. 32-34; Mk, viii. 31-33; ix. 30-31, THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 89 cept the idea of a Suffering Messiah and Redeemer. The idea of a Messiah who would expiate for sin by His sufferings, such as the prophet apparently had announced, was certainly admitted by the scholarly Jews of the second century after Christ, and it seems difficult to ascribe this belief only to the influence of the New Revelation and to the efforts of Christian Apologists.^ Thus S. Justin says : " If we show to the Jews the number of Scripture texts that clearly prove that the jNIessiah was to suffer, they must admit that such texts are Messianic ; they maintain, however, that this Jesus is not the . Messiah." And the Jew Trypho re- plied : " That Christ should suffer, and that the Scrip- tures affirm this, is quite plain." And he added, as regards the text of Isaiah : " We know that he will suffer and shall be led as a lamb." ^ The Talmud, also, affords evidence of the same opinion. The ancient Rabbis gave many reasons to the Messiah, such as " the Suffering," or " the Afflicted." These latter terms agree with the text of Isaiah c. liii. 4. The word " nagoua," that is, stricken, or afflicted, or chastized by God, is also applied to leprosy, viewed as a divine chastisement. The Rabbi Joses of Galilee, who lived in the time of Trypho, says that " the Messiah-King will be humbled and made an object of scorn for the sake of the rebels, for it is written; ' He hath been stricken for our iniquities.' How much more shall He atone for all generations, ac- cording to the saying : ' The Lord hath placed upon Him the iniquity of us all.' " Similarly, in the treatise, Sanhedrin, of the Talmud, the Messiah is represented sitting at one of the gates of Rome, and binding and unbinding his wounds.^ 1 Acts viii. 28-35. 2 S. Justin, Dial., c. Ixviii ; cc. Ixxxix and xv. ^ Tr. San., 98b : houlia, i. e., " sick " ; also interpreted, hiv- vara, i. e., " leprous " Is. liii. 4; cf. the noun, nega, z, e., stroke, phastisement, leper, leprous. Cf. Tr. San. 98a, 90 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Pre-existence. — The Messiah, therefore, in the popular expectancy, was a Man-Messiah, born among men and sharing all human conditions, even though He was divinely endowed with special gifts and powers. But was there not a far nobler idea beyond this? Did not most people, without losing hold on their conviction of His human nature, get a glimpse of a supernatural element in His being, of a transcendent personality that tended to enhance human nature in Him, to draw it closer to the divinity, perhaps to identify Him with the divinity? This question can- not be answered precisely and with full certainty. Why? Because the writings that might give us the elements, at least, of a solution are of a somewhat uncertain date. Besides, we cannot determine exactly whether they depend, or not, upon the influence of Christian revelation. But, probably, as we learn from many reliable documents, at the dawn of the Christian era, people were inclined to ascribe to Christ a pre- existence in heaven before His earthly appearance on earth, as also to give to Him the tribute of an almost supernal and superhuman personality. The Prophet Micheas, in announcing that the ruler of Israel should arise from Bethlehem, had also de- scribed His origin as from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Tradition, perceiving in this text the prediction of the birth of the Messiah-King, the Son of David, was naturally led to determine the question of His eternal origin, which it endeavored to harmonize with His birth in the course of time. The Targum of Jonathan is content to give this less pre- cise commentary : " From Thee, O Bethlehem, shall come forth unto me the Messiah, the ruler of Israel, whose name had been uttered from the beginning, from the days of eternity." ^ The like terms are found in the symbolic discourses 1 Mich, V. 12 ; Targ. Jonathan, in Zach, iy. J, THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 91 of the Book of Enoch ; but they are clearly explained by the author as referring to a real pre-existence of the Messiah with God before His earthly appearance, and before the creation of all things. His name had been uttered in presence of the Lord of Spirits, before the sun and the planets were created, before the stars existed. Prior to His earthly advent, He was hidden and guarded within the being of God : the world was not as yet, when He was already the Elect of God, chosen and reserved by Him ; and He shall be w^ith Him for all eternity.^ "A personal existence of the Messiah, celestial though not premundane, is taught in Enoch," says Dalman. " The statements as to pre-existence in the Similitudes of Enoch and of IV Esdras, moreover, do not presuppose any human birth of the Messiah. He is to make His appearance upon earth as a fully de- veloped personality." He thinks that Enoch xliii. 6, which mentions a premundane existence is an inter- polation.^ Charles and Flemming, however, do not at all sug- gest such interpolation.^ While Schiirer says : *' The Messiah, the perfect King of Israel, chosen by God from eternity, is in Heaven, already in communion with God.' * And Holtzmann remarks : "We find there the same wavering between the real and the ideal pre- existence that generally characterizes the whole opinion of later Judaism about His pre-existence." ® Baldensperger, too, asserts that after the apparition of the parables of Enoch, " the heavenly pre-existence of 1 Hen. xlviii. 3 ; xlvi. i and 2 ; Hi. 7 ; xlviii. 6. 2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 131. 3 Charles, The Book of Enoch, 1893, p. 134; Flemming, Das Buck Henoch, p. 70. * Schiirer, op. cit., vol. xxi, p. 503. 5 Holtzmann, H., Lehrb. d. N. T. TheoL, vol. i, p. 75. 92 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Messiah was received as "a dogma in the apocalyp- tic circles." ^ The IV Book of Esdras puts the matter in no less formal terms : " We behold the Messiah whom the Most High reserves until the end. ... It is He whom the Most High guards for a long time. . . . None can fathom nor know what lies in the depths of the sea; so none on earth can see the Son of God nor those who are with him until the Judgment day." ^ Probably, the influence of Christian ideas is trace- able in the Book of Enoch and in the IV Book of Esdras, although they are of Jewish origin. Still we may safely admit that the Jewish pre-Christian tradi- tion borrowed this point of doctrine from the data furnished by the Old Law itself. The teaching of Tradition, - as we have seen, depends upon the certainly remarkable text of the Prophet Micheas. But we may ask if it may not also have some foundation in the famous text of the Prophet Daniel concerning the Son of Man? This seemingly human personage, who is " like unto a son of man," or " to a man," who receives from the Ancient of Days, that is, the Eternal God, power and dominion over the earth for a universal and endless reign, is seen to be, if we interpret the text strictly, the personification of all Israel, of that race of " saints of the Most High," while the pagan kingdoms, hostile to the true God, are represented under the form of four beasts. The Angel, however, reminds us that the Four Beasts represent not only the pagan nations but also the Kings of the four pagan empires. This analogy led people to think that the Son of Man rep- resents the King of the new empire, the founder and sovereign of the Messianic kingdom, the Messiah ; while all the saints of the Most High share in His 1 Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewust. Jesu., 26. ed., p. 85, 1892. 2 4 Esdras xii. $2 ; xiii. 24 and 25. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 93 glory and rejoice, under His sway, in the new royalty that is without limit and without end. It should be noted, by the way, that the term '* Son of Man," in the Semitic languages, and especially in the Old Testament phraseology, is synonymous with the word " Man." In the poetic passages, and as a result of the parallehsm, it seems to correspond to the word " Man " and to be its equivalent. Apart from this view-point of parallelism, it is also em- ployed as the synonym for " Man '' about eighty times in the Prophecy of Ezechiel.^ In fact, the Book of Enoch, throughout its alle- gorical discourses, calls the Messiah the " Son of Man." This title, be it noted, was not usually ap- plied to the Messiah : it implied such humiliation that it was allowed to fall into disuse. Hence we can ac- count for the surprise caused by the Saviour's use of this title. Yet, we may admit that, for some time be- fore the Christian era, it had been given to the Messiah, and especially so by the author of the Book of Enoch. The prominence of the Book of Daniel at the beginning of the Christian Era and the tradition- ally Messianic character of its seventh chapter, must have naturally connected the title " Son of Man " with the Messiah-King. The same text of Daniel repre- sents the Son of Man as coming in the clouds of heaven, escorted by angels before the throne of God, — to be invested with His supreme royalty. Naturally enough. He who seemed to thus descend upon the clouds of heaven, must have pre-existed before His earthly advent. It would, therefore, seem that the Christian ideas had not influenced Jewish Tradi- tion concerning the pre-existence of the Messiah m heaven, unless it were perhaps to give a decisive scope 1 Dan. vii. 13 and 14; Num. xxiii. 19; Job xvi. 22; xxv. 6; Ps. viii. 5; cxliii. 3: Is. li. 12; Ivi. 2; Ecclus. xvii. 29; Dan. viii. 17; vii. 17: the Hebrew text has melakin, i. e., the kings; the Vulgate reads : regna, i. e., kingdoms. 94 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL and a full relief to the ideas already imbibed by many persons from the Old Testament writings, and es- pecially from the Prophecies of Micheas and Daniel. We may also perceive a formal allusion to this idea of Christ's pre-existence in the Jews' remark about the Saviour: "When Christ shall come, none shall know whence He is." ^ Loisy says that according to a tradition, " the Messiah was to appear unexpectedly, none being aware whence He came. This has been the actually current tradition, it agrees fully with the idea of the Messiah pre-existing in heaven and awaiting the moment of His earthly manifestation such as we behold Him perhaps in Daniel, and certainly in the Book of Enoch as also in the IV Book of Esdras." ^ Some critics believe that the traditional interpreta- tion agrees with the sense of the text of the Prophet Daniel. Thus, Boehmer says that the Son of Man: mentioned by Daniel is the Messiah who is pre- existing in heaven and awaiting the time of His earthly manifestation.^ Volz, also, sees the Messiah in the personage called the " Son of A'lan." * Bousset remarks the mysterious character of this title and shows that, in Jewish circles, it had assumed a great: significance.^ Baldensperger, also, perceives therein the germ, afterwards developed by Judaism, of the heavenly, pre-existent Messiah.^ While Lagrange remarks that the term, found in an unusual con- text, is suggestive and that the individual inter- pretation is the most probable, namely, that the iHen. xlvi. 2, 3, 4; xlyiii. 2; xlii. 5, 7, 9, 14; Ixiii. 11; Ixix. 27 and 29; Ixx. i; Jo. vii. 27) Dalman, op. cit., p. 240. 2 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 510, 1903. 3 Boehmer, Reich Gottes und Mensch., 1899. * Volz, Jiid. Eschatologie, 1903. 5 Bousset, Die Rel. des Juden., 1903. ® Baldensperger, Die Mess. Apok. Hoffnungen., 1903. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 95 Messiah, as one distinct from the people, is inckided in the spiritual empire of which He is the King.^ Admitting that he was pre-existing in Heaven with God, in what relation, exactly, did the Messiah stand with reference to God? Was he a mere creature, al- though more excellent than the others, or was he par- ticipating in some way in the very Being of God? The Jewish Tradition, remarkably enough, seems to have given to the ^lessiah, before Christ's earthly appearance, the title " Son of God." It is to be found in the Book of Enoch, and in the IV Book of Esdras, as also in the Sibylline Oracles of the Jewish Sibyl.^ As the Gospel text seems to show, by the Jews of Christ's time, and apart from His statements, the ^lessiah was already regarded as the Son of God.^ In fact, numerous texts of the Old Law present this title and these are referred, by Tradition, to the ex- pected Messiah-King. Did not the people refer to Christ the Psalmist's words in the second psalm? To fully understand the exact bearing of the Mes- sianic title and the meaning which it must have had to a Jew of Christ's time, we should interpret it in the light of the genius of the Jewish language and the literary usage of the Old Testament. In the Semitic languages, and especially in that of the Old Testa- ment, the word " son " has not the precise and re- stricted meaning which it bears in our Western tongues. Beyond its proper sense, it also has figura- tive and wider meanings. The term " sonship " is used to indicate every close relation, physical or 1 Lagrange, art. : Les Propheties Mess, de Daniel, Rev. Bib., 1904, p. 505. 2 Hen. cv. 2 ; 4 Esdr. vii. 28 and 29 ; xiii. s^, 37, 52 ; xiv. 9 ; Orac. Sib., iii, 775; the text reads: vl6v GfoZo; but has been corrected by Alexandre thus : ^7701; Qeo'io. 3 Jo. i. 48; vi. 70; xi. 27; Mt. xvi. 16; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvii. 46; Ac. ix. 20 and 22; Ps. ii. 2, 7, 8, 12; cf. Targ., in Ps. ii; Ac. iv. 25-27; cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 27-30; 2 Sam. vii. 14. 96 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL moral, every intimate connection of origin, dependence, and affection analogous to the relationship between father and son. Thus, physically speaking, the arrow is called " son of the bow," or " son of the quiver " ; the spark, " daughter of flame " ; the grain of corn, " son of the floor " ; an anointed person, " son of oil " ; a person worthy of death, or threatened therewith, '' son of death." ^ Morally viewed, the disciples of the Prophets are called " sons of the Prophets " ; while evil persons, or those under dia- bolical influence are called '' sons of Belial." ^ In the New Testament, we find the like Hebraisms. The descendants of sinful Adam are called '' sons of wrath ; the false prophets, '' sons of malediction " ; Judas, the *' son of perdition," as is also Antichrist; the damned, '' sons of gehenna." Christ calls the Jews '' sons of the devil," as does also S. Paul call the magician Elymas, and S. John when distinguish- ing sinners from the children of God. On the other hand, Christ calls the Apostles " my sons " ; as also SS. Paul and John their respective disciples.^ In the Old Testament, where the expression " son of God " often occurs, the word " son " has a varied and general sense. It designates whatever has a special relationship with God, close and intimate, whether of origin, dependence, or moral and affective union. The Angels, in particular, are called " sons of God," because they are especially near to God and by their nature closely related to Him. Saintly people who serve God as a father and whom God regards ijob xli. 19; Lamen. iii. 13; Job v. 7; Is. xxi. 10; Zach. iv. 14; I Sam. x:c. 31; 2 Sam. xii. 5; Ps. Ixxix. 11; cii. 21. 2 I Kings XX. 35 ; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5, 7 ; iv. 38 ; cf. Exod. ii. 10 ; Prov. i. 10; Deut. xiii. 13; Judith xix. 22; i Sam. ii. 12. 3 Eph. ii. 3; 2 Pet. ii. 14; Jo. xvii. 12; 2 Thess. ii. 3; Mt. xxiii. 15; Jo. viii. 44; Ac. xiii. 10; i Ep. Jo. iii. 10; Mk. x. 24; Jo. xiii. ZZ\ Gal. iv. 9; i Ep. Jo. ii. i; xii. 18, 28; iii. 7, 18; iv. 4; V. 21. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 97 as His sons are also styled " sons of God." The giants, apparently are also called the '' sons of God." Such terms, moreover, as " mountain of God," " cedars of God," '' garden of God " are worthy of note by way of comparison.^ Thus it is that the Israelites, the especially chosen and cherished people of Jehovah are called the " sons of God," and that Israel receives, in the singular number, the title " son," and '' first-born Son of God." ^ This title, finally, is naturally transferred from the people as such and given, in a special way, to their chief. All kings, princes, and judges of the land are called " sons of God," as holding their authority from God and sharing somewhat in His power and func- tions. Just as the Chinese call their Emperor " tian- tseu," or '' son of heaven " ; a title also given to the kings of Assyria and Egypt. But the king of Israel, the theocratic sovereign, the official vicar of Jehovah, merits this title in a special manner because of His relationship with God. Of all kings soever, he is God's " First-born Son," the object of His predilection and of His special favors.^ If, then, the Old Testament literature displays such a large usage of the title " son of God," we can see how this appellation could be given to the Messiah and what meaning it had in Jewish minds during the first century of Christianity. The Messiah was the " Son of God " because He was destined to be in a special sense, the King of Israel, the Elect, the representative and lieutenant of God. He is entitled " the Elect " in the Book of 1 Job i. 6; ii. i; xxxviii. 7; Ps. Ixxxix. 7; Ecclus. iv. 11; Wisd. ii. 13; cf. Ps. Ixxiii. 15; Prov. xiv. 26; Gen. vi. 2, 4. 2 Deut. xiv. I, 2; Is. xliii. 6; Wisd. ix. 7, 12, 19, 21; xviii. 4; cf. Is. i. 2; XXX. I, 9; Jerem. iii. 14, 19; Osee ii. i; Exod. iv. 22, 23; Ps. Ixxx. 16, 18; Osee xi. i; Jerem. xxxi. 20. 3 Ps. Ixxxii. 6 ; cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 28 ; Dahnan, op. cit., p. 275 ; 2 Sam. vii. 14; Ps. ii. 7, 11; Ixxxix. 27, 28. 7 98 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Enoch. In Him was to be consummated the glory of the ancient kings of Israel. He it was who should rule the ideal kingdom of the Messianic future, the eternal kingdom of God.^ The title, " Son of God," therefore, answers particularly to the Jewish idea of the Elect of God, as also to the idea of His close and personal relations with God. He was the " Son of God " because He was eminently the Man of God, sharing in a special manner the Spirit of God, and uniquely endowed with His holiness, grandeur, and power. The Book of Enoch thus describes Him: " His look is like that of a man ; but He is full of grace as one of the holy angels. It is He who pos- sesses right, with whom justice dwells, and who re- veals all hidden treasures ; because the Lord of Spirits has chosen Him, and because of His righteousness He ever rules all that exists in sight of the Lord of Spirits. . . . His glory is from eternity to eternity: His power from generation to generation. In Him dwells the Spirit of Wisdom ; the spirit of Him who giveth knowledge ; the spirit of teaching and of power ; the spirit of those who die in justice ; He shall judge secret things, and none shall hold vain discourse be- fore Him for He has been chosen by the Lord of Spirits at His good-pleasure." ^ " The author of the Symbolic Discourses," says Holtzmann, '' has imparted to the figure of the Messiah a transcendent character which exceeds the narrow- ness of earthly conditions ; so that He keeps in touch with all the peculiar features of New Testament Judaism, with its thought and feeling which surpasses the reality." ^ The Messiah, however, was surely something more 1 Hen. xliv. 3, 4; xlix. 2; li. 3, 5,; Hi. 6, 9; liii. 6; Iv. 4; Ixi. 8; Ixii. i; Lk. xxiii. 35 ; Hen. xlvi. i, 2. 2 Hen. xlix. 2, 4; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 503. 3 Holtzmann, H., Lehrb. N. T. TheoL, vol. i, p. 75. "THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 99 than a creature very near to God and especially privi- leged among created beings. The title " Son of God," although itself implying a simple divine sonship of a metaphoric and figurative kind, in some way, when applied to the Messiah, begat the idea of a sonship even more intimate and more real. The text of the Prophet Micheas, for instance, seems suggestive; for it describes the Messiah's origin which is said " to go back to ancient times, to the days of eternity.'* But was He a mere creature only. He who could thus lay claim to an eternal origin? Isaiah, also, was known to have given unusual names to the Messiah. Not only is He called "Admirable, Counsellor, Prince of Peace," but also ■" Mighty God," " Eternal Father," and even '"' Emmanuel," that is, God with us.^ Was there not, finally, a tendency to estabhsh a relation between the Messiah, God's Envoy, and this species of divine hypostasis, of reflection of the Divinity, known as the "Angel of Jaweh," the " Wis- dom,'' or, the "Word of God? The "Angel of Jaweh " frequently mentioned in the Books of Genesis and Exodus, was believed to be a person both distinct from God, whose messenger and ambassador he was, as the word mal'ak implies, and at the same time identical with God whom He represents equivalently and whose name he assumes.^ The Sapiential Books seem to have given to "Wisdom the same character of a divine, quasi-hypostasis. Wis- dom appears as a mysterious intermediary of God in the work of creating the world and of dealing with men. Wisdom is the artisan who performs the creative work. It has been imparted to men by 1 Is. ix. 5; vii. 14; viii. 8, 10. 2 Gen. xxiv. 4; Num. xx. 16; Ex. xxiii. 20; xxxlii. 2, 3; Is. Ixiii. 9; Gen. xxii. 12; xxxi. 11, 12; xxxii. 28; xlviii. 15, 16; Judith vi. 11-23; Ex. xiii. 21; xiv. 19, 2^', Davidson, art.: Angel, H. D., p. 94; Reynolds, art.: John, Gospel of, H. D., p. 704; Piepenbring, Theol. de I'Anc. Test., 1886, p. 128. lOO CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ■ means of human science, and, above all, to Israel by the revelation of the Law. Wisdom existed in God before the origin of the world, sitting beside Him on His throne like a divine ambassador. It is a most pure emanation, an image most perfect, a kind of radiation of the divinity.^ A striking analogy to the Logos, or Divine Reason, mentioned in Greek philosophy is observable in this " Wisdom of God," or '' Hokmah " described by the sacred writers. In the Book of Wisdom the Greek term " logos " is taken as equivalent of " sophia," or, wisdom, and expresses also a divine hypostasis. " Wisdom is represented not only as a special attri- bute of God," says Schiirer, '' but also as a feminine companion whose origin is from God's very being. Side by side with her, " the all-powerful word of God " is also personified in a way closely approaching the divine hypostasis. So that, even here, we find the elements whence Philo could develop his teaching on the Logos viewed as a hypo- stasis which acted as a mediator between God and the world." ^ The term " logos " also means reason, or intelligence, or the mental word of which it is the expression. In fact. Holy Scripture has often taken the Divine Word and the Divine Wisdom to be iden- tical, personifying each in the same way and ascribing to each the same role of mediator between God and creatures. Thus creation is viewed as the work of the Word or Divine Wisdom ; while in Ecclesiaticus, 1 Job xxviii. 20-28 ; Prov. viii. 22 ; Bar. iii. 29-38 ; Ecclus. xxiv. 5-14; Wisd. vii. 25; ix. 4; Drummond, Philo Judaeus, 1888, vol. i, pp. 141, 217; Heinze, Die Lehre von Logos. i'^72, p. 200; Aall, Geschichte der Logosidee, 1896, vol. i, p. 178. ^ Heraclitus of Ephesus, b. 525 B, C. ; Anaxagoras of Cla- somene, b. 5oo B. C. ; Plato, ^ fl. 427-347 B. C. ; Zeno of Citium, fl. 343-270 B. C. ; Wisd. xviii. 15; Schiirer, op. cit., vol, iii, p. 379. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY loi Wisdom is identified with the Word of God.^ The mysterious, divine hypostasis, then, described in Scrip- ture under the two-fold form of Wisdom and the Word of God, is aptly expressed by the term '' logos," which had also the further advantage of being held m high honor by the Greek philosophers and even served to mark the agreement, so eagerly desired by Jewish scholars like Philo, between Revelation and the vaunted Greek philosophy. Hence the unusual favor which the term " logos " enjoyed apparently in the Jewish schools, if not be- fore, at least at the beginning of the Christian era. The Targumists, inheritors of ancient Tradition, used it on each page of their popular paraphrases of the Hebrew text under the Aramaic form " Memra," or, the Word, and even employed it for the Sacred Name of God (Elohim or Jaweh) whenever there was ques- tion of His relations with creatures. God, the creator and Lord of all things ; God, the protector of the patriarchs and leader of Israel is not Jaweh precisely, but the " Word " of Jaweh. It is '' Memra " who guides the people through the desert; who speaks to them from Mount Sinai ; who gives them mastery over Canaan ; who inspires the Prophets and dictates their oracles.^ Thus the three terms, Angel of God, Wisdom of God, and Word of God designate one and the same mysterious being, a kind of divine hypostasis, or God Himself as viewed in relation to His creatures. The author of the Book of Wisdom had already shown the equivalence of these three terms. He practically identifies Wisdom with the Word of God, and then attributes to the Logos, to Wisdom, and to the Word of God the very same role towards Israel as had been 1 Wisd. ix. I, 2; Ps. xxiii. 6; Heb. xi. 3; cf. Ps. cxlviii. 4; Ecclus. xlii. 15 ; Gen. c. i. ; Ecclus. xxiv. 5 ; i. 5. 2 Hackspill, Etudes, Rev. Bib., Jul., 1901 ; Jan., 1902, I02 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL usually given to the *'Angel of the Lord." In Exodus, the "Angel of Jaweh " is described as leading Israel onward by the pillar of cloud. The author of the Book of Wisdom ascribes the same role to " the Wis- dom of God," He also attributes to the " Logos " the extermination of the first-born among the Egyptians. In Exodus, this is assigned to Jaweh Himself, but the analogy with other passages permit us to attribute it again to the "Angel of Jaweh." Thus the latter is called the Angel Guardian of Israel and the Exter- minator of its enemies.^ Philo, therefore, in identifying these three terms with Wisdom, merely interprets the facts of Scripture. At the basis of all his theosophy, he places the doctrine of the Logos, and considers the Logos as being both the divine act of inteUigence as conceiving the idea of the world, that is the hidden Wisdom of God, and the outward term of this divine idea, or the creative Word. But He is also the Supreme Angel known in Scripture as " the Angel of God " par excellence.^ Some critics claim that the Logos as described by Philo has not a clearly defined hypostatic character ; that it is neither a mere abstraction nor a well-defined personality. " The conception wavers confusedly," says Zeller, " between a personal and an impersonal being. And we lose sight of this very feature when we take the Logos of Philo either for a person outside of God or simply for God Himself viewed in the special 1 Ex. X. 17; Wisd. X. 17; Ex. xii. 29; Ps. xxxiv. 8; xxxv. 5, 6; cf. 2 Kings xix. 35. 2 Philo, Leg. Alleg., i. g; De Sacrf. Abel, iii; Legend. Alleg., iii, 60 ; De Conf. Ling., xviii ; De Cher, i-iii ; De Somn. i, 41 ; De Mutat. Nom., xiii ; De Vita Mosis, i, 12 (ed. Mangey, vol. i, pp. 47, 122, 138-140, 165, 427, 591, 656) ; vol. ii, p. 92; Heinze, op. cit., pp. 230, 280-295 ; Drummond, Philo Judaeus, vol. ii, pp. 201-213, 222-273; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 379/555 5 Soulier, La Doct. du Logos, pp. 157-165; Reville, J., Le Logos, i^77> P- 76; La Doct. du Logos, 1881. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 103 relation of His activity." ^ Now, was there not a tend- ency to identify the Angel of God, this Wisdom, this Word of God with the Messiah, the Son of God? The analogy of His role suggested such a conclusion. As the Angel of Jaweh, was not the Messiah to be pre-eminently God's representative among men. His mediator in the work of renewing the world ? Among the names given to Christ by the Prophets we notice that of "Angel of the Great Council,'' and "Angel of the Alliance." ^ Probably as a result of such resemblances, the Book of Enoch represents the Messiah as being " like to one of the Holy Angels." The teaching of the Messianistic Jews concerning the Angels, says Balden- sperger, had likely cleared the way for the ideas found in the writings of SS. Paul and John who both represent the Messiah as a celestial being.^ But does not the Messiah even appear as God's rep- resentative and a personification of His word? The Book of Enoch describes Him as being " clothed with the spirit of wisdom, of knowledge, and of instruc- tion " ; as " possessing righteousness, dwelling with justice, revealing all hidden treasures." In the des- cription of the symbolic vision, we also find the re- markable statement, which plainly alludes to the Messiah: "The first among them (the animals) was the Word." But it seems that the extant Ethiopic text is faulty ; the original Hebrew text probably had re' em, the " wild beast." Perhaps the Greek translator has merely transcribed the Hebrew word into Greek letters, i. e., pvij^ ; while the Ethiopic translator may have taken it for p;7//a, i. e. the " Word," and have written the Ethiopic equivalent, which is nagar. Charles and Flemming both translate it thus : "And the first among them was the wild-horse." * 1 Zeller, Die Philos. de Griechen, 1881, vol. iii, p. 378. 2 Is. ix. 5, after the Septuagint. 3 Enoch xl i. I ; Baldensperger, op. cit. *Hen. xlvi. 3; xlix. 2-4; xc. 38, I04 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Was not this similarity, finally, favored by the fact that writers like Philo ventured to give to the Logos the very name which they had been incHned to re- serve for the Messiah, that is, the " Son of God," and the " First-Born of God?" Referring to Philo, Schmidt remarks that " when he called this Logos ' the perfect Son,' ' the first-born Son of God,' he did not imply that it was an individ- ual, an hypostasis, a person. Yet it was inevitable that the term ' Son of God ' should suggest a mediator between God and the world, a celestial personality more grandly conceived than any other associated with the name, and herein lies much of its historic importance." ^ If such was the popular idea of the Messiah at the beginning of Christianity, we may say that it bore a twofold aspect. He was represented as a man in all things *' like to a son of man." Afterwards, the Jew Trypho says to S. Justin : '* We all expect a Messiah who will be born a man among men " ; and that " this Messiah should suffer is what the Scriptures plainly announce." In the Book of Enoch, the Messiah is called '* son of woman " ; but apparently the people were also inclined to regard Him as being more than a man ; for, owing to the higher part of His being, He somehow appeared as a Divine person.^ Philo, relying upon the Sapiential Books, called the Logos the " Ray of God," visible to men. His image ; the " splendor of His glory " ; the " instrument of Creation," the " source of all life," in this world. He presents Him as an exemplary type of man, especially fitted to represent mankind before God, to serve Him 1 Philo, De Confus. Ling., i, 14, 28 ; De Agr. Noe., xii : De Migr. Abraham, i; Quod Deus immut., vi ; De Profug., xx; De Somn., i, 37] Quis Rer., xxv. 48 (ed. Mangey, vol. i, pp. 277, 308, 414, 427, 437, 490, 505, 562, 653) ; Coloss. i. 15; Jo. i, I, 18; Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., col. 4695. 2 S. Justin, Dial., c. xlix. c. Ixxxix ; Hen. Ixii. 5. THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 105 as '' High Priest " and '' Intercessor." He seems to describe Him as a divine being, doubtless derived from the One God, although not as are creatures, and merit- ing Himself the name of " God," or the " Under- God." Often he calls Him '' odeiogloyoQj' that is, **the Divine Word," and sometimes the *'Vice- gferent of God," or, v-apxoq ; and also **eedf'* in a minor sense. ^ Now, was it not under that particular aspect, — with that mysterious and composite mixture of divine and human elements — that many a Jew pictured the Messiah to himself? S. Justin writes: " When we refer the Jews to the Scripture pas- sages which clearly show that the Messiah was to suffer and be honored, and that He is God, they must admit the Messianic sense of these passages. Still, they dare to pretend that this Jesus is not the Messiah, but that the Messiah is yet to come, to suffer, and to reign; and that He will be a God worthy of adora- tion." 2 Such an idea of the Messiah-God was certainly far from being as general and precise at the dawn of the Christian era as it was afterwards under the influence of the New Revelation. But may we not prudently venture the opinion that it was already germinating in the heart of Judaism during the years preceeding the Saviour's birth? It is hardly credible that the most distinguished minds, versed in the deepest study of the Scripture, and so pious and divinely enlightened, 1 Philo, De Mund. opif., viii; De Confus. Ling., xx; De Profug., xix. 20 ; De Somn., i, 41 ; ii, 6, 139 ; De Mon., xi, 5 ; De Plant., v; De Gigant., xi ; Quis Reriwi., xlii ; De Agric. Noe., xii; Leg. Alleg., Ixxiii ; Qu. and Sol, in Ge. vii. 13 (ed, Mangey, vol. i, pp. 6, 419, 561, 655, 656, 665; vol. ii, p. 225; vol. i, p. 28, 269, 308, 332, 501 ; vol. ii, p. 625) ; Wisd. vii. 25-26; Prov. c. viii; Ecclus. xxiv. 14; Ps. ex.; Ps. iv. ; Wisd. vii. 23, 27-28. 2 S. Justin, Dial.f c. Ixviii. lo6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL could not have then suspected, in the dim Hght of the ancient revelation, the Incarnation of Divine Wis- dom and beheld, in a still mysterious twilight, the Word of God Incarnate in the living Messiah. We should not forget that the extra-canonical documents, which we have employed, present only an imperfect study of the Jewish thought of Christ's time. What they have preserved for us is, before all, the tradition of the Hebrew schools and synagogues; the speculative ventures of the learned, more or less tainted with the leaven of the Pharisees, and the prevailing belief of the multitudes that came under their influence. But, in face of the official teaching, aside from the lower class of Pharisees and illiterate Galileans there were some chosen souls, less enslaved to material interests, more conversant with the Sacred Scriptures and more receptive of God's clear revelations. Writing of Schiirer's work, Lagrange says that he does not mention the good people who remained faith- ful to the Law, without Hving apart from others True, good people have no history ; still, they are a great fac- tor in history. The life of Christ would be unintelligible if the Mosaic Law, despite its flaws, and along with it the admirable prophetic and hagiographic literature, had not been fit to form minds that yearned after a fuller salvation." ^ " There is reason to believe," says Wendt, *'that, besides the Sadducean aristocrats, and the Pharisaic scribes, and the extensive classes of people whom they spiritually influenced, and besides the Essenes who gave up the world, there was at that time another circle among the Jewish people whose hearts were the abode of sincere and tender piety, and of obedience to the duties of justice and love, an elite nourished by a simple and upright searching of the Scriptures." ^ 1 Lagrange, art. : Rev. Bib., Apr., 1899, P- 312. 2 W^ndt, op. cit., 26. ed., 1901, p. 97. CHAPTER II. I. The Childhood of Christ. Historicity of Narratives. — The Messianic hope had thus far leavened the Jewish mind when suddenly there was proclaimed the glad-tidings that, at last, God had fulfilled His promises of olden time: In Bethlehem was born the Messiah, Son of David, Re- deemicr of Israel. It is the two first chapters of the gospels of SS. Matthew and Luke which, in narra- ting the birth of the Son of Mary, disclose to us the dawn-light of the Messianic manifestation illumin- ating His crib. But, some may say: Are these ac- counts reliable? Rationalistic critics usually assign to the " Gospel of the Infancy " a place lower than that occupied by the " Gospel of the Public Life," and this from the view-point of historical value. Like Renan, many who admit the Synoptic gospels as a reliable basis for the life of Jesus, endeavor to discredit the gospel record of His Infancy because they think that it is only a compilation of charming fables and the product of pious fancy. In Loisy's opinion, these narratives are only a statement of the Messianic faith which subsequently prevailed throughout the Christian church after a period of gradual idealization. " These narratives," he says, " represent a normal development of christology. The very nature of their subject, the critical examination of the two versions taken separ- ately or compared, and an analysis of evangelical tra- dition, permit us not to regard them as a definite (107) Io8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL expression of historical memories ; none the less they are put forward as a document of Christian faith, and in this capacity attract the attention of the his- torian. . . The narratives of the childhood of Christ are for the historian only an expression and an as- sertion of faith in the Messiah, that faith which is affirmed at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, and transfigured the memories of the Apostles, which is also affirmed and developed in Paul, and then in the Fourth Gospel. This faith is, as it were, the reply which the generations of believers make, each in turn, to the proposition of the gospel of Jesus ; it increases, yet remains the same, like an echo which, reverberating from mountain to mountain, becomes more sonorous the further it travels from its point of origin." ^ " The charm of these Nativity stories," says O. Holtzmann, " does not depend upon their historical truth, but upon their inner meaning; they express the joy of the divine world at the coming redemption of mankind ; the longing for a Redeemer, the homage paid by the great ones of the earth to a man of poverty who makes them all truly rich ; and God's protection vouchsafed to the Holy One whom the world seeks to destroy. Since all these ideas are true, and remain true, we need not pronounce the Nativity stories un- true, even though they are at the same time histori- cally incorrect." ^ And it is Harnack's impression that " two of the Gospels do, it is true, contain an introductory history (the history of Jesus' birth) ; but we may disregard it; for, even if it contained something more trust- worthy than it does actually contain, it would be as good as useless for our purpose." ^ Without entering into a full discussion of the Ra- 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 48, 49, 50, 2 Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 89. n. i, THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 109 tionalist position at present, it may be shown that, apart from the main objection, based upon an a priori method of argument, which in turn denies all objective supernatural reality and all historic basis in miraculous accounts, no Rationalist writer can, critically speaking, find any real difficulty as regards the truth of the narratives of Christ's childhood; while, an impartial critic will discover in these records positive and in- contestable proofs in favor of their entire historical value. The third gospel, for instance, which records the events of Jesus' infancy, was written by one and the same author, about 50-100 A. D., as the most indepen- dent critics frankly admit. Let us grant that it was written after the fall in Jerusalem in 70: it cannot, says Renan, have been composed much later. So that it is a document belonging to the second, if not to the first generation after the Saviour's death ; and, hence, in this respect it enjoys a special value. ^ The authority of S. Luke's Gospel, moreover, is enhanced by the fact that it represents not only the Christian tradition from the time that it was put in writing, but really reproduces the ancient and primi- tive tradition as found among those living between the time of the Saviour and that of S. Luke. The author, in fact, in a kind of preface wherewith he opens his work and wherein he dedicates it to a dis- ciple named Theophilus, says that many have tried to narrate the Gospel events on the testimony of the Apostles, " according as they have delivered them to us who, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word." And he adds : " It seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all things from the beginning, to write to thee, in order, most ex- cellent Theophilus, that thou mayest know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed." ^ 1 Renan, The Gospels, p. 152; cf. Lepin, Introd., p. xxxi, E. Tr., p. 20. 2 Lk. i. 1-4. 110 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL The author's aim, then, is to complete and confirm what the current catechetical teaching had already taught his disciple about the beginnings of Christian- ity. To attain this result he has been careful to get exact information concerning everything. The work which he presents to his dear Theophilus is only the writing down of well-supported and carefully verified testimonies. The sincerity of S. Luke's statement, such as it is, cannot be suspected, and is certainly strengthened by an examination of the intrinsic features of the work. Critics are unanimously agreed that the Third Gospel actu- ally bears traces of manifold documents, fragments, written memoirs, or oral teachings which helped towards its composition. This very feature is also noticeable in the Acts of the Apostles which all critics accept as the work of the same author.'^ Now, among the documents which were employed in the composition of this Gospel we may note es- pecially the account of the Genealogies of Jesus. The thoroughly Hebraic character observable in the style, in the phrasing, in the terms themselves even under their Greek garb, and in the poesy of the Canticles so strikingly contrasts with the Greek character of the Prologue that S. Luke, in the first two chapters of his Gospel, undoubtedly reproduces or at least largely employs certain accounts which, written in Hebrew or the Aramaic language, came to him through oral or written tradition. Thus, we may observe the constant use of the con- junction "and," (Heb. 'Vav") to unite sentences; the frequent employment of the quite Hebrew figure of speech, "and it came to pass" (Heb. "vayeyi") ; the use of the term " word " to signify '' thing," thus answering to the two-fold sense of the Hebrew " dabar," the Greek being ** pv,^^ci^'' and the Latin 1 Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 73 ; cf. Lepin, Introd. THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST m " verbum " ; and finally the correspondence or paral- lelism of the two members forming each verse of the Canticles in accordance with the rule of Hebrew poetry.^ Resch claims that SS. Matthew and Luke each de- pend for their accounts of the infancy upon the same original written in Hebrew. Dalman does not ac- cept this view but admits a primitive Aramaic basis in the Gospels. While Jiilicher says that the Semitic character of S. Luke's Gospel is mostly due to the presence of Aramaic documents which the Evangelist reproduced very carefully; that, most likely, these abundant traces of the Aramaic idiom come either from the documents used by the writer, or from the influence brought to bear upon his style, in the very instances where he wrote independently, by the docu- ments which he had been habitually consulting.^ What, then, we may ask, is the value of the docu- ments thus utilized? First of all, there is S. Luke's statement that he had been careful to get exact in- formation about all matters " from the beginning." Does this not prove that his data concerning the early history of Jesus were drawn from reliable sources? And, indeed, this must have been an easy task for him. Possibly the chapter in his Gospel referring to the Hidden Life of Christ may not have formed part of the primitive catechetical instructions during Apostolic times such as it can be reconstructed by aid of the Acts and the Epistles, and such as is found preserved in its more simple form in S. Mark's Gospel. For, naturally enough, the at- tention of the early Christians was, from the very beginning, fixed chiefly upon Jesus' redemptive iLk. i. 13, 31-33; ii. 7-10, 25-28, 48-52; i. 5, 23, 41; ii. i, 6, 15, 46; i. Z7, 65; ii. 15, 19, 51; i. 46, 51-52. ^ Resch, Das Kindheits Evang. Nach Luc. u. Math., 1897; Dalman, op. cit., p. 80; Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 235. 112 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL work, His public life, His sorrowful Passion and Resurrection. Still, the memories of the infancy of the Master, to which the legitimate inter- est of the faithful was not tardy in attaching a high value, although they were not originally topics of or- dinary, or perhaps official preaching, must have at least been jealously preserved within the bosom of the Apostolic College and in that inner circle of those who had more or less shared in those primitive events. It would be very strange if S. Luke, after so plainly asserting his endeavor for exactness, had. not taken every means to secure correct information, and this under conditions apt to beget the most assured certitude. It was a delicate matter, indeed, fully im- plying, as it did, his own personal faith and that of his disciple; and it was managed at a time when the au- thorized testimonies were surely not wanting and were easily verifiable. Indeed, these prefatory pages bear upon their face, so to say, the proof that they are a Palestinian docu- ment which goes back to the very beginnings of the Christian religion itself. Thus, a notable feature is the prominence given to the Temple and its religious service. In the Temple is announced the birth of the Precursor; in the Temple there lives for years the holy Prophetess Anna; in the Temple there occurs the Presentation of Jesus; in the Temple His parents afterwards find Him engaged in teaching the very Doctors of the Law. Similarly, the service of the Temple is faithfully portrayed and this with re- markable vividness. From the very first pages we find the daily worship thus described in its minutest details : " Zachary was a Priest of the Course of Abia. . . . And it came to pass when he executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God, accord- ing to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the Temple of the Lord. And the multitude of the people was praying without at THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 113 the hour of incense. ... And the people were wait- ing for Zachary; and they wondered that he tarried so long in the Temple. . . . And it came to pass, after the days of his office were accomplished, he departed to his own house." ^ A description so minute and recognized by his- torians as being exact could have been written only by one who was fully informed about the religious life of Israel; by one who, as an attentive and familiar witness, still living before, perhaps long before, the catastrophe of the year 70, when the very vestiges of the Temple had disappeared, had kept in touch with the liturgic life which, in his recital, appears to us in full intensity and in all its fervor. What, moreover, is also very striking is that very primitive phase of the Messianism which is therein presented : Is it not surprising to find that the Angel, in order to announce the Messianic destiny of Jesus, apparently describes it under the features which marked it in the popular and primitive ideas ? In the Canticle of Zachary, this local coloring, this rather national touch is quite noticeable.^ Loisy ventures the suggestion that this portion of the " Benedictus " may have been originally a common Psalm before it was ascribed " through easily dis- cernible additions " to the important personage Zachary. He also suggests the same theory in re- gard to the *' Magnificat." He, therefore, recog- nizes the decidedly primitive character of these two Canticles. Nor, again, is it very likely that the so- called primitive portion in each of these Canticles is entirely Jewish and pre-Christian. Indeed the primitive character of the Messianic language is just as striking, perhaps even more so, in the words used by the Angel 1 Lk. i. 5, 8-10, 21, 23. 2 Lk. i. 32, ZZ, 68-69, 71, 73-74. 114 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Gabriel in saluting Mary and for which a like theory is impossible. If, then, we admit the Christian origin of these supposedly primitive Psalms, we must assign their composition to the cradle-days of Christianity; while, on the other hand, we are not at all warranted in supposing that the so-called adapted portion belongs to a later epoch.^ We should be of course especially careful not to confound the fundamental idea of the Kingdom of God, with the more or less symbolic colors under which it is presentable. Symbol and figure served as a brilliant vesture, as an alluring veil to clothe the prophetic oracles. It is true, none the less, that the manner in which the Messianic future is de- picted in the accounts of the Infancy is much more like the language current in Christ's time as pre- served in the Gospel and the other New Testament documents than that used in the Christian church after the Ascension and Pentecost. Indeed, a perusal of the discourses of the Apostles as found in the Acts and in S. Paul's Epistles would seem to prove that, for the purpose of portraying the Messiah's destiny, a style of speaking more or less marked by temporal and national features, the inheritance of pre-Christian tradition, was no longer in use after Pentecost. So that, in this respect, the gospel of the Infancy may rightly go back to the very beginnings of Christianity. This inference is further confirmed by the very idea which is given to us of the person of the Son of God. As we shall see, the traits revealed in the first pages are rather the careful and suggestive Synop- tic outhnes of the Saviour's personal manifes- tation than the features so strongly illumined and placed in bold relief by the Church writers during the Apostolic Age. Jesus is presented as the Son of 1 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 289 ; Lk. i. 2)^-Z3> ', Lepin, art.: L'Orig. du Magnificat, I'Univ. Cath., June, 1903, p. 295. THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 115 the Virgin Mary, as conceived by the most pure operation of the Spirit of God, as the holy and blessed Son who shall be called the Son of the Most High. Such expressions, no doubt, answer exactly to the dogma of Christ's heavenly pre-existence and divine Sonship as formulated in the writings of SS. Paul and John. And if it seems strange that neither His pre-existence nor His real divinity are herein formally and explicitly stated, is not this fact also a proof that these narratives belong to that early epoch when, as if providentially, the manifestation of the Messiah, the Son of God, was marked by a kind of devout discretion? It may be noted, moreover, that, apart from the question of origin, these accounts also afford irre- futable guarantees of perfect veracity. Indeed, they present the Messianic Kingdom, as also the Person of the Messiah, the Son of God, in a primitive aspect, and devoid of any additional feature which might be due to the influence of a tradition prevailing in the Church at a later day. Assuredly this fact is very remark- able, and testifies in S. Paul's disciple, who edited this Gospel, as also to those who transmitted the ac- counts which he consulted, a scrupulous care for exact- ness. None but a most conscientious historian could have thus reproduced the documents in their native simplicity without submitting them to the modifica- tions or developments which might easily have been suggested by the ideas so paramount after the death of Christ. The humility of Christ Jesus, moreover, is here also revealed as in the first Gospel. Is not this fact a striking proof of the historical sincerity of these narratives ? The early Church placed Christ upon the summit of humanity and of universal creation ; it por- trayed Him as proceeding from the bosom of God the Father, as descending upon earth to redeem men, as returning to heaven and seated at the right hand Il6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL of God whose power and divinity He shares, and as predestined one day to come back to earth in order to judge the living and the dead. If, then, the Gospel of the Infancy were merely the product of Christian fancy, or of the imagination of theologians, would its inventor have dreamt of describing Christ Jesus as having but a manger for His cradle at His birth, as compelled to flee into Egypt to avoid Herod's anger, and as passing His childhood in humble submis- sion to His parents in the workshop of Nazareth? The unpretentious character of these features, as also the extremely sane and exquisite style which so elo- quently contrasts them with the phenomena of the Apocryphal Gospels, is an unanswerable guarantee of their sincerity and veracity. The very differences between the accounts in S. Matthew and S. Luke are, to tell the truth, not easily reconcilable because of the little available knowledge about this very epoch ; but even such variations indicate the historical value of these accounts. Moreover, they afford a positive argument for the historical character of the basis of information underlying the parallel narratives. Indeed, S. Luke's remark that '' Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart," has led many eminent Catholic and Protestant scholars to infer that the Gospel of the Infancy may depend partly, if not wholly, upon the reminiscences of the Blessed Virgin herself. Godet, for instance, is convinced that the oftener we read and re-re'ad S. Luke c. ii, v. 19, the more read- ily we will conclude that the first and real author of this narrative can only be Mary. . . . Expressed in the Aramaic language, Mary's recollections were secured by S. Luke both in oral and written form. Gifted with an exquisite discernment which enabled him to appreciate such gems, he gave to them a THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 117 Greek setting which still preserved all the brilliance of their pristine lustre.^ However disconcerting, therefore, to the Rational- ist critic the Gospel of the Infancy may be, because of its miraculous accounts, an impartial student must deem it worthy of notice and utmost confidence. These records are certainly not mythical or legendary : they trace the facts to their very origin and relate them with the utmost sincerity and truthfulness. The Nativity. — The dawn of the revelation, therefore, is perceptible in the Gospel account of the occurrences at the crib of Jesus. From the heights of heaven comes the first news of His approaching ad- vent. To Zachary, the venerable Priest of the Temple, the Angel Gabriel announces that he shall have a son who shall be called John, thus betokening the near fulfilment of God's mercies, and who shall be called the herald of the Lord. The importance of this message from on high is fully realized by Zachary; for, in the Canticle Benedictus, he blesses God for fulfilling, at last, his former promises : He wel- comes the new-born son because God has predestined him to prepare the way for the Messiah. The people themselves share somewhat in this first Messianic announcement. The marvelous happen- ings that brought it about, the sudden dumbness of the aged priest who was detained in the Sanctuary, the unusual birth of his son, the surprising agreement of Zachary and Elizabeth upon the name John, the miraculous recovery of his father, — all this seemed to clearly indicate the near fulfilment of some great event. People expected that a wondrous destiny, a divine mission awaited this child of miracle, and they 1 Lk. ii. 19, 51 ; Godet, Com. sur I'Evang. de S. Luc, 3rd ed., 1885, pp. 185, 224,- Zahn, Einleit. in das N. T., 1898, vol. ii; Plummer. Commentary on the Gospel According to S. Luke, 3rd ed., 1900, p. 7; Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? pp. 87, 88; Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. D., pp. 643, 644. Il8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL went abroad exclaiming : " What an one, think ye, shall this child be ?" The Messiah is indeed to be born of a virgin at Nazareth, and it is the same Angel Gabriel who an- nounces this fact to Mary. The son whom she shall conceive " shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of David His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever." Yes, it is He, — the long-expected Messiah. So too, in the " Magni- ficat," the Blessed Virgin thanks the Lord for the fulfilment of His promises and for His choice of her as the instrument of His mercies unto Israel. Joseph, also, plays a part in this Messianic manifestation. An angel reveals to him the Blessed Fruit of the Virgin as the Saviour who would redeem the people from their sins. An angel too, reveals Jesus to the Shep- herds at Bethlehem as " Saviour and Messiah of God." The celestial choirs celebrate the new Messianic reign as especially destined to assure glory to God and peace to men of good-will; and the Shepherds pro- claimed the news of these marvels far and wide. And Simeon, a venerable and holy man of Jerusalem, who, after waiting long for '' the Consolation of Israel," feels himself drawn to the Temple by the Holy Spirit so that, before dying, he may behold " the Christ of the Lord." Taking Jesus in his arms, he salutes the Child as '' the Salvation of God," the " glory of thy people Israel," and '' a light which is to enlighten all nations." Anna, the aged prophetess, also shares in this revelation and speaks of Jesus the Messiah '' to all that looked for the redemption of Jerusalem." And, finally, the Magi, or Wise Men, whom a mysterious star had led onward from the East come to seek Him that was born " King of the Jews." Nor do Herod or the Scribes mistake the identity of this strange personage, and the news that the Messiah would be born in the City of David disturbs all Jerusalem. THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST ng Still, it is the design of Providence to cast, so to speak, a cloud upon so great a light : it is not its pur- pose that Christ Jesus should be manifested suddenly and forcibly imposed upon the people. No ; this divine work is to allow full play to human liberty. There shall be enough light for the enlightenment of men of good-will, and not over-much, that the wicked should not be dazzled and compelled, as it were, to believe in Christ. So that, John the Precursor, after the mighty mar- vels wrought at his cradle, passes his infant days in shadow and his youth in the deserts. And Jesus, also, after such astounding events, goes as an exile into distant Egy-pt, while, on His return to Nazareth, He dwells there in solitude, humbly submissive to His parents in the exercise of a lowly trade. No more striking manifestations, no more extraordin- ary events, so that the commotion, caused by the marvelous happenings which accompanied Christ's birth, gradually dies out and leaves only the im- pression of a long vanished dream. Neverthe- less, the first stir is felt, attention is aroused; and when, thirty years later, John the Baptist and Jesus shall begin their ministry, they shall find many well-disposed hearts. And we learn, moreover, from the same Gospel of the Infancy, that when Jesus was twelve years old, He manifests Himself personally for the first time in the Temple, astounding the Doctors of the Law by His questions and answers, so that those present could have also exclaimed " What think ye this child will be?" And, finally, this Gospel also tells us that the Child of Nazareth grew in stature, in wisdom, and in grace before God and men, thus sug- gesting that He would be a great personage. Popular Views. — Under what aspect, however, did God reveal His Christ? What idea did the vari- ous persons who witnessed these earlier manifestations possess of Jesus the Messiah and Son of God? Jesus, I20 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Messiah or Anointed of God, was to be chiefly the " Saviour " and " Reparator," as is indicated by the name which He received from heaven; for, Jesus, or leshoua, means Saviour, and hence the Angel said to Joseph : '' Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." Zachary fully understood this ; for he blessed God for having " visited " His people and " wrought its redemption " after having " raised up " in the House of David *' the mighty Saviour " who should " deliver Israel from all its enemies." And Simeon, who was awaiting the '' Consolation of Israel," thanked God for having, before his death, beheld the divine '' Saviour." So too, the prophetess Anna and all who, along with her, looked for the " Redemption of Jerusalem." Jesus Christ, the Saviour, was also to be " King," the inheritor of the throne of David who should reign over Israel. It was thus understood by the Magi and by the people of Jerusalem : " Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" Such was the query of the Wise Men. And Herod commanded the Scribes to tell him where " the Christ should be born." While the Angel Gabriel said to Mary : " The Lord shall give unto Him the throne of David His Father. And He shall reign in the House of Jacob forever : And of His Kingdom there shall be no end." Jesus, moreover, was to be King and Saviour, not merely in the temporal and material order and for the benefit of the Jewish people alone, as they fondly hoped, but, in a spiritual and religious sense, for the sake of all men. This is the special feature that marks the religious and moral character of the mission entrusted to His Precursor. The mission of John, as the very words of the Angel show, was " to convert many of the children of Israel unto the Lord their God," and ''to prepare unto the Lord a perfect peo- ple." Zachary also proclaims him as the Precursor of the Lord and the Preparer of His ways, who should THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 121 " give the knowledge of salvation to His people unto the remission of sins." The spiritual character of the reign of the Messiah, was also to be in accord with the spiritual aspect of the Precursor's mission. It is to the Messiah that Zachary refers when he says : " The Orient from on high hath visited us : to enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death : to direct our feet in the way of peace." He comes to bring calm and peace in order that " we may serve Him without fear: In hoHness and justice all our days." To Joseph the Angel reveals His virginal conception and also shows him that the very name Jesus implies sal- vation of a wholly spiritual kind. The deliverance which He shall bring to His people is " deliverance from their sins," And Simeon completes these pre- vious declarations : he presents Jesus as the Saviour and Enlightener; but he insists upon the universal character of this salvation and illumination. He ex- claims : " My eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples : A light to the revelation of the Gentiles." And he further announces that this King, this Saviour shall be " a sign which shall be contradicted," and that a " sword shall pierce " His mother's soul in order that " out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed." Undoubtedly, the spiritual and religious character of Christ's mission is not yet very explicitly defined ; it appears at times only discreetly upon the material texture that enveloped the traditional conceptions of the Messianic Kingdom, and, as we have seen, this very fact is a good guarantee of the primitive nature of these recitals. Still, the spirituality of Christ's mission is announced clearly enough in order that souls of a less earthly and less carnal temperament might not mistake it and that they might be better disposed to accept a Messiah who was deprived of that grandeur, power, and temporal royalty which the popular imagination had pictured to itself. 122 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Do we, then, find in the Gospel of the Infancy the idea that Christ Jesus possessed a super-human and divine character? First of all, He appears to us quite plainly and clearly as man and subject to all the conditions of humanity. He is conceived within the womb of Mary where He dwells for the space of nine months. After His birth, He seems to pass through all the various stages of childhood, to grow, to in- crease in size, to develop physically, mentally, and in character as do others. We may rightly say with S. Paul : '' He is born of woman : He hath been fully subject to the law." Still, if Jesus is really man, He is so in an incom- parably higher sense than are other men. He stands on a plane apart, in a special condition which sets Him far above mere humanity. Whoever is the greatest in dignity or the mightiest in power, even such a one He surpasses in some sense infinitely. John the Baptist is but the prophet and the precursor of the Lord: whilst Jesus is called "His Son." Said the Angel to Mary : " He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High. The Holy which shall be born of Thee shall be called the Son of God." And Jesus Himself thus spoke to His mother when He was twelve years old : " Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" thus proclaiming Himself the Son of Him who dwelleth in the heavens. What, then, we may ask, is the nature of this divine Sonship thus affirmed by Jesus ? The title " Son of God," as we have remarked, has a wide meaning in the Hebrew language : it may extend to every special relation that implies dependence, union, and love with regard to God. When it is applied to the Saviour in particular, it may simply indicate that Jesus is the privileged Elect of God, the future King of Israel, the Messiah. Here, however, its meaning is more precise and more firmly based upon reality. THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 123 Jesus, therefore, is not only the Son of God by election and by a somewhat extrinsic choice, but He is such through His virginal birth, and in His very na- ture. Conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the operation of the Holy Spirit, He is indeed the Son of God as well as the Son of Mary. As the Angel exclaims to the Virgin : " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall over- shadow thee. And, therefore, also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." It has been claimed by some critics that the idea of the virginal birth of Christ and of His divine Son- ship, which is thereby implied, was formulated among the Christians converted from paganism, who were used to ascribe a superhuman origin to men of renown. But this theory is contradicted by all the internal testimony which we have seen con- cerning the origin of the document as well as by the very primitive and truthful character which is im- parted to the physiognomy of Christ.^ It is also asserted that the account of Christ's con- ception by the power of the Holy Ghost is only a transposition and an anticipation at the first instant of His earthly existence of that descent of the Spirit which occurred at His baptism.^ Loisy, who# apparently favors this opinion and not the former, remarks : " The idea of the Virginal Con- ception by the operation of the Holy Ghost is not merely, as is readily admitted, a physical explanation of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, but also a religious ex- 1 Hillmann, art. : Die Kindheitsgeschichte Nach Luc. : Jahrb. fur Prot. TheoL, 1891, p. 231 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrh. N. T. Theol., vol. i, p. 414; Usener, H., Religiongeschichte Untcr- suchungen, 18S9, p. 69; art.: Nativity, E. B., col. 3350; Schmiedel, art. : Mary, E. B., col. 2963 ; Rose, op. cit., pp. 41-85. 2 Usener, art.: Nativity, E. B., col, 3349; Schmiedel, art.: Mary, E. B., col. 2964. 124 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL planation, like that attached to the idea of the Messiah, and a metaphysical explanation, like that which belongs to the idea of the Incarnation; it is of the nature of both; because if the Virginal Conception in a sense demonstrates the Fatherhood of God, the operation of the Holy Ghost has not for its immedi- ate end the miraculous formation of a purely human being, but rather the communication of divine life, which makes Jesus, from the earliest moment of His existence, the elect of God, the Christ anointed by the Spirit, the only Son of the Heavenly Father ; and thus is anticipated the consecration of the Messiah which the most ancient versions of the Synoptic Gospels re- ferred to the Baptism." ^ But even this theory is baseless. The event of the baptism in no wise affects that of the nativity. The Holy Ghost may have, first of all, intervened secretly in the Saviour's conception and then, on the day of His baptism, may have solemnly invested and officially consecrated Him for His mission. The stamp of unique grandeur which we must recognize in the his- toric Christ agrees admirably with the fact that His humanity possessed a unique origin. In Harnack's opinion, S. Luke borrowed from S. Matthew the idea of the virginal conception, and, after making some additions and corrections, intro- duced it into a primitive account in which it was lacking.^ Schmiedel ventures a hypothesis which seemingly denies the primitive character of these verses of S. Matthew on the supernatural conception.^ Both theories are due to a very arbitrary and hazardous criticism of the texts and at the same time 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 49 ; Chronique biblique in Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 290 sq. 2 Harnack, art.: Zu Luc, i, 34 et seq.; Zeit. fur N. T. Wis- senschaft, 1901, pp. 53-57. 3 Schmiedel, art. : Mary, E. B., col. 2959. THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 125 contradict the most ancient and reliable testimony of tradition. It is, therefore, as man, first of all, that Jesus is the Son of God, inasmuch as His human nature was di- rectly engendered by God. Naught, however, indi- cates that His divine sonship is confined thereto, or that He is not the Son of God even apart from His human nature, as sharing in some way, in virtue of the higher part of His being, in the nature of God. And more than one text of the Gospel of the Infancy tends to establish a sort of identity between Jesus and the divinity. Thus the Angel, when announcing to Mary the vir- ginal conception, evidently borrows the terms of the famous prophecy of Isaias wherein the ''Almah," that is, the Virgin, gives to the world a son called Em- manuel, or God-with-us. And S. Matthew states plainly that it is the virginal conception of Jesus which fully realizes that ancient prophecy. Of course, strictly speaking, the name Emmanuel which is given to the Saviour by the prophet might be taken in a figurative and symbolical sense. That is to say, Jesus Himself would be a sign that the " favor of God" is with us; since, being a gift of His mercy. He would be, as it were, a manifestation of His good- ness towards us, a kind of visible incarnation of God in our midst. It is none the less true that the Evan- gelist's simple expression, " God-with-us," wonder- fully agrees with the Saviour's real divinity and sug- gests this doctrine. It is also noteworthy that, in many instances, Christ Jesus is implicitly identified with the Lord God, or, Jehovah-Elohim. It is particularly so in the words with which the Angel Gabriel addresses Zachary con- cerning the future destiny of his son John, whom the Angel represents as a precursor to " the Lord God," and commissioned to prepare " unto the Lord " a per- fect people. Zachary, in turn, foretells that his son shall 126 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL "go before the face of the Lord in order to prepare His ways." Now, the whole course of the narrative shows that John was to be, in reaUty, the forerunner of " Jesus," and prepare the way for " Jesus." Such language might simply imply that the Saviour would be the representative of God; that is, John, in prepar- ing the way for Jesus, might also be said to prepare the way for God Himself, precisely because Jesus is the representative of God and the instrument for the fulfilment of God's work. And yet it remains true that the expression used also suggests a real identity between Jesus and God. Again, in the closing words of the '' Benedictus," which seem to refer at once to the Lord God of Israel and to Jesus the Messiah, we can perceive an insinua- tion of the doctrine of the heavenly pre-existence and Incarnation of the Eternal Word : " Through the depths of the mercy of our God in which the Orient from on high hath visited us. To enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; to direct our feet into the way of peace." Let us say it again, this revelation of the divinity of Jesus Christ is not absolutely explicit. It did not enter into God's plan to begin by unveiling openly and publishing unreservedly so astounding a mystery : this prefatory revelation was to prepare the way for the more complete disclosures that followed later, and, such as it was, it surely sufficed for chosen souls like Mary and Joseph, Ehzabeth and Zachary, Simeon and Anna. And yet it is true that, even in the case of these privileged ones, God apparently maintained an admir- able reserve in manifesting this divine mystery. Thus, in Jesus' intimate dealings with His parents there is noticeable an exquisite delicacy. We see, from vari- ous details, that the Saviour lived at Nazareth as an ordinary child; that Mary and Joseph, who were surely aware of the Divine Treasure placed in their THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 127 keeping, nevertheless piously awaited, to determine their attitude towards the Infant God, the times set by Providence. So too, Mary does not feel warranted in revealing to Joseph the secret of the conception, but leaves it wholly in God's hands; for she remains in silent adoration amidst the wonders accompanying the birth of her divine Son. She tenderly treasures the memory of these marvels ; she remembers what the Shepherds tell ; she ad- mires what Simeon and Anna announce concern- ing the destiny of the Messiah; she adores God upon hearing Jesus declare that He must be con- cerned with His Father's affairs, even though, perhaps, she may not fully understand His meaning; she watches for the times appointed by heaven, she bark- ens to them, she awaits them peacefully, her heart ever open to the faintest lights from God. Among the guarantees for the truth of these ac- counts, not the least persuasive is the fact that such reserve is maintained in the manifestation of Christ the Son of God, even as regards those very ones whom heaven had more grandly favored with its kindly light. CHAPTER III. The Messianic Ministry, i. messiahship asserted. The testimony of the Gospel of the Infancy to the Messianic manifestation at the crib of Jesus is firmly rejected by Rationalists Indeed, if they were to ad- mit it, they would also have to accept the truth of Christ's Messiahship, thus attested and sanctioned by heaven; but such recognition is impossible for those who, a priori, refuse to believe in any divine interven- tion in the world and who exclude the fact of the supernatural from history. Nor need we fear to repeat it : the greatest opposition to our Gospel ac- counts comes from the adherents of this one-sided a priori method of reasoning. While, on the other hand, as we shall see, every unbiased mind that takes the solid ground of historic exegetical criticism as a basis, will readily infer that the origin and contents of these Gospels are such as to guarantee their exact- ness, sincerity and truth, and thus to make them credible. There is also, however, a problem still more formidable to Rationalistic criticism which, in fact, finds it impossible to solve it by similar a priori de- nials, — namely, that concerning the Saviour's own de- clarations about His Messianic character. How can we, humanly speaking, explain in One such as Jesus, this assurance of being the Messiah ? Here, truly, lies the stumbling-block to infidel criticism. The problem of the origin of Jesus' Messianic con- sciousness, be it noted, is so disconcerting to Rational- ists that their first endeavor was to do away with it by (128) THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 129 discarding that Messianic consciousness itself, that is, by denying the historical value of those declarations ascribed by the Evangelists to the Saviour when He alluded to His Messiahship. Such a radical solution was, of course, quite natural at the time when Strauss found in the Gospels only the statements of beliefs prevailing in the Church long after Jesus' death, or when Baur denied that the Gospels were composed before the second half of the second century of the Christian era. It was then the fashion to attribute to the pious fancies of popular imagination the claims made by Jesus to the Messiahship and also His miracles in proof thereof. But since the middle of the nineteenth century what a leap has not criticism taken! Nowadays, as we have seen, critics unanim- ously recognize that the first three Gospels, called the Synoptics, originated in the second half of the first century; nay more, that most of the facts which they contain represent the testimony of the Saviour's own contemporaries, the eye-witnesses of His deeds and the hearers of His discourses.^ Wellhausen and Wrede.— It is clear, then, that, under such conditions, we can hardly attribute to an unconscious idealization, later influenced by legend, the Messianic declarations which the Evangelists place in the Saviour's mouth. We now rarely meet with those who, like Wellhausen, think that the faith in Jesus' Messiahship was born of the faith in His resurrection, and that the Messianic statements which the Evan- geHsts ascribe to Him as His own are really due to later tradition. Thus, Wellhausen claims that, al- though Jesus allowed Himself to be called the Messiah and to be condemned as the Messiah, still He himself did not claim to be such: He was neither aware of being the Messiah expected at the world's end, nor did He ever speak of His Messianic return at the end 1 Lepin, Introd., p. xxx, E. tr., p. 20 sq. 9 130 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL of time. And Schmidt, who believes he has proven that Jesus had never used the term ' Son of Man/ as a messianic title, thence infers that " the opinion that Jesus regarded Himself as the Messiah loses its strongest support." A conclusion which he tries to ground upon a very radical interpretation of the chief texts adduced in behalf of the Saviour's Messianic consciousness.^ The apparent reasons urged by the supporters of this theory have been thus stated by Loisy : " The preoccupation of the narrators to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, immediately rouses the critic to see if the point of view of the evangelists conforms to the facts. In many details an interest, either apolo- getic or simply didactic, has influenced the narration of discourses and occurrences ; but this natural ten- dency would not fall under suspicion were it not that the attitude which the narratives attribute to the Saviour seems at first sight inexplicable. Jesus did not, in the course of His preaching, announce Himself as the Messiah; He silenced those possessed of devils who hailed Him as the Son of God; further, the populace never imagined Him to have this mission; they made Him the subject of most extravagant hypotheses with- out suspecting the truth. The disciples alone held Him for the Christ and finally declared their faith through the mouth of Simon; but the Master for- bade them to speak of it to others, so that we must look to the end of His career, almost to His last day, to find the public avowal of His dignity. It is true that, after the Confession of Simon Peter, Jesus is said to have discoursed to His disciples several times as to the fate that awaited the Messiah; but as the general scope of His discourses is founded on ac- complished facts and influenced by early Christian 1 Wellhausen, Israel, und lud. Geschichte, 1894, 3rd ed., 1897; Das Evangelium Marci, 1903; Schmidt, art.: Son of Man, E. B., col. 4739, par. 46. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 131 preaching, and as they contain no sentence definitely reported as the saying of the Lord, such an assertion rather comphcates the difficulty than throws light on it. May it not be that all that concerns Jesus as the Messiah belongs to tradition, and that the reserve of the Saviour, as narrated, was really an absolute silence, much easier to imagine than the equivocal situation described by the evangelists ? " ^ It is this theory that Wrede recently advanced in emphasizing the idea of the Messianic Secret. This German critic claims that there is a sort of perpetual contradiction between Jesus' revelations of His Mes- siahship during the course of His ministry and His en- deavors to put aside from Himself the thought of the Messiah, or the disciples' lack of understanding with regard to His declarations. To Wrede, however, it is all clear enough, if we admit the posthumous character of the Saviour's Messiahship. " During His earthly life, it is held, Jesus never pretended to be the Messiah. After His death. His disciples, being assured of His resurrection, — howsoever they had become convinced thereof, — were persuaded that it was by this very fact that He had become the Christ. Since then He was the Messiah after His resurrection, they thought that during His life. He must have been a Messiah in expectancy, hidden and unknown. Thus arose that mingling of light and darkness, of publicity and re- serve with which later tradition finally represented the manifestation of Jesus as the Christ. Our Gospels, it is claimed, reflect, not the historical truth, but the faith of the Church on this matter. The idea of a Messianic Secret, especially prominent in S. Mark's Gospel, is merely a means to hide a fact so embar- rassing to the Apologists of the early Church, namely, that Jesus Himself, neither in public nor when alone with His disciples, asserted His Messiahship. - ^ Mk. viii. 28; Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 99-100. 2 Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evang., 1901 ; Bous- set, art. : In Theol. Rundschau, Aug., 1902. 132 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL However plausible this extreme theory may appear, still it is recognized by the entire school of infidel critics as untenable. In fact, apart from its disagree- ment with the Gospel's data, it goes against all that we certainly know about the faith of the primitive Church in Jesus' Messiahship. We may safely say that the beliefs of the early Church are known today as they were never known be- fore, and that we possess the most reliable informa- tion about them. Thus, apart from the Gospels, which portray the faith, if not of the first, at least of the second generation of Christians, we may refer to the Acts of the Apostles edited by S. Luke, through the aid of authorized previous documents, about 80 A. D. at the latest, and certainly before 70 A. D. at the earliest. We have also S. Paul's great Epistles, now- adays universally, accepted by critics, and presenting such a vivid idea of the opinions current during the twenty or thirty years that elapsed after the Saviour's death. And if there is one thing that these various documents bear witness to, it is the profound faith of the early Church in Jesus' Messiahship. If, then, we discard the Gospel record of Christ's own declarations about His Messiahship and the proofs that He gave in its behalf, the undoubtable faith of His disciples there- in becomes inexpHcable.^ We may ask how it was that the Apostles, the re- cent witnesses of their Master's ignominious death and so deeply saddened by the violence of the Jewish authorities and the distressing events of the Passion, 1 Lepin, Introd., p. xxxi, n. i, E. tr,, p. 21 ; Schmiedel, art. : Acts of the Apostles, E. B., col. 49 (160-130 A. D.) ; Julicher, up. cit. (100-105 A. D,), p. 425; Harnack, Die Chron., p. 250 (78-93 A. D.) ; Weiss, B., Lehrh. der Einleit, N. T. (80 A. D.) ; Zahn, Einleit, N. T., vol. ii (75 A. D.) ; Headlam, art: Acts of the Apostles, H. D., p. 29 (70 A. D.) ; Blass, Acta Apostolorum (64-70 A. D.) ; Rackam, The Acts of the Apostles (64 A. D.) ; Knabenbauer, Com. in Actus Aposto- lorum (62 or 6s A. D.). THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 133 could have suddenly got the idea that their suffering Master was the Messiah of God? How could this personal belief become so powerful, so assured, as to transform their very souls in a way unexampled in history, as to impel them to go into all nations, despite all kinds of privations and sufferings, despite death itself, in order to preach Christ crucified? " Where can we find in the history of mankind," says Harnack, " any similar instance of men eating and drinking with their master, seeing Him in the characteristic aspects of His humanity, and then pro- claiming him not only as the great prophet and re- vealer of God, but as the divine disposer of history, as the ' first born ' of God's creation and as the inner strength of a new hfe?" ^ Wonderful, indeed ! A belief to which such dis- tressing facts seemed to give the lie, yet so ardent and assured of its ground that it expresses itself in an un- exampled heroism, can only be due to the Saviour's at- titude during His earthly life ; that is to say, its basis lies in His own declarations about His Messiahship and in the invincible proofs that He gave in its sup- port. It is useless to seek to explain the disciples' Messianic faith by the mere fact of their belief in the Resurrection without supposing that it had a previous basis. How could they pass at once from the idea of Jesus' Resurrection to that of His Messiahship and Messianic advent at the end of time? Even from the Rationalist view-point, would their belief in His Re- surrection be explicable without their previous per- suasion that Jesus was not to fall a prey to death? And this very persuasion, how can we explain it, if we do not admit that Jesus had previously made de- clarations significant enough to impress upon the hearts of His disciples such a deep conviction, so soon after the terrible tragedy of Calvary? But if we 1 Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 167. 134 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL must admit that Jesus positively declared His future Resurrection, as also the entire collection of extra- ordinary facts destined to corroborate His testimony, why can we not also admit that He gave similar state- ments and proofs of His Messiahship ? At all events, the most uncompromising critics cannot refuse to ad- mit that the Gospels are substantially historic; and it is this historic foundation, which they must accept, — it is positively recognized by even Wellhausen and Wrede, — which sufficiently and incontestably proves that Jesus really proclaimed His Messiahship. The most ancient and trustworthy tradition, affirms J. Weiss, shows that Jesus considered as entirely Mes- sianic the movement which He had promoted and that He believed Himself the Elect of God and more than a prophet.^ '' To say nothing of anything else," remarks Har- nack, " such a story as that of Christ's entry into Jerusalem would have to be simply expunged, if the theory is to be maintained that He did not consider Himself the promised Messiah and also desire to be accepted as such." ^ And Stevens, by way of answer to Schmidt, says that " assuming that Jesus called Himself barnasha, and that this term means only ' man,' and is not a Messianic title, it would by no means follow -that He was not, and did not claim to be, the Messiah. One finds the Messianic idea connected with Jesus every- where throughout our Gospels. He is baptized, tempted, rides triumphantly into Jerusalem, suffers, dies and rises as the Messiah. It is necessary to dis- prove, not merely the Messianic import of the Aramean counterpart of the ' Son of Man,' but the whole Gospel picture of Jesus, if His consciousness of being the Messiah is to be disproved." ^ ^Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesu, 2d ed., 1900, p. 64. 2 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 140- 141. 3 Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 90. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 135 A propos of Wrede's work, The Messianic Secret in the Gospels, Loisy observes : " If there is one estab- lished fact in the Gospel tradition, it is that Jesus was condemned to death as ' King of the Jews,' as the Messiah. It would be arbitrary to hold that He had given no room for the charge, and had not avowed this role before Caiphas, nor Pilate. Jesus, then, would so act in Jerusalem that, along with the infor- mation given by Judas, He could be accused of Mes- sianic pretensions. But, if, whilst in the Holy City, His attitude argued such pretensions, He must have repaired to Jerusalem for the very purpose of doing there what He actually did: He believed Himself the Messiah ; and Peter's confession, the disciples' recogni- tion of Him as the Messiah, is probably historical. Nor is there any reason to question the fact that Jesus be- lieved Himself the Messiah when He first began to preach the gospel; on the contrary. His conviction of His vocation explains His attitude in announcing the Kingdom of Heaven." But, if Loisy does not favor the views of Wrede and Wellhausen in their total and radical expression, he still partly accepts them under a modified form. " The main outlines of Mark's ac- count," he says, " are to be held as historical. But, as for the particular facts alleged by Wrede, there is room to distinguish between the different sections and the different strata of the editing. . . . The prophecies of the passion and of the resurrection, which are not given in Jesus' words, are based upon the Apostolic catechesis; what is said of the lack of understanding on the apostles' part may mean almost what Wrede implies, namely, that, only after the resurrection did they grasp certain things which, indeed, they could not have even suspected previously. . . . There may have been also some systematic purpose in presenting the testimony which the possessed persons are thought to have constantly given of Jesus." ^ 1 Loisy, art. : Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 296. 136 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Loisy also elsewhere says : " Jesus did really make Himself known to His disciples as the Messiah, and the general tendency of His doctrine as to the King- dom of Heaven implied the part that was His by right in the coming reign of God. . . . Jesus suffered on the cross because He avowed Himself, and believed Him- self to be, the Messiah. . . . Tradition must follow its natural tendency, and was soon to discover, in the min- istry of Jesus, characteristic features and indubitable proofs of His Messianic dignity. The glory of the risen Lord threw new light on the memories of His earthly career : Thence arose a kind of idealization of His discourses and His acts, and a tendency to sys- tematize them. . . . Thus everything assumes, as it were, a relation to the Messiah, and all contributes to prove that Jesus was the Christ. Nevertheless, all these arguments are not the simple expression of in- creasing faith. They are, for the most part, an inter- pretation of actual facts and occurrences, which as- sume a new aspect in the full glory of the Messiah, as though they now adapted themselves to the condition of the Eternal Christ." ^ These views of Loisy refer particularly to certain episodes of a most extraordinary supernatural char- acter, such as the acclamations of the demons through the mouths of the possessed persons, the heavenly manifestation at the Baptism, the temptation in the desert, the multiplication of loaves, the transfiguration, ;and the like. This is nearly the same point of view that we meet with in the works of Harnack and Stapfer. As for the " Messianic Secret," however, upon which Wrede outlined most of his theory, Loisy gives an interpretation which we will discuss later. Like J. Weiss, he explains it by the fact that Jesus did not think of attaining to the Messiahship until the end of time.^ 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 38, 39, 40, 119. 2 Weiss, J., Das A I teste Evang. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 137 It would be useless to stop to discuss a hypothesis which, historically speaking, is so inconvenient as to render not only obscure, but absolutely unintelligible, the birth and death of Jesus as also the origin of Chris- tianity itself. So that, we will survey the Synoptic Gospels and, from their testimony, we will endeavor to determine the various phases which marked the Saviour's Messianic manifestation. Christ's Baptism and Temptation. — One of the prominent facts in the Synoptic account is that, from the beginning of His public life, Jesus was aware of be- ing the Messiah. This much is clear from the different occurrences that signalized the inauguration of His ministry. He is, first of all, the Messiah, the agent of the Final Judgment and chief of the Kingdom whose near approach John the Baptist announces in cautious terms. To the crowd that asks Him if he was not the Christ, He rephes : " No." But he also says : " The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And again : *' There Cometh after me one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I have baptized you with water; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost." And further : " Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His floor and gather His wheat into the barn ; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire." ^ The Baptist's declaration certainly refers to Jesus and proclaims Him, in equivalent terms, to be the ex- pected Messiah. It is a prelude to the miraculous manifestations which occurred at the Saviour's bap- tism and which have even a greater Messianic bearing. The descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus is, in a way. His investiture and public consecration as the Christ of God. The voice of the Heavenly Father proclaims Him as His beloved Son, and thus officially declares Him the Elect and Messiah of the Lord. But 1 Lk. iii. 18 ; Mt. iii. 2 ; Mk. i. 7, 8 ; Mt. iii. 12 ; Lk. iii. 16. 138 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL is Jesiis really the Son of God in a transcendent sense, that is, in virtue of a superior and superhuman part of His being? This point we will determine later. If, however, the divine filiation, here declared, pertains to Him even in His human nature, because of the special election or particular adoption of which this humanity- was the object on God's part, assuredly there can be no question only of a Messianic election or adoption. The term " Son of God," which the Gospels invariably apply to the Saviour, is at least equivalent to the term " Messiah," the full sense of which it contains, if, in- deed, it does not imply something more. If, moreover, we compare the various Gospel texts, we will clearly see the directly Messianic sense of the manifestation at the Baptism. Thus, while in the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus implies that His investi- ture by the Holy Spirit is immediately connected with His anointing and mission as the Messiah. So too, S. Matthew applies to Him that saying of Isaiah which proclaims Him as the object of the complacency of the Most High in virtue of His election for the Mes- sianic work. And later, S. Peter indicates more pre- cisely the Messianic sense of this text in his appeal to the centurion Cornelius. Undoubtedly, then, it is Jesus' anointing as the Messiah that is signified by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him, and it is un- doubtedly in His character of Messiah, the privileged Elect of God, that the Heavenly Father proclaims Him as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. ^ From the banks of the Jordan Jesus is led by the Spirit of God into the desert. He is there assailed by temptations which, though inspired by Satan, are still in direct relationship with His Messianic dignity. Satan surmises that Jesus is " the Son of God," that is, directly and at least the Messiah, and fears not to ^ Lk. iv. 18; cf. Is. Ixi. i; Mt. xii. 18; cf. Is. xlii. 1-4; Ac. X. 38. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 139 salute Him as such. And since the Messiah was to have great miraculous power, he demands Him to give many striking signs in proof of His Messiahship. Since also, on the other hand, the Messiah was to be the universal King, he offers Him dominion over all the empires of the world and invites Him to seek this sovereignty from himself, as though he had had hitherto the whole universe in his power. Jesus repels Satan's suggestions, but does not reject the title " Son of God." Here, then, is the Saviour's own avowal of His Messianic dignity, — an avowal that is implicit, but not equivocal. Of course, Rationalists of the extreme sort like Renan, or those of the conservative school like Har- nack and the Liberal Protestant writers, deny the full historical truthfulness of these accounts whose contents are so essentially supernatural. Still, they have accepted these records as the authorized expression of tradition as to the fact that, from the beginning of His ministry, Jesus was aware of His Messianic vocation. The su- pernatural occurrences which are supposed to have happened at His baptism, or during His temptation, if unhistoric as to their miraculous details, may be the figures or symbols whereby tradition has been enabled to give a concrete expression and a mystical repre- sentation to the Saviour's Messianic consciousness. In O. Holtzmann's opinion, " Jesus' baptismal ex- perience is thus the vision of His call, analogous to the visions which the Old Testament prophets had at their respective calls. (Is. c. vi; Jer. c. i; Ez. c. i, ii). It is, then a complete mistake to suppose that Jesus' experience at His baptism loses in value and signifi- cance when it is no longer understood as an objective occurrence in the outside world, but is regarded as an incident of His inner spiritual experience. . . . The really important thing ... is, after all, the awaken- ing of Jesus' belief in Himself as the Messiah. . . . This belief was first implanted deep in His conscious- I40 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ness on the day He was baptized by John in the Jordan. So that, even on the soberest conception of history, this moment is one of the greatest turning- points in the world's development." ^ Harnack, also, remarks: '*An inner event which Jesus experienced at His Baptism was, in the view of the oldest tradition, the foundation of His Messianic consciousness. It is not an experience which is sub- ject to any criticism; still less are we in a position to contradict it. On the contrary, there is a strong prob- ability that when He made His public appearance He had already settled accounts with Himself. The Evangelists preface their account of His public activity with a curious story of a temptation. This story assumes that He was already conscious of being the Son of God and the One who was entrusted with the all-important work for God's people, and that He had overcome the temptations which this consciousness had brought with it." ^ Loisy's views of Christ's baptism may be thus stated: The account of Christ's baptism should be viewed in a symbolical sense just like that which re- cords the formation of His Messianic consciousness. All these accounts may easily be reducible to the theory of a vision. We are not at all bound to suppose that the Dove which the Gospel mentions on this occasion was a real dove. And as regards the origin of the Messianic consciousness in Jesus' soul, we cannot certainly infer it from the texts alleged in its support. Apparently, the earliest Christian tradition explained, or symbolized it by means of a revelation made at Christ's baptism in the Jordan. This may be nothing more than the symbolical explanation of a real fact, although the episode of His baptism has undoubtedly 1 Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 137; Was Jesus Exsta- tikerf 1903. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 149. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 141 marked a decisive moment in the Saviour's career. The account of the Temptation presents symbolically and in miniature Jesus' mental attitude and His way of viewing His providential role. Jesus viewed this role as represented in the scene of His Transfiguration, and, in the significant rending of the Veil of the Temple, He perceived the relation between the King- dom of Heaven and the Mosaic Law.^ It need scarcely be remarked that these critics have no stronger objection to the internal truth of our writings than their personal opposition to the historical character of every particularly miraculous account. These recitals are given by the Synoptics. They are written in a way that is most natural, circumstantially exact, and in full agreement with the entire context. If we consider, in particular, the Synoptic accounts of the Baptism of Jesus, we will perceive that they square exactly with the somewhat parallel though in- dependent accounts found in the Fourth Gospel. On the other hand, they are fully confirmed in the Dis- courses of the Apostles in the first chapters of the Acts. For, these Discourses reflect the genuine primitive belief of the first days after the Ascension of Jesus. Now, we find that not only is His Baptism placed in relief as marking a decisive moment in His career, but S. Peter even seems to formally connect with His Baptism the solemn anointing which inau- gurated Jesus' Messianic career and His investiture by the Holy Spirit. Nor is there aught to prevent us from admitting that this descent of the Holy Spirit was rendered perceptible by an outward manifesta- tion such as is described by our sacred writers.^ We may ask, finally, what basis have these critics for opposing the literal interpretation of the accounts 1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 229 ; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1904, p. 91 ; The Gospel and the Church, pp. 40, 104. 2 Ac. i. 21, 22\ X. Z7, 38. 142 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL of the Temptation? In virtue of what principle do they claim authority for interpreting and transposing the facts? Jesus, the Messiah and founder of the Kingdom of God, was to be, thereby, the destroyer of the Kingdom of Satan/ We shall see, moreover, at the episode of the exorcisms, that the demons com- plain that He persecutes them, that they strive to counteract His work by prematurely divulging His dignity. Is it, then, surprising that Satan should rise against Jesus as an adversary and tempter, imme- diately after the revelation at the Baptism ? Again, is is surprising that God should have permitted such a temptation against the Messiah? Should not the chosen Messiah live humbly and be persecuted? The Father's well-beloved Son, — was He not to suffer many things and to perish under the blows of His enemies? All the realities of the Temptation are understood very well if it be realized that Jesus is the Penitent for all men and the world's Redeemer. His temptation by Satan is of the same character as the Baptism of Penance, the fast in the desert, the priva- tions of His public Hfe, the torments of His passion and death. There is no apparent theologic motive or moral in- terest, says Rose, that might have determined the first Christian generation, so intensely spiritualized, to invent trials that rather emphasize the human as- pect of the Saviour's person. We may observe that the account must have had its origin in the con- fidential remarks made by Jesus to His disciples. But, we may ask, is Rose really warranted in adding that the narrative, which is substantially historic, may be symbolic in its details? His contention is that the Saviour had described, under the form of Parables, the tests which He had to undergo as Messiah and Son of God; that the different temptations were in- 1 Lepin, Jes. Messie, p. io8, E. tr., p. 156. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 143 visible, Jesus having withstood them in thought; that the demon appeared to Him in a vision which affected His imagination; that it was in spirit that He fled to a high mountain. In behalf of this view there has been alleged a supposed Sermon of S. Cyprian, prob- ably after the text edited by Maldonatus. This com- mentator, however, utterly rejects the interpretation attributed to S. Cyprian; and, besides, we have not found this Sermon mentioned anywhere whether in the editions of Migne or of Hartel.^ At all events, we think it enough to accept the formal avowal of our critics, namely, that Jesus, from the very beginning of His ministry, was aware of being the Messiah of God. Christs' Reserve. — If we examine the Synoptic ac- counts from the view-point which Jesus took of His Messianic dignity, we will find that His public life is divisible into two sections. In the first, which ex- tends from the Baptism to S. Peter's confession, and which probably includes the first two years of His ministry. He reveals Himself in an extremely reserved manner. During the remaining period, that is from S. Peter's confession until Christ's death, the Mes- sianic manifestation is still cautiously, although more explicitly made, and ever advancing towards its full expression. As to the duration of Our Lord's ministry, it prob- ably lasted for three and a half years. His Baptism occurred about the end of 26 A. D., or 779 A. U. C, i. e. of the Roman era, or even about the beginning of 27 A. D., or 780 A. U. C. In April 2y A. D. there was celebrated a First Passover; while in April 28 A. D., there occurred a Second Passover which was probably the *' Feast of the Jews " mentioned in Jo. V. I, and apparently implying the Spring season to judge from the reference to "the plucked ears of 1 Rose, Evang. selon S. Matt., p. 23 ; S. Cyprian, Scnn. de Jejun. and Tent. Xti.; Maldonatus, Com. in Math. iv. 5. 144 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL corn." Again, in 29 A. D. there was held a Third Passover, as is expressly stated in Jo. vi. 4, and im- plied by the reference to the plentiful green grass in Mk. vi. 39. And the final or Fourth Passover, men- tioned by the Four Evangelists, must be that of April 7, 30 A. D., or 783 A. U. C. Of course, these dates are only approximate. Thus, Turner assigns the Baptism to 26-2y A. D., the Public Life to two or three years' duration, and the Crucifixion to 29 A. D. Von Soden dates the beginning of Christ's ministry at 28-29 A. D., and His death at 30 A. D. Loisy seems to admit this, but only after a superficial view of the Synoptic Gospels. In fact, the two events above mentioned, namely, the ears of corn and the crowds seated on the grass, seem to be well attested and to agree with the Gospel of S. John which sup- poses several Spring seasons, and, therefore, at least a few years' duration for the Saviour's public min- istry.^ Reserve in Revelation. — Remarkably enough, during the early years of His Public Ministry, the Saviour apparently takes special means to hinder the manifestation of His Messianic character. The demons, for instance, " knew Him," and " knew that He was the Christ " ; and by the mouths of the pos- sessed they saluted Him as " the Holy One of God " who was come to destroy them, as " the Son of God," as '' the Son of the Most High " who was come to torment them. But Jesus immediately silences them by a stern rebuke, thus checking their declara- tion of His Messiahship, as soon as it is uttered. 2 Mk. i. 34; Lk. iv. 41; Mk. i. 24; Lk. iv. 34; Mk. iii. 12; Lk. iv. 41 ; Mk. v. 7 ; Mt. viii. 29 ; Lk. viii. 28. ijo. ii. 13; iii. 24; Mk. i. 14; Mt. iv. 12; Mk. ii. 23; Mt. xii. I ; Lk. vi. i ; Jo. vi. 4 ; Mk. vi. 39 ; Mt. xiv. 19 ; Lk. ix. 14 ; Mangenot, art. : Chron. Bib., V. D., col. 734 ; Jacquier, Hist, des Liv. du N. T., vol. i, p. 12, 2d ed. ; Turner, art.: Chronol- ogy, H. D., P. 405 ; Von Soden, art. : Chronology, E. B., col. 801 ; Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 61. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 145 This attitude seems strange to those critics who say that the above-mentioned events show that, at this period, Jesus was not aware of His Messiahship as has been claimed by tradition. But as regards such an interpretation of Christ's attitude, we need merely remark that, during this very stage of His ministry, He took the like means to conceal His mira- culous power. He acts thus after the cure of the lepers and the two blind men, of the deaf-mute of DecapoHs and the blind man of Bethsaida, as also after the restoration of Jairus' daughter to life. If, however, the Saviour thus forbids the publication of His miraculous deeds, it is surely not because He doubts about their reality. And if He declines the Messianic titles whereby the possessed addressed Him, it is not because He thinks such titles unwarranted. Quite the contrary ; for the Evangelists carefully note that He '' suffered them not to speak," precisely be- cause " they knew Him," because " they knew that He was Christ," and that He *' strictly charged them that they should not make Him known.'* ^ Nor can we ascribe to a systematic doctrinal pur- pose the declarations of the possessed persons, or even Christ's attitude itself, as is claimed by Protestant critics like Wrede. In Loisy's opinion, the objections alleged by Wrede against the Messianic character of the exclamations uttered by these possessed persons are reliable in the sense that the Evangelist certainly wished to assign them to the time of Christ's first appearance in Galilee and that they betray a certain desire of putting forward the testimony given by the demoniacs to Christ.^ Noticeably too, the title " Messiah " is not found 1 Mk. i. 44; Mt. viii. 4; Lk. v. 14; Mt. ix. 30; Mk. v. 2)7 y 43; Lk. viii. 51, 56; Mk. vii. ZZ^ 3^; viii. 22, 26; Mk. i. 34; Lk. vi. 41 ; Mk, iii. 12. 2 Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis, p. 2^ ; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist, etc., p. 517; Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 85, n. i, E. tr., p. 136. 10 146 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL among the acclamations uttered by the demon- iacs. The terms that they use undoubtedly serve to designate Christ. But the Evangelists alone suggest the real equivalence of the terms. And their entire account implies that this equivalence was merely in- sinuated to Christ's auditors to whom it still seemed to be mysterious. But, we may ask, is it likely that the early faith was handed down in such a cautious manner in accounts wherein the Saviour's Messiahship is so timidly proclaimed and, at first, seems to be dis- claimed by Him ? Given the faith of the early Church in Jesus' Messiahship, given, also, its conviction that Jesus Himself had published His Messiahship, it is probable that the interests of dogmatic teaching, or the aims of apologetic essays, would have produced wholly different accounts. And if Jesus was really accepted as the Messiah, which, as we have seen, is incontestable, it was very natural for Him to declare His Messiahship in that discreet manner to which the Gospels bear witness during the early years of His ministry. There is naught more conformable with the truth than that progress in the process of His manifestation, the first decisive step of which is S. Peter's confession and the final stage the solemn avowal of Jesus before the San- hedrin. And the Saviour's attitude, under the cir- cumstances which we are viewing, exactly agrees with what must have been the general character of His earlier manifestation. So that we may accept as au- thentic the testimony of the possessed persons to Jesus' Messiahship as also His reserve in accepting them. But where can we find the reasons for such reserve? Precisely in the Saviour's particular situation, — and, indeed, an impartial study of the Gospel clearly re- veals them to us. We must, first of all, allow for the popular pre- judices about the Messiah and the Kingdom of God, as also for the probable frenzied enthusiasm and pas- THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 147 sionate excitement which would have resuUed infalh- bly from an immediate and unreserved pubUcity of the Saviour's miracles and Messiahship. The episode following the multiplication of the loaves sufficiently shows to what excess the multitudes would have gone as a result of their chimerical ideas about a temporal king and a too earthly conception of the Kingdom of God. The enthusiastic witnesses of the Miracle of the Loaves cried out : " This is, of a truth, the Prophet that is to come into the world " ; and, at once, they try to seize Jesus and to forcibly lead Him to Jeru- salem in order that they might proclaim Him King in face of the Roman power. Among the Disciples themselves we find traces of the like anxiety. Thus, at Jesus' death, more than one of them was utterly discouraged; the two disciples, who were journeying along the road to Emmaus, exclaim : " We hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel." And similarly, on the morning of the Ascension, the Apostles thus besought Jesus : '' Lord, wilt Thou, at this time, restore again the Kingdom to Israel ? " Evi- dently, to minds thus formed, a revelation made sud- denly, boldly, and without previous preparation would have been, humanly speaking, untimely and impru- dent.^ Moreover, along with this mental lethargy, there was also a lack of good-will of which we must take ac- count. All who heard the Master's words did not possess that loyalty and sincerity of soul which seeks only after the truth. All those who witnessed His miracles did not have an open mind and an upright heart, ready to yield to the evidence of facts. Choro- zain, Bethsaida, Capharnaum, and even Nazareth dis- believed in His words and remained stubborn in face of His miracles. The Pharisees were ready to criti- cise His every word, to slander His every act, to ijo. vi. 14-15; Lk. xxiv. 21; Ac. i. 6. 148 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ascribe to the Prince of Devils His exorcising power. He filled their paths with miracles, but that was not enough for the Masters in Israel. They sought a miracle to suit their own ideas, — a sign from heaven, as though such a sign could have been more convinc- ing to them than the cures and restorations to life wrought by Jesus. His only answer was : '' An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the Pro- phet." ^ The episode of the possessed Gerasens shows to what extent Jesus had to take into account the temper of peoples' minds and hearts. The country of Gerasa was situated in Decapolis on the eastern shore of the Lake of Genesareth, and accordingly beyond Palestine. There, no doubt, the influence of the Pharisees was hardly felt; there the intense Messianic enthusiasm was least noticeable, there, above all, the people were not favored as much as others had been by His bless- ings. Therefore did Jesus take pity upon the terror- ized condition of these poor people. He did for them what He had not done for anyone before. Far from silencing the possessed whom He cured. He sent them forth to proclaim the miracle wrought in their behalf ; so that all Decapolis wondered at the prodigy wrought by Jesus.^ Finally, it was part of the designs of divine Pro- vidence that the Saviour redeemed the world and ob- tained the Kingdom by His death. This He will say later on : " The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the ancients, and by the High Priests and the Scribes, and be killed : and after three days rise again." Such a divine plan was undoubtedly not carried out through necessity: it allowed free play to human desires and in no wise removed their 1 Mt. xii. 38; Mk. viii. 11; Mt. xvi. I. 2 Mk. V. 19-20 ; Lk. viii. 39. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 149 responsibility ; and yet it " must " be accomplished. Jesus would not hinder it by a too evident manifesta- tion of Himself which, moreover, would not have agreed with the condition of His auditors' minds and hearts.^ " Had Jesus declared Himself quite plainly to be the Messiah," says Wendt, '' there would have been asso- ciated with His person, in accordance with the pre- vailing Jewish ideas of the nature of the Messianic Kingdom, expectations which He neither would nor could fulfil. . . . Jesus after having trained His dis- ciples to a right understanding of His Messiahship, began openly to claim that dignity." ^ Loisy, however, thinks differently. " Where do we find," he asks, " that Jesus had attempted the task of correcting the current ideas on the subject of the King- dom and the Messiah? He proclaims the Kingdom and views it in a very spiritual manner, although without apologetic or polemic interest." But, if it is true that Jesus plans and announces the Kingdom in a very spiritual manner, it is also true that He thereby corrects those popular and quite material pre- judices and that it was an indirect proceeding planned by the Saviour. Loisy, moreover, thinks that '* Jesus' reserve is easily explained by the fact that the true Messiah was the glorious Messiah." He adds : *' and, doubtless, also because the public avowal of Messiah- ship could not fail to put the Saviour in conflict with the political authorities." This last reason squares with what we have pointed out, namely, the Saviour's necessity of acting in accordance with the providential design as regards His death. As to the first reason, as we shall see later, it is baseless if, like Loisy, we should hold that Jesus did not believe Himself to be the Messiah before His Resurrection. On the other 1 Mk. viii. 31; Mt. xvi. 21; Lk. ix. 22; Mk. ix. 11 ; Lk. xxiv. 26. 2 Wendt, op. cit., pp. 177-178. I50 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL hand, it is quite warranted, and agrees with our own view, if it means that the Saviour refrained from encouraging people to hope in a Messiah who was to be only triumphant and glorious.^ The necessity of allowing for the disposition of men, of gradually correcting the rooted prejudices in their minds, in fine, of conforming Himself to the providential plan as to His death compelled Jesus to make a manifestation that was full of discretion and reserve. So that, in the early part of His ministry, instead of at first openly announcing His character as Christ, He acted otherwise. He preferred to mani- fest it indirectly by His conduct and works, to hint at it in His discourses by discreet and yet suggestive statements, to gradually lead onward men of good- will as also His disciples to suspect first of all, and then, by personal experience to verify and finally to boldly announce this Messianic dignity which He will at length decide to avow publicly. Doctrine and Miracles.— Jesus began His minis- try of preaching with the saying of John the Baptist: " Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," thus announcing Himself the advent thereof. The glad-tidings of the kingdom form the theme of His discourses in the villages and synagogues of Galilee, of His sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes, of His parables by the lakeside. Far superior indeed is His manner of announcing the kingdom than is that of John : it is of a transcendent order. He assumes the right to choose the preachers of the Gospel and officially invests His apostles with the mission of an- nouncing its glad-tidings everywhere. He teaches with extraordinary authority. The Rabbinical teach- ers of His day, who were but the mere reporters of ancient tradition, took care to base their pronounce- 1 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, pp. 301, 406 ; Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., col. 2443, par. 17; Cheyne, art.: Messiah, E. B., col. 3063, par. 8. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 151 ments upon the authority of a master at once ancient and of great repute. But Jesus corrects the tradi- tional teaching, interpreting the Mosaic law anew, and completing it by teachings that are most appropriate, most exalted, and the most perfect conceivable. He speaks always as a master ; imposing His teachings in His own name, invoking no other authority than His own; so that the people are in admiration at His doctrine.^ Especially surprising, however, is the contrast ob- servable between the supreme authority asserted by this young master, and His humble social condition. His early days are spent far from the schools and the great masters of Jewish lore : His home is a village among the Galilean hills. In fact the people would exclaim : '' How came this man by all these things ? . . . Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary? . . . How doth this man know letters, having never learned?" Despite the proverbial saying, then, that " out of Galilee a prophet riseth not," and the ironic query : " Can anything good come out of Nazareth ?" the exceptional character of Jesus' teaching must have made people esteem Him as an extraordinary person and a great man of God.^ Again, His miracles served to broaden the popular idea of Him. He commands the forces of nature, delivers possessed persons from the power of demons, cures diseases, and raises the dead to life. The sick are brought to Him, and people draw near to touch even the hem of His garment; for there goes forth from Him a supernatural power that heals all who approach Him. When the people see Him casting out a devil from the possessed man at Capharnaum, they exclaim : " What thing is this ? What is this new 1 Mk. iii. 14 ; vi. 7 ; Mt. x. 7 ; Lk. ix. 2 ; x. 9 ; Mt. v, 22, 28, :^2, 34, 39, 44; Mk. i. 22; Mt. vii, 29; Lk. iv. 32. 2 Mk. vi. 2; Mt. viii. 54; Lk, iv. 22; Jo. vii. 15; c, Hi.; c i, 46. 152 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL doctrine? For with power He commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him." After He cures the paralytic, all cry out : " We never saw the like." When He calms the tempest, His apostles won- der ; " Who is this that both the wind and the sea obey Him?" And on His restoring to Hfe the son of the widow of Naim as the corpse is being borne to the tomb, so great is the religious fear of the people that they declare : "A great prophet is risen up among us, and God hath visited His people." ^ Dignity and Power. — This indirect manner of revelation by prophecy and miracle which Jesus pur- sued during the first two years of His pubHc life, is still further completed by His statements about His personal dignity, and by His claims to the most singu- lar powers and privileges. He says that He is the en- voy of God, that He is '' come " and has been " sent " to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, to appeal to sinners, to save the lost sheep of the House of Israel. In the synagogue of Nazareth, He exclaims that the Spirit of God is upon Him, applying to Himself the words of Isaiah . '* The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Wherefore He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor : He hath sent Me to heal the con- trite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward." ^ Moreover, the idea which He gives of' His person is extraordinary. He is, indeed, humble, fond of obscur- 1 Mk. iv. 35-40 ; Mt. viii. ; Lk. viii. ; Mk. vi. 30-44 ; Mt. xiv. ; Lk. ix. ; Mk. vi. 45-52; Mt. xiv.; Jo. vi. ; Mk. i. 23-26; xxxiv. 39; V. and par.; Mk xxix. 40; ii. i ; v. 21 and par.; Mt. viii. 5 and par.; Mk. v. 21 and par.; Lk. vii. 11; Mk. i. 32, 33; Mt. iv. 23; Lk. iii. 9, 10; v. 28; Mt. iv. 24; Lk. vi. 19; Mk. vi. 56; Mt. xiv. 36] Mk. i. 27; Lk. iv. 36; Mk. ii. 12; Mt. ix. 8; Lk. V. 26 ; Mk. iv. 40 ; Mt. viii. 27 ; Lk. viii. 25 ; vii. 16. 2 Mk. i. 38; Lk. iv. 43; Mk. ii. 17; Mt. ix. 13; Lk. v. 32; Mt. XV. 24; Lk, ivr 18, 19; cf. Isaiah Ixi. i, THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 153 ity, severe towards the boastfully proud Pharisees, per- sistent in declining honors proffered by the Jews, care- ful to veil His Messiahship, and dreading to arouse, for His own profit, any hope of an earthly and trium- phant Messiah. Nevertheless, time and again, and in a manner most striking, He declares that He surpasses all that was greatest in Israel's past. He is greater than Jonas, greater than Solomon. And if He proclaims John the Baptist to be greater than all the personages of the Old Law, nay even than the Prophets, He also makes it clear that John is His precursor, and sent to prepare the way for Him; that, therefore, between John and Himself, there is the dift'erence between a herald and the king whom He announces ; or, as the Baptist remarks, he is the humble disciple of a mas- ter the latchet of whose shoes he is unworthy to loose.^ Jesus claims to possess powers which unques- tionably place Him above ordinary men, above the most illustrious prophets, and which seem to emanate from God Himself. The Jewish Sabbath, for in- stance, w^as a most sacred and inviolable day, its care- ful observance being regulated by the traditions of the Pharisees. But, as we see, Jesus acts as though He were master of all that pertained to a day so revered. For, it is on the Sabbath that He cures the sick, bids the paralytic take up His bed and walk, and allows His disciples to pluck the ears of corn. The Pharisees, indeed, reproach Him for having acted thus; but He reminds them of the practice of the Old Law ; for, if He were guilty of breaking the Sabbath, so too would be the Priests of the Temple by holding services on that day. As He affirms : '' I tell you that there is here a greater than the Temple," and referring to Himself, He adds : " The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also." 2 ^ Mt. xii. 41, 42; Lk. xxxi. 32; Mt. xi. 9-11 ; Lk. vii. 26-28. 2 Mk. iii. 1-6; Mt. xii. 9-14; Lk. vi. 6-11; cf. Jo. v. 9; Mk: ii. 22, ; Mt. xii, i ; Lk, yi. i ; Mt. xii. 5-6 ; Mk, ii, 28 ; Mt. xii. 8 ; Lk. vi. 5, 154 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Nay more, Jesus claims to have the supreme power to forgive sins, a truly extraordinary prerogative. Thus, after curing the paralytic at Capharnaum, who had asked only for a bodily cure, He utters these as- tounding words : "My son, thy sins are forgiven thee." Whereupon the Scribes are scandalized, and exclaim: " This man blasphemeth : who can forgive sins but God only?" His enemies recognize that this is a divine power, and yet He persists in claiming it as His own. Nor is He content to assert it as His, but proves that He possesses it by suddenly healing the sick man. He says : " Which is easier, to say to the one sick of the palsy : Thy sins are forgiven thee ; or to say: Arise, take up thy bed and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. He saith to the one sick of the palsy: I say to thee, arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house. And immediately He arose, and tak- ing up his bed, went his way in the sight of all." ^ A similar scene also occurs at the house of Simon the Pharisee : there enters into the banquet-hall a sin- ful woman, who proceeds to bathe the feet of Jesus with her tears and to anoint them with fragrant oil. Thereupon, Simon says to himself : " This man, if he were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, and that she is a sinner." But Jesus forthwith dispels the doubts in the mind of His host by forgiving the wo- man; thus implying that He assumed the power of forgiving sins and proving it by showing that the very inmost secrets of her conscience were by no means hidden from Him.^ The bestowal upon others of the power to perform miracles was also, evidently, a privilege quite unusual, extraordinary, and wholly divine in character. Now, 1 Mk. ii. 1-12; Mt. ix, 1-8; Lk. xvii. 26, 2Lk. vi. 36-50. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 155 after choosing His twelve apostles, Jesus sends them throughout Judea to preach the gospel of the King- dom, giving to them at the same time " the power to cure the sick and to cast out demons." Nor was this power bestowed in vain. The gospels state that the apostles, who had set out to preach penance, " cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." ^ Assuredly, there can be nothing more extraordinary than Jesus' claim to act as Lord of the Sabbath, to forgive sins, to cast out evil spirits, and to heal the sick, and yet there is nothing better established, noth- ing more unquestionably proved. During the first two years of His ministry, Jesus, therefore, did not merely appear as a prophet who stood on an equality with the most renowned ones of the Old Law, but as incomparably a man of God, as one in some way in- vested with the divine power, possessing divine and entirely incommunicable privileges, and, as none pre- viously could claim, exercising a sovereign authority over the souls of men and over all the vast domain of nature. The people, indeed, had not expected that the Messiah would be thus endowed, nor did they usually picture Him to themselves in this light. And, on the other hand, in Jesus' humble human position, in the simplicity and austerity of His life, what contrasts must have appeared, and these of such a kind that the people considered them irreconcilable with His divine pretensions, and incompatible with that ideal grandeur and imagined glory of the Messiah-King! Still, the Saviour's manner of procedure must have surely, al- though discreetly and progressively, led the Jews to ask : " The Christ, when He cometh, shall He do more miracles than these which this man doth ? " ^ 1 Mk. iii. 15; vi. 7; Mt. x. i; Lk. ix. 1-2; Mt. x. 8; cf. Mk. xvi. 17; Mk. vi. 13; Lk. ix. 6; cf. Mk. ix. 37; Lk. x. 17. 2 Jo. vii. 31. 156 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Messianic Allusions. — During this period of His ministry, moreover, Jesus did not fail to suggest ex- plicitly and with more directness the idea of His true Messiahship. Thus, He connects His power over evil spirits with the idea of founding the Kingdom of God. During His temptation on the desert, Satan had claimed an absolute sovereignty over all the kingdoms of the earth. But behold, what conster- nation He causes in Satan's empire itself ! Often do the demons, after being cast out of the possessed persons, reproach Jesus for having come to torment and destroy their power. If, therefore, Satan is thus expelled from His own kingdom, Jesus could rightly object to the Pharisees : " then is the Kingdom of God come upon you." If Satan's kingdom falls, it is in order that the Kingdom of God may be established. Who, then, unless the expected head of the Kingdom, the Messiah, shall thus establish the Kingdom of God as though upon the ruins of Satan's empire ? ^ To the disciples of John the Baptist, Jesus makes this fact very plain. They ask: "Art thou He that is to come, or look we for another ?" The Master re- plies cautiously, although expressively. He does not affirm, but leaves it clearly understood that He is in- deed the expected Messiah. In fact, instead of direct- ing the attention of John's followers to some one else, He refers to His own works as sufficiently indicating His divinity. He says : " Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen : the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them." And it was precisely these very works that Isaiah seemed to have considered as characteristic of the Messianic advent.^ The same implicit method of expression is also iMt. iv. 8, 9; Lk. V. 5-6; Mk. i. 24; Lk. iv. 34; Mk. v. 7; Mt. viii. 27; Lk. viii. 28; Mk. iii. 23-27; Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20. ^Mt. xi. 3; Lk. vii, 19; Is. xxxv. 5; Ixi. i. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 157 found in Jesus' words to the people after the depar- ture of John's disciples. He places John at the head of humankind, nay, above all the prophets of the Old Law. Whence this excellence of John? Jesus sug- gests the reason ; it is because John is the precursor of the Messiah. " This is he of whom it is written : ' Be- hold I send my Angel before thy face who shall pre- pare thy way before thee ' . . . He is Elias that is to come." ... If, then, John was really the precursor of Jesus, did not this fact imply that the Messiah was none other than Jesus Himself ? ^ The **Son of Man." — That the Saviour intended to reveal Himself as the Messiah is further indicated by His employment of the title " Son of Man." He undoubtedly made use of it f rpm the very beginning of His ministry ; for, at various times during the first two years of His public career. He called Himself by this title, especially when claiming to be Lord of the Sab- bath, and when curing the paralytic ; and in both in- stances its authenticity is beyond suspicion.^ The term *' Son of Man " employed by Jesus in- stead of the pronoun " I," has in fact a definite mean- ing, namely, " the man," " the man " whom you see, " the man " who is speaking to you, " the man " to whom everyone's attention is drawn; and this inter- pretation agrees with the very genius of the Hebrew and especially of the Aramaic language. This title was also associated with the idea of the Messianic Kingdom, and perhaps to many it had al- ready become synonymous with the title '' Messiah." At all events it undoubtedly henceforth had this mean- ing in the Saviour's estimation. The " Son of Man " to whom He alludes in Mk. ii. 10 is the same person 1 Mt. xi. 10, 14; Lk. vii. 27; xvi. 16; cf. Mk. ix. 12; Mt. xvii. 12-13. 2 Mk. ii. 10 ; Mt. ix. 6 ; Lk. v. 24 ; Mk. ii. 28 ; Mt. xii. 8 ; Lk. vi. 5, 22; Mt. xi. 19; Lk. vii. 34; Mt. xii. 32, 40; Lk. xi. 30; Mt. xiii. 37, 41 ; x. 23; cf. Jo. i. 51 ; iii. 13, 14; vi. 27, 54, 63. 158 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL whom He describes, throughout the rest of His min- istry, as " the Man " par excellence so often mentioned in the Scriptures, the head of the Messianic King- dom whom Daniel portrays as the *' Son of Man " who shall come upon the clouds of heaven, attended by the Holy Angels, in order to receive from the Most High a universal and eternal sovereignty. Indeed, when interpreting the parables of the Good Seed and the Tares for the benefit of His apostles, Jesus places the " Son of Man " in the position which He shall hold during the last days of the world: He casts into the field of the world the seed, that is, the word of God, and then, at the end of time, He will send His angels forth to separate the good from the bad within His kingdom.^ However humble, then, this title seemed to be, it referred directly to the Messianic Hope. Besides, it had the advantage of possessmg a mysterious char- acter, and therefore it would not be apt to prematurely lead popular enthusiasm beyond bounds, while it was also conformable to the idea of a suffering and dymg Messiah. Thus did it accord with that prudent and gradual method which the Saviour endeavored to fol- low in revealing His divinity to men. Modern Criticism. — It is claimed by Lietzmann, Wellhausen, H. Holtzmann, and Schmidt that, in S. Mark's account of Jesus' lordship over the Sabbath, the term " Son of Man," means '' every man," or *' man " in general. As we read : " The Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. There- fore, the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath also." To this we may reply that, first of all, the con- junction " therefore " does not necessarily imply that man is master of the Sabbath just because the Sabbath was made for His advantage ; but it may merely mean 1 Mt. xiii. Z7, 41 ; cf. x. 23. 2 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 174. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 159 that, as the Sabbath was made for man's benefit, and is not absolutely inviolable, it is not surprising that, in this instance, the law for its observance was not kept by Jesus, " the Son of Man." Otherwise, how ex- plain the remarkable change of terms, *' man," " the Son of Man?" The two terms, in fact, do not cor- respond to the same Aramaic expression. For, in Mk. ii. 2y, the word *' man," in Greek, '0 avOponog, would be 'enascha' in Aramaic; while, in verse 28 the term " the Son of Man," in Greek 6 vlbg rov avdpuTrov, would be bar *enascha' in the Aramaic language. Since, too, it cannot be fairly maintained that the early Christians misunderstood and incorrectly ren- dered the idea in Christ's mind, we may ask why there should be such a change of terms if, in either case. He had meant merely " man " in general ? ^ Here, as elsewhere in the Gospels, then, the term " Son of Man " refers directly to Jesus. A personal title, its meaning, however mysterious, appears, none the less, to involve extraordinary consequences. While it emphasizes the Saviour's position as " man," it also and chiefly indicates the transcendent character of His humanity ; that is, " a man," " this man " whom you behold, is lord even of the Sabbath ! And here too as elsewhere, may we not suppose that the title " Son of Man " even designates Jesus as " the Man " par ex- cellence? The Sabbath was made for man, and it is in His quality of " Son of Man " that is, not simply as a member, but as the head and official representa- tive of humanity, that Jesus is authorized to thus de- termine its meaning and to rule it as its sovereign.^ Thus appeared the Messianic significance of this 1 Lietzmann, op. cit., p. 89 ; Wellhausen, art. : Skizzen und V orarheiten, 1899, vol. vi, p. 202 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrh., vol. i,p.256; Schmidt, art.: Son of Man, E. B., col. 4752. 2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 216. 3 Driver, art. : Son of Man, H. D., p. 587. i6o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL title, but in a very dim light. Only later would its meaning be more clearly discerned, namely, when the Saviour should connect it directly with Daniel's prophecy. So that, Loisy erroneously questions its authenticity in Mk. ii. 28, and wrongly supposes edi- torial corrections in all these accounts which have a Messianic bearing, his pretext being that Jesus publicly declared His Messiahship only on the occasion of S. Peter's confession of faith. Apropos of Mk. ii. 10, 19-20, and 28, Loisy claims that the Evangelist's ten- dency to enhance the argument for Messiahship is apparent in three instances throughout the account, and that twice there is question of the Son of Man, although, to judge from the account of S. Peter's confession, Jesus must not have publicly styled Him- self by a title equivalent to that of Messiah. He says that either the texts where Jesus affirms and proves His character of Christ belong wholly to a passage edited later than the record of S. Peter's confession, or perhaps had been corrected and completed, which latter supposition he thinks more likely. In answer to this theory, we may simply remark that the title " Son of Man " was not at all clearly understood as being directly equivalent to the title *' Messiah," and that, at first, the Saviour probably manifested His Messiahship through significant indications and insinu- ations prior to proclaiming it explicitly at Caesarea Philippi.^ So also, with regard to Mk. ii. 1-12, which records Jesus* claim to possess the power of forgiving sins, such critics a Lietzmann, Wellhausen, and Schmidt assert that here also the title " Son of Man " means only " man " in a general sense. But their inter- pretation is wholly improbable; for, here, as in Mk. ii. 28, it can be only a personal title, and if it refers to His humanity, it brings out the extraordinary gran- 1 Loisy, Rev, d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 518. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY i6i deur and transcendence thereof. That is, *' a man," " this man " whom you see, has power to forgive sins ! To wield such authority over other men, is He not " the Man " above all others ? To thus share the rights peculiar to God, is He not eminently the Man of God, the representative and delegate of God?^ From the view-point of philology, it is further as- serted by Lietzmann, Wellhausen, and Schmidt, that Jesus would not have employed this title, since, in Aramaic, it signifies only " man " generally, and hence could not be made to serve as a personal appellation ; that, moreover, it was Greek in origin and resulted from^the influence of the text of Daniel vii. 13; and that, by mistake, the gospel tradition had allowed it to enter into Jesus' apocalyptic discourses on the future Parousia, and then in a general way into His other discourses.^ This radical theory, which a priori involves insur- mountable difficulties, is rejected by many competent and independent critics like Driver, Von Weizsacker, and Dalman. For, throughout the gospels, the title " Son of Man " is used only by Jesus and never by the Evangelists themselves; whilst the above theory necessarily implies that Jesus was not aware of such a term and that it became His personal title only through the influence of the gospel tradition! Such a twisting of fact is truly hardly credible ; for this title is found, not in rare and isolated texts but in many that are common to two, or even three, of the Synoptists, whilst, in the Fourth Gospel, it appears with the same character of a title reserved for Jesus. Indeed, supposing that this title had crept into Jesus' discourses on the last things through the in- fluence of the text of Daniel vii. 13, we can hardly see how its use would have become so widespread as to 1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 256. 2 Cf. loc. cit., Lietzmann, Wellhausen and Schmidt above. II l62 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL extend to so many texts of a wholly different char- acter. It is also very likely that if the Gospel tradi- tion had sought to find a suitable personal title for the Saviour, it would f!ot have confined itself to the choice of a term so lowly and unpretentious as " Son of Man." So unreliable, in fact, is the philological basis underlying Lietzmann's theory that it is contradicted by such noted Aramaic scholars as Dalman.^ Several critics, in fact, do admit that the title " Son of Man " is a personal one, and that Jesus' use of it is authentic; but they hold that He must not have em- ployed it before the time of S. Peter's confession. Thus Baldensperger thinks that the texts in ques- tion were transposed as regards their chronology; while Dalman advances this, view as being merely probable. Loisy, in turn, says that apparently the Evangelists used this title much more frequently than the oldest documentary Gospel sources and above all than did Jesus Himself; that, to judge from the re- cord of S. Peter's confession, Jesus must not have publicly assumed a title equivalent to that of " Mes- siah " ; and that those accounts wherein Jesus does assert and prove Himself to be the Christ were re- touched and completed. Let us say that there is no basis for the supposition implied by this theory, namely, that the title " Son of Man " is directly and clearly synonymous with the title " Messiah." ^ H. Holtzmann notes the relative rarity of the title " Son of Man " in the accounts of the first part of Jesus' public ministry. He thinks that, during this period, Jesus employed it in an impersonal sense to signify " man " in general, and that He used it in a personal and Messianic sense only after S. Peter's confession.^ 1 Driver, art. : Son of Man, H. D., p. 581 ; Von Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age, vol, ii, p. 127; Dalman, op. cit., p. 234. 2 Baldensperger, Das Selhst Jesu, p. 169 ; Dalman, op. cit., p. 264; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1902, p. 453; 1903, p. 518. 3 Holtzmann, H., Lehrh., vol. i, p. 256. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 163 This view, also, which is utterly discarded by Dal- man. Driver, and Loisy, is certainly a mere expedient; for granting that the Saviour used this title from the very beginning of His ministry, it is very unlikely that He disclosed its true significance only at a later period. Everything gives the impression that, from first to last, Jesus Christ employed this term to design- ate Himself and to suggest His Alessianic character, even though it must not have been clearly perceived as a Messianic title until after His later declarations.^ Renan says that Jesus " had been convinced that the prophets had written only with Him in view. He re- cognized Himself in their sacred oracles ; He regarded Himself as the mirror in which all the prophetic spirit of Israel had read the future."^ In Harnack's opinion, '' the very expression, ' Son of Man,' — that Jesus used it is beyond question, — seems to be intelligible only in a Messianic sense." ^ Says Dalman: '' The only genuine Aramaic term which suggests b vlhg rov avdpuTtov (the Son of Man) is bar enasha. This term did not properly belong to the common language of the Palestinian Jews as a term for " man " ; it was characteristic rather of the ele- vated diction of poetry and prophecy. To the Jews it will have been known purely as a biblical word. The Jewish hearer will therefore have had recourse in the first place to Scripture for an explanation of the strange use of bar enasha on the hps of Jesus. And Scripture offered the Hke Aramaic expression only in Dan. vii. 13, where it denotes a definite per- sonality, which, further Jewish exegesis sometimes identified exphcltly with the Messiah. . . . Moreover, the " One like to a son of man " there mentioned was ^Dalman, op. cit., p. 264; Driver, art.: Son of God, H. D., p. 587; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 518. 2 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 267. ^ Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 140. 164 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL to be brought down on the clouds of heaven in order to be master of the world." ^ This title also denotes Jesus' special relation towards humanity, and, thus viewed, it is at once a title of humility and of grandeur. It seems, indeed, to sug- gest the frailty of this Son of Man when confronting His Messianic dignity: Jesus designates Himself as that member of the human race, powerless by its na- ture, whom God will make the Lord of the world.^ On the other hand, this appellation seemingly points to Jesus as " the Man " par excellence, the ideal type of human nature, the chief and the representative of humanity.^ " This comprehensive and deeply significant title," says Sanday, " touched at the one end the Messianic and eschatological expectation through the turn which had been given to it in one section of Judaism, i. e. the Book of Enoch. At the other and opposite end, it touched the idea of the Suffering Servant. But at the centre, it is broadly based upon an infinite sense of brotherhood with toiling and suffering humanity which He, who most thoroughly accepted its condition, was fitted also to save." * " The name Messiah," says Dalman, " denoted the Lord of the Messianic age in His capacity as Ruler. . . . But the ' one like unto a Son of Man ' of Dan. vii. 13, has still to receive the sovereignty."^ B. Weiss, whose views are shared by Wendt, Von 1 Dalman, op. cit., pp. 256, 257; Holtzmann, Lehrb., vol. i, p. 250; Baldensperger, op. cit., p. 169; Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesus, 2d ed., 1900; Fiebig, Der Menschensohn, 190 1 ; Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol. N. T., vol. i, p. 73; Wendt, op. cit, German ed., p. 426; Stevens, Theol. A^. T., p. 51. 2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 265 ; Wendt, op. cit. ^ Driver, op. cit., p. 585. 4 Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 623. ° Dalman, op. cit., p. 265 ; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1902, p. 543; Sanday, loc. cit., p. 623. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 165 Weizsacker, and Driver, holds that Jesus " did not re- gard this designation of Himself as a direct designa- tion, which was generally intelligible as such, of His Messiahship. Not until Jesus Himself, by the use of this name, led them to remember Dan. vii. 13, could it be regarded as such. This, however, is quite in keeping with the manner in which Jesus, during the greater part of His activity, usually avoided the direct proclamation of His Messiahship so that He might not encourage the hopes which were connected with the current Messianic names." ^ Resume. — During the first two years of His min- istry, therefore, it seems that Jesus did not directly and explicitly manifest His Messianic dignity, al- though He revealed it in an admirably significant man- ner. To a people blindly prejudiced and ill-disposed to hearken to the truth, He does not speak too ex- plicitly: He makes a discreet, progressive and con- tinuous revelation, which works its way slowly but surely into the souls of men. And after such manifestation, what was the popular idea of Jesus? "A great prophet is risen up among us,*' exclaims the crowd upon witnessing the miracle at Naim, " and God hath visited His people." A great prophet, such is the popular view of Jesus at the close of His second year's ministry. Some say : " It is a prophet, as one of the prophets." Others exclaim that He is one of the prophets of old, like Jeremais for instance, who has returned to earth. Others again say that He is Elias. Apparently, therefore, the peo- ple were content with this, the majority not going so far as to identify Him with the Messiah. Jesus was, in fact, so far from acting like the imagined ideal Messiah ! For would not the expected Messiah im- mediately secure the redemption of Israel? Would 1 Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol, vol, i, p. 74; Wendt, op. cit., p. 436 (Gr, ed.) ; Von Weizsacker, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 127; Driver, op. cit., p. 586. 1 66 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL He not come as ruler of the Kingdom of God in all the splendor of His glory and regal power? To secure belief in His Messiahship, such as it was manifested in Him, Jesus had to achieve a great re- form in the Messianic ideas. All the strategy, so to say, of the first two years of His public ministry, and we may add, of the third, was planned with the view of leading His disciples to the conviction of the reality of His Messiahship, and thereby to convince them of the erroneous character of their pre-conceived notions of the Messiah. On several occasions during the course of these first two years of His ministry, the people were so surprised that, despite the rather un- accountable contrast between Jesus' lowly personality and the position of that ideal Christ whom they had dreamt of, they had asked if this extraordinary won- der-worker was not the long-looked-for Christ. '' Is not this the Son of David ?", exclaim the wit- nesses of the heahng of the man possessed by a deaf and dumb demon. But, unfortunately, the Pharisees are at hand to check the growing faith of the by- standers, and go so far as to accuse Jesus of perform- ing miracles by the power of Satan. Nevertheless, the two blind men of Capharnaum, as also the Chanaanite woman, do not hesitate to call Him by the title " Son of David." ^ His disciples, too, as they beheld their divine Master walk upon the waters of the Sea of Galilee, and save their boat by calming the tempest, are so filled with religious wonder that they cast themselves at His feet and cry out : " Thou art truly the Son of God !" ^ The Fourth Gospel, finally, bears witness to the same prevailing popular opinion concerning the Mes- siah, after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves : an opinion which, as we know, Jesus Himself declined to countenance, by fleeing away to the re- 1 Mt xii. 2Z, 24; ix. 27; XV. 21. ^yit. xiv. 23. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 167 cesses of the mountain : " This is of a truth the prophet that is to come into the world," that is, the expected Messiah.^ Later Period : Explicit Avowals.— A great work, therefore, had already been achieved in the souls of men at the opening of the final year of Christ's public ministry. The hour had now come to strike the blow. It happened at Caesarea Philippi. Still proceeding very carefully and cautiously, Jesus leads His dis- ciples to express their views on His person. Their belief was not to be the result of any direct statement on His part, but the spontaneous growth of their per- sonal experience. Thus far, He had avoided explain- ing the significance of His Messiahship : He was con- tent to manifest and prove it by His works. Now, however. His disciples have seen and heard enough : their conviction is settled ; so that He asks them to pro- claim it themselves. He says : " But you, whom do you say that I am ?" 2 Simon Peter replies in the name of the twelve apostles. He had previously, indeed, declared His faith in the Saviour after the famous discourse de- livered by Jesus on the Bread of Life when some of the disciples left the Master. " We have believed and have known that thou art the Christ the Holy One of God," said Simon on that occasion ; and, perhaps, this profession of faith was not so firm nor as solemn as the present one. Now, he boldly proclaims His be- lief in the Messiahship of Jesus : " Thou art the Christ . . . the Christ of God . . . the Christ, the Son of the living God." By His manner and by His words, the Saviour approves and confirms the faith thus ehcited; by His question ; but He also advises His disciples not to tell the people that He is really the Christ ; and His motives for so doing are known. He apparently now insists upon the necessity of not hindering, by an un- 1 Jo. vi. 14. 2 Mk, viii. 29; Mt. xvi, 15; Lk. ix. 20. i68 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL timely revelation, the fulfilment of those providential designs whereby, as it was written. He should be re- pudiated by the people, condemned by the Jewish reli- gious authorities, and put to death.^ The manifestation of Caesarea Philippi grows clearer at the Transfiguration, although even here the Saviour maintains a rather passive attitude. The Father it is who reveals the Son on this occasion, and in terms like those uttered at the Baptism : " This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased : hear ye Him." Moses and Elias are also present as witnesses of the event. As representatives of the Law and the Prophets, they appear at the side of Jesus as His aids ; and render homage to the founder of the New Alli- ance, to Christ towards whom converges the entire Old Testament. And the mystery of the Transfigura- tion itself affords the Apostles a physical experience of that glory which will later surround Jesus, the triumphant Messiah.^ *' The name Messiah," says Dalman, " denoted the Lord of the Messianic age in His capacity as Ruler . . . But the ' One Hke to a Son of Man ' of Daniel vii. 13, has still to receive the sovereignty." ^ The Suffering Messiah. — The Saviour, however, as at Caesarea, still continues to urge silence upon the privileged witnesses of His glory, even until the day of His death and of His resurrection; for, as it was written, the Son of Man was destined to shameful suf- ferings. Again, He reveals His Messiahship through those unusual terms that portray His mission and person, and especially through His explicit references to His advent as the Son of Man at the end of time. Nor 1 Jo. vi. 70. In the Greek extus Receptus and the Latin Vulgate we read : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of God," 2 Mk. viii. 29; Lk, ix. 20; Mt. xvi. 16, 17-19. 3 Mk. ix. 6; Mt. xvii. 5; Lk. ix. 35; Dalman, op. cit., p. 276; Mk. viii. 34; Lk. ix. 2$; xiv. 25-27; Mt. x. 37-39. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 169 are the Apostles alone the witnesses of such declara- tions ; for the people themselves are often mentioned as being present along with His disciples, thus form- ing together with the inner circle of followers, a second group of witnesses and auditors. Thus, after confirming Peter's faith and forbidding His Apostles to publish the fact of His Messiahship, Jesus calls '' the multitude together with His disciples," and ad- dresses to the assembly these fervent words: " If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoso- ever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake shall save it. . . . For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of Man shall be ashamed when He shall come in His majesty, and that of His Father, and of the holy angels." Under the figure of the incomparable glory which Jesus asserted as His own and in His re- lation towards God and men, the people could readily perceive His true character as the Christ.^ And again, " when great multitudes stood about Him, so that they trod one upon another," Jesus thus proclaims Himself as the supreme judge at the end of time : " Whoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God. But he that shall deny me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God." ^ At another time, as the Saviour '' went through the cities and towns teaching, and making His jour- ney to Jerusalem," a man from the crowd said to Him : "Lord, are they few that are saved?" But Jesus re- plies, not to the man, but to the people themselves, and in this response He clearly presents Himself to them as The One who, at the end of days, shall act as master of the Kingdom, and pronounce authoritatively ^ Mk. viii. 34-38 ; Mt, xvi. 24-28 ; Lk. ix. 23-26, ?Lk. xii. I, 8-9; cf. Mt. X. 32, lyo CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the sentence which will admit His disciples therein and exclude sinners therefrom. He tells them : *' Strive to enter by the narrow gate ; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And He an- swering, shall say to you : I know you not whence you are. Then shall you begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught us in our streets. And He shall say to you : 1 know you not whence you are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." ^ All these declarations, so cautiously but unequivo- cally made, serve to gradually extend the Messianic manifestation beyond that inner circle of His apostles. But Jesus does not content Himself with declaring His Messiahship in this manner: as to the apostles, so to the people He reveals the suffering destiny awaiting Him and the delay that will retard His final advent as the triumphant Messiah. Thus, even in the beginning of His ministry, the Saviour, while addressing the Pharisees and the dis- ciples of the Baptist, had mysteriously suggested the prospect of His death : " Can the children of the mar- riage fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bride- groom shall be taken away from them; and then they shall fast in those days." ^ It is especially, however, towards the approach of Holy Week that Jesus multiplies His declarations on 1 Lk. xiii. 22-29 ; cf. Mt. vii. 21-23. 2 Mk. ii. 19-20; Mt. ix. 15; Lk. v. 34-35; cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p, 194, E. tr., p. 239. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 171 this subject. Undoubtedly the circle of Apostles was not without the usual crowd of people when, to the question put by the sons of Zebedee about the first places in the Kingdom, Jesus thus significantly an- swered : " Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of, or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized? . . . The Son of Man is not come to be min- istered unto, but to minister, and to give His Hfe a redemption for many." Again, at the scene which oc- curred at the house of Simon the leper, there were Hkely others present besides the Apostles, and they also heard Jesus say, in behalf of Alary of Bethany: '' Let her alone : why do you molest her ? She hath wrought a good work upon me. For the poor you have always with you . . . but me you have not al- ways. . . . She is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial." And the Pharisees, who had come to question Jesus about the advent of the Kingdom of God, were surely present even when He foretold to His disciples : "As the lightning that lighteneth from under heaven shineth unto the parts that are under heaven, so shall the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation." And, finally, it is surely to dispel the opinion of the multitudes concerning the imme- diate approach of the Kingdom of Heaven, that the Saviour, while going up to Jerusalem, relates the par- able of the Ten Pounds, wherein He represents Him- self under the symbol of a nobleman who had to go away into " a far country to receive for himself a king- dom and then to return." ^ Such a manifestation on the part of Christ Jesus, at once so discreet and so significant, although it was still conflicting with the former messianic misconceptions and the decided opposition of the Pharisees, must have, however, strengthened, in better disposed souls, ^ Mk. iv. 6-8; Mt. xxvi. 10-12; Jo. xii. 7-8; Lk. xvii. 20, 24-25; cf. Lk. xvii. 26, 30; xviii. 8; Lk. xix. 11-12. 172 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL that faith which we have seen growing during the first two years of His ministry. In the Fourth Gospel, too, we find a very detailed and graphic account of the changes that were taking place in the minds of men, and of the varied opinions which the multi- tudes had of Him towards the close of this part of His career. " Some said : He is a good man. And others said: No; but He seduceth the people. And yet no man spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews." Nevertheless, after hearing Him speak, some among the multitude said : ''This is the prophet indeed. Others said: This is the Christ." They had once asked: " When the Christ cometh, shall He do more miracles than these which this man doth?" But soon the ob- jection was heard: "Doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Doth not the Scripture say: that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the town where David was? So there arose a dis- sension among the people because of Him." And even though the Pharisees had decided among them- selves that " if any man should confess Him to be Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue," they could not prevent the popular manifestation of faith in the Saviour. " li we let Him alone so, all will be- lieve in Him," they murmured. And very soon they would say to one another : " Do you see that we pre- vail nothing? Behold the whole world is gone after Him!"i The Supreme Revelation of Holy Week.— The Messianic faith of the multitude, after increasing thus far to the end of Jesus' ministry, burst forth on Palm Sunday. The day before, amidst a numerous crowd, the two blind men of Jericho, after crying out to the Saviour " Son of David, have pity on us !", were mira- culously cured in recompense for their faith and in confirmation of it. And on the very day of His tri- umphal entry Jesus is everywhere acclaimed : " Son of ^ Jo. vii. 12-13, 31, 40, 41, 41-42, 43; Jo. ix. 22; xi. 48; xii. 19. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 1^3 David/' " King of Israel." All beg a blessing on the advent " of the kingdom of David," and long life to Him " who cometh " to establish the kingdom " in the name of the Lord." Jesus, who has in some way called forth this triumph, accepts the ovations of the crowd, and despite the Pharisees' murmurs, expressly approves the Messianic salutations of His disciples and the applause of the children of the Temple : " I say to you that, if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out." . . . Yea, have you never read : Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise ? " ^ It is chiefly in Holy Week, however, that Jesus em- phasizes His former statements. To the incredulous Pharisees, and to those who proudly demanded a rea- son for His asserted powers. He represents Himself indirectly, and under a veil, but clearly and precisely, in the parable of the faithless husbandmen, as God's well-beloved Son, incomparably greater than the prophets who were only servants. And to the Apostles in still more explicit terms He speaks boldly of the ruin of Jerusalem, of His future advent as Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, attended by saints and angels in the glory of God, for the supreme judgment and universal retribution.^ Jesus, finally, officially seals His Messianic manifes- tation by plainly telling Caiphas and Pilate, with the full prospect of death before Him, that He is *' the Christ the Son of God," or " the Beloved Son," who, as " Son of Man " shall be " sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven." ^ 1 Mk. X. 47-48; Mt. XX. 30-31; Lk. xviii. 38-39; Mt. xxi. 9; Lk. xix. 38; Jo. xii. 13; Mk. xi. 10; Mt. xxi. 9; Lk. xix. 38; Jo. xii. I ; Lk. xix. 40 ; Mt. xxi. 16. 2 Mk. xi. 28 ; Mt. xxi. 23 ; Lk. xx. 2 ; Mk. xii. ; Mt. xxi. ; Lk. XX.; cf. the Parable, Mt._xxi. 1-14; Mk. xiii. ; Mt. xxiv. and XXV. ; Lk. xi. ; cf. Lk. xxii. 29-30. ^ Mt. xxvi. 63 ; Lk. xxii. 70 ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mk. xiv. 62 ; Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 174 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL II. MEANING OF HIS MESSIAHSHIP. The Final Advent. — Thus, as we have seen, Jesus beheves and calls Himself the Messiah: this point is most certainly demonstrated and is admitted nowadays by all critics. But, before considering the question as to how Jesus could have come to believe and style Himself the Messiah, we must first see in what sense this title belongs to Him. In what meas- ure, and in what manner did He precisely realize this special and essential function during His earthly car- reer? A solution has been presented by Loisy, who follows in the lead of J. Weiss, and we shall examine his answer in detail. The title of Messiah, in the opinion of J. Weiss, designates Him as the sovereign of the Messianic king- dom, the king of the New Jerusalem, the chief of the society of the elect. This social status, however, will not be realized until the end of time; only then this title will really and properly belong to Jesus. Why? Because only then will this special and essen- tial function begin to be fulfilled. Until then Jesus is He who is yet to be the Messiah ; He is not as yet properly speaking, the Messiah. At most. He is the Messiah in a preliminary sense, that is by vocation and destiny.^ It is Loisy's theory that '' as the Kingdom is essen- tially future, the Messiah's position is essentially eschatological. Christ is chief of the society of the elect. The ministry of Jesus is only a preliminary phase of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the role proper to the Messiah. In one sense, Jesus is the Messiah, but, in another. He is still to become the Messiah. He was so in that He personally was called upon to rule the New Jerusalem ; but He was not yet so, since the New Jerusalem did not exist yet, and 1 Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesus, 2d ed., 1900; cf. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in Evang., 1901. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 175 since the Messianic power had no chance for its ex- ercise." ^ In criticism of the foregoing, we may say that we readily grant that the title of Messiah pertains to the Saviour in a special manner at the end of time. For, then, indeed, shall be fully realized the Messianic Kingdom, — then, indeed, shall be definitely inaugur- ated Christ's universal and eternal dominion. Never- theless, it does not follow that we have to wait until then to find a first realization of that title, and to wit- ness the beginning of those realities which it implies. Is it, indeed, quite certain that the Messianic Kingdom shall begin only at the end of time? No doubt then shall occur its final consummation, its triumph, its perfect realization. Nay more, — then shall begin the solemn inauguration of its glorious and final phase, the beginning of the eternal Kingdom of God in the high- est. Does not, however, this Kingdom presuppose a former and real existence, although not under the same form ; a phase wherein it is truly realized as the King- dom of God on earth, if not the final Kingdom of God in heaven; a phase wherein it is, indeed, in a condition preparatory to its final establishment in its heavenly and perfect form, but wherein, nevertheless, it is really carried on in the earthly form. So that, since the Messianic Kingdom is already realized in a true sense during this preliminary phase, the title of Messiah is rightly attributed to Jesus at that time. Even supposing, however, that this first question should be answered in the negative, we might put another: Is the title of Messiah so closely, and so essentially related to the final realization of the Mes- sianic reign that it could not properly belong to the Saviour during its preparatory stage? Was not this very preparation, such as Jesus realized it, also a Messianic function, — perhaps not the final one, but ^ Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 101-102. 176 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL still strictly and properly Messianic such that even it alone fully warrants the title of Messiah given to the Saviour? These are the questions at issue. For the present, however, we shall view them in- directly. After surveying the evangelical and post- evangelical texts, the Saviour's own declarations and those of the first Christian generation, we shall see whether or not He had given the title of Messiah, whether, also. He Himself employed it apart from the glorious realization of the Kingdom and the Final Advent. This examination is possible and the problem soluble independently of the question, to be discussed later, of the existence or non-existence of the Kingdom of God in a two-fold phase, earthly and heavenly. It is possible to prove, directly from the texts, that the title of Messiah was given to the Saviour and that He applied it to Himself during His earthly Hfe: this fact established, we can thence con- clude that, if the realization of the Messianic King- dom did not begin even before its final phase, at least there is no essential connection between the reality of the Messianic character and the actual inauguration of the Kingdom. Opinion of the Early Church.— And first of all, how was this matter viewed in the thought of the early Church, in the minds of the Apostles who were formed by the very teachings of the Saviour? Loisy inter- prets it in the sense of his own theory which is the same as that of J. Weiss and that held in a more radical sense by Wrede. " We easily understand," says Loisy, " that the Apostolic Church should have taught that Jesus became Christ and Lord by His resurrection, that is, by His entrance into heavenly glory, and that, at the same time, it should have awaited His coming, that is. His advent as Christ and not His return, since His earthly ministry was not as yet viewed as a Messianic advent. ... As far as we can judge from the testimonies which THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 177 came more or less under the influence of the Pauline theology, it was only the resurrection which made Him the Christ and placed Him upon His throne of glory; death was only the providential condition of the resurrection, a condition willed by God and ac- cepted by Jesus. . . . But if Jesus was proclaimed Christ and Lord by the first disciples, it was owing, not to His death, but to the resurrection which intro- duced Him into the glory of His Messianic vocation." ^ Thus we have two facts : Firstly, the Saviour's com- ing at the end of time is not His Return, but simply His Coming or His Advent, as though it were His first appearance in the role of Christ, His Messianic advent properly speaking. And secondly: The Saviour be- came Christ and Lord by His resurrection. True, the Church of the Apostolic age speaks of the Coming of the Lord Jesus and not precisely of His Return: Christ is to come, the day of His Ad- vent is near. "Behold, / come," He says in the Apocalypse, and S. John becomes the echo of the Spirit and of the Spouse that he may exclaim : '* Come, Lord JesLis." It is also remarkable that the expres- sion is employed even in circumstances where the term " return " would seem very suitable. Thus, to the disciples who witnessed the Saviour's ascension, the Angel did not say : "He shall come again," as if He had gone away ; but, " He shall come." So, too, the Apostles asked the Master when viewing the Temple, the ruin of which He had just foretold; "What sign wilt Thou give us of Thy coming?" And Jesus an- nounced, not His return, but His coming at the end of time in the clouds of heaven and in the glory of His Father.^ 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 104, 127, 130-131. 2 Ac. i. 11; I Cor. iv. 5; xi. 26; i Thes. v. 2; Heb. x. 37; Apoc. i. 7, 8; ii. 25; iii. 3; iv. 8; i Cor. i. 8; xv. 23; 2 Cor. vii. 7; I Thes. ii. 19; iii. 13; iv. 14; v. 23 ; 2 Thes. ii. i, 8, 9; I Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. iv. i, 8; Titus ii. 3; James v. 7, 8; 2 Pet. 12 178 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Such a mode of speech evidently supposes that at- tention was drawn less to the return of the person in question than to the special character of His return, namely, the advent of a new order of things, the signal for the final judgment, the announcement of the final establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. The idea that Jesus shall personally return is kept in the background, and what especially commands atten- tion is the thought of His coming as Sovereign Judge and glorious chief of the Kingdom. The coming of the Day of the Lord, the terrible Day of Judgment, the arrival of the Kingdom is often men- tioned. Thus is emphasized the glorious character of this Advent which shall be not so much His return as His triumphant coming in the clouds of heaven and in all the splendor of divine glory. Interest lies not so much in the fact that the Saviour has left the earth and is to return, but rather that He is now hidden in the bosom of the Father and is one day to appear again, to manifest His glory, and to come for the great revelation. This solemn manifestation, which shall inaugurate the judgment and the reign of God in glory, may rightly be viewed as the great revelation of Jesus as Christ the Lord.^ Does this mean that Jesus shall merit this title of Messiah only at that time? That this advent shall be not only His final manifestation but His very first iii. 4, 12 ; I Jo. ii. 28 ; J ude i. 24 ; cf. Mt. xxiv. 3, 39 ; Apoc. iii. II ; xvi. 15; xxii. 7, 12, 20; Ac. i. 11 ; Mt. xxiv. 3; x. 23; xi. 3; xvi. 27, 28; xxiv. 30, 39, 44; XXV. 31 ; xxvi. 64; Mt. viii. 38, 39; xiii. 26; xiv. 62; Lk. vii. 19; ix. 26; xii. 40; xviii. 8; xxi. 27; xxii. 18; Jo. XX. 29. 1 Ac. ii. 20; I Thess. i. 10; v. 2; 2 Pet. iii. 10; Apoc. ii. 18; cf. Mt. iii. 7; Lk. iii. 7; Mk. viii. 39; Lk. xvii. 20; xxii. 18; 2 Thess. ii. 8; Titus ii. 13; Apoc. i. 7; cf. Mt. xvi. 27, 28; xxiv. 30; XXV. 31; xxvi. 64; Mk. viii. 38; xiii. 26; xiv. 62; Lk. ix. 26; xxi. 27; I Cor. i. 7; Col. iii. 4; 2 Thess. i. 7; Heb. ix. 28; I Pet. i. 13; iv. 13; v. 4; I Jo. ii. 28; iii. 2; cf. Lk. xvii. 30. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 179 consecration as the Messiah? That only then He shall begin to be the Messiah in the proper sense of the word? We do not believe so. A careful ex- amination of the texts shows a connection between the idea of the " final Advent " and the idea of the glorious apparition, of the terrible manifestation, of the revelation of the Kingdom. We cannot discern a clearly marked connection between the idea of the " final Advent " and that of the first Messianic con- secration. Jesus shall appear, shall manifest His glory as Christ the Lord. It does not follow appar- ently that He had not been previously Christ the Lord hidden either in His Father's bosom or even on earth in the weakness of human nature. The last day will be His "Advent " as the glorious Messiah ; for He shall " come " to establish His Kingdom in its final phase. Everything connected with His first coming shows that He was, during His mortal life, the Messiah sufifering and laboring to prepare for the eternal King- dom ; as will be seen from a study of several texts. Is not Loisy's inference from the original testi- monies of the apostolic Church rather at odds with that testimony upon which he claims to base his theory, namely, that Jesus " would become Christ and Lord by His resurrection?" If He did so, it was be- cause His character as Christ long preceded the es- tablishment of the heavenly Kingdom which was to begin only by His coming at the end of time. As noted before, this final Advent was to especially in- dicate the Saviour's great manifestation as the glori- ous Messiah and not exactly the mere beginning of his Messiahship. But, let us see in what sense the Apostolic Church taught that Jesus became Christ and Lord by His resurrection. One single text serves as the basis of this assertion : " Therefore let all the House of Israel know most certainly that God hath made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus whom you have crucified." ^ 1 Act ii. 36. l8o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL The context shows the exact meaning of this state- ment. The Prince of the Apostles, relying upon the striking manifestation which had just signalized the departure from the Cenacle, took advantage of the Jews' deep emotion in order to procure their conver- sion. Jesus is the Christ : He proved it by His resur- rection and by sending the Holy Spirit which they had just witnessed. Christ was truly to rise again : this is announced by David in the sixteenth Psalm. Appar- ently the Psalmist speaks of himself ; but, as S. Peter observes, since in reality he still remains a prey to death, it is clear that he speaks in the name of Christ who is, moreover, plainly denoted by the term, " the Holy One " of God : " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer the Holy One to see corruption." ^ Now Jesus is surely risen : '* This Jesus hath God raised again : whereof we are all witnesses." Therefore He is truly the Christ. Moreover, is not this fact also shown by the miracles wrought by Him during His life, miracles that were to accredit Him among the people, as a man approved by God? And finally, con- tinues S. Peter, you yourselves are witnesses of the wonders attesting an unusual out-pouring of God's Spirit. In fact, Jesus had promised this: He was to demand it from His Father : and now. He had realized the promise : then, the Father has granted His prayer. He fully shares in the power of God and is really seated at His right hand, as David had said of Christ his Lord. Apart, then, from His miracles, both the fact of the resurrection and of the descent of the Holy Spirit prove that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Messiah-Lord foretold by the prophet.^ Thus does S. Peter argue ; and, after a survey of all the consequences of his reasoning, we seem to reach one conclusion : the expression " He has been made by God, Lord and Christ " must not be understood as ^ Ps. xvi. 10 in Septuagint ; cf. Ac. ii. 27. 2Ac. ii. 22, 32 ; Ps. ex. i ; Ac. ii. 34. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY i8i meaning strictly that Jesus had become by His resur- rection Lord and Christ for the first time. The Apostle fearlessly points to Jesus' resurrection and glorious share in His Father's power, not exactly as being the primary basis and only reason for His Messiahship, but as marks of His Messianic dignity and demonstrations of His character as Christ. The resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost prove that Jesus now possesses that power and glory re- served to Him as the Christ; but there is nothing to expressly show that He first became the Christ only by His resurrection and participation in the divine glory. S. Peter may Hkely mean that Jesus' entrance into glory is merely a sign that God had made Him Lord and Christ, or, again, that by His resurrection He had truly become Christ, as the Christ-Lord, in the final enjoyment of His glory, after experiencing the infirmity of His mortal condition. Similarly, S. Paul who clearly teaches that Jesus' divine Sonship was anterior to His human birth, nevertheless assigns to the resurrection the real manifestation, the striking and solemn revelation of Jesus as the Son of God.^ Moreover, this rather difficult text of Acts ii. 36 should evidently be viewed in the light of the language usual throughout the other texts. And the fact is that, in this same ApostoHc Church, Jesus is believed to be the Christ from the very moment of His incarnation. In many portions of his discourse at Pentecost, S. Peter really seems to consider the Saviour as the Christ even during His earthly life. This very ''' man ap- proved of God by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him," — was He not, even whilst liv- ing on earth the true Christ? Why does S. Peter speak of the death of the " Holy One " of God, and of the resurrection of " Christ " unless it is because Jesus was already the Holy One of God and the Christ before His death and resurrection ? ^ 1 Ac. V. 31 ; X. s6, 42; xi. 20; Rom. i. 4. 2 Ac. ii. 22; xxvii. 31. l82 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL At Caesarea, S. Peter speaks of Jesus as being the Anointed of the Lord even from the beginning of His ministry and as being endowed with His Spirit and power in order to spread broadcast His miracles and blessings. The faithful, too, in noting the ignominies inflicted upon Jesus in the various stages of His Pas- sion, recall how the Jewish and Roman authorities along with the populace revolt against the Anointed of the Lord, thus arraying themselves, as David had said, against God and against His Christ.^ Moreover, when Jesus' sufferings and death are re- ferred to. He is commonly called Christ as though it were truly in His character as Christ that He endured His Passion. Thus we read : " Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures " ; and again : " Christ also hath loved us and hath delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice." ^ During the Apostolic age, as we can see, one of the chief aims of Apologetics was to show that, by His Passion, Jesus had but realized what the Scriptures predict of Christ, the suffering Redeemer. Christ occupies all Scripture. It is Christ that Isaiah repre- sents as the redeeming victim for sin. That the divine prophecies should be fulfilled, it was necessary that Christ should suffer. Apparently, therefore, it was as Christ that Jesus was to suffer and die, just as it was as Christ that He arose from the dead.^ We also find the name of Christ associated with the very idea of Jesus' first appearance in the flesh : " Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners," 1 Ac. X. 27 ; cf. Mt. iii. 16 ; Is. Ixi. i ; Ac. iv. 26, 27 ; Ps. ii. 1-2. 2 I Cor. XV. 3 ; Eph. v. 2 ; cf. Rom. vii. 4 ; viii. 32 ; x. 7 ; xiv. 15; I Cor. ii. 2, 8; v. 7; x. 16; xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 15; xvi. 19; Gal. i. 19; vi. 14; Col. i. 24; i Tim. ii. 5, 6; vi. 13; i Pet. i. II, 19; ii, 21; iii. 18; i Jo. v. 6. 3 Ac. iii. 18 ; viii. z^-Z7 \ xvii. 2-z ; i Cor, xv. 3 ; cf. Lk. xxiv. 26. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 183 says S. Paul ; and S. John says : " Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God." Is not this to say that Jesus was Christ from His entrance into the world and that He came here be- low precisely as Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of men/ Naught, then, after a careful study of the texts seems to authorize the assertion that, according to the teaching of the Apostolic Church, Jesus had, prop- erly speaking, become Christ and Lord by His resur- rection.^ The Testimony of Jesus' Contemporaries. — Let us now ascertain what have been, on this very point, the teaching of Jesus Himself and the ideas of those who lived with Him. Loisy thinks that Jesus' reserve about calling Himself the Messiah is very peculiar, and that the key to the solution of this problem is to be found in the theory that He was not to become the Messiah until the end of time. " We easily see why He wanted to avow His Messianic character only at the day of His death," he says, " and we see in what sense He admitted it. He had no reason to proclaim it before, not only because He would have met with incredulity or would have exposed Himself to the vengeance of the public authorities, but precisely be- cause He could not do so, since preaching was not the Messiah's function and since His coming as the Christ was only to be realized afterwards, at the moment determined by divine Providence. . . . With regard to Jesus' reserve about His Messiahship, we must remember that the idea of the Messiah, as also that of the Kingdom of Heaven, had an eschatological character. The Messiah is not the Preacher but the Chief of the Kingdom. It pertains to Him to rule 1 I Tim. i. 15; I Jo. iv. 2; 2 Jo. vii. ; cf. Lk. ii. 11, 26; Mt. ii. 24; Rom. viii. 3, 32; Gal. iv. 4-6; i Jo. iv. 9, 10, 14; v, 20. 2 Lagrange, art, : Rev, Bib., 1903, p. 302, i84 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Elect. As long as the Kingdom had not come, Jesus might indeed prepare for its Advent but He could not be the Messiah, and we easily understand why He did not claim to be such, since He was des- tined to be Messiah in the future only. We can, how- ever, understand how His disciples had discovered the secret and how He had aided them in doing so ; why, during His final effort to convert Jerusalem, He had acted and spoken more freely than in Galilee because He beheld the near consummation of His destiny; why, to Caiaphas, who had asked Him if indeed He were the Son of God, He had replied : ' I am ; and you shall see the Son of Man coming at the right hand of the power of God ! ' This answer gives the explana- tion : it amounts to saying that Jesus is the Messiah because He is soon to sit at God's right hand and to rule the Kingdom of Heaven." ^ So that, in Loisy's opinion, Jesus refrained from calling Himself the Messiah because, in His own esti- mation. He was not as yet the Messiah and would be- come so only in course of time. But, in studying the manner in which the Saviour had manifested His Mes- siahship we have found other reasons for His reserve and these are based upon facts. Loisy's suggestion is apparently hard to reconcile on the one hand with the character of the Messianic manifestations which refer to Jesus during His earthly life, and on the other hand with the attitude and the most authentic declarations of the Saviour Himself. If, indeed, we study the Messianic manifestations during Jesus' earthly life, we will see that always and everywhere He is pro- claimed to be actually and for the time being, as well as personally and officially, the Messiah; and that no suggestion is ever made that He shall become such only at the end of time. Along the banks of the Jordan, on the Mount of 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 102-103; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, pp. 296, 301. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 185 Transfiguration, God the Father proclaims Jesus as His Son, as His chosen Messiah, as the object of all His love. He does not merely say that Jesus will be His beloved Son, but declares that He is such. And the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus at the Bap- tism, as also His glorious transfiguration between Moses and Elias, seem to fully manifest Him as being, here and now, the predestined Messiah, whom God has anointed and especially loves. Nor, again, in the testimony of the demoniacs to His Messiahship, is there aught to show that the evil spirits wish merely to call Him the future Messiah, the One Chosen to be the Messiah at a distant day. In fact, they say that He is now living, and they call Him the " Holy One of God," "the Son of the Most High God"; and when the Evangelist explains the Saviour's prohibition of revealing it, his very reason is that they knew Him, and knew Him as being the Christ." ^ S. John the Baptist, while imprisoned, asked Jesus through his disciples as spokesmen: "Art thou he that is to come, or look we for another?" Loisy thinks that this question is easily understood if only we sup- pose that Jesus was to be the Messiah simpl}^ at the time of His final advent. He also says that " John the Baptist did not say: 'Art thou the Christ,' be- cause the Kingdom was not realized nor was Jesus acting in his role of Messiah. He asked rather if Jesus was not to become the Christ. Need we, how- ever, have recourse to this hypothesis in order to find an intelligible meaning in the question put by the Pre- cursor? It would appear not. Let us study the passage in the light of its context.^ While confined in the prison of Machaerus, John learns of the miracles wrought by Jesus, the renown 1 Mk. i. 24 ; Lk. iv; 34, 41 ; cf. Mk. v. 7 ; Mt. viii. 29 ; Lk. viii. 28; Mk. i. 34; Lk. iv. 41. 2 Mt. xi. 3; Lk. vii, 19; Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 102, i86 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL of which accredited Him everywhere as a great prophet whom God had given to His people. He sends two of His disciples to ask Jesus if He is the One who is to come. Perhaps, by this message, he wants to af- ford the Master a chance to make a decisive manifes- tation before these messengers whom he thus sought to strengthen in the faith: In fact, the Saviour per- forms divers miracles right under the eyes of these messengers in support of the answer which He gives them. Possibly also, John wants a decisive proof for himself. True it is that his faith was already ancient: on the banks of the Jordan river, after declaring he was not personally the Christ, he had announced that this Christ was to come after him and that he was already present in the midst of the multitude; at the Baptism he had recognized Him and had witnessed the heavenly manifestation; and to his own disciples he had spoken of Jesus in terms that equivalently de- signated Him as the Messiah. But, perhaps, he is surprised at the delay in the advent of the great Mes- sianic manifestation, of " that baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire " which he had announced as being the special work of Christ; and, what surely shows the substantial firmness of his faith, he feels that he can do naught better than to speak to Jesus directly in order to have his belief fully and finally confirmed.^ We do not see, therefore, how we can admit the fol- lowing assertion of Loisy : " The captive John did not know even then that Jesus was the Messiah ; he was beginning merely to suspect it, and the Synoptics do not state that Jesus' reply had led him to believe it. We may doubt that he did so, since his followers did not rally to the cause of the Gospel." The only ground for such an interpretation is the 1 Lk. vii. i6, i8; Mt. xi. 2; Lk. vii. 21; iii. 15; Jo. i. 20; Mk. i. 7; Mt. iii. 11; Lk. iii. 16; Jo. i. 26, 27; Mt. iii. 14; Jo. i. 33, 34; i. 36; iii. 28; Mk. i. 8; Mt. iii. 11, 12; Lk. iii. 16, 17; Jo. i. Z3' THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 187 episode which we are discussing and which may be explained quite otherwise. Against it is the positive fact that the three Synoptics, not to mention the Fourth Gospel, show that, even prior to the Saviour's baptism, John the Baptist was aware of the Messiah's near arrival. On the other hand, the Synoptic accounts leave the impression that the Precursor recognized Jesus as Messiah at the baptism, and this is expressly attested by S. Matthew as by S. John. And Jesus' magnificent eulogy of His Precursor, delivered after the incident in question, would not be intelligible if the Saviour could have perceived in the Baptist's ques- tion a formal doubt, which would not have, even later on, ended in belief. These testimonies are clear and accordant ; they surely are a part of the early tradition. What right, then, have we to reject them just for the sake of a doubtful passage, instead of interpreting this doubtful passage in agreement with the primitive testimonies, and in a way, moreover, of which it is perfectly susceptible ? ^ At all events, the Baptist's query : "Art thou He that is to come?", seems to be but a traditional expres- sion serving to designate the Messiah: The Messiah is '' He that is expected," He who is to come, or, more literally. He who cometh in fulfilment of the divine promises and according to general expectation. The usual representation of Christ's coming at the last day does not prove that the term of itself may not be purely and simply synonymous with " Messiah," or that the person holding such eschatological position may not rightly be called Messiah before that final manifesta- tion, if God has already anointed Him for this purpose and He performs works that are also Messianic.^ Let us even suppose the Precursor used this expres- 1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. ZZZ) Bruce, art.: Jesus, E. B., par. 27, col. 2450. 2C/. Jo. vi. 14; xi, 27. l88 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL sion to signify the final Messianic Advent: there is nothing to prove that, once fully assured that Jesus was to be the Messiah at the end of time, John does not consider Him to be the Messiah even now; so that his question, instead of being interpreted " Art thou he who is to be the Christ ? " would more natur- ally read : " Art thou not at present the Christ ? " — this Christ whom we await as the Saviour, who at the end of days is to preside over the general judgment and estabhsh the reign of God? And, as we shall see later, the Saviour's reply confirms our interpretation. The Apostles, also, like John the Baptist, call Jesus the Messiah, and they apparently see in Him not only the Messiah in expectation but the Messiah already present and essentially realized. Loisy, indeed, is not of this opinion. He thinks that " when Peter says : ' Thou art the Christ,' he does not mean that the Saviour is already exercising the Messianic func- tion, but that He is the person appointed for this office." This view, again, seems irreconcilable with the texts.^ Jesus did not ask His disciples : " Whom do men say that I shall be ?" — What do they think shall be the Son of Man's destiny ? but exactly : " Whom do men say that I am?" — What do they think of my present character, of my real personality? The Apostles in fact tell Him about the various opinions of the people about Him, as also the current ideas about His person and exact identity. Some take Him for a prophet, others for one of the old prophets returned to life, others again for Elias, the Precursor. And again, the Saviour asks the same question : " But you, whom do you say that I am ?" Peter answers plainly : " Thou art the Christ " ; thus proclaiming that he sees in Him, even at the present moment, Christ's person realized. He does not say : " Thou shalt be 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 102-103. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 189 the Christ," nor " Thou art He who is to be the Christ." Naught suggests that such is his underlying thought ; but all seems to show that, although the mul- titude then saw in Jesus an ordinary prophet actually exercising His office and at most the precursor of the Messiah, he himself perceives in His very actual func- tion and in His present activity the person of the Messiah/ A study of the Gospel of S. John, moreover, serves to fully confirm our interpretation. In the Fourth Gospel, no more than in the Synoptics, do we find the Apostles or the Disciples expressing the idea that Jesus is destined to become the Christ only at a future day. Every time that they bear witness to the Saviour's Messiahship they clearly indicate that, as far as they can see. He is already the Messiah both in person and in function. Thus, at their first meeting with the Master, Andrew says to his brother Simon : *' We have found the Mes- siah." And on the morrow, Philip tells Nathanael: ** We have found him of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets did write : Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." But when Nathanael hears Jesus revealing to him secrets of his past life, he perceives in this fact a sign that Philip's testimony is true ; so that he exclaims : " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel." ^ The Samaritan woman, also, after the Master re- veals to her all things that she ever did, hastens into the city and says to the people : " Come and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done: Is he not the Christ?" And the people of the same city, after hearing Jesus discourse to them for two days, tell the same woman : "We ourselves have heard ^ Mk. viii. 27; Mt, xvi. 13; Lk. ix. 18; Mk. viii. 29; Mt. xvi. 15; Lk. ix. 20; Mk. viii. 29; Mt. xvi. 16. 2 Jo. i. 41, 45, 49. 1^0 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." Similar language is uttered by S. Peter at the close of Jesus' discourse on the Bread of Life: We have believed and have known that thou art the Christ, the Son of God." ^ Of especial significance, too, is the profession of faith made by Martha : " I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, come into the world." To her, the two titles, " Christ " and ^' Son of God," are inseparably connected, and the addition, " come into the world," qualifies each of the two antecedents. Now, from the entire context, it is quite apparent that the expression, " come into the world," should be taken in this place not for the final coming at the end of time, but for the first advent which was ac- complished through the Incarnation. Jesus comes into this world as the Son of God who sets forth from the bosom of His Father, and also as the Christ, or Anointed, of God for the fulfilment of Messianic designs. On entering the world He was the Son of God: He was also the Messiah.^ The remarks of the multitude, finally, also prove that if they thought the supreme Messianic mission was to be the estabHshment of the ideal Kingdom of David, they nevertheless discerned in Jesus' teachings and miracles a strictly Messianic function which warranted Him in employing the title of Messiah. After the miracle of the loaves the people exclaim: " This is, of a truth, the Prophet that is to come into the world." In all the various views about Him there is question only of His present character as Christ : " Have the rulers known, for a truth, that this is the Christ ?" Again, many wonder : '' When the Christ cometh shall He do more miracles than this man doth ?". Some say : " This is the prophet ijo. iv. 29, 42; vi. 70. 2 Jo. xi, 27 ; cf. I Jo. iv. 2 ; 2 Jo. vii. ; i Tim. i. 15. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 191 indeed " ; others say : " This is the Christ. ... If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." ^ And when Caiaphas questions Jesus, let Loisy say what he will, he does not at all suggest that he wants to allude to a mere claim to be the one '' who is to be the Messiah." The question is very plainly stated in the three Synoptics: ''Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed God? ... I adjure thee by the liv- ing God that thou tell us if thou he the Christ, the Son of God. ... If thou he the Christ, tell us. . . . Art thou, then, the Son of God?". Pilate, also, sim- ply asked Him: ''Art thou the King of the Jews?" No allusion is made to His future destiny: the ques- tion bears entirely upon what He claims to be at the present time.^ The Saviour's Statements.— But, let us consider the Saviour's own declarations : throughout His earthly life and in His apostolic ministry He is al- ways the Messiah, according to His own assertions. Take, for instance, the Fourth Gospel : it shows that, in the various circumstances in which He avowed His Messiahship, He proclaims Himself, not Him who was to be the Messiah, who was to come later as the Messiah, but indeed the Messiah at hand, the Messiah who was to come and is actually come. The Samaritan woman speaks to Him about the future coming of the promised Messiah : " I know that the Messiah cometh," she says, " who is called the Christ ; therefore, when He is come, He will tell us all things." And Jesus replies : that He is, indeed, the expected Messiah, the Christ who shall come : " I am He," says He, " who am speaking with thee." So too. He asks the man born blind : " Dost thou believe in the 1 Jo. vi. 14; vii. 26, 31, 41 ; Jo. x. 24. 2 Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 63 ; Lk. xxii. 67, 70 ; Mk. xv. 2 ; Mt. xxvii. 11; Lk. xxiii. 3; Jo. xviii. ZZ^ 2>7-\ Lagrange, Rev. Bib., 1903, p. 308. 192 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Son of God ?" And the man replies : *' Who is He, Lord, that I may beheve in Him?" Jesus answers: '* Thou hast both seen Him and it is He that talketh with thee." Again, when the people entreat Him to tell openly if He be the Christ, the Saviour lets it be understood that such declaration has long since been given through His works which declare Him the Son of God and His Messiah : '' I speak to you, and you believe not: the works that I do in the name of my Father, they give testimony of me." ^ If, moreover, we consult the Synoptic gospels, we will find the Saviour employing the like language. To John the Baptist, who asks Him if He is " He that is to come," Jesus replies in terms that seem to fully designate Him as being thenceforth the Messiah ex- pected. Loisy, indeed, tries to square this answer with his theory. He claims that Jesus' reply is such as " to make him understand that He who really prepares the Kingdom is He who is to come with the Kingdom." The deeds which Jesus describes are not strictly His Messianic work which is wholly withheld until the final advent ; they are but a preparation to that unique Messianic work, and merely designate Jesus as Him who is one day hence to be the Messiah.^ Let us closely examine the data. Supposing that John's query could mean: Art thou He who shalt come for the final judgment, then, in appeahng to His miracles, the Saviour would mean that He was indeed the Messiah expected at he end of time; but He says naught to indicate that, if He is to be such a Messiah later on. He was not already, in another though real condition, personally exercising His Mes- siahship and that His present ministry which prepared for the definite establishment of the Kingdom, was not, at the same time, a Messianic function. We" 1 Jo. iv. 25, 26 ; ix. 35-37 ; x. 24, 25. 2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 103. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 193 may even say that, in this case, the Saviour's reply, so remarkable because He is content to appeal to His works in order to strengthen the faith of the messengers, is true only if there is an essential relation between Him " who is to come " and the one who wrought the wonders described by Jesus. And such essential relation can be only that common and identical quality, the Messiahship; for, His present miracles are Messianic works as much as is the supreme manifestation, and in the exercise of His min- istry Jesus is already " the Messiah," and hence He is " He who is to come." If, however, as seems probable, we must see in the Baptist's expression ''Art thou He who is to come," merely the current term for designating the expected Messiah, whether He comes at once into this world with the final Kingdom, or whether He has other works to perform before that supreme manifestation; if He, on the other hand, as seems true, models His reply upon the oracles wherein tradition saw por- trayed the special works of the Messianic era, there is but one plain conclusion: John the Baptist had asked Jesus if He were the Messiah whom people ex- pected, and Jesus answers, in equivalent terms, that He is indeed the Messiah since He performs the works and the functions of the Messiah, although not as yet the final work nor the supreme function.^ We may next consider the Confession of St. Peter, He declares that Jesus is the Christ ; and the Saviour approves and confirms his avowal in such wise that He leads nobody to suppose that He will merit this title only at the end of time. Nor, in telling His apostles to keep silent, is there aught to show that such silence relates to His future Messiahship. In- deed, everything shows that it refers to His present quality of Messiah : " He commanded His disciples 1 Mt. xi. 5 ; Lk. vii. 22 ; cf. Is. xxx. 5 ; Ixi. I. 13 194 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL that they should tell no one that He was Jesus, the Christ." ^ Again, there is Jesus' answer to the High-Priest. Loisy, by the way, thinks that he has some support for his theory in that reply. *' The discourse that Jesus addressed to him," he says, " is really intelli- gible only in that hypothesis. The Saviour avows that He is the Christ ; but, to explain His answer. He also adds : ' You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power,' that is, of God, ' and coming upon the clouds of heaven.' It is precisely this place of honor and this coming upon the clouds that characterize the Messiah. Jesus declares Him- self to be the Son of Man who is to come. We can easily understand why He wished to avow His charac- ter only on the day of His death, and we see in what sense He avowed it." ^ Is Loisy's interpretation really correct? We do not think so. Aside from his hypothesis, the Saviour's response remains, we believe, perfectly intelligible, let us say, more inteUigible. It is at least certain that Jesus was asked, not if He said He was to be the Messiah, but if He is now the Christ. Jesus answers in the affirmative, and it would seem exactly in the same sense: ''Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed God?" ... "I am" ... "I adjure thee, by the name of the living God, to tell us if thou art the Christ, the Son of God?" . . . "Thou hast said it" . . . *'Art thou, then, the Son of God?" . . . "You say yourselves that I am." And Jesus adds : " You shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming upon the clouds of heaven." ^ 1 Mt. xvi. 20. 2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 103. 3 Mk. xiv. 61, 62; Mt. xvi. 6^, 64; Lk. xxii. 67, 70; Mk. xiv. 62) Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 195 There is no sign of any restriction made in order to narrow the sense of the first response by estab- Hshing an essential, even exclusive relation between His quality of Christ and His coming at the end of time. Why should not this declaration be absolutely independent of the response already made, and which fully retains its own meaning? Could not the Saviour wish rather to enforce His avowal by expressly claiming for Himself, in face of his death, the glorious destiny reserved to the Son of Man. Could He not wish simply to set before the conscience of His judges the perspective of that supreme judgment which one day He would personally administer in all the formidable array of His glory? Whatever be said, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that seems to indicate His desire to restrict His title and His quality of Messiah solely to the final advent. Before Pilate, also, Jesus uses the like language. The Procurator asks: "Art thou the King of the Jews?", that is, the Messiah-King. The Saviour re- plies : " Thou hast said it." And if, as the Fourth Gospel states. He adds : " My Kingdom is not of this world," He did not mean that this royalty, and hence this Messiahship, would be realized only at a future epoch. He simply meant that His royalty is not of the temporal order, like the kingdoms of this world, otherwise He would have defended Himself against those who had raised their hands at Him. He also implied that He came here below, already clothed in His royalty, but a wholly spiritual one, since His mis- sion was to reign over souls by leading them to the truth : " Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this I came into the world: that I should give testimony to the truth." ^ We may refer, finally, to the Saviour's constant 1 Lk. xxiii. 2; Mk. xv. 2; Mt. xxvii. ii; Lk. xxiii. 3; Jo. xviii. S7; Jo. xviii. 3^-37- 196 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL use of the " Son of Man " as a title, which fact, we think, leads to the same conclusion. It is a Messianic title : the " Son of Man," — this is the Messiah who would come at the end of time to establish the King- dom as foretold in the vision of Daniel. Remarkably enough, Jesus employs this title even in the present exercise of His ministry. He does not call Himself the " Son of Man " merely for the final revelation. No; He is such even in His work of evangeUzation and redemption. It is the " Son of Man " who has power on earth to remit sins, and who is absolute master of the Sabbath. It is the '' Son of Man " who plants in souls the good seed of the Kingdom of God. It is the Son of Man who is come, not to de- stroy, but to save ; not to be ministered to, but to min- ister and to give His life in ransom for many. To fulfil His mission, the Son of God leads a wandering life and condemns Himself to the absolute penury of a missionary : he has no place where to lay His head. When foretelling His Passion, the Saviour declares that it is necessary that the *' Son of Man " should suffer much, as it is written of Him; that He should be rebuked by the Ancients of the people, the High Priests, and the Scribes, and that He should be put to death and rise again the third day.^ In thus employing, from the beginning to the end of His earthly life, a title properly Messianic, as He 1 Mk. xviii. 38 ; Mt. xvi. 27, 28 ; Lk. ix. 26 ; Mk. xiii. 26 ; Mt. xxiv. 30; Lk. xxi. 27; Mk. xiv. 62; Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69; Mt. X. 23; xiii. 14; ix. 27; xxiv. 37, 39, 44; xxv. 31; Lk. xii, 8, 40; xvii. 22, 24, 26; xviii. 8; xxi. s^; Mt. xi. 19; Lk. vii. 34; Mt. xii. 32; Lk. xii. 10; Mt. xvi. 13; Lk. xi. 30; xxii. 48; Mk. ii. 10; Mt. ix. 6; Lk. vi. 24; Mk. ii. 28; Mt. xii. 8; Lk. vi. 5; Mt. xiii. 37 \ Mk. x. 45; Mt. xx. 28; xviii. 11; Lk. ix. 56; xiv. 10; Mt. viii. 20; Lk. ix. 58; Mk. viii. -31 ; Lk. ix. 22; Mk. ix. 8, 11; Mt. xvii. 9, 12; Mk. ix, 30; Mt. xvii. 21; Lk. ix. 44; Mk. X. 33; Mt. xx. 18; Lk.^ xviii. 31; _Mk. xiv. 21, 41; Mt. xxvi. 24, 25; Mt. xii. 40; xxvi. 2; Lk. xxiv. 7, 26; Jo. iii. 14; viii. 28; xii. 34. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 197 was to prove it later, did not Jesus equivalently indicate that, even at present, He was the Mes- siah. No doubt, the title would be realized in a special and fuller sense at the final advent ; but, that He might rightly and constantly use it during life ; that He might employ it continuously in connection with His ministry, it was quite necessary that this title should precisely be His while on earth. " If Jesus is the future Messiah," says Lagrange, " we will have to explain how, during His life. He has thus readily taken the title and assumed the office of the Son of Man precisely predicted of the heavenly Messiah." ^ And Holtzmann observes : '' Jesus put into this title all that characterized His mission and ministry. . . . As He knew that this mission should be accomplished by suffering and death, the Son of Man became the object of prophecies referring both to His glory and to His sufferings. Thus it is that Jesus is and calls Himself the " Son of Man," when He proclaims and extends the Kingdom of God, in pardoning, in teach- ing, and in suffering. On the other hand, and in an especial manner, He thus styles Himself when He per- fects the Kingdom in coming upon the clouds of heaven. ... As the Kingdom of God is a reality present as well as future, so the title chosen by Jesus, as regards the bearing of His mission upon the King- dom, embraces the present as well as the future work." ^ If, then, we examine the texts impartially, it would seem that the Saviour presents Himself in the Gos- pels, not only as the one who was to be the Messiah at the end of time, but also as being already, during His earthly life, the Messiah in person and office. As we have seen, it is thus that He is represented in the 1 Lagrange, art. : Jesus et la Crit. des Evang., Bullet, de Lit. EccL, 1904, p. 13 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrb. N. T. TheoL, 1897, vol. i, pp. 250-253. 198 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL church of the ApostoUc times. No doubt, His resur- rection and His ascension shall manifest Him, in a divine manner, as the Messiah, or even, these events shall confirm- the triumphant Messiah in the perfect possession of His glory; but, properly speaking, they shall not constitute Him the Messiah. So too, His coming at the end of time shall be His advent as supreme judge of the world and chief of the eternal Kingdom; in a sense this will be the final Messianic advent, His coming as the triumphant and glorious Messiah par excellence. But if, so to say, this is to be the crown of His Messianic career, it shall not be, its beginning and inauguration. In His first ad- vent and in His earthly fife, in His Gospel ministry and in His redemptive work, Jesus is already person- ally and actually the Messiah, the Saviour of men. III. SOURCE OF MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS. Theory of Illusion. — How, we may ask, did Jesus come to believe and to deem Himself the Messiah? Whence did He become aware of His Messiahship? To the infidel critic this is the great problem, the utterly disconcerting problem. The rationalist, deny- ing aught that surpasses the natural, scouts the idea of an authentically real Messiah, of a person actually sent by God to represent Him among men and to establish at the world's end the eternal kingdom of the Elect. To believe such critics, Jesus, in claiming to be the Messiah, could not speak the truth. We have, then, two hypotheses between which we must choose: either Jesus was deceived, or He was a deceiver. Was Jesus, indeed, deceiving? Did He lie by pre- tending to be what He knew He was not, namely, the Messiah ? No one nowadays dreams of accepting such a theory: the Saviour's loyalty to truth is far beyond suspicion. No' one more fiercely censured the hypoc- risy of the Pharisees than He. No one more ur- gently enforced the agreement between the outer and THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 199 the inner life, the accord between words and actions with the soul's inward emotions, in a word, sincerity and uprightness as founded upon the universal and constant principle that, although men may see only the outward view, God indeed discerns the depths of hearts. He wished that His disciples would banish from their speech every oath as being superfluous : the Christian should be content to use the simple asser- tion: Yea, yea; nay, nay. Surely, such a love for truthfulness in others defends Him from all suspicion of dissimulation, and especially of lying, in such an im- portant matter as His divine mission and Messianic dignity.^ All His words, nay, all His acts breathe a humihty, a frankness, an uprightness that forcibly impress every- one, believer or infidel, that cares to study His dis- courses and His conduct. Dare we say that an im- poster, with the view to declare Himself the Messiah, has employed that admirable delicacy, reserve, and discretion witnessed in the Gospel story? Would He have so carefully avoided favoring the popular pre- judices and profiting by the passions of the multitude? Would He, as Jesus, have sustained so firmly His claims even until death ? The Passion, the crucifixion, as undergone in support of the testimony rendered to His Messiahship, — here truly is the unexceptionable proof of the sincerity of the Saviour's convictions. Jesus, to be sure, did not want to be a deceiver. Therefore, the rationahst critic concludes, he deceived Himself: Jesus, it is said, was the victim of illu- sion ! But, how explain such illusion ? How did Jesus, in spite of the real facts, come to be falsely per- suaded and yet deeply convinced that He was the Messiah? Such, in a word, is the problem that con- fronts the infidel critic, and which Rationalists have sought to solve, i Mt. vi. 37. 200 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL The various attempts at its solution, generally speak- ing, start out from the idea that Jesus' illusion on this point was the result of His human soul's activity, of a slowly progressive evolution which naturally af- fected His thoughts through the influence of His en- vironment, — the prevailing ideas and His personal temperament, — and which ended in that profound and very strong conviction that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Renan. — This alleged soul-development in Jesus has been described by no author with a greater dis- play of literary ability nor with a finer appearance of critical acumen than by Ernest Renan. His endeavor in psychological reconstruction, sketched in his " Life of Jesus," is still, and no doubt shall remain the su- preme effort of infidel criticism to explain rationally the Saviour's consciousness of His Messiahship. In Renan's opinion, the beginning of all that psy- chological progress in Jesus was His settled convic- tion that He enjoyed an intimate union with God. His soul enjoyed it in a manner so special that He believed Himself to stand towards God as a son to His father. Nay more, He beHeved Himself to be, in a higher degree than others, the Son of God. And Renan thinks that this persuasion of Jesus was so firm, so abiding that it probably had no beginning and clung to the very fibers of His being. " The development of living character," says Renan, " is everywhere the same ; and it cannot be doubted that the growth of a personality so powerful as that of Jesus followed very strict laws. An exalted con- ception of the Divinity, — not due to Judaism, and seemingly the creation of His own great soul, — was, in a manner, the germ of all His power. . . . God does not speak to Him as to one outside Himself ; God is in Him. He feels Himself close to God, and draws from His own heart all that He says of His Father. He lives in the bosom of God by contact at every THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 201 moment. . . . He believes Himself to be in direct communication with God; He believes Himself to be a son of God. The highest consciousness of God that has existed in the bosom of humanity is that of Jesus. . . . Jesus, no doubt, did not reach at one step this high assertion of Himself; but it is probable that, from the first. He looked on Himself as standing with God in the relation of a son to His father. Here lies His true originahty: for this He owes nothing to His own people. Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman has understood this delightful theology of love." ^ Convinced that He was the Son of God, Jesus soon realized that He had a mission, namely, to ad- mit all men to a share in His divine Sonship by teach- ing them to know God as their Father and to worship Him as sons. " Rising boldly above the prejudices of His nation. He would establish the universal Fatherhood of God. . . . He establishes the supreme consolation, — re- course to the Father whom each one has in heaven, and the true Kingdom of God which each one bears in His own heart. The expression, " Kingdom of God," or " Kingdom of Heaven," was the favorite phrase by which Jesus described the revolution He was bringing into the world. . . . Near the end of His life, Jesus seems to have believed that it would be realized in a material form by a sudden renovation of the world ; but this was, doubtless, not His first idea. . . . The realistic conception of the Divine Advent was only a cloud, a transient error, which His death has made us forget. He who founded the true King- dom of God, the kingdom of the meek and the humble, was the Jesus of the earlier period, of those pure and cloudless days when the voice of His Father re-echoed within His bosom in clearer tones. It was, then, for some months, — a year perhaps, — that God truly dwelt on earth." ^ ^Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 131-133. ^ Ibid., p. 133. 202 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Again, " it appears that His stay near John, not so much by the influence of the Baptist as by the natural growth of His own thought, ripened many of His ideas about the ' kingdom of heaven '. . . . He is no longer the delightful moralist merely, aspiring to embody sub- lime lessons in a few vivid and concise aphorisms ; He is a revolutionary of lofty aim, who attempts to re- new the world from its very base, and to establish on earth the ideal He has conceived. ... In the world, as it is, evil has the upper hand. . . . The reign of goodness is to have its turn. The advent of this reign of goodness is to be a great and sudden revolution. The world will seem turned upside down." ^ " Who is to establish this kingdom of God ?" asks Renan. " Let us recall that the first thought of Jesus, — a thought so deeply rooted in Him that it probably had no source outside, but lay in the very roots of His being, — was that He was the Son of God, the bosom friend of His Father, the agent of His will. The reply of Jesus to such a question could not, then, be doubtful. The persuasion that He should found the kingdom of God took absolute possession of His mind. He looked upon Himself as the universal re- former. Heaven, earth, all Nature, insanity, disease, and death are only His instruments. In the glow of His heroic will, He believes Himself all-powerful. If the earth does not lend itself to this complete trans- formation, it will be broken up, purified by fire and by the breath of God. A new heaven will be created, and the whole earth will be peopled with the angels of God." 2 From this point, thinks Renan, it was but a step to identity Himself with the Messiah, the chief ideal of the future Kingdom. " Haunted by an idea more and more imperious, Jesus henceforth follows calmly, as if under a certain doom, the path marked out for Him J- Renan, of>. cit., pp. 162, 163. ^ Ibid., p. 164. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 203 by His astonishing genius and the extraordinary cir- cumstances in which He hved. . . . On His return to GaUlee, He boldly proclaimed the ' glad tidings of the Kingdom of God/ This Kingdom was at hand; and He, Jesus, was that ' Son of Man ' whom Daniel in his vision had beheld as the divine herald of the final and supreme revelation. . . . But this chief passage of Daniel struck the mind ; the phrase ' Son of Man ' be- came, at least in certain schools, one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as judge of the world and as King of the new era about to open. The application made of it by Jesus to Himself, accordingly, pro- claims His Messiahship, and affirms the coming catas- trophe in which He was to appear as Judge, invested with the full powers delegated to Him by the Ancient of Days." ^ It may be noted, in passing, that O. Schmiedel main- tains that Jesus at first believed Himself to be the Prophet of the Kingdom, and then, by His success, had come to believe Himself the Messiah.^ Nevertheless, in the measure that Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship grows stronger, the difficulties in the way of His work increase, the opposition of the Pharisees becomes more menacing: He perceives that before becoming the triumphant Messiah, He must first of all .undergo suffering and death. " His ideas are henceforth spoken with perfect clearness. . .' . The Law must be abolished; and He is the one ap- pointed to abolish it. The Messiah is come; and He it is who is the Messiah. The Kingdom of God is soon to be revealed. He knows well that He will fall a victim to His boldness ; but the Kingdom of God cannot be conquered without violence : it must be es- tablished through shocks and rendings. The Son of 1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 172, 173. 2 Schmiedel, Die Hauptprobleme der Lehen Jesu Fors- chung, 1902. 204 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Man after His death will return in glory, accompanied by legions of angels, and those who have rejected Him will be overwhelmed." ^ On His last journey towards Jerusalem, the thought of His approaching death had become a matter of conviction. '' Jesus went in advance, lost in thought. They all gazed at Him in silence with a feeling of dread, not daring to question Him. He had already spoken to them at various times of His future suffer- ings, and they had listened reluctantly. Jesus, at length, spoke out, and, no longer concealing His pre- sentiments, addressed them on His approaching end. This caused a great sadness in the whole company. . . . For Himself, Jesus was confirmed in the thought that He was about to die, but that His death would save the world." ^ Criticism. — Such is, according to Renan, the soul- development which Jesus experienced on the subject of His Messiahship. In describing it, he is surely compelled to ask himself how, from the view-point of sound reason such a psychological process should be termed. Naturally enough, the word " insanity " oc- curs to his mind, and, very often, slips from his pen. He was inclined to adhere to this view, so very strange and extravagant appeared to him Jesus' pretension to be the Messiah, the supreme judge of men. and the in- a'ugurator of God's eternal kingdom. Still, he could not abide by such an explanation; for, on the other hand, it seemed to him that it was not less unHkely that a fool could have had such wisdom, achieved so great a work, exerted an influence so mighty and so bene- ficient upon all humanity. And then, he entrenches himself within a vaporous dilettantism, he clings to the vague and the unprecise, proffering a medley of hair-splittings, and forever correcting the most con- tradictory insinuations, the one by the other. 1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 252, 253. 2 /^/j.^ pp_ 354^ 355^ THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 205 Under the alluring veil of style that masks the line of argument employed by this master of rhetorical criticism, an impartial analyst will perceive that, while pretending to utterly disclaim the word " mad- ness," or " insanity," Renan still somewhat insists upon the fact itself. Thus, as regards the Saviour's persuasion that He was intimately united with God and was the Son of God, he ventures this blasphemous suggestion : " In this, the madman is close beside the man inspired." Of course, he soon checks himself: " Only, the madman never succeeds. It has not yet been given to mental aberration to act seriously upon the progress of mankind." But, for all that, the in- sinuation stands: he ascribed to insanity Jesus' con- viction of His relationship with God. So too, must he ascribe to a sort of abnormal and mystical exaltation, bordering upon madness, Jesus' prophecy about His coming at the end of the world to judge all men and to secure the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.^ To be sure, Renan affects to find some excuse for such an extravagant illusion on the part of Jesus: " Let us overlook," he says, " His hope of a vain apocalypse, of a second coming in great triumph upon the clouds of heaven. . . . The realistic conception of • the Divine Advent was only a cloud, a transient error, which death has made us forget." So that, he deems the Jesus of the final advent as merely an enthusiast misled by popular revelations, — a sort of visionary and illuminist whose imagination argues in Him an in- creasing over-exaltation and whose soul was crushed by sorrow. He writes : " Carried away by this tre- mendous sweep of enthusiasm, and governed by the demands of a preaching more and more exalted, Jesus was no longer free ; He belonged to His mission and in a sense to mankind. Sometimes one might have 1 Renan, op. cit., p. 133. 2o6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL said that His reason was unbalanced. He suffered great anguish and disturbance of mind. The great vision of the Kingdom of God, flaming constantly be- fore His eyes, dazzled Him." ^ Thus Jesus' claims do not appear humanly expli- cable unless we suppose like Renan, that He suffered from an abnormal exaltation verging on insanity. To that infidel critic, then, Jesus would be, at all events, either a madman, or the victim of illusions. Does this partial mental aberration of the illusion- ist, this semi-insanity of the visionary, however, suf- fice to explain the unusual character of the Saviour's claims to Messiahship? Is it credible? That a car- penter of Nazareth, — such was Jesus in popular es- teem, — could have pretended to be, we will not say merely an envoy of heaven, a privileged prophet of God, but the very Son of God, greater than Jonas, greater than Solomon, greater than the most illustrious men of the Old Law ; that He should imagine Himself to be the regenerator of humanity, who was to reveal to men the true religion of the Father, the Messiah of whom " the prophets had written with only Him in view," and " the mirror in which all the prophetic spirit of Israel had read the future " ; that, above all. He had dared to conceive and to declare His coming upon the clouds of heaven at the world's end, escorted by the holy angels in all the splendor of divine power in order to preside at the solemn trial of the human race, tO' pro- nounce Himself the final sentence upon the good and the bad, and, finally, to inaugurate the glorious reign of the eternal Kingdom of God ; that this village work- man should have had such immeasurably extravagant pretensions, and that He should have entertained them, not for the passing moment, but for many long months, nay, that He should have cherished them even unto His death, — truly such a man must have 1 Renan, op. clt., pp. 135, 314. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 207 been insane. Mere mental exaltation, partial illu- sion, is not enough to explain, humanly speaking, the excessive and unusual character of these pretensions. In any case, we have to suppose a deranged condition unexampled in the annals of human pathology, and which any sane person could only regard as the ut- most and wildest folly.^ This fact is apparently quite a difficulty in Kenan's estimation. But notice how he tries to elude it ! " If we may believe one version," he says, " the high-priest then adjured Him to say if He were the Messiah. Jesus confessed it, and even proclaimed before the as- sembly the near approach of His heavenly reign. The courage of Jesus, who had resolved to die, did not re- quire that." An odd way to twist the texts, to be sure. Observe, too, that what Renan calls one version is really the account of the three Synoptists. In fact, in a foot-note he states : " Mt. xxvi. 64 ; Mk. xiv. 62 ; Lk. xxii. 69. The Fourth Gospel speaks of no such in- cident." But he fails to note that this latter gospel shows that Jesus explicitly declared His Messiahship before Pilate, and that the Sanhedrin stated that the reason for the death-sentence pronounced against Him was that " He made Himself the Son of God." Thus, may we judge how much of the partisan, a priori animus, in defiance of every scientific fact, permeates the method of a so-called independent critic.^ Another critic, Wernle, says that " Jesus died with the beHef in His speedy return in Messianic glory, which belief causes every thoughtful person the great- est difficulty at the present day. Compared with this, even the Messianic problem has but little import- ance. . . . The doubt will still arise whether it was really Jesus Himself, whether it was not, after all, His disciples who were the authors of this fantastic 1 Renan, op. cit, p. 267. ^ Ibid., p. 373; Mt. xxvi. 64; Mk, xiv. 62; Lk. xxii. 69; Jo. xix. 7. 2o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL and erroneous conception. But we must silence our modern modes of thought when facts speak so clearly and so decisively. However much may be a later addi- tion in the eschatological speeches of Jesus, the con- stant element in them is just this thought of the second coming. It is this thought around which the whole of the apocalyptic theory has crystallized, and not vice versa." Wernle at length reaches this strange con- clusion : " He accepted the idea under compulsion. He fought with it, broke it up, re-cast it; yet, a por- tion of the deception which it contained crept into his mind!"^ The theory of an Illusionist Messiah, it will be said, is untenable. Assuredly so : the best proof of the fact being that Renan does not venture to advance it and feels the need of protesting loudly against it. " Only the madman," he says, " never succeeds. It has not yet been given to mental aberration to act seriously upon the progress of mankind." Still, of itself this theory might account for Jesus' inconceivable illusion. But if this theory, supposing it is alone capable of rationally solving the problem, is nevertheless in too flagrant con- tradiction with the facts to admit of formulation, must we not thence simply conclude that rationalism is radi- cally powerless to explain away the Saviour's Mes- sianic convictions as being illusory ? ^ We may, accordingly, examine the more moderate theory as Renan thought it could be stated. Not only is it a priori to be rejected as being out of propor- tion with the data of the problem, and incapable of reasonably accounting for such claims as those made by the Saviour, but it is also self -destructive and ab- solutely discordant with the real facts. For, the very difficulties which prevent the critic from suppos- 1 Wernle, op. cit., po. 50, 52 ; Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., par. 32, col. 2453. 2 Renan, op. cit, p. 131. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 209 ing that Jesus was utterly and really insane likewise preclude the supposition of partial madness such as the alleged soul-frenzy and hallucination. Like the former, the latter theory expressly contradicts all our assured knowledge about Jesus' mental and moral temperament and His life and works. An attentive and unbiased study of the gospels will show that there is one trait which stands out plainly in the Saviour's character: it is His profoundly sincere humility. Naught more severe than His rebuke of the Pharisees because of their pride, their boasting, their love of show, their craving for the highest places. Naught more constantly urged on the other hand than humihty, care to avoid men's opinion in order to Hve as meek suppliants before God like the Publican. To enter the kingdom of Heaven, one must be as humble as a child. His disciples must consider themselves the servants of all, and as unprofitable servants ! He is come, not to be served, but to minister. He refuses honors, flees from the crowd, avoids unseemly show, and hides when men seek to enthrone Him! Truly might He call Himself meek and humble of heart. Was not such deep and sincere humility the safest preservative against such an unusual flight of imagi- nation and such an unbearable excess of pride as that of believing Himself the Son of God, the ideal Chief- tain, and the supreme judge of mankind? " This Jesus who preached humihty and knowledge of self," says Harnack, '' nevertheless named Himself, and Himself alone, as the Son of God . . . who, in spite of His lowliness, called Himself the Messiah." And again : " It is only of One that we know that He united the deepest humility and purity of will with the claim that He was more than all the prophets before Him : the Son of God." ^ 1 Harnack, What is Christianity f pp. 139, 149; Christianity and History, p. 37. 14 210 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " The most wonderful feature in Jesus," says Wernle, '' is the co-existence of a self-consciousness that is more than human, with the deepest humility before God." ^ Who is there, on the other land, that has not ad- mired the depth and brilliance of His intelligence, the incomparable candor and high-mindedness manifested in all His remarks and discourses? None knew man better than He: none has given a higher or more ex- cellent idea of God than He has afforded. As His philosophy of religion has eclipsed all the ancient sys- tems, so has His moral code become the standard for mankind to follow. He has found disciples among the greatest geniuses, and, even at this day. His doc- trine is the food of thinkers, while His words com- pel the investigation, and His axioms the admiration of the fiercest infidels. Thus Renan admits that He " taught the noblest moral lesson that man has ever received. . . . He con- ceived the true city of God, the genuine * new birth,' the Sermon on the Mount, the ennobling of the weak, the love of the people, tenderness to the poor, the strengthening anew of all that is humble, true, and simple. This rehabilitation He has depicted, as an incomparable artist, by features which will last for- ever. Each of us is in debt to Him for that which is best in himself." ^ It shall ever seem improbable, nay impossible, there- fore, that an intelligence so lofty and brilliant as His could have co-existed with the most absurd folly. As- suredly the world's greatest and finest mind could not have belonged to humanity's greatest fool. '' That Jesus' message is so great and so powerful," observed Harnack, " lies in the fact that it is so simple, and, on the other hand, so rich; so simple as to be 1 Wernle, op. cit., p. 25. 2 Renan, op. cit., pp. 165, 288. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 21I exhausted in each of the leading thoughts which He uttered ; so rich that every one of these thoughts seems to be inexhaustible and the full meaning of the say- ings and parables beyond our reach." ^ '^ His spiritual intuitions," says Bruce, " are pure truth, and valid for all ages. God, man, and the moral ideal cannot be more truly or happily conceived. Far from having outgrown His thoughts on these themes, we are only beginning to perceive their true signifi- cance. How long it will be before full effect shall be given to His radical doctrine of the dignity of man! How entirely in accord with the moral order of the world, as interpreted by the whole history of mankind, His doctrine of sacrifice as at once the penalty and the power of righteousness in an evil world !" ^ How impressive, indeed, is the depth and extent of the Saviour's wisdom in all His words and deeds! Renan speaks of enthusiasm, soul-frenzy, impulsive- ness, as his theory demanded ; but naught is more op- posed to the Gospel. In contrast to the impulsiveness of the people and the enthusiasm of the disciples is indeed the peace, the calmness, the seriousness of Jesus, His clear conviction of His mission, His sub- limely placid view of His destiny. His prudent reserve in revealing Himself. Not a single Gospel event can serve as a support for. Renan^s assertions. Every- where the Saviour appears wonderfully serene, and ever with the air of calm and noble majesty. His self-control. His mastery of emotions in the most try- ing and various circumstances impresses even His ene- mies. In all sincerity, then, it must be granted that His perfectly balanced temperament is irreconcilable, not only with utter madness, but also with Renan's alleged hallucination or soul-frenzy on the part of Jesus, especially to such a strangely extravagant de- gree as this critic would have us to suppose. 1 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 55. 2 Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., par. ^^, col. 2454. 212 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Jesus " is always modest, humble, sane and sober," writes Wernle, " and yet always conscious of being more than a man. It is quite impossible to realize such an inner life as this." ^ While O, Holtzmann remarks that '' in His subse- quent ministry, Jesus gives such strong proofs of the clearness and certainty of His judgment, and of the strength with which His will is ever directed towards definite good ends, that it is quite impossible in His case to trace these visions to any mental affection. . . . The vigorous manner in which He at the same time took up the profession ... of a preacher shows that Jesus was far from giving evidence of an enthusiast, while there is nothing at all fantastical in the substance of His preaching." ^ Harnack, also, recognizes that *' He is possessed of a quiet, uniform, collected demeanor, with everything directed to one goal. He never uses any ecstatic lan- guage, and the tone of stirring prophecy is rare. En- trusted with the greatest of all missions. His eye and ear are open to every impression of the life around Him, — a proof of intense calm and absolute cer- tainty." 3 Kenan's theory, moreover, is no less certainly in- admissible when we consider what an influence Jesus exerted upon His immediate disciples, upon the early Church, and upon the future destiny of mankind. Renan himself has said : " This great foundation was, in truth, the personal work of Jesus. To make Him- self adored to this degree. He must have been worthy to be adored. Love is kindled only by an object worthy of it; and did we know nothing of Jesus ex- cept the passion He inspired in those around Him, still we must affirm that He was great and stainless. The 1 Wernle, op. cit., p. 41. 2 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 137. 3 Harnack, What is Christianity f pp. 38-39. I THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 213 faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first Chris- tian generation are to be explained only by assuming, at the beginning of it all, a man of transcendent great- ness." ^ How, then, can Renan's theory of partial insanity on Jesus' part, be reconciled with such a statement as this? To say that an unbalanced mind could achieve such wondrous moral reforms in His immediate fol- lowers, and so gently, although so strongly, influence the first apostles, and later become the head of that marvelous soul-movement called the early church, — is not this a contradiction in terms ? And then the future destiny of the world, — Renan also extols the incomparable influence which Christ exerted thereon. We may ask, indeed, whether an un- happy victim of hallucination could elicit from this critic that panegyric which, despite its plainly affected dithyramb, is so significant because issuing from the pen of an infidel ? " Rest now in Thy glory, noble Founder," exclaims Renan. " Thy work is completed : Thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of Thy efforts crumble through any fault! Henceforth, be- yond all frailty, Thou shalt see, from the depth of Thy divine peace, the unending results that follow from Thy deeds. At the cost of a few hours of suffering, which have not even touched Thy great soul. Thou hast achieved immortality the most complete. During thousands of years, the world will breathe life from Thee. Around Thee, as an ensign lifted above our conflicts, will be fought the hottest battle. A thousand times more living, more beloved, since Thy death than during the days of Thy pilgrimage here below, Thou wilt become so completely the corner-stone of human- ity, that to tear Thy name from the record of this world would be to disturb its very foundations, 1 Renan, op. cit., p. 412. 214 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Henceforth, men shall draw no boundary between Thee and God. Do Thou, who hast completely van- quished death, take possession of Thy kingdom, whither, by the royal road Thou hast pointed out, long generations of adorers shall follow Thee !" ^ No ! He who holds such a place in the world's his- tory, who has beheld the greatest geniuses as also the humblest minds enter His school, who has enabled mankind to achieve great progress at once mental, moral, and religious, and to which history finds noth- ing comparable, — such a being could not have been a madman, nor the victim of hallucination. " Jesus Christ," says Harnack, " was the first to bring the value of every human soul to light, and what He did no one can any more undo. We may take up what relation to Him we will : in the history of the past no one can refuse to recognize that it was He who raised humanity to this level." ^ How could He have been a madman, or an illusion- ist of whom Renan has also written : " Let us place the person of Jesus, then, at the highest summit of hu- man greatness. . . . He is the one who has impelled His fellow-men to take the longest step towards the divine. ... In Him was gathered whatever is good and elevated in our nature. . . . Whatever unlooked- for events the future may have in store, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will unceasingly re- new its youth ; His story will call forth endless tears ; His sufferings will subdue the noblest hearts ; all ages will proclaim that, among the sons of men, no one has been born who is greater than He." ^ In a word, the only theory which a Rationalist can imagine to account for the Saviour's consciousness of being the Messiah, is utterly irreconcilable with the 1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 395-396. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. y^)- 3 Renan, op. cit., pp. 413, 420, 421. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 215 ascertained facts about His person and the indubitable realities of history. This hypothesis, none has pre- sented, nor, let us say, can hope to offer, more cleverly than Renan. He has employed all the suppleness of his varied and divergent genius, all the resources of his talent as a critic and rhetorician. His explanation, however, is so confused, so contradictory, so designedly unprecise and vague, that it cannot satisfy an earnest mind which falls not under the subtlety of sophism nor the magic of style, but is eager to test the proofs and to verify the correctness of his method of argu- ment. It might even be said that Renan's anxiety to elevate Jesus' personality to the pinnacle of humanity, past and future, his affected manner in utterly denying a formal accusation of madness or imposture ; his in- sistance in excusing the Saviour from what he calls " a cloud," a " passing error," when it is question of a basic idea maintained until His death ; the shifting, elusive, cleverly suggestive and roundabout insinua- tions whereby he broaches the idea of illusion or semi- insanity, without, however, daring to say so in words, as if ashamed to resort to such an expedient : — we may say that all this procedure is the best proof of the falsity of his thesis. If Renan, with all his critical subtilties, with all the agility of his literary genius, could only offer, in the end, a method of argument so flimsy and an explana- tion so manifestly contradictory, we have again the best demonstration of the truth of Jesus' claims to be the Messiah, and, therefore, of the truth of Chris- tianity.^ Theory of Evolution. — Among the Protestant scholars who profess liberal views in Biblical matters, and who, while fully admitting the existence of a per- sonal God, have nevertheless too often imbibed the 1 Renan, op. cit.; cf. Lepin, lesus Messie, pp, 158, 161; Engl. tr. 204-206. 2i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL opinions of Rationalists, there prevails a theory which has many points in common with the one advanced by Renan and other thoroughgoing promoters of the Rationalistic school. As far as we can judge from their declarations, too often very vague, they consider Jesus as being truly the Messiah chosen by God, but, nevertheless, a Man-Messiah, a sort of prophet, greater than the other prophets, and especially sent by God to establish the Christian religion. We are told that, born Hke other men, and strictly bound by the laws of men- tal and moral development, as also by those of physical growth imposed upon the progeny of Adam, He be- came aware of His Messiahship only through a gradual soul-effort like that described by Renan. We are told that Jesus' idea of His Messiahship was, at first vague and incomplete, very uncertain, filled with misgivings, and mingled with egregious errors. Hence, it is claimed, Jesus needed the influence of outward events, as also the patient, laborious effort of His own soul, if not some divine inspiration, to specify, to make clear, to strengthen, to fully manifest and assure this conviction. Such critics, then, regard the Saviour's Messianic consciousness as the result of a complex and progressive soul-activity just as do the avowed Ra- tionalists, the only difference being that, whilst the Rationalist critic calls it an illusion, the Liberal Pro- testant maintains its reality. Stapfer. — The leading exponent of the Liberal Protestant position is Edmund Stapfer, who is now considered as the representative of Liberal Protestant- ism throughout France, and at present Dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology of Paris. Although firmly rejecting Renan's position, he remarks that Jesus "called Himself the Messiah. That is proved: it is certain. How did He reach that point ? Was He crazy, — yes or no? Such, it seems to us, is the sole alternative which henceforth forces itself between be- lievers and unbelievers." ^ 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, p. xiii, THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 217 And again : '* Renan has said that Jesus, intoxicated by success, beHeved Himself to be the Messiah. He was perfectly sane at the beginning of His ministry. He was no longer so at its close ; and His history, as Renan relates it, notwithstanding the carefulness with which He treats it, is the history of the growing excitement of a man who began with good sense, clearness of vision, the moral health of a fine and noble genius, and who ended in a sickly exaltation next-door to in- sanity. The word ' madness ' was not written by Renan, but the thought may be found expressed on every page. Well, the facts are opposed to this ex- planation." ^ " On the contrary," Stapfer continues, " that in Him which is most striking, the more closely one studies Him, is His possession of Himself, His clear-sighted- ness. His complete freedom from illusion." ^ And further : " It is exceedingly remarkable that the faith of Jesus in Himself and in His work remained absolutely true to itself. . . . This unalterable confid- ence of Jesus in His work. His Father, and Himself is certainly supernatural. . . . There is enormous strength, as a proof of the divine nature of Jesus, in this assurance which no external event could disturb." ^ Stapfer's method, however, in describing the origin of the Messianic consciousness and its gradual develop- ment prior to its full realization by Jesus resembles Renan's point by point. Like Renan, for instance, Stapfer perceives the be- ginning of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship in His sentiment of special union with God, known as Father and as His Father. "Among the acts preparatory to His public life," says Stapfer, " we must include prayer, the hours 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 222. 2 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, p. 181. 3 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 208, 209. 2i8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL spent with His Father. He knew how to ' close His door ' and * pray to His Father who seeth in secret ' ; but it was especially upon the heights which encircle the village that He found solitude and isolation. . . In this nature Jesus unceasingly saw the face of His Father. He had known this Father, and loved Him with all His heart, all His soul, all His strength, and all His thought from the very day when His pious mother taught Him to lisp His name ; and after having found His Fatherhood in the Old Testament, in the marvelous story of the deliverance of His people. He found it again on the solitary heights which overlook Nazareth." ^ In Stapfer's opinion, therefore, Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship is merely the normal evolution of His consciousness of being the Son of God. " We be- Heve," he says, " that it was the inward development of His moral consciousness which led Jesus to declare Himself the Saviour of the world. His vocation did not come to Him from without; it was not events which made Jesus the Son of God, for the events can only be explained by the consciousness which Jesus had of being the Son of God. . . . His faith in His Messianic vocation and His faith in His own perfect holiness were nothing else than a consciousness of His union with God, or faith in His own divinity." ^ Christ's realization of His Divine Sonship was, therefore, according to Stapfer, due to a gradual evo- lution whereby, through ever-increasing presentiments, He became convinced of His Messiahship. Stapfer thus represents the wonderings of the Child of Naza- reth : " Why am I in the world ? What is my mission ? What is to be my life?' And He also asked Himself that other question : ' Who would be the Messiah ? When would He appear? What work would He ac- 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, pp. 68, 7a 2 Stapfer, op. cit., pp. 163, 164. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 219 complish? Thus passed eighteen years, and He ar- rived slowly but surely at the unalterable conviction: ' The Messiah ! I myself am He.' " ^ But it is at the Baptism, we are told, that occurred the climax of Jesus' soul-struggle concerning His Messiahship; and that then He at last reached the full conviction of His position as Messiah after pro- gressive mental effort and under an inner revelation of which Stapfer claims the account in the Gospels is merely an expressive symbol. " In fact,'' says Stapfer, " His Baptism marks the awakening of His Messianic consciousness. What He had already foreseen, was now realized. The question which for some time He had been asking Himself, ' Might it be I ?' received its answer. The inward crisis through He was passing came to its acme and reached its end. He heard the voice of God saying to Him clearly : ' Thou art My well-beloved Son.' The voice resounded to the depths of His soul. Jesus heard God. We cannot for an instant doubt it; for, from this sacred hour, His conviction w^as not to be shaken. It was an absolute certainty; nothing could henceforth weaken it. He had come to the point w^here He could say : ' I am the Messiah,' because, f eehng Himself the child of His Father, He experienced an irresistible desire to realize among men the divine Son- ship. The development of His moral consciousness had brought Him to His definite conviction, to a cer- titude which to Him bore the marks of absolute evidence." ^ Stapfer also puts the further query : " But what kind of Messiah was He to be? What work was He to accomplish ? This question He put to Himself and went on to seek for its answer." ^ If we are to believe Stapfer, therefore, in its pre- 1 Stapfer, op. cit., p. 71. ^Ibid., pp. 127-128. ^Ibid., p. 128. 220 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL liminary stage, the Messianic ideal detached itself from all that hitherto bound it to all base and material views, and this as the result of His soul-struggle of which the Gospel record of His Temptation in the desert is merely the symbolic expression. " The temptation," he says, " was not an isolated and momentary experience. It extended over all that part of Jesus' life which immediately followed His baptism. The Evangelists assign to it a duration of forty days. The number is symbolical, like the whole narrative. During forty days, and no doubt a much longer time, Jesus had been asking Himself what kind of Messiah He should be. The picturesque narrative of the Evangelists admirably describes the conflict through which His soul was passing, and the struggles which He had undergone. . . . Now, He knew He was the Messiah, and He could no longer escape the struggle. It came. It was terrible ; it was a gigantic battle out of which He came forth conqueror. His con- science was its battle-field ; His triumph in it was such that the temptation never again assailed Him. Over what did He triumph? Over false ideas, over the erroneous notion of His contemporaries, over all that He had believed and expected in common with His en- tire people." The Messianic ideal was to be freed from " superstition and Jewish fanaticism." Jesus was to be simply " the spiritual and moral Messiah. . . . His Kingdom should be established in mens' hearts : He would accomplish only a religious work." ^ But a further and final development is to mark the Saviour's idea of His Messiahship. Although a Mes- siah spiritual and moral. He shall suffer and die for the sake of His work. And it is the opposition of the Pharisees that leads Him to become aware of this dolorous destiny. " His Messianic ideas began," continues Stapfer, 1 Stapfer, op. cit., pp. 138, 139, 151. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 221 *^ to change their character. To the exterior drama now beginning — namely the opposition of the Phari- sees — corresponded henceforth an interior drama which nothing in history at all resembles. First, the possibility, then the extreme probability, and finally the certainty of a violent and approaching death, — such was the new element which was about to enter into His previsions of the future ; and, as His conviction that He was the Messiah never weakened for an instant, as the certitude of this which He had gained at His baptism was final and unalterable. He began to conceive of a Messiah who might be perse- cuted and put to death, and consequently who might disappear before the advent of the Kingdom. The as- sociation of these two ideals was something so strange and unheard-of, — a violent death on one side, and Messianism on the other, — it was so far outside of all that a Jew of that time could conceive or imagine, that it is impossible for us to picture to ourselves the in- terior struggles which Jesus must have gone through, the painful surprises, the acts of abnegation, and the immensity of the sacrifice to which He was called. . . Ah, it is certain that we shall never sound the depths of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus." ^ Jesus' inward struggle against the popular Messianic views of the Jews is thus described by Wernle : " The story of the temptation," he writes, '' signifies the breach of Jesus with all that is fanciful and politically dangerous in the conception of the Messiah. . . . He shall not be the Messiah dreamed of by the Zealots ; nor shall He be either the Messiah of the Rabbis. . . ; He resigns Himself to be, if God so wills it, the Mes- siah whom Israel rejects and the Gentiles accept. . . . Finally, the bitter experience that Jesus had gained in His dealings with the people caused the thought of the necessity of suffering, and even of death, to ripen 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 156, 157, 158. 222 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL in His soul. . . . Thus did Jesus, after much labor, purify the title of Messiah which He had at first as- sumed through an inner compulsion. Even for us, after all these centuries, there is something surpris- ingly grand as we observe how the idea is emptied of all the merely sensual and selfish elements, so that finally the image of the King in all His pomp and glory is turned into the tragic figure on the Cross." ^ Wendt, B. Weiss, O. Holtzmann, Harnack. — Such was the origin and gradual evolution of the Messianic consciousness according to Stapfer's theory. Its basis lies in the opinion advanced in Germany by Wendt, B. Weiss, and O. Holtzmann, and also recently accepted by Harnack. It is noteworthy, however, that these German critics are much less assertive than Stapfer, and describe far more cautiously these vari- ous phases of Jesus' soul-activity which he details so minutely. First of all, like Stapfer, they hold that Jesus' con- viction of being the Messiah was derived from His conviction of being the Son of God, and that it had taken shape in His mind when He began His pub- lic ministry. Wendt, for instance, thinks that on entering upon His public Hfe Jesus felt convinced that He enjoyed a special union of Sonship with His heavenly Father as also extraordinary divine gifts as a result thereof, and further that somehow this deep persuasion helped Him to become aware of His Messianic mission, namely, the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the world by imparting to all men its essential ele- ment, sonship with God.^ Whence, therefore, did Jesus reach the conviction of His divine Sonship? Wendt assigns its origin to the study of the Holy Scriptures, which taught Him ^Wernle, op. cit., pp. 47, 48, 49. 2 Wendt, op. cit, p. 94. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY ^23 to revere God as Father, and also to His early home- training whereby His soul was filled with deep senti- ments of religion and tender devotion. Wendt says, however, that " the certainty, clearness, and perfection with which Jesus grasped the Scripture revelation of the fatherly love of God, is not found in the mere in- fluence of the piety of His parents. That must be sought in the peculiar spiritual power which belonged to Himself and which He felt to be a miraculous Divine endowment, a blessed pledge of the fatherly love of God bestowed upon Himself, and a lively con- straining impulse to childhke obedience to the will of God." ^ But Wendt declares that we cannot maintain that the Saviour's profound conviction of possessing such a God-given gift. His persuasion of being the recipient of so special a grace, had its origin during the course of His earthly life. " On the ground of the religious self-consciousness which prompted the later words and acts of Jesus, we can affirm that, so far back as that religious conscious- ness extended, He had always felt Himself in a re- lation of Sonship to God. Certainly, this feeling had grown within Him gradually and had widened and deepened. Along with the general development of His spiritual and moral hfe, the true and full signi- ficance of His loving fellowship with God, and His endowment of divine life and grace, and His sense of filial duty towards God had unfolded. But, in order to attain that conscious standing in grace, and that position of filial freedom, Jesus had not to work His way out of servile legalism. From first to last. He was conscious of His filial relation to God. . . . Jesus, even from childhood, was clearly sensible of the fath- erly love of God, and of His filial relationship to God, and He remained faithful to that early assurance." ^ Wendt, op. cit., p. 99. 224 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " Perhaps, even long before He began His public ministry," continues Wendt, " He was not yet fully aware of the relation of His religious conception to the setting-up of the long expected Kingdom of God; in other words. He did not as yet know that, in His perfect knowledge of the fatherly love of God, and in His own perfect embodiment of the filial relation to God, the principle of the fulfilment of the Divine pro- mises in the Old Testament in regard to salvation were in the highest sense contained. ... At the mo- ment when Jesus underwent the baptism of John, He received and He alone, according to the clear ac- count in Mark, which is corroborated in the further course of the history, the revelation which imparted to Him His Messianic consciousness ; He became con- vinced that the Spirit of God, which was to be pos- sessed and given by the Messiah, had been imparted to Him, and that He now deserves, as the Heavens themselves testified, the titles of Son of God and Well- Beloved of the Father, which, according to the Old Testament promises, belonged also to the Messiah. No doubt Jesus was previously conscious that He was the Son of God, and an object of the divine compla- cency; but, through this revelation was awakened the consciousness of a unique pre-eminence of sonship in relation to God, and of the unique significance which, in virtue of this pre-eminence. He should have for the establishment of the Kingdom of God and the Mes- sianic dispensation. . . . The consciousness of His special endowment by God and His pre-eminent posi- tion among men, must, for Him, have involved a re- cognition of His special duty in regard to God, and of His special vocation. . . . He was to impart to other men the knowledge and the reality of this relationship ; and therefore, also. He was to be the founder of the promised Kingdom of God." ^ 1 Wendt, op. cit.,-pp. loo-ioi. ( I THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 225 It is also the impression of B. Weiss that " the fact that Jesus' consciousness of His Messiahship was gradually matured is manifestly connected with His genuinely human development." ^ He thinks, as does Wendt, that it arose from the Saviour's consciousness of His divine Sonship. Speaking of Jesus, he says that '' starting from the consciousness of His ethical Sonship, He arrived at consciousness of his official mission. . . . His divine Sonship is the deepest ground of the peculiar calling which is given Him as the Son of Man, and of the dignity which already appertains, and will one day appertain to Him; for, only the elect object of divine love can be called to the highest vocation." ^ While Wendt, however, apparently dates the origin of Jesus' realization of His Messiahship at the Bap- tism, while O. Holtzmann explicitly states that '' the awakening of the Messianic consciousness " occurred on that occasion ; that previously Jesus simply thought Himself called to the Kingdom, that, like other men, He was under obligation to receive the Baptism of Penance, and that only during the Vision which ac- companied the Baptism did He become aware of being the Messiah expected at the end of the world, the vicar of God in the Kingdom of Heaven.^ Weiss, on the other hand, thinks that Jesus was fully aware of His position as Messiah at the moment when He met S. John the Baptist. In his opinion, the revelation at the Baptism was simply the signal, given by God, that the time had come for Jesus to fulfil the Messianic mission of which He had already been made person- ally aware ; at the same time, the coming upon Him of the Holy Spirit imparted to Him the qualities and powers He needed for the accomplishment of that work. 1 Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, p. 295. 2 Weiss, B., Biblical Theology, vol. i, p. 81, n. i ; p. 82. 3 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., pp. 136, 137. 15 226 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " Jesus presented Himself for baptism," he says, " with entire consciousness of His Messiahship. . . . But He had been obhged to wait for the calling of God, telling Him that the hour had now struck for the salvation of His people. ... In the command of God summoning Him to baptism, He saw the long- expected token from His Father that the time was come to enter upon His Messianic career." ^ Nor do Harnack's views on this subject differ ap- preciably from those of Wendt and B. Weiss. He claims that the source of Jesus' conviction of His Mes- siahship was precisely His perception of the filial re- lationship which He bore to His Father. He thinks that Jesus became convinced that He knew God as •none had known Him before, and that His union with God was one of incomparable intimacy. Thus did He come to reahze Himself as the Son of God; thus He became persuaded that He was divinely sent to impart to men His personal knowledge of God as Father so that they might thereby be enabled to par- take of His own divine Sonship. " Jesus is convinced," says Harnack, " that Hei knows God in a way in which no one ever knew Him before, and He knows that it is His vocation to com- municate this knowledge of God to others by word and by deed, — and with it the knowledge that men are God's children. In this consciousness He knows Himself to be the Son called and instituted of God, and hence He can say: My God and My Father; and into this invocation He puts something which be- longs to no one but Himself." ^ Harnack also would derive Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship from His persuasion that He was the Son of God; but he does not venture to explain how Jesus passed from the one conviction to the ^ Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. i, pp. 295, 301, 323. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 138. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 22y other, and merely observes that Jesus* reahzation of His Messianic role must have been already formed in His mind at His entrance upon His public ministry. " We shall never fathom," says Harnack, " the in- ward development by which Jesus passed from the assurance that He was the Son of God to the other assurance that He was the promised Messiah. . . . An inner event which Jesus experienced at His bap- tism was, in view of the oldest tradition the founda- tion of His Messianic consciousness. It is not an experience which we can verify; still less are we in a position to contradict it. On the contrary, there is a strong probability that, when He made His public ap- pearance. He had already settled accounts with Him- self. The Evangelists preface their narrative of His public activity with a curious story of a temptation. This story assumes that He was already conscious of being the Son of God and the One who was entrusted with the mission of fulfilling God's promises to His people ; we see Him, moreover, overcoming tempta- tions that bore relation to His Messianic conscious- ness." '"- But if the Saviour, even from the beginning of His ministry, is fully aware of His Messianic vocation, it may be asked if He had thereafter an equally perfect and definite knowledge of the precise position await- ing Him as the Messiah ? Stapfer's views on this matter are by no means ap- proved by Wendt, B. Weiss, O. Holtzmann, and Har- nack. Jesus' temptation in the desert, they say, somehow helped to form His conviction of His Mes- sianic mission; but, strictly speaking, their method of solving the problem does not imply a higher develop- ment of the Messianic ideal, nor a divergence from the erroneous popular notions. " Jesus cannot, of course," says O. Holtzmann, ^ Harnack, op. cit., pp. 148-149. 228 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " have drawn, all at once, all the conclusions involved in His Messianic belief; and yet, the force of the new revelation was so overpowering as assuredly to have left Him no peace until He had reflected upon it and recognized it in all the fulness of its meaning. . . . Jesus Himself told His disciples about it in the story of His temptation. . . . We may be sure that what most exercised Him now, in the depths of His soul, was the great promise connected with the name of the Messiah : ' Thou wilt be the Lord of this world.' . . . He had now to reconcile the consciousness of His duty toward God with the persuasion, freshly awak- ened in His soul, that He was the Messiah." ^ In Wendt's estimation, "it is perfectly conceivable that Jesus, after this sudden and miraculous imparta- tion of the knowledge of His Messiahship, was as- sailed with conflicting doubts, and that He felt it an urgent duty, founded on His Messianic endowments, to bring this conflict to an immediate and decisive issue. ... It was no conflict against images and ideals, arising out of a wicked and selfish and un- godly disposition and inclination in Jesus Himself. We must surely repudiate the idea of a temptation originating in the state of Jesus' own heart. But there were Messianic conceptions and ideals which hitherto approached Him from without, that is, from the pre- vailing views and traditions of His countrymen, and which now entered His soul, in the sense of their being known to Him, and being images in His mind without needing any external means of representation. They represented themselves to Him with a plausible ap- pearance of being true and Scriptural, and through such plausibility they became veritable temptations which it cost Him a struggle to overcome. Yet, in examining them. He perceived the impious principles on which they were based, and, to that extent, regarded 1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., pp. 138, 143. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 229 i and treated them as temptations of Satan. . . . Thenceforth, from this moment, He no longer knew of perplexity nor doubt. . . . Henceforth, He could undertake His public ministry with an invincible con- viction of His Messiahship, with a marvelous clear- ness of view, and a remarkable firmness of feeling, touching the Kingdom of God." ^ Similarly, B. Weiss supposes that the evil sugges- tions against which the Saviour struggled represent, not His own present convictions, nor His personal desires or inclinations, but ideas and images to which He was a stranger. He believes that Jesus entered the desert purposely to ascertain the divinely ordained means for the accomplishment of His mission which were destined to determine His course of pro- cedure after He had clearly discerned the divine will in His regard. He says that during such reflexions, He necessarily perceived that tableau of the Messianic ideal which stood opposed to the divine plan ; that this view of the earthly and unhallowed means which might lead Him onward to attain His purpose arose, not from the carnal source of His personal feelings, but simply from the outer world ; and that, despite the seductive power that vision could exert over His natural senses, over the world of sense, Jesus deemed it a Satanic illusion which sought to have Him aban- don the path willed for Him by God.^ Harnack, too, is satisfied with remarking that '' the Evangelists preface their account of His public activity with a curious story of a temptation. This story as- sumes that He was already conscious of being the Son of God, and the one who was entrusted with the mis- sion of fulfilling God's promises to His people."^ 1 Wendt, op. cit., pp. 98, 102. 2 Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. i (German ed.,pp.3i5, 316). ^ Harnack, op. cit., pp. 148, 149. 230 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL These critics, however cautious in referring to the changing view which Jesus had of His Messianic mis- sion during His hfe, are still more so when describing the alleged evolution in the Saviour's ideas about His suffering, destiny and death. Thus, Wendt says that Stapfer's conclusions on this point are not at all warranted by the Gospel data. " How this knowledge," he writes, " was gradually de- veloped in Him, we cannot now circumstantially trace, since our sources do not afford the material for it." Wendt's theory is that the Saviour had been, from the first, convinced that He had to sacrifice His life for the sake of the Kingdom, but that, from the exigencies of circumstances and events, He learned how and when He was to make this sacrifice. " From the fact that Jesus, publicly and for the first time, spoke of His sufferings and death after Peter's confession, it does not follow that He, then for the first time, became aware of the suffering destiny which laid in store for Him. On the contrary, the firmness with which He asserts the necessity of His fate and rebukes Peter who had contradicted Him, is a proof that He had already triumphed over the trial brought about by this prospect of Messianic suffering. How and when did the thought of His passion first enter His mind? Was it at the very beginning of His public ministry? Or, did the thought occur to Him later on, as an abso- lutely new intellectual element? It would be wrong, I think, to accept this alternative as the only possible hypothesis. Even granting that Jesus became con- scious of the proximity of His violent death only dur- ing the course of His ministry, this idea of coming sufferings was not necessarily something altogether new and foreign to His usual thoughts. It may have been simply the normal outcome of these fundamental ideas which, since He had become conscious of His Messiahship, were a part of the essential convictions of Jesus. And that such was the fact we must of THE MESSIAXIC MINISTRY 231 necessity admit, if we wish to give, of the origin of that thought, a satisfactory psychological explanation, in keeping with the data of evangelical tradition. . . . Abnegation and sufferings, connected with His par- ticular vocation, must have appeared to Him, from the beginning, as a necessity to which He had to sub- mit through love for God and for the sake of men's salvation. But it was only by degrees, during the course of His ministry, that His various experiences made Him realize the precise nature and the special intensity of the sorrows which, in fact, fell to His lot. . . . The knowledge must have been forced upon Him with increasing clearness, that He could not hope for a peaceful, regular expansion of His teach- ing and of the establishment of the Kingdom of God thereby; but that, on the contrary, fearful con- flicts and persecutions lay before Him, and that His hfe must be vielded up in the cause of the Kingdom of God." ^ On this point, the opinion of B. Weiss does not ap- parently dift'er from that of Wendt. " It is impos- sible to prove," he writes, " that Jesus had ever re- ferred directly to His death before the episode at Csesarea Philippi. ... It by no means follows from this that the thought of death had only recently oc- curred to Jesus. . . . The knowledge Jesus had of His coming fate was not merely owing to human prog- nostication or foresight ; it rested upon God-given certitude which could never fail Him who, from His baptism, had been the subject of the constant opera- tion of the divine Spirit. But, even this foreknowledge was governed by the fundamental law of all prophetic prediction. ... It was, therefore, only possible for Jesus to infer the necessity of His death according to the degree in which the event was made inevitable by its historic preparation. . . . The necessity of His 1 Wendt, op. cit., p. 219. 232 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL death He learnt from the development of the histor- ical circumstances, and this not because He had hitherto been blinded to it, but only because the de- velopment of events now brought it about." ^ '' Jesus believes that He is the Messiah," says O. Holtzmann. " But He knows that when He intro- duces the Kingdom of God, the Messiah will come on the clouds of heaven. Consequently, before He Him- self can thus appear in His glory. He must first be raised up to God. Whether He believed, from the very beginning, that this would be effected by His death, we do not know. At any rate, the contrast between His situation at the moment of speaking and the future glory He hoped for, must have been also instrumental in leading Him to beheve that the com- ing of the Kingdom of God, despite its nearness, was not an event that would happen entirely without di- rect cause." 2 No less explicit, it would seem, is Harnack's con- demnation of Stapfer's fanciful conjecture. He con- siders it probable that, during the course of His public ministry, Jesus felt obliged to modify His views of the nature of His Messianic position and destiny ; but maintains that the fact itself cannot be settled from historical data. " Unless all appearances are decep- tive," he says, " no stormy crisis, no breach with His past, lies behind the period of Jesus' Hfe that we know. . . . Everything seems to pour from Him naturally, as though it could not do otherwise, like a spring from the depths of the earth, clear and unchecked in its flow. We see a man who, at the age of thirty, has apparently never known these inner struggles, after which He would have burned what He once adored and adored what He burned! We see a man who has broken with his past in order to summon others to ^ Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 64, 65, 66, 6y, ^ Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 180, THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 233 repentance and yet never speaks of his own conver- sion! This consideration makes it impossible that His life could have been spent in inner conflict, al- though He had His share of deep emotions, tempta- tions and doubts." Loisy. — Such is the stand taken by various classes of Protestant critics who believe in Christ and thus draw the Hne between themselves and pronounced in- fidels. To be sure, the Christ whom they revere is more or less human, and their tendency is to exalt His human character at the expense of His divine per- sonality and nature. A theory, however, very similar to that held by the foregoing critics was advanced by Loisy, who some- time ago was ranked among Catholic scholars. He contended that " the critic may conjecture that in Jesus the filial sentiment preceded and prepared the way for the consciousness of being the Messiah, as His soul was elevated by prayer, confidence, and love to the highest degree of union with God, till the idea of His vocation as the Messiah came quite natur- ally to crown the travail of His spirit." ^ He does not agree, indeed, with those who ascribe the source of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship at the time of His baptism; but he does claim that only then did the Saviour become fully aware of His Mes- sianic position and destiny.^ " There may be," he says, " some conventional features in the account of the Baptism ; but this record, at least, proves that the oldest tradition assigned to this event the origin of Jesus' full reali- zation and possession of His role. Why not place the development of the Messianic consciousness before the Baptism?" This event, thinks Loisy, must have marked " a decisive moment in the Saviour's career " ; 1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 35-36, 150. 2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 105. 234 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL it " may have had a decisive influence upon the de- velopment of His Messianic consciousness," inas- much as " the Baptism marks an important date for Jesus Himself as regards His interior development and not only as regards the exterior manifestation of His divine life. . . . According to the Synoptics, Jesus of Nazareth, having become aware of His providential mission, began to preach." ^ He further suggests that, if the Saviour was fully aware of His Messianic character from the beginning of His pubUc life, nevertheless, it was during the course of His ministry, that the special form of His Messianic role became precisely defined in His mind. "A perusal of the Synoptics," he says, " makes it clear that Jesus does not, at first, publicly proclaim Himself as the Messiah, and that He did not even de- clare Himself such to His disciples: He allowed their faith in Him to shape itself slowly. We may even say that His consciousness of His mission is devel- oped in Him and that His attitude towards the people and towards His disciples bore a relation to the in- terior progress of His ideas and of His designs." H Jesus was aware of His Messianic vocation be- fore S. Peter's confession, '' it is evident that the special form of His role was at that time defined in His mind, and that the idea of the Kingdom was uppermost in His thoughts before that event." ^ Loisy, finally, seems to admit that the Saviour, dur- ing His ministry and owing to the influence of events, had become aware of His suffering destiny. " Jesus knew," he says, " that He was to bear the gospel to Jerusalem ; but His experience in Galilee warns Him of the sad outcome which that necessary step may have: He follows the law of His destiny." We will ^ Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 301 ; The Gospel and the Church, p. 104; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1904, p. 91; Le Quatr, Evang., pp. 71, 233. ^ Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., pp, 69, 252, THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 235 see later on how the same critic is forced to cast aside the very texts which prove that Jesus had an early foresight of His death. ^ Criticism: The Public Life. —What then shall we say .of the variously shaded theories advanced by the foregoing critics of the Protestant liberal school, as also of the more moderate views of Loisy? With the gospels as a basis, can we decide upon any par- ticular moment in Jesus' life as the starting-point of His Messianic consciousness? Is this latter convic- tion strictly derivable from His consciousness of be- ing the Son of God? And, further, to what extent may we reasonably admit a real evolution in the manner in which the Saviour viewed His destiny as the Messiah? The solution of these questions neces- sarily implies an impartial examination of the Gospel account. Whoever studies this matter carefully, therefore, will find in the following considerations ample evidence for the desired answer to the above- mentioned questions. The Gospel record of Jesus' statements do not, first of all, betray any sort of evolution in His ideas of His position as Messiah or of the destiny awaiting Him as Messiah. During the closing year of His public ministry, in fact, this matter is beyond doubt. A survey of the whole series of His definite declarations during this part of His career shows that His assertions were constantly uniform. From His reply at S. Peter's confession to His last avowals before the Sanhedrin, He expresses His mind most plainly and firmly, with the utmost calmness and self-possession. Jesus con- siders Himself the Messiah, that Messiah who is destined to suffer and die in fulfilment of the pro- phecies, and who shall come at the end of time to judge all mankind and to inaugurate the eternal reign of God. ^ Lpisy, Autour d'un Petit Livre, p. 89, 236 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL If, then, during the first two years of His ministry, Jesus' discretion was so marked ahke in positively reveaUng His position as Messiah as also in expressly announcing the role which He was to subsequently play as the Messiah, His motives for such reserve were quite other than ignorance of mind or uncertainty of ideas. Whoever cares to find an exact explanation for the Saviour's attitude will assuredly conclude that His reserve was prompted only, as His wisdom dic- tated, by His hearers' mental and moral dispositions and by the need of fulfilling a providential design. The Messianic Vocation. — Jesus was neverthe- less aware of His Messianic caUing even from the be- ginning of His ministry, however cautious He may have been in its manifestation, as is granted by Pro- testant critics and by Loisy. But, despite His re- serve, what right have we to deny that, thenceforth, He was fully aware of His destiny as Messiah, and that His idea of His Messianic position was complete ? It is a very gratuitous assumption to say that His pru- dent, discretion indicates His ignorance of one or other point of His destiny, or that His ideas of His Mes- siahship underwent a process of real development and change. He could manifest His ideas progressively, according as outward circumstances demanded, by accommodating Himself to the views of His follow- ers. As He had plainly done so as regards His es- sential dignity of Son of God, He might also do so in the case of His special character of Messiah. But, again, in this matter, the gospel texts do not warrant us in supposing that, strictly speaking. His conscious- ness experienced a development. Stapfer thinks that the temptation of Jesus occupied a longer time than is mentioned in the gospels, and that it was really a soul-struggle against the prejudices of His earlier training in regard to the temporal sover- eignty of the Messiah. But this is merely a personal interpretation which may well be called arbitrary and THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 237 fantastic. The Gospels do not at all warrant in sup- posing that Jesus' temptation lasted a long while, and that the Saviour was throughout its duration engaged in struggling with the temptation. Above all, there is naught to support the theory of an inner struggle, properly speaking, between erroneous personal ideas and the new revelation of His Messianic calling. This theory, first of all, contradicts all that is stated about the preaching of S. John the Baptist prior to Christ's baptism and temptation. The Messiah whom John announces is by no means the earthly king of false Jewish hopes. As O. Holtzmann says, " John describes the Messiah as being, above all things else, the judge of the world." In no wise is John the herald of an earthly sovereignty; for he dwells in solitude, and proclaims the approach of judgment. As a pre- paration for the Messiah's advent, he urges the prac- tice of penance, of which his special kind of baptism is the symbol, and he also inculcates holiness and charity. " We should also have heard something about political hopes being associated with the advent of the Baptist," says O. Holtzmann, '' but of this there is not a single word." ^ On the other hand, the Synoptic account, to con- sider only the fact of the temptation, clearly proves that it proceeded from without, and, as is rightly ad- mitted even by Wendt and B. Weiss, the Saviour's soul betrays not the slightest sign of disturbance. While Sanday says that '' there did not enter into His mind even a passing shadow of the ambition which marked the best of earthly conquerors. He was de- termined not to minister in the least to the national pride of the Jews." ^ That Jesus was really tempted by the devil is un- doubtedly denied by Wendt and B. Weiss, and appar- 1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 122. 2 Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 612. 238 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ently even by Loisy; for they say that the temptation was rather a symbol of His changing ideas when con- sidering the ways and means of achieving His divine mission. But it is still true that these critics deny that any substantial change of views could have oc- curred in the Saviour's mind, as a result of the temp- tation. As we have seen, it is far better to take the gospel account of this episode as it stands. ^ The Passion. — That Jesus originally hoped to real- ize the Messianic Kingdom without having to suffer and die, and that He became aware of the necessity of His death only when facing the ever-increasing hatred of the Pharisees, — such is a further view taken by Stapfer who follows in the lead of Renan. This position, like his other one given above, is not based upon facts. Jesus, indeed, after S. Peter's confes- sion, often refers to His death and shows that He knows exactly the circumstances of its occurrence. His remarks do not at all refer to His experience of the Pharisees' hostility, nor, in fact, do the texts allow us to suppose such an allusion. If it is at this precise moment in His ministry that Jesus begins to speak pubhcly about the last days of the world, His motive for so doing must be found in the general method that guided His manifestations. Naught was further from the minds of the Apostles than the thought of the sufferings of the Messiah; naught more opposed to their ordinary way of thinking than the prospect of the crucifixion. Thus it is that the predictions relat- ing to that great scandal. His death, are withheld by the Saviour until the moment when the faith of His disciples seems finally assured and firm. And it is also remarkable to see how, after the event at Caesarea, each clearer manifestation of His Messianic dignity is accompanied by a more explicit announce- ment of His death. ^ Cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 90, n. i, E. tr., p. 142. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 239 Note the gradation : At the opening of His ministry, the simple announcement of His violent removal ; at Caesarea Philippi, and in Galilee, a more detailed announcement of His rejection by the religious au- thorities, of His crucifixion, and of His resurrection of the third day; at the close of His final preaching tour, a very minute prediction of the treason that will serve to deliver Him over to the Jewish rulers, of His condemnation, of the Gentiles' execution of that sentence, of the mockeries, spitting, and buffeting, and, finally, of His death and resurrection. There is a sort of compensation made between the new splendor of His Messiahship and the dark vision of His approaching crucifixion ; between the dreadful trial which His passion shall prove to be the faith of His disciples, and the assurance which His words and deeds give that He is truly the Messiah Founder of God's Kingdom. On the other hand, such was the Saviour's view at this time, such the conviction and certitude with which He announced His destiny, that His judgment on this matter seemed to be already settled, or, rather, appeared not so much as a conviction acquired by ordinary experience, as a kind of super- natural assurance which He had from the first. The three Synoptics, moreover, assign to Jesus a de- claration, uttered at the beginning of His ministry, and prudently but precisely alluding to His separation from His friends by death. "The day will come,' He says, " when the Bride-groom shall be taken away from them; and then they shall fast in those days." His assertion, given as a parable, as also its close connection with the context and with His other sayings, which are surely authentic, would seem to guarantee its authenticity in the fullest historical sense. ^ Hence, as we think, the views of Stapfer and Renan are formally opposed to history. Harnack rightly 1 Mk. ii. 19-20; Mt. ix. 15; Lk. v. 34, 35. 240 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL recognizes this fact ; he says that " no stormy crisis, no breach with His past, hes behind the period of Jesus' hfe that we know. . . . Everything seems to pour from Him naturally, as though it could not do otherwise, like a spring from the depths of the earth, clear and unchecked in its flow. . . . This considera- tion makes it impossible that His life could have been spent in inner conflict." ^ Says Loisy, following Jtilicher : " The allusion to the Children of the Marriage who shall fast when the Bridegroom shall be taken away, is simply presented as an allegory. But, if Jesus styled Himself the Bridegroom, His argument would have no proving force ; He would have merely meant that His disciples could not fast while He was with them. Originally, the reply seems to have been: the Children of the Marriage cannot fast while they are feasting with the Bridegroom. Should the Bridegroom be suddenly taken away, the feast would be over, and His com- panions troubled; thus the Baptist's disciples fast, as their master is gone; while those of Jesus do not fast, since they still have Him with them." ^ Evidently, this interpretation is forced, its author endeavoring by every means to exclude from Jesus' teaching and to ascribe to later tradition whatever is presented in the form of allegory. But, even if thus interpreted, the Saviour's reply plainly alludes to His departure. The comparison drawn from the Children of the Marriage, if applied to the disciples of Christ and of John, would make the Bridegroom's removal refer to His own sudden and violent departure as also to that of His precursor. That Jesus did not merely utter this parable in a very general sense, as is alleged, but wished to represent Himself, by recourse 1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 35-36. 2 Loisy, Etudes Evang., 1902, p. 43, n. i ; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903* p. 519; art.: Le Second Evang.; Jiilicher, Die Gleich- nisreden Jesu, 1899, vol. ii, p. 188. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 241 to a sort of veiled allegory, as the Bridegroom, and to afford a real glimpse of His crucifixion, is indicated by His use of the future tense, so similar to the " pro- phetic " future and which an a priori interpretation alone could ascribe to the Gospel editors : " The days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away .from them, and then they shall fast in those days." ^ In Schmidt's opinion, Jesus' warning is as "clearly a vaticinium ex eventu as the words concerning the garments and the wineskins are unmistakably genu- ine." But why so? For the very- reason that a Rationalist could not logically admit that Jesus had such an early foresight of His death.^ As to the more moderate theory of those who claim that Jesus, at an early period, foresaw His death in a general way, and that He became aware of it only by degrees, according to events, special conditions, and certain circumstances, we think it is based rather upon a philosophical a priori view than upon a fully scientific study of the texts. The Gospels, indeed, present the Saviour as revealing slowly and progressively to His disciples the sad prospect of His death, but they do not at all imply that this succession and progress noticeable in His predictions also affected His inner knowledge and His personal intentions. On the con- trary, it is plain that, after S. Peter's confession, Jesus very minutely predicted His ignominious Passion, His death upon the cross, and His resurrection on the third day. Surely, Jesus could not have acquired such foresight from mere experience. Why then should we place in dependence upon human conditions what is evidently of the supernatural and divine order of things? The full authenticity of these Gospel passages, how- 1 The Greek term for " shall be taken away suddenly " is airapdy-^ Lagrange, Rev. Bib., April, 1903, p. 307. 2 Schmidt, art.: The Son of Man, E. B., par. 46, col. 4739; Holtzmann, O., Synoptiker, 3d ed., p. 55. 16 242 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ever, is disputed by Wrede, Loisy, and the like critics. Loisy thinks that if " after S. Peter's confession, Jesus is thought to have conversed often with His disciples about the destiny awaiting Him as the Messiah," the general statement of these discourses is based ''upon accomplished facts and upon the theme of the early Christian preaching. ... If He predicts His passion and resurrection, it is because He was in possession of His future by a sure prevision." Such, indeed, is the Gospel testimony; but Loisy classes it among the " interpretations of primitive facts and real events which assume a new aspect in the perspective of the Messianic glory." In particular, this would be an in- terpretation which later tradition elaborated from the authentic saying in Math. x. 39. He does not deny that, in a general way, the Saviour foresaw His death, and admits as authentic a saying which all three Synoptics refer to the episode at Caesarea Philippi. Jesus, he writes, '' had admitted the necessity, both for Himself and for His followers, of losing His Hfe in time in order to gain it for eternity." What reason, then, has he to cast suspicion upon the very details and circumstances found in the text? He seems to argue from a preconceived opinion and not from an impartial analysis of the texts. We may remark, too, that the sentence in question occurs not only in S. Matthew's account of the great discourse relating to the first mission of the Apostles, but is also given by the three Synoptics after S. Peter's confession.^ Loisy also claims that " the prophecies of the pas- sion and resurrection are not formulated in Jesus' discourse," that they do not present " any saying form- ally retained as the saying of the Lord." His view is utterly wrong. The prediction, indeed, is given by the three Synoptics as a direct discourse which Christ 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 100; Rev. d'Hist.. I903» P- 297; The Gospel and the Church, p. 40; Mk. viii. 35; Mt. xvi. 25 ; Lk. ix. 24 ; cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 201 ; Engl, tr, 246. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 243 delivered on His last journey to Jerusalem. As to His declaration at Caesarea Philippi, and in Galilee, a comparison of the Gospel narratives justifies the conclusion that the sacred writers also intended to present these statements as being substantially the very words of Jesus.^ Why, we may ask, should the Saviour's genuine thought be less exactly reproduced through indirect discourse? Surely, an explicit announcement is im- plied in that spontaneous outburst of S. Peter : '' Lord, far be it from Thee; this shall not be unto Thee!" Nor will we be apt to ascribe to tradition that atti- tude of S. Peter which drew this stern rebuke from Jesus : " Get thee behind me, Satan, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but that are of men." And the repeated remarks, the sense of which Jesus' disciples did not at first perceive, while they retained the words without comprehending them ; for they wondered what He really meant thereby; their great sadness in feeling the presentiment of an unknown evil ; their dread to ask the Master about the matter; — are not all these observations taken from real life and in admirable correspondence with the true state of the Apostles' own minds rather than with the endeavors of the early Church? Must we not, therefore, perceive therein a valuable guarantee of their authenticity ? ^ 1 Mk. X. 33-34; Mt. XX. 18-19; Lk. xviii. 31-33; cf. Lk. xvii. 25. Note that the conjunction "that" (ort) precedes the present tense of the verb ^£i, thus: Mk. viii. 31 {otl del)-, Mt. xvi. 21 ; Lk. ix. 22. In Mk. ix. 9 it is iva . . . . ; Mt. xvii. 19 (direct discourse) ; Mk. ix. 30 has on , , . , -^ Mt. xvii. 21-22 (direct discourse) ; Lk. ix. 44 (direct discourse emphasized by the forewarning: "Lay up in your hearts these words"). Note, too, the significant remark in Mk. viii. 32 : " And He spoke the word openly " ; and that the conjunction " that " {oTi) does not necessarily imply indirect discourse, but is often used to introduce direct discourse. Cf. Mk. vi. 2^ ', viii. 4; X. 33; xii. 19; Mt. vii. 22,; xvi. 26; xxvi. yi, 74; xxvii. 43; Lk. i. 61; ii. 23; iv. 43; xv. 27. - Mk. viii. 33; Mt. xvi. 22,; Mk. ix. 9; Mk. ix. 31; Mt. xvii. 22; Lk. ix. 45; xviii. 34. 244 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL In Wrede's opinion, the Apostles' alleged failure to understand these words of Christ was itself a con- viction in S. Mark's mind. He might also say the same for SS. Matthew and Luke. He thinks that it is meant to serve as an explanation of the fact that Jesus was not recognized as the Messiah before His resurrection despite the Messianic declarations ascribed to Him later.^ Loisy says that '' what is said of the Apostles' lack of understandmg may almost mean what is asserted by Wrede, namely, that only after the resurrection did they perceive things of which they could not have previously doubted." But, from what we have seen, we can judge what should be thought of this in- genious, but fanciful, theory.^ We may conclude, then, that from the standpoint of exegetical criticism there is no warrant for the theory of any evolution-process in the Messianic conscious- ness during the course of Jesus' ministry. The pro- posed hypotheses on the subject proceed rather from philosophy than from exegesis. In face of the Gos- pel texts they are but clever attempts at psycholog- ical reconstruction, and tend to reproduce, in a con- jectural way, the mode in which the phenomenon of His consciousness would act if it were to follow the ordinary laws of the human soul : they are not based upon facts. The Baptism. — The hypotheses which seek to explain the origin of Messianic consciousness have no firmer basis than the others previously discussed. It is useless to assign its origin to the baptism of Jesus. Thus, O. Holtzmann asserts that the Saviour, in receiving the Baptism of Penance, thought Himself an ordinary sinner who was called to membership in the Kingdom of God, but who never imagined that He ^ Wrede, op. cit., 1901. 2 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 297. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 245 would become its Founder. But we know that the whole career of Jesus stands as a solid argument against such an interpretation. How so? Because His very method in calling others to holiness ; the as- surance with He proclaims Himself as the Mediator for attaining to God and obtaining the Kingdom; the power which He assumes to pardon sinners Himself, to compel men to leave all things that they may follow Him, to pass supreme judgment upon the living and the dead ; — all this, along with the incomparable moral perfection visible alike in His conduct as in His words, utterly dispels the idea that He could ever have thought Himself to be a sinner. What, indeed, can preclude the existence of that intimate, deep, and unique union which Jesus knew that He had with His father? Stapfer calls it "a union with God which nothing in the past had ever troubled, and which nothing troubled in the present. . . . This is why we defined as holiness His perfect union with God, His constant and inalterable feeling of the entire approval of Him whom He called the Father ; in a word, the consciousness of a cloudless in- tegrity. . . . He was sure of Himself, sure of God, sure of His own hoHness. His soul bore no scars, for it had never received a wound, never suffered a moral defeat. ... It is impossible to prove directly His perfect holiness ; but it can be proved that He al- ways had a consciousness of integrity, and that He was never known to repent." ^ As Harnack well says : " Where shall we find the man who has broken with His past in order to sum- mon others to repentance, but who, through it all, never speaks of His own repentance ? " ^ The foregoing theory might be intelligible enough if it were true that, during His earthly career, Jesus 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, pp. 162, 165, 166. 2 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. ^6, 246 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL was aware of His role as the atoning victim for sin and the world's Redeemer. That He was so convinced seems to follow not only from the Fourth Gospel, but also from the text of S. Mark's gospel and from the Synoptic accounts of the Last Supper. S. Mark says that '' the Son of Man is come to minister and to give His life as a redemption for many." ^ The authenticity of the Synoptic accounts of the Last Supper is admitted by O. Holtzmann, Stapfer, Harnack, B. Weiss, and Wendt. It is, therefore, only mere prejudice that could lead Loisy to assert that these very accounts '' have all come more or less under the influence of the PauHne theology." And he also says that " it seems certain that, if Christ did not an- nounce His death in the precise terms of the Gospel tradition. He nevertheless proved it and gave to it a meaning conformable with the general significance which He gave to His mission." ^ The fact is, we think, that the theology of the early Church is appreciable only in the light of the Saviour's own declarations whereby it was assuredly influenced. For instance, although unquestionably authentic, we cannot appreciate the fact of the institution of the Holy Eucharist apart from the idea of sacrifice which so completely pervades it. And does not the idea of the Redemption, moreover, undoubtedly arise from the historic, yet appealing accounts of Jesus' sufferings? " In His sorrows," says Loisy, " we feel that there is something divine which uplifts Him above even the best of mankind." If, then, Jesus had ever felt Himself obliged to do penance and to repent, He would hardly have assumed such a position before God and men.^ 1 Mk. X. 45; Mk. X. 24; Mt. xxvi. 28; Lk. xxii. 19 and 20; cf. I Cor. xi. 24-25. 2 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 365, Ger. ed. ; Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 265; Harnack, op. cit., p. 170; Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. iii. p. 195; Wendt, op. cit., p. 505, Ger. ed. ; Loisy, op. cit., p. 80 ; Rev. d'Hist., 1902, p. 175. 3 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 38. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 247 S. Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism, indeed, sug- gests another reason for His manner of acting on that solemn occasion than the one mentioned by O. Holtz- mann. We are told "that when John the Baptist be- held Jesus among the crowd of penitents, he per- sistently declined to baptize One by whom he should be baptized and the latchet of whose shoes he felt himself unworthy to loose. " Suffer it to be so now," replies the Saviour ; " for so it becometh us to ful- fill all justice." This reply is of such a kind, indeed, that we cannot assign it to the influence of a later Gospel tradition. We should probably look for a reply which would involve a different meaning, were we to seek to reconcile the idea implied in the baptism of penance with what might be thought derogatory to the holiness of the Messiah. Jesus prudently acknowl- edges the Baptist's astonishment as legitimate, and shows that He wants to freely submit to a baptism which was not really meant for Him. So that, if He actually does receive this baptism, it is because, as He says, " it becometh us to fulfill all justice." ^ What is really meant? Wendt thinks that the bap- tism administered by John was not so much the re- nouncement of sin as the direction of one's Hfe to- wards a perfect fulfilment of God's will ; and that it is thus plain how, Jesus in spite of, or rather owing to His deep yearnings for a filial obedience to the divine will, felt Himself impelled to receive this baptism.^ Another motive for Jesus' procedure is suggested by B. Weiss, who says : " The symbolism of baptism manifestly referred to the complete conclusion of the life up to that point, and to the commencement of a new Hfe of a totally different nature. To the sinful people it formed the conclusion of their Hfe of sin, and the beginning of a new one that was free from sin. ... It could not be all this to Him who was without 1 Mt. iii. 15. ? Wendt, op. cit., p. 100. 248 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL spot; but for Him, too, it marked the close of His former life, and the commencement of one perfectly new ; the new life to which He emerged did not differ from the earlier one by reason of its sinlessness, but only by its being dedicated from that time forward to His great divine calling." ^ And, if we would believe Sanday, it was "the inauguration of a new phase in the accomplishment of His mission." ^ The attitude of Jesus, indeed, is easily explained if we admit that, in seeking baptism. He realized Him- self to be the " Lamb of God " who bore the sins of the world in order that He might expiate for them through His sufferings and death. This idea is im- plied in the account given in the Fourth Gospel, and it is evidently adapted fully to the Synoptic texts. If, at the baptism, Jesus desired to offer publicly, and in some sort officially, this self-oblation as the victim for sin, — such is the role that the Epistle to the Hebrews assigns to Him from the first moment of His earthly life, — we can readily understand the words of the heavenly Father who recognized His inward holiness and His outward acts of penance when He said : " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." The submission of Jesus to the baptism of John is, therefore, explained quite otherwise than by supposing that He intended to do penance for His own sins, since this would be incompatible with His conscious- ness of His Messiahship. O. Holtzmann, however, whom Stapfer and Wendt also follow, alleges a new reason in behalf of his hypothesis. These critics say that the baptism, thus prominently placed as the cul- minating point in Christ's life and the beginning of His entire ministry, must have played a decisive part in the formation of His ideas about His mission ; more- over, the vision which accompanied it was apparently ^ Weiss, B., op. cit., col. i, p. 323. 2 Sanday, art. ; Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 61 1, THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 249 meant only for the Saviour, and hence must be con- sidered, it would seem, in relation to His own soul. But this interpretation also hardly bears out several important facts that may be mentioned. Is it, in- deed, quite certain that the miraculous incident of the vision was witnessed by none except Jesus? The Synoptics simply relate the Saviour's vision, but with- out specifying that it was intended only for Him. S. Matthew's account rather implies the Baptist was a witness of this miracle : '' John stayed Him, saying : I ought to be baptized by Thee, and, comest Thou to me? And Jesus, answering, said to him: Suffer it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice. Then He suffered him. And Jesus, being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to Him; and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him. And behold, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my be- loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The pres- ence of John, in fact, is expressly stated in the Fourth Gospel : ''And John gave testimony, saying, I saw the Spirit coming down, as a dove, from heaven, and He remained upon Him. . . . And I saw, and I gave testi- mony that this is the Son of God." ^ In this hypothesis, admitted by B. Weiss and San- day, the miraculous apparition and voice would have been made, at least partially, in order to proclaim the public manifestation of Jesus as Messiah. Thus, B. Weiss alludes to Mt. iii. 14 which represents John as being aware of Jesus' Messiahship, and also to the im- personal character of the words in verse 17: This is my beloved Son. " It is beyond doubt," he says, " that the oldest form of the tradition told of a vision in which the Baptist had a share." While Sanday says : " We are not obliged to choose between the Synoptic and the Johannine account of the witnesses of the iMt. iii. 14; Jo. i. Z2, 34. 250 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL supernatural signs. The two accounts may be re- garded as complementary rather than contradictory." ^ Moreover, if the vision and the voice were meant only for Jesus, they might have, even for Him, a meaning quite different from the one alleged by the critics quoted above. In these events we may really perceive the providential sign which Christ was await- ing before entering upon His ministry, the visible manifestation of His Father's will that He should be- gin His career as Messiah. Nay, we may actually perceive therein the official consecration, as it were, of the Saviour for His work, His solemn and most special investiture by the Holy Spirit for His destined mission. Not, indeed, that hitherto He was deprived of the Holy Spirit, but that, in His humble, retired Hfe at Nazareth, the Spirit had not, seemingly, acted in and through Him as it was to do later in so striking and unusual a manner. Now is the hour of His pub- lic ministry: the hour of great revelations and miracles. The Spirit of God solemnly descends upon Him and takes special possession of Him with direct reference to His new mode of life. The Spirit, as it were, places Him more closely under its protection, — endows Him with special powers and gifts which were not exerted during His Hidden Life, but were now to have a bearing upon His mission. Hence it is that, soon after His baptism, Jesus is led into the Judean desert " by the Spirit " ; that, in the power of the Spirit, He returns to Galilee; that, by the power of the same divine Spirit, He casts out the demons from the souls of the possessed persons.^ " Henceforth," says B. Weiss, " Jesus would be 1 Weiss, B., op. cit., p. 324; Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 611 ; cf. Jo. i. 31 : " And I knew Him not, but, that He may be made manifest in Israel, therefore I am come bap- tizing with water." 2 Mk. i. 12; Mt. iv. i; Lk. iv. i; Lk. iv. 14; Mt. 3cii. cf. Lk. xi. I ; Mk. iii. 29. I THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 251 under the continuous impulse of the Spirit who en- ables Him to say and to do what His Messianic voca- tion demands. He assumes this mission in order that through His works of grace and mercy God may be revealed unto His people." ^ The solemn event of the baptism, indeed, is not necessarily the first time that the Holy Spirit pos- sessed Jesus. From the first instant of His concep- tion, as the Gospel of the infancy testifies, He may have been substantially pervaded by the Spirit of God, and, until His baptism, have lived in intimate de- pendence upon this divine Spirit and in the conviction of His union with Him. The episode at the Jordan in nowise prevents such an admission ; for, in that case, there is question only and directly of a new mode in Jesus' endowment by the Holy Spirit, of a new phase that corresponds with the new kind of existence en- joyed by the Saviour (i. e. as the God-Man). Nor, again, are we at all obliged to believe that the miracu- lous event had any real influence upon the formation of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship. We may rightly assert that, from the view-point of the fulfilment of His mission, a new kind of life began for Jesus, the Christ. The Baptism was " the starting-point " of His public ministry ; and, as such, we may call it " an im- portant moment," if by this we mean " a decisive moment," in His career. If, however, we go further and suppose that the event of the baptism marks an important date in the " inward development " of the Saviour, that it could have decidedly influenced " the development of His Messianic consciousness," we are going beyond what the texts imply and also the facts of history. Loisy claims that his theory has a Patristic basis, as also the support of a certain number of Catholic scholars. Of Christ's baptism he says that " the tra- 1 Weiss, B., op. cit., p. 330, vol i. 252 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ditional exegesis usually sees no more in this event than the very occasion on which Christ chose to reveal Himself and to institute Christian baptism. The texts themselves are proof against those who might care to force the theological method upon history; and we easily understand why, like the Church Fathers, several Catholic scholars maintain that the baptism indicates an important moment not solely for the outward manifestation of His divine life but also for His interior soul-development." ^ We may say that, between Loisy's own interpreta- tion and that which he particularly attributes to " the traditional exegesis," we can assign another which is even more conformable to criticism and to genuine tradition. It is the theory which we have endeavored to present. H Loisy's theory is considered unrehable, our own may supply its place. Loisy, indeed, is far from putting himself forward as a critic; nor did we see what Church Fathers, or Catholic scholars he can produce in his support. It is remarkable, too, how often Loisy so cautiously states his opinions ! For instance : *' We cannot say that, according to the Synoptic tradition, the baptism of Christ appeared to be the solemn consecration of His Messianic role. . . . The receiving of the baptism of John appears to have been a decisive moment in the career of the Saviour. . . . The circumstance of the baptism is like a starting-point in the ministry of the Saviour." ^ Indeed, that John the Baptist, the precursor, was aware of the near approach of the Messiah is shown ahke in the Fourth Gospel as in the three Synoptics. What right, therefore, have we to suppress such testi- mony? Why should we not see in it a significant guarantee of Jesus' own consciousness of His Messiah' ship on His arrival at the Jordan? At all events, we 1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 233. ^ Loisy, ihid., p. 169 ; The Gospel and the Church, p. 20, THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 253 have seen how S. Matthew's gospel formally wit- nesses this Messianic consciousness of the Saviour from the time that He first met John the Baptist. A careful critic of the Synoptic gospels will, there- fore, undoubtedly conclude that, at the baptism, there occurred a solemn declaration of Jesus' divine Son- ship, as also a public manifestation of His dignity as Messiah, His official consecration, we may say, as Messiah of the Lord, and His special endowment by the Holy Spirit in view of His mission's fulfilment. But naught shows that previously and secretly He was not the Messiah-Son of God and that He did not know Himself to be such. On the contrary, we may fully accept the testimony of the first Gospel which, like the fourth, presents Jesus as being fully aware of His Messiahship even at His meeting with the Precursor. The Divine Sonship. — H we are not authorized, therefore, in assigning the origin of the Messianic consciousness to the baptism, should we, at least, maintain that the filial consciousness, that is, Jesus' conviction of His divine Sonship, prepared the way for it? Apparently not. From the view-point of exegetical criticism, there is naught in the Gospels to allow us to suppose that Jesus' consciousness of being the Son of God preceded His conviction of being the Messiah, nor that it, in the least, helped to form it. Of course, in the Gospel accounts, such as those of the baptism, of the temptation, of the cure of the demoniacs, the title " Son of God " is apparently prior to that of " Messiah " ; but, in reality, from what we can see, the former title includes the latter. The Son of God who receives baptism is the Chosen Ser- vant, the privileged Messiah of the Almighty, and in receiving the Holy Spirit, He is thereby officially consecrated for His work. The Son of God who is tempted in the desert is also the Messiah whose mis- sion, so thoroughly spiritual, was destined to be ^54 CHRIST AND THE GOSPBL carried on in the spirit of humility, of dependence upon God, of self-sacrifice, thus contrasting with the selfish, earthly views suggested by the Tempter. As is plain from the fairest criticism of the texts, the Gos- pel testimony proves that Jesus is proclaimed, and declares Himself to be always and in the same sense the Son of God and the Messiah. Nowhere is it suggested that He passed from the knowledge of His divine Sonship to that of His Messianic charac- ter. These two states of consciousness seem to co- exist together : the one pervades the other at the same time. Hence, there is no ground for the assertion of Loisy, who, after stating that " we cannot certainly conclude from these texts the origin of the Messianic consciousness in Jesus' soul," also adds that ^' the critic may conjecture that conviction of Sonship pre- ceded and prepared for the Messianic consciousness." To be sure, Loisy speaks of a possible conjecture simply. But still, he seems to go too far in justify- ing it in the name of criticism.^ Harnack, too, in making the following remark which is also a condemnation of his own method, seems to have fully understood this fact. " We shall never fathom," he writes, " the inward development by which Jesus passed from the assurance that He was the Son of God to the other assurance that He was the promised Messiah." ^ We may, therefore, conclude that there is nothing to keep us from admitting that the Messianic con- sciousness is not only prior to Jesus* baptism, but also that it is as ancient as His assurance of His divine Sonship. Loisy thinks that he may maintain that " Jesus calls Himself the only Son of God in the measure that He avows Himself to be the Messiah. 1 Loisy, Le Quair. Evang., p. 103. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 148. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 255 Hence will the historian infer, hypothetically, that He believes Himself the Son of God because He believes Himself the Messiah." But we may quite justly reply that Jesus proclaims Himself the Messiah and the Son of God at the same time, and that, there- fore, He beheved Himself to be the Messiah inasmuch as He believed Himself to be the Son of God.^ The Incarnation. — Among the critics whose theories we have discussed, there are some who have made rather significant statements about Jesus 'con- sciousness of His divine Sonship. Thus it is that Harnack, although not positively asserting that Jesus was God's only-begotten Son, firmly believes that, in some way, He was Himself fully convinced of this fact. " How He came to this consciousness of the unique character of His relation to God as Son," he says : " how He came to the consciousness of His power, and to the consciousness of the obligation and the mission which this power carries with it, is His secret, and no psychology will ever fathom it. The confidence with which John makes Him address the Father : ' Thou hast loved Me before the world was created,' is, undoubtedly, the direct reflection of the certainty with which Jesus Himself spoke." ^ But, within the sphere of the Saviour's conscious- ness, there is no reason to draw a Hne of separation between His quality of Messiah and His quality of Son of God. If He deemed Himself chosen as God's eternal Son from all eternity. He must have believed Himself predestined from all eternity to be the Messiah. This point is apparently suggested by Har- nack when he speaks both of the '' power " which es- pecially characterized Jesus' divine filiation and of the " duty " or the mission implied by such power. B. Weiss says that as far back as Jesus could cast 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 105-106. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 138. 256 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL His eyes into His past life, He perceived no moment when God had made choice of Him, when He had be- gun to be the object of His love. He was aware of being beloved by God; for He had learnt to look to- wards His Father, and knew that in this love lay the principle of His election as Messiah. It was this line of thought which must have led Jesus to the con- viction that He was the object of God's love prior to His earthly existence, and that His election as Messiah originated in the depths of eternity.^ Does not this fact, indeed, stand in remarkable agreement with the account presented in the Gospel of the Infancy? As is shown in the first two chap- ters of SS. Mark and Luke, Jesus is the begotten Son of God, and the Messiah of the Lord. From the first, in virtue of His Father's eternal predilection, Jesus maintains His character of Messiah and Son of God: of this fact His own consciousness gives testimony. " If Jesus was conscious of no beginning in His peculiar relationship to God," says Dalman, '^ it must, of course, have had its genesis with His birth; and, further, God must have so participated in assigning that position, that the human factors concerned fell entirely in the back-ground." ^ It would have been very strange, however, if so extraordinary a conviction had been preceded by a period of ignorance wherein the Saviour was indis- tinguishable from other men in His relationship with God. How could He believe Himself the eternal ob- ject of His Father's love, singled out before His birth for the Messianic vocation, if He had recalled one in- stant in His Hfe when He was unaware of His divine filiation and of His mission? Wendt, indeed, does not hesitate to assign Jesus' conviction of being the Son of God to the very awak- ening of His religious consciousness; and that how- 1 Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. i, p. 297. 2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 286. ) THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 2S7 ever early we must place the origin of His religious convictions, He always felt Himself to be in a rela- tion of sonship with God. Why,- then, should we not ascribe the same antiquity to His consciousness of being the Messiah ? ^ In fact, the declaration which the Gospel of the In- fancy attributes to Jesus during His sojourn among the doctors in the Temple seems to refer quite as much to His consciousness of Messiahship as to that of His divine Sonship. " Did ye not know," he asks, " that I must be about My Father's business ?" The historicity of this account, moreover, is considered un- questionable by such critics as Stapfer, O. Holtzmann, and B. Weiss.^ " The calm assurance with which He spoke of God as His Father," observes Wendt, " and of His sojourn in His Father's house as if it were a matter of course, and the child-like naivete and simplicity of judgment with which He perceived it a necessary duty to tarry in His heavenly Father's house in spite of His parents' departure and their anxious quest of Him, all these traits bear evidently the stamp of truth. We know not from what source Luke derived this narrative ; but we can say that it gives us a thoroughly true and natural picture of the spiritual life of Jesus as it existed at the dawn of His earthly development." ^ On this occasion, too, Jesus is apparently aware of His Messiahship as well as of His divine Sonship. And, despite himself, O. Holtzmann seems to admit as much ; for he says that, in this account the youthful Jesus is described under an aspect exactly corres- ponding with what, one day, His works shall manifest.* 1 Wendt, op. cit., p. 97. 2 Lk. ii. 49 ; Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, p. 40; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 100; Weiss, B., op, cit., vol. i, p. 278. 3 Wendt, op. cit., p. 99. * Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 100. 17 258 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL So significant, indeed, is this fact that to explain it critics feel bound to assign the origin of His Mes- sianic consciousness "at a period prior to His baptism and during His childhood. In their view, it had been early latent in Jesus' soul and the vision at the bap- tism served simply to lead it onward to a full ex- pansion. " It is not, indeed, to be assumed," says O. Holtz- mann, " that the special conception of the will of God which Jesus set forth underwent at that time any transformation. But this evangel, which had hitherto slumbered in Him, required a special impulse in order that what was in His mind might be brought to birth, and so be made useful to the world. And this impulse was imparted to Him in the inspiring revelation made to Him beside the Jordan." ^ And Wendt remarks that " the difference in the case of Paul lay in the fact that the miraculous re- velation caused Him to break entirely with His past, and with His whole previous modes of view and course of life; whilst for Jesus the revelation rather disclosed the goal which formed the terminus of the direct line in which He was going." ^ Such admissions are noteworthy, and supply the best proof of the unusual meaning which must be re- cognized in the declaration of the Holy Child Jesus. To one who refuses to see in the miraculous vision at the baptism a meaning which it does not necessarily possess; to one who refuses to be influenced by the rather rationalistic prejudice that such consciousness could not be found in a twelve-year-old child, the Gospel account would seem to prove clearly that the Saviour was aware of His Messiahship as also of His divine Sonship during His pilgrimage to the Temple as well as at' His baptism. 1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 135, n. I. 2 Wendt, op. cit, p. 97. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 259 " We cannot find in that expression," observes B. Weiss, " even an allusion to His Messianic calling, even supposing that we should seek to explain such an allusion as arising merely from a presentiment or fore- boding of His destiny; for, apart from the circum- stance that it is not what lies primarily in the word, we should thereby also step over the impossible bound- ary-line which is drawn around the consciousness of this stage of life." ^ Assuredly, even from the beginning of His earthly life as also throughout its course, Christ's conviction of being the Son of God and the Messiah is so re- markable for its calm confidence and seems to spring so freely from His inmost being, that it appears to be somehow inborn and connatural to Him. We may, then, find it interesting to give the views of some critics on this matter. " Everything seems to pour from Him naturally," writes Harnack, " as though it could not do other- wise, like a spring from the depths of the earth, clear and unchecked in its flow." ^ While Dalman thinks that " it seems to be an in- nate property of His personality, seeing that He, as distinct from all others, holds for His own the claim to the sovereignty of the world, and the immediate knowledge of God, just as a son, by right of birth, be- comes an heir, and, by growing up from childhood in undivided fellowship with the father, enters into that spiritual relationship with the father which is natural for the child." ^ Wernle, also, thinks that the basis of Jesus' Mes- sianic consciousness was an " inner compulsion," not necessarily connected with the vision at the baptism, and the origin of which remains a mystery. " It is 1 Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. i, p. 279. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 36, 3 Dalman, op. cit., p. 285. 26o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL only honest to confess," he says, " that this origin is a mystery to us : we know nothing about it. All that we can say is how this consciousness did not arise in Jesus. It was not through slowly matured reflections of an intellectual nature. . . . Nor, again, was it owing to the influence of His surroundings. . . . The fact, too, that Jesus appears from the very first with unswerving constancy and immovable certainty as one sent by God causes us to abandon both explanations. There is nowhere any hesitation, or doubt, or develop- ment from presentiments to certainty. Jesus learns new things as to the manner of His calling, but never anything fresh as to the fact itself. He acts His whole life under the stress of compulsion. He knows Himself, nay, driven by God, He has only one choice : to obey or to disobey. . . . The consciousness of His call does not depend upon voices and visions, which everyone who has not himself experienced them is at liberty to doubt, but simply upon inner compulsion. How this compulsion came upon Him, whether it was in the end connected with some visionary experience, that is not for us to know." ^ Loisy likewise draws attention to the Saviour's " simple and profound intuitions of soul," the " superb assurance of His faith," His " irresistible impulse " to follow the Messianic summons. He further re- marks: ''We may say that His life-impulse is reli- gious, and we may add, uniquely, ardently religious. If O. Holtzmann terms as ecstasy the simple and pro- found intuitions of soul, the superb assurance of faith, he should have expressed himself differently. . . . The visionary and the practical man described by O. Holtzmann are blended into something higher which, properly speaking, is neither the one or the other, but is precisely a soul penetrated by a most pure 1 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 45, 46. THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY. 261 religious ideal and ruled by the conviction of having a special vocation to secure its realization." ^ And from the pen of Renan we have that rather as- tonishing declaration that Jesus " from the first " prob- ably " looked on Himself as standing with God in the relation of a son to his father " ; moreover, that His conviction of being " the Son of God, the bosom friend of the Father, the agent of His will," in other words, the general idea of His Messianic vocation, was " a thought so deeply rooted in Him that it prob- ably had no source outside, but lay in the very roots of His being." - To conclude : There is nothing in the Gospel ac- counts, when rightly interpreted, to allow us to assign the origin of Jesus' consciousness of being the Messiah and the Son of God at this or that particular moment of His earthly career. On the other hand, everything would seem to bear witness to the fact that Jesus holds His character of Messiah and Son of God from His very Incarnation and in virtue of His transcen- dant, divine nature. Does this mean that the Saviour, from the first in- stant of His earthly existence, was really aware of His dignity and of His mission, and that, from the same instant, this conviction was so perfect as to admit of no possible progress or further development ? This is quite a different question and pertains to the general question of Christ's human knowledge. Before we discuss it, we must more thoroughly analyze the meaning of the title " Son of God " ap- plied to Jesus, and also specify the particular re- lations that united His sacred humanity to His divin- ity. If the Gospel accounts, viewed in the light of the beHef of the Church, warrant us in inferring an in- 1 Loisy, Rev. d'Hisf., 1904, p. 91 ; Holtzmann, O., War lesus Exstatiker? 1903. - Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 132, 162, 262 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL comparably close and truly substantial union between Christ and God, it would be fitting to consider what consequences that union must have upon Jesus' hu- man knowledge. Was His human knowledge, we may ask, left to its own powers and to its own activity, or, rather, did it not receive a higher light from the divinity which possessed it? And, further, if this hu- man knowledge shared, in any way, the divine intelli- gence, to what extent can it admit a real development in His ideas? In particular, in what measure could there be a progress, essential or simply accidental, in the Saviour's consciousness of His Messiahship and divine Sonship ? It is a question which we can answer satisfactorily only after studying the fundamental problem of Jesus' divinity. For the present, it will suffice to note that the Epistle to the Hebrews appears to attribute to Christ, from His entrance into this world, the full conviction of what He is, in His humanity, with respect to God, and of the work which He is to accomplish ; " Where- fore, when He cometh into the world. He saith: ' Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not, but a body Thou hast fitted to Me. Holocausts for sin did not please Thee.' Then said I : * Behold I come : in the head of the Book it is written of Me that I should do Thy will, O God.' " ^ iHeb. X, s. CHAPTER IV. The Public Life: Jesus the Son of God. I. Contemporary Criticism. Jesus declares Himself the Messiah ; and all that we know of Him and of His works confirms the truth of His statement : such is the conclusion to which we have been rightly led after a faithful study of the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus is, moreover, the Son of God, as all Christians have ever believed. But, in what sense does He bear this new title ? To what ex- tent does He merit this name ? Is He such only figur- atively and in a less precise sense, either because His Messiahship was a privilege, or because of the close relationship of His humanity to His Father? Or, rather in a real and ontological sense, because He is the truly Begotten Son of the Father and, hence, a sharer in God's very nature? This is the very im- portant and crucial matter which we are now to ex- amine. If we study the first three Gospels with the view of finding therein an authentic outline of Christ, it is unquestionable that He appears, alike in conduct as in teaching, to be truly man and subject to all the con- ditions of humanity. He is born with the frailties of childhood. At Nazareth, He increases in age, in wis- dom, in grace before God and men. In the earlier part of His public ministry, He receives the Baptism of Penance as might an ordinary sinner. He tells John that, Hke him, " it behooveth us to fulfil all jus- tice." By the impulse of the Spirit, He enters into (263) 264 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Judean desert and there He fasts and abstains and is tempted by the devil.^ During His pubhc Ufe He often becomes the prey of human misery, . of fatigue, of hunger, of thirst. After the long fast in the desert, He seems to break down. Thus, on His return to Bethany the day after His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, He reaches up to the barren fig tree in the hope of finding some fruit wherewith to appease His hunger. He sits at table with Levi the Publican to the scandal of the Pharisees who reproach Him for consorting with sinners. He dines with Simon the Pharisee, again with another Pharisee, and with Simon the Leper of Bethany. At times, the crowd of His followers is so dense that He cannot take His meal for lack of room. He eats the Paschal Lamb along with His disciples. He falls asleep in the ship while crossing the Sea of GaHlee.^ So, too, the soul's varied feelings, — pity, tenderness, sadness, sorrow, — all these does Jesus display. How full of affection for the youth who asks Him about the way that leads to eternal Hfe. How He pities the poor widow whose only son is soon to be buried. How great is His compassion for the. tired and fam- ished multitudes that follow Him far into the desert on the eastern shore of the Lake. How He weeps over Jerusalem, the city of unbelief and hardness of heart. How unutterable His abasement and sadness as He kneels in the Garden of Olives on the eve of His Passion. His soul is sad, even unto death. He falls down in an agony. A sweat of blood covers His limbs and the very ground where He lies prostrate, and lo, an Angel hastens to soothe Him ! ^ iLk. ii. 40, 51, 52; Mt. iii. 15. 2Mt. iv. 2; Lk. iv. 2; Mk. xi. 12; Mt. xxi. 18; Mk ii. 15; Mt. ix. 10; Lk. V. 29; cf. Mt. xi. 19; Lk. vii. 34, 36; xi. Z7', Mk. xxiv. 3; Mt. xxvi. 6; Jo. xii. 2; Mk. iii. 20; Mk. xiv. 18; Mt. xxvi. 20 ; Lk. xxii. 14 ; Mk. iv. 38 ; Mt. viii. 24 ; Lk. viii. 2^. 3 Mk. X. 21; Lk. vii. 13; Mk. vi. 34; Mt. xxvi. 37-38; Lk. xxii. 43-44- JESUS THE SON OF GOD 265 At last, after enduring the torments of His most fearful Passion, He dies upon the Cross. His corpse is soon embalmed in accordance with Jewish custom and is placed in the tomb. And, after His resurrection, He seeks to convince His disciples of the living real- ity of His glorified humanity. The disciples from Emmaus, after entering with Him into a wayside house, recognize Him as the Lord during the ceremony of the Breaking of Bread. And when the apostles are assembled within the cenacle. He appears in their midst : He bids them touch His feet and hands, and in their presence partakes of the fish and honey- comb. Verily, from first to last, do we see Jesus ap- pear as true and perfect man.^ Jesus also acts as a man when dealing with God, of whom He speaks as would creature to Creator. Do the Pharisees accuse Him of casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of devils? He replies by showing that their absurd slander attacks, not Himself, the Son of Man, but God whose divine power is manifested through the ministry of this very Son of Man. Thus, evidently, He makes a distinc- tion between Himself, the Son of Man, and God whose Spirit He possesses. Once, a certain youth calls Him " good-master," and Our Lord rejoins : " Why callest thou Me good ? None is good but One, that is God." Again, He ascribes to God the honor of performing the miraculous cures which He him- self wrought. And as for the foresight of future events, He places Himself after His heavenly Father. Thus, the Judgment Day is so hidden in God that it is known to the Father alone. To the Son and to the Angels it is unknown.^ In God's presence, He acts as a suppliant; and the 1 Mk. XV. 37, 46; Mt. xxvi. 50, 59, 60; Lk. xxiii. 49, 53; Lk. xxiv. 30, 39-43; cf. Jo. xxi. 5, 10-13. 2 Mk. ii. 29; Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20; Mk. x. 17, 18; Mt. xix. 16, 17; Lk. xviii. 18, 19; Mk. v. 19; Lk. viii. 39; Mk. xiii. 32; Mt. xxiv. 36, 266 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Evangelists frequently relate how He was wont to give Himself up to prayer. Often He spends whole nights in prayer. While awaiting a miracle, He raises His eyes to heaven. He can even invoke His Father and obtain from Him more than a dozen legions of angels to assist Him. His prayer in Olivet shows, especially, the real distinction between Himself and God, between His own and His Father's will. And, whilst dying upon the Cross, He complains to His Father that He, whom He calls His God, has abandoned Him, and, as would an humble creature, He commends His soul into His hands.^ Thus does Jesus plainly draw the line between Him- self and God: He assumes the attitude of a creature towards the divine majesty; He acts as an inferior when in presence of His Father ; He recognizes Him- self as being truly man. Renan. — While, however, the features above de- scribed argue a real and living humanity on Jesus' part, and thus greatly impress whoever studies the Gospel perspective of Christ, it is otherwise with Rationalists who, after exaggerating these character- istics, want to conclude that, if Christ were truly man. He was really nothing more. The Evangelists, says Renan, make Him act " purely as a man. He is tempted ; He is ignorant of many things ; He corrects Himself; He changes His opinion; He is cast down, discouraged; He entreats His Father to spare Him trials; He is submissive to God as a Son; He who must judge the world does not know the date of the day of judgment. He takes measures for His safety. Directly after His birth He has to be concealed, to escape from powerful men who wish to kill Him. . . . All this is simply the work of a messenger of God, — a 1 Mt. xiv. 23 ; Lk. ix. 18, 28 ; xi. i ; xxii. 42 ; Lk. vi. 12 ; Mk. vii. 34; cf. Jo. xi. 38, 41; Mt. xxvi. 53; Mk. xiv. 35-36, sq; Mt. xxvi. 39, 42, 44; Lk. xxii. 42; Mt. xv. 34; Mt. xxvii. 46; Lk. xxiii. 46. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 26;^ man protected and favored by God. In His exorcisms, the devil resists and will not come out at the first command. In His miracles, there appears a painful effort, a weariness as if ' some virtue had gone out from Him.' " ^ We may remark that Renan's inclination to yield to unbecoming humor has led him, here as elsewhere, to exaggerate the true sense of the texts, or even to render them meaningless; as is clear from the texts to which he refers in chapters xvii, ix, viii and xi, respectively, of the Gospels according to SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But is not his inference rather hasty and premature ? Does it fully account for all the phases of the problem and for the entire mass of facts? Undoubtedly, it is right to insist on the fact of the reality of Christ's humanity. The person whom we behold is truly a man. He pos- sesses hum^n nature in its entirety, — intelligence, free- will, personal and free activity. He deals with men as an equal and brother, and towards God as an in- ferior and subject. But if we let the matter go at this like the Rationalist critics, would it not imply a superficial study, a mere partial accounting for the facts, a half-formed criticism? Jesus is verily man; but it does not necessarily follow that He is noth- ing else. One of the chief teachings of the Catholic faith is the reality of Christ's divine Sonship, and hence His real divinity. This doctrine is enough to assure us a priori that we may be certain of our faith in the particular dogma in question. The authority of the Church itself rests upon a basis quite separate from the Saviour's assertions of His divinity as interpreted by Bible commentators ; and the same principle applies to the instances where He does not assert His divine nature. Whether we view Jesus as the real and true 1 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 263. 268 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Son of God, or whether we do not regard Him as such expHcitly and evidently, He presents Himself, at least, as God's own envoy and as the founder of that Church which, until the end of time, shall be assisted by the Spirit of God. God Himself has not ceased to directly witness and confirm the divine truth of His Church throughout the course of ages, alike by various miraculous interventions as by all the most authentic marks of His presence and activity. This suffices for us who believe in the divine authority of the Church and in the infallible truth of its official teaching. A priori, therefore, because the Church be- lieves and teaches it, and because its beHef and teach- ing are in a manner guaranteed and sanctioned by God, we may say, with the certitude of faith, that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, and God Himself become man through the Incarnation. At all events, as the Church has never- denied the truth of Christ's affirmations, on this point, nor on others, a priori we may rest assured that naught in the Gospel account of what He says about Himself denies, but rather implies this belief. The Church's teaching, indeed, is our sure rule of faith; but, apart therefrom, the question is prompted by the conviction prevalent in the early Church which affords testimony that cannot fail to impress the most independent critic. Indeed, there is no doubt that the Church in the apostolic times thought that Jesus was a person of superhuman character and closely alHed by nature with the divinity. S. Paul, for instance, shows Jesus to be the Son of God, pre- existing before the moment that His Father sent Him forth into this world. So too, in the Fourth Gospel, He is identified with the Word of God, pre-existing in God from eternity. And, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, He is described as sharing the divine nature and as assisting in the creation of the world. This tradition, therefore, so early current, so ancient, so JESUS THE SON OF GOD 269 warranted by Christ's own words and deeds, must have a sound basis. Another feature that prompts our researches is the fact that Renan, in seeking to give an appreciation of the Saviour's personahty, seems impelled, as it were, to employ unusual terms. His style of language would be, let us say, highly ridiculous, horribly grotesque, if he was speaking of a mere man. Still, if he does speak thus of Christ Jesus, is it not because, de- spite himself, he recognizes something transcendent and superhuman in His person? Here is the tirade that follows his account of the Saviour's death : " Rest now in Thy glory, noble Founder ! Thy work is com- pleted; Thy divinity is established. . . . Henceforth, beyond all frailty, Thou shalt witness, from the depth of Thy divine peace, the unending results that follow from Thy deeds. . . . Henceforth men shall draw no boundary between Thee and God. Do Thou , . . take possession of Thy Kingdom, whither, by the royal road Thou hast pointed out, long generations of adorers shall follow Thee!" EarHer in his work, he had also said : " It was, then, for some few months, — a year perhaps, — that God truly dwelt upon earth." And finally : *' To make Himself adored to this de- gree. He must have been worthy to be adored. . . . The faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first Christian generation are to be explained only by as- suming, at the beginning of it all, a man of transcend- ent greatness. . . . This sublime Person, who day by day still presides over the destiny of the world, may well be called divine, — not in the sense that Jesus has absorbed all that is divine, or was one with it ; but in the sense that He is the one who has impelled His fellow-men to take the longest step towards the divine." ^ Renan's inveterate liking for sentimental and de- 1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 136, 395, 412, 420, 421. 270 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL clamatory rhetoric is of course to be taken into ac- count when there is question of interpreting these various texts. In his " Life of Jesus," he allows him- self to drift along easily in the stream of harmonious phrasing and abandon of words. No previous writer, indeed, had ever dreamed of employing such extreme language when speaking of Christ. To do so, and nevertheless to view Christ as a mere man, — this seems insincere. He pretends not to believe at all in the divinity of Christ; but he can speak of Him only as would a believer. He pretends to dethrone Him from heaven ; but he appears to be fascinated by His divine aureole! He impresses every sensible man as giving a disfigured and counterfeit representation of Christ's person by affecting to lower it to the level of ordin- ary humanity, although he speaks of Him in a way that befits only a superhuman being. Is there not, moreover, an implied testimony to Christ's real divinity in the very manner in which he is constrained to interpret Jesus' own testimony about Himself? He vainly asserts: *' Jesus never once ut- ters the sacrilegious thought that He is himself God. . . . That Jesus ever dreamed of claiming to be an incarnation of the true God, there is no ground what- ever to suspect . . . the first three Gospels have no trace of it." But he fears not to say of the Saviour : " The position which He assigned to Himself was that of a superhuman being; and He wished to be regarded as having a more exalted relation with God than other men. . . . God does not speak to Him as to one out- side of Himself: God is in Him. . . . The trans- cendent idealism of Jesus never permits Him to have a very clear notion of His own personality. He is His Father, — His Father is He. . . . We cannot fail to see in these affirmations of Jesus the germ of the doctrine which was, later on, to make Him a divine ' hypostasis,' in identifying Him with the ' Word.' " ^ 1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 132, 257, 258, 260. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 271 These admissions are certainly surprising. They suppose that the Saviour made very extraordinary de- clarations about His own personality: and it matters much to ascertain their exact meaning. We are warranted in asking if the doctrine which was, later on, to make of Jesus " a divine hypostasis," became en- grafted by mistake upon those assertions of His that did not contain it at all; just Hke a parasite upon a tree of a different species; or, again, to insist upon Renan's very words, if this doctrine was not contained already in those affirmations as in a germ which further development would not transform, but keep substantially identical with itself. Liberal Protestants. — Protestants of the Liberal school of criticism readily admit that the problem un- der discussion is insoluble; or, rather, in a general way, they give up hope of finding in the Christ of his- tory that Christ whom the Church recognizes as being true God and true Son of God. Like Renan, they insist upon the well-assured humanity of Jesus, upon His attitude of subordination and of inferiority with respect to His Father, more especially upon the limited sphere of His knowledge and upon His liableness to the erroneous opinions current in His day. Thus, Stapfer would have us believe that " Jesus was a man of His time, and shared the beliefs of His time. ... At the present time, among Christians, no one believes precisely like Jesus." Again, to be His disciple, it suffices to believe " in Him." . . . He was less than His Father: the Father had not re- vealed all things to Him. ... If He was the Son of God in a special sense. He was that as all men are, or may become. His sons." ^ And Bruce tells us that " the remarks of Jesus about the future show a limitation in His knowledge. 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 236, 245, 251. 2^2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL On other points are like indications that Jesus was the child of His people and of His times." ^ Harnack, also, says that Jesus " described the Lord of heaven and earth as His God and Father ; as the Greater, and as Him who is alone good. He is certain that everything which He is to accomplish comes from His Father. He prays to Him; He subjects Himself to His will; He struggles hard to find out what it is and to fulfil it. Aim, strength, understanding, the issue, and the hard * must,' all come from the Father. This is what the Gospels say, and it cannot be turned or twisted. This feeling, praying, working, struggling, and suffering individual is a -man who, in the face of His God, also associates Himself with other men." ^ This class of critics, however, while emphasizing the Saviour's humanity do not fail to insist on what is supernatural in His own knowledge and extraordinary in His claims, and, differently from the thorough- going Rationalists, recognize these facts as well es- tablished. We are told by Stapfer that " Jesus was convinced that all who believed in Him would receive the entire satisfaction of their religious needs. . . . He never demanded beliefs, but confidence in Himself; and by this confidence, He created a new life in the soul, a religious and moral life, — communion with God." . . . Thus, Jesus came, little by little, to the point where He could make the highest assertions con- cerning Himself, His work, the future, the final tri- umph of righteousness, and of His own person. . . . He was one day to judge and renew the world, to pre- side at the final assizes, where all humanity would ap- pear, — this was His office." ^ Wernle, like Harnack, declares that Jesus presents 1 Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., col. 2454. 2 Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 136. s Stapfer, op. cit., pp. 243, 254. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 273 Himself as a man among men, as one who feels the sense of distance separatmg Him, like every creature, from God. He strongly insists upon the supernatural character of the Saviour's knowledge, assuring us that '' Christianity arose because a layman, Jesus of Nazareth, endowed with the consciousness of being more than a prophet, came forward and attached men so firmly to His person that, in spite of His shameful death, they were ready both to live for Him and to die for Him. . . . From passages taken from the Syn- optics it appears clearly that Jesus is conscious of being more than a man. And this is the mystery of the origin of Christianity. What we need to do above all is to accept it as a fact, — a fact which demands a practical and reverent hearing. . . . The most wonderful fea- ture in Jesus is the co-existence of a self-conscious- ness that is more than human with the deepest hu- mility before God. . . . He is always modest, humble, sane and sober, and yet with this superhuman self- consciousness. It is quite impossible to realize such an inner life as this." ... In correspondence with Jesus' transcendent personal consciousness there also answers, in Wernle's opinion, the transcendent char- acter of His whole hfe. " If He passes nights in solitary prayer, if in His zeal for preaching and healing, He forgets both food and rest, if He inter- rupts the ordinary sequence of natural laws, or. Him- self subject to some mysterious power, appears to His companions as a being of another world and to His ignorant relations as one possessed, — everywhere there is the same impression of the superhuman." ^ Harnack thus summarizes the opinions of B. Weiss and Wendt, whose remarkable descriptions of the pre- eminence of Christ's divine Sonship and of the in- comparable excellence of His mission were given above. " This Jesus," he says, " who preached hu- 1 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 40, 41, 42. 18 274 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL mility and knowledge of self, nevertheless named Himself, and Himself alone, the Son of God. He is certain that He knows the Father, that He is to bring this knowledge to all men, and that, thereby, He is doing the work of God. Among all the works of God, this is the greatest; it is the aim and end of all creation. The work is given to Him to do, and in God's strength He will accomplish it. It was out of this feehng of power and in the prospect of vic- tory that He uttered the words : ' The Father hath committed all things to me.' Again and again in the history of mankind, men of God have come forward in the sure consciousness of possessing a divine mes- sage, and of being compelled, whether they will or not, to deliver it. But the message has always hap- pened to be imperfect." . . . But, in this case, the message brought was of the profoundest and most comprehensive character; it went to the very root of mankind, and, although set in the frame-work of the Jewish nation, it addressed itself to the whole of humanity, — the message from God the Father. . . . He who delivered it has, as yet, yielded His place to no man, and to human life He still to-day gives a meaning and an aim : He is the Son of God." ^ The superiority of Christ Jesus, — in what, then, does it consist? Is it merely relative, and hence de- noting His pre-eminence over other men, whilst He "still remains a mere man? Or rather, is it some- thing absolute, and, therefore, grounded upon the very nature of His being and upon a substantial union with God? This dogma of the consubstantial union of Christ, the Son of God, with His Father, thinks B. Weiss, is rather a teaching influenced by Christian belief than a strict and exact interpretation of historical facts. " This divine Sonship of Jesus " he says, '' in the 1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 139-140. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 275 ethical sense, will have its deeper ground in an original relationship of love on the part of God to Him, a relation which is established by the Father Himself. Whether this reaches back into eternity and depends upon an original relationship of essence on the part of the Son to the Father, — to shed light on this point Jesus could not appeal to his own testimony without going entirely beyond the intellectual horizon of his hearers. It was the development of the doctrine of the Apostles that allowed men for the first time to enter into these questions. . . . All attempts to import into this self-designation (of Son of God) the dogmatic idea of a divine generation, or of a metaphysical con- substantiality of essence with Him, are simply un- historical. . . . The assertion that this (perfect knowl- edge Jesus claims to have of the Father) already pre- supposes the consubstantiality of essence, is only a dogmatic axiom." ^ And, if we w^ould believe Wendt, the " Synoptic sources p'rove that, on certain occasions, although sel- dom, Jesus calls Himself the Son of God in a sense that ranks Him above all other men. . . . This, how- ever, does not warrant us in ascribing to Jesus such filial relations with His Father as would have, in principle, a different character from those which, ac- cording to His own words, should unite His disciples to God. . . . His very words show that men ought to aspire to a God-like love, and thus " become the sons of the heavenly Father." Thenceforth, aware as He was of His perfect affection, so much in touch with God's will and very nature, we see how He could feel assured of being, par excellence, the Son of God." - " The sentence, * I am the Son of God,' was not inserted in the Gospel by Jesus Himself," says Har- nack ; " and to put that sentence there, side by side 1 Weiss, B., Bibl TheoL N. T., vol. i, p. 81, n. 3; p. 78, n. i. 2 Wendt, op. eit., pp. 417, 421, Ger. ed. 2^6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL with the others, is to make an addition to the Gospel." He seems to regard Christ as a man who is united to God in an incomparable manner, and in whom God Himself is manifested in an ideal and unique manner. In fact, he goes on to say : '' No one who accepts the Gospel, and tries to understand Him who gave it to us, can fail to affirm that here the divine appeared in as pure a form as it can appear on earth." ^ Wernle, however, thinks that Jesus' personality, owing to the seeming double element, the human and the super-human, which it embraces, is still mysterious. He is inclined to portray Christ as the supreme and final Mediator, whose nature he declines to explain otherwise than by the general term of Messiah. '' Jesus conceived of Himself as a Mediator." The Mediator is altogether man, without subtraction of anything that is human. But He has received from God an especial call and commission to His fellow- men, and thereby He towers high above them. Jesus shares this feeling of being a mediator with other men like Him. Even if it has in His case attained the highest degree of constancy, depth and reality, yet no formula can define its exact limits. . . . There was in Him something entirely new, a surpassing greatness, a superhuman self-consciousness which sets itself above all authorities, declaring God's will and promises, imparting consolation, inspiring courage, delivering judgment with divine power, a new mediatorship between God and man, that left all the former far behind it. . . . The superhuman self-con- sciousness of Jesus, who knows nothing higher than Himself save God, can find satisfactory expression in no other form but that of the Messianic idea." ^ O. Holtzmann takes almost a similar view. He says : " The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus lifts him 1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 156-157. 2 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 40, 45, 55. JESUS THE SOX OF GOD 277. above all the prophets; by this divine gift, he is qualified to be the ruler of the everlasting world of the future. . . . He becomes, for the first time, en- dowed with the attributes which distinguished the Messiah from all other men : he becomes the first-born Son of the Spirit of God, because it is through him that all other men are to participate in the Spirit of God." And J. Weiss also insists that Jesus con- sidered Himself as the Elect par excellence who was more than a prophet.^ So too, Stapfer does not pretend to condemn " a priori any formula, any dogmatic decree of the Church," about the Saviour's personality. But he re- marks : " I am more and more persuaded of the inan- ity of definitions and formulas." As he says, " there are differences between the Christological ideas of the Synoptics, those of the Fourth Gospel, and the meta- physical notions set forth in more than one Epistle. These differences are evident. It is, therefore, neces- sary to choose, and to choose is to create individual opinions. . . . For my part, I am not surprised at this ; nor do I regret it. I am convinced that individual- ism of this sort is the wisest course, and the only one possible at the present time. Each believer in Pro- testantism makes his own Christology, because each believer represents the divinity of Jesus Christ in his own w^ay, and it is not the way of his neighbor." ^ To judge from his views expressed in various parts of his writings, Stapfer had no settled theory. If, however, his views do not seem to be quite coherent, they are nevertheless interesting to study from the view-point of Protestant criticism. He endeavors to level the Saviour's personality to the plane of mere humanity, although he strives, at the same time, to 1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 135 ; Weiss, J., op. cit., p. 64. 2 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 259; The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 271, 274-275. 278 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL hold to the titles Son of God and Messiah. " Jesus was the Son of God," he writes, " but He seems never to have conceived the idea that He might be an in- carnation of God. ... If He was the Son of God in a special sense, it was that as all men are or may become His sons. We cannot go farther without en- tering the domain of dogmatics, and we abide by the expression ' divine sonship.' " ^ Nevertheless, this author makes very remarkable declarations in favor of Christ's transcendence and real divinity. " Let us recall to mind," he remarks, " the grand saying of Jesus : ' No one knoweth the Son but the Father,' I say, on the authority of this utterance, that it is impossible to define Jesus. He remains above and outside of all the subtilties, — I say more — of all the impossibilities of metaphysics ; and by the word, ' No one knoweth the Son but the Father,' He remains an incomprehensibility, which is one of the most certain signs of His divinity, and should make a part of all our adoration of Him. ... In this work, which is neither dogmatic nor metaphysical, and in which we confine ourselves to ascertaining the facts, we find ourselves led on to the establishment of facts which are strange and utterly inexplicable if Jesus was not a being apart, above, and beyond humanity as we know it. . . . The Christ of the Fourth Gospel in no respect surpasses Him whom the Synoptists had made us perceive. Jesus was, indeed, the one who is ' the way, the truth, and the life.' . . . He who hath seen Him, hath seen the Father." ..." In presence of such a being, a being who had such moral greatness and such compassion, who possessed so absolute a conviction, who made such unheard-of demands, who showed so entire a de- votion, and who enjoyed a life, in God and by Him, so deep, so intense, so evidently certain, the exclamation 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 236. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 279 of Thomas is not too strong : it bursts from our hearts and hps; we utter to Jesus this cry of obedience and adoration : ' my Lord, and my God.' " ^ Conservative Protestants. — The position taken by Protestant critics is surely significant. The most independent writers among them recognize as a his- torical fact, as a main point of the faith of the Church, the mysterious, transcendent, and superhuman charac- ter of Jesus' personality. He is placed above the prophets. He is called the Messiah, the Son of God, the ideal Alediator. Does not this avowal of modern scholars afford a strong presumption in favor of the well-established integrity of our faith? The features noticeable in Christ's real and living humanity agree with the plain statement of the early Church as also with that of the Church to-day. Nor is it, a priori, at all prejudicial to the doctrine of the same Church regarding the substantial union of Christ's humanity with the divinity. Besides, when we find such critics assigning to Jesus a position far above the prophets, declaring Him the supreme Mediator, the Son of God par excellence, and ad- hering exclusively to facts in their references to what was " superhuman " or " divine " in Jesus, as did Wernle and Harnack, — we may rightly suspect that the dogma of Christ's substantial union with the Father is not as independent of historical facts as they wish to assert. We may also surmise that Stapfer had good reason to declare that the facts are " inexphcable if Jesus had not been a being apart, above and beyond humanity," and that " the Christ of the Fourth Gospel in no respect surpasses Him whom the Synoptists had made us perceive." Such is the opinion of a number of distinguished Protestant critics to whom the Christ of the Gospel ^ Stapfer, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, p. 275; Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 244, 245, 264. 28o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL is none other than the Christ of Christian belief? Among French Protestants this view is held by Godet, lately professor of the independent Faculty of Neu- chatel, and among Anglicans, by such noted authors as Sanday of Oxford and Stevens of Yale. Catholic critics also have thus ever thought. But it remained for our day to witness an attempt to interpret the Gospel testimony on Christ's person as the hberal Protestants would do. So that, in view of the stir caused by recent works of Loisy, and the importance of the question, we may proceed to give a complete statement of Loisy's theory on Jesus' divinity, as also of its exact meaning.^ II. Loisy's Theory of Christ's Divinity. I. '' THE GOSPEL AND THE CHURCH." It was in 1902 that the Catholic reading public throughout France were startled by a book entitled " The Gospel and the Church." Its author, Alfred Loisy, of Paris, was careful to remind the reader that his aim was " to catch the point of view of history ", and, in particular, to discuss " solely according to the data of history " the well-known work of Harnack, familiar to English readers under the name of " What is Christianity " ? In a later work, which he named "Autour d'un petit Livre ", Loisy says that his former book was but " a modest effort towards historic construction ", and that, especially as regards Jesus' person, " he felt bound to portray the historic outline of the Saviour, . . . the ministry of Jesus in the humble conditions of real life, . . . the Christ as shown in history ".^ 1 Godet, com. siir. VEv. de S. Luc, 2d ed. ; Sur. S. Jean, 4th ed. ; Stevens, The Theol. of the N. T., 1901 ; The Teach- ing of Jesus, 1902 ; Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D. ; art. : The Son of God, H. D. ; Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord. 2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 2, 3; Autour d\un Petit Livre, pp. vii, viii, 11, 112, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 281 In thus taking history as his basis, Loisy thinks that he has reached the following conclusions : Jesus re- vealed Himself directly and only as the Messiah : His assertion even of His divine Sonship did not really go beyond the avowal of His Messiahship. He assures us that " more than one passage in the Gospels can be found without difficulty from which the conclusion is clear that the title, Son of God, . . . was, for the Saviour Himself, the equivalent of Messiah. . . . In so far as the title. Son of God, belongs, in an ex- clusive sense, to the Saviour, it is equivalent to that of Messiah, and takes its meaning from the rank of the Messiah. . . . Jesus named Himself the Son of God to the extent to which He avowed Himself the Messiah ".^ What, then, does Loisy really think of Christ as Messiah? He believes that His Messiahship wholly consists in the " providential function " which the Saviour exercises in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the "office" which He was destined to, hold at the final advent. " The office of Messiah ", he says, is essentially eschatological. . . . He speaks but little of Himself in His preaching. . . . but, none the less, assigns to Himself an essential part in the arrival and es- tabhshment of the Kingdom." ^ So that, though identical with the idea of Messiah- ship, " the idea of the divine Sonship was linked to that of the Kingdom : as far as Jesus was concerned, it had no definite significance except in regard to the Kingdom about to be established. . . . The title, Son of God, equivalent to that of Messiah belongs to Jesus, not because of His inner disposition and His Religious experiences, but because of His providential function as the sole ag:ent of the Kingdom of Heaven. . . . He is the Son, par excellence, because He alone is the Vicar of God for the Kingdom of Heaven ".^ 1 Loisy, The Gospel and- the Church, pp. 91, 105. 2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 102, 105, 108. 3 Loisy, op. cit., p. 105. 282 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL If, therefore, we critically interpret the Gospel in this fashion, we should infer that, in proclaiming His Divine Sonship, Jesus had merely sought to declare His character of Messiah, that, in calling Himself the Son of God, He did so simply as '' the principal agent and predestined head " of the Messianic Kingdom. Loisy, indeed, seems to go still further. He implies that, historically speaking, Jesus was aware of being nothing but Messiah Ruler of the Kingdom and that, this consciousness itself may have been acquired but not inborn. " It must be recognized also ", he writes, '' that the texts permit no psychological analysis of the idea of Son of God. Jesus named Himself the Son of God to the extent to which He avowed Himself the Messiah. The historian must come, there- fore, to the hypothetical conclusion that He beHeved Himself the Son of God from the time He believed Himself to be the Messiah ".^ Undoubtedly, the above theory tends to subvert the traditional basis of the faith of Catholics. For, if Jesus in no way whatever revealed Himself as the true Son of God nor believed Himself to be such, what is to become of the dogma of His divinity? Once that we suppress the Saviour's own testimony, upon what basis shall faith in the Christ-God continue to stand? Loisy, in fact, is not very precise. He merely says that " the Christological dogma was, before every- thing, the expression of what Jesus represented, from the beginning, to Christian conscience. The passage from the mere idea of the Messiah, as head of the heavenly Kingdom, to that of the Incarnate Word was due to a twofold influence, namely, the control of Greek philosophy over the Gentile converts and the instinct of the faith itself which had to employ Greek terms in endeavoring to interpret the idea of Christ's Messiahship.2 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 105, 107, 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 214, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 283 " The development of Christian dogma ", he writes, '* was brought about by the state of mind and culture of the earliest converts, who were Gentiles or under Gentile influence. ... So far as they were imbued with Greek culture they felt the need of interpreting their new faith to themselves. ... In this way, progressively but beginning at an early date, the Greek interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the Messiah came into being through the spontaneous effort of the faith to define itself, through the natural exigences of propagandism ; and thus the Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, predestined Saviour, became the Word Made Flesh, the Revealer of God to humanity. . . . The divinity of Christ, the Incarnation of the Word, was the only conceivable way of translating to Greek intelligence the idea of the Messiah. . . . From a historical point of view, it may be maintained that the Trinity and the Incarnation are Greek dogmas, since they are unknown to Judaism and Judaic Christianity, and that Greek philosophy, which helped to make them, also aids in their comprehension ".^ If, however, we consider these two ideas, thus placed in mutual connection, namely, the idea of Messiah and that of the Incarnate Word, we may ask if it is quite right to say that, in formulating the latter, the instinct of the faith was only " interpreting " for itself and "translating" the former? The idea of Messiah presents Jesus simply as the head of the future Kingdom, while the idea of the Incarnate Word presents Him as the Eternal Son of God, made flesh in course of time, and at once true God and true man. It does not at all seem likely that the former idea contains the latter, nor that therein it finds its equivalent expression, its " translation " pure and simple, its proportionate " interpretation ". Does Loisy mean to say that, to those possessing " the faith ", the Messianic formula had finally as- 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 192, 193, 195. 284 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL sumed a sense more complete that the primitive one; that '' the faith " could discern in the primary idea of Messiah the hitherto unknown though real germ of the idea of the Incarnate Word? Again, he should have expressed himself more clearly and stated exactly what was meant by that " instinct of faith ", that " spontaneous effort of the faith to define itself ". Did it imply a special providence of God, a particular light and impulse of grace, which, along with the con- currence of outward influences, served to assist and direct the Church so that its faith might be given a new expression, a more ample interpretation, while still retaining the meaning of the primitive idea which was really far more complete, far richer in significance than might be at first supposed? Such is, we think, the most Catholic way to interpret Loisy's views. But how is it that he does not express himself more clearly upon so vital a matter? Moreover, his theory, as he has stated it, appears to present serious difliculties. Thus, on the one hand, it is inconceivable that, if the idea of Messiah em- braced and contained the idea of the Incarnate Word in any way at all, there is, as Loisy indeed claims, no trace of it in the Gospels, inasmuch as the Saviour apparently never revealed it in any manner nor was even aware of it. On the other hand, if the faith alone could have discerned the real and deeper sense of the Messianic idea, what warrant is there for the truth of that faith and for the soundness of its instinct? What means do we have of ascertaining that it comes from God and that its interpretation is authorized by Heaven ? When we openly assault the historic founda- tions of dogma, when we attempt to ruin in particular the traditional belief in the foundation of the Church, — a fact surely intended and well-considered by Christ, it becomes at least a duty to explain precisely upon what solid basis the faith continues to rest and how it is possible to hold as lawful and true a belief of the JESUS THE SON OF GOD 285 primitive Christians which is represented as being ojd- posed, as it were, to the Saviour's own manifestation and personal convictions. He remarks, rightly enough, with reference to his book: "In no sense is it an attempt to write an apology of Catholicism or traditional dogma. Had it been so intended, it must have been regarded as very defective and incomplete, especially as far as concerns the divinity of Christ and the authority of the Church ". But this assertion does not fill the gap. He affirms that he takes '' the point of view of his- tory ", and doubtless he means that he has given all the testimony of history. Such testimony, however, is very far from the affirmations of traditional dogma, and above all from what has been hitherto believed to be the revelation and conviction of Jesus Himself. And yet, Loisy fails to explain at all how it is possible to secure an agreement between the faith in the traditional Catholic dogma and the new theory which he advances for the historical origin of the dogma on Christ's divinity. Whatever respect we may have for the author's talent, one cannot help re- marking that, in this instance, it betrayed serious defect. The false impression was deepened by Loisy's ven- turesome and utterly suspicious manner in expressing his ideas upon the possibility of a modern translation of ancient dogmatic formulas, and upon the oppor- tunity of a new explanation of dogma because of the progress made in the philosophic and historic sciences. " Any one who has followed the progress of Chris- tian thought from the beginning," he writes, " must perceive that neither the Christological dogma nor the dogma of grace, nor that of the Church is to be taken for a summit of doctrine, beyond which no prospect opens for the believer, or can ever open, except the dazzling perspective of infinite mystery; it is not to be expected that these dogmas will remain firmer than 286 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the rock, inaccessible even to accidental change, and yet intelligible for all generations, and equally ap- plicable, without any new translation or explanation, to all states, and to every advance of science, life, and human society. . . . Reason never ceases to put questions to faith, and traditional formulas are sub- mitted to a constant work of interpretation wherein * the letter that killeth ' is effectively controlled by * the spirit that quickeneth '." ^ " The efforts of a healthy theology " he continues, " should be directed to a solution of the antinomy, pre- .sented by the unquestionable authority that faith de- mands for dogma, and the variability, the relativity, that the critic cannot fail to perceive in the history of dogmas and dogmatic formulas. ... It follows that a considerable change in the state of knowledge might render necessary a new interpretation of old formulas, which, conceived in another intellectual at- mosphere, no longer say what is necessary, or no longer say it suitably. . . . It is not indispensable to the authority of belief that it should be rigorously unchangeable in its intellectual form and its verbal expression. . . . The Church does not exact belief in its formulas as the adequate expression of absolute truth, but presents them as the least imperfect expres- sion that is morally possible. ... As all souls and all intelligences differ one from the other, the grada- tions of belief are also of infinite variety, under the sole direction of the Church, and in the unity of her creed ".^ We do not at all want to make Loisy say more than he meant to say. The terms of the declarations which have been mentioned are cleverly calculated and may admit of a strictly orthodox interpretation. All goes well, it would seem, when we maintain the immutable 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 2, 3. 2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 210, 211. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 287 character of the truth, and object only to the relative imperfection of the formula; when we affirm the un- questionable authority of dogma, and plead only for improvement, for accidental modification in its expres- sion; when, finally, we proclaim the need of adhering to the Creed of the Church and to hold fast to the es- sential unity of the faith, and only admit variations in the mode which individuals employ in describing and proving that faith to themselves. In these pages of Loisy's work, however, the stress that he lays in a way upon the possibility of modifications in the inter- pretation of formulas leaves the vague impression that he had wanted to tell us different from what had hitherto been told by anybody. We may, for instance remark his new style of judging of the historical origin of dogmas, especially the dogma of the divinity of Christ, and we may anxiously ask if that *' new inter- pretation of old formulas ", rendered necessary by " a considerable change in the state of knowledge ". was not something else than an accidental change and a normal improvement. At least, as we believe, this is the impression which the author's pages have made upon a number of his most considerate readers. To offset that false impres- sion, it would seem that Loisy should have explained to his readers exactly what really was to be under- stood by that new interpretation of old formulas. Why did he neglect to do so? 2. " ABOUT A LITTLE BOOK." Since the first edition of his work on " The Gospel and the Church " was published, Loisy has apparently endeavored to modify, or to complete it in many re- spects. Thus, in a later work entitled ''About a little Book " he feels the need, first of all, to state his behef in more precise terms. He is glad to have " spent his life in showing that the profession of Catholicism is compatible with the full play of reason and the un- 288 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL trameled researches of criticism ". He feels honored to be ranked among " those who, while devoted to the scientific study of religion and anxious about the future welfare of Catholicity in France, claim to re- main sincere students and loyal servants of the Church ". Nor, especially, does he hesitate to make a public profession of his faith in Christ's divinity. " The Christological problem ", he says, '' which for ages has shaped the life and activity of the Church, is not to be examined as though it had never been dis- cussed and decided. We should not cast aside the experiences of the past. To suspect me of wanting to revive some antiquated system condemned by the ancient Councils, — this would be to greatly mistake my appreciation of the errors of former days and of present orthodoxy. The acquired knowledge of the past remains the teaching of the present: Christ is God according to the teaching of the faith ".^ Moreover, he undoubtedly means to reconcile his theory with orthodoxy ; for, in his new book, he seems to insist upon an element of the historic Christ which he had left unnoticed in his work on " The Gospel and the Church ". Thus, he speaks of '' the deep and undefinable mystery of His relationship with God; — a quite special relationship of union existing between God and the Man-Christ; a relation which is not the mere knowledge of the good God, but something in- finitely more mysterious and more profound : a species of intimate and ineffable permeation of the Man-Christ by God, as happened at the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus when receiving Baptism. . . . Here is all that we find in the history of Christ ".^ We find the same idea expressed also in his work entitled "The Fourth Gospel". He tells us that " the divine mission of Christ, viewed as an historical ^ Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, p. xxxv. 2Loisy, op. cit., pp. 117, 134, IS5- » JESUS THE SON OF GOD 289 fact, is explained by the circumstance that His Jewish habit of thought was enhvened by the conviction of a divine fiHation which we may say was unique and personal in the case of Jesus ". Again, in the same work, Loisy thus estimates the impression made upon him by the Synoptic Christ : " Throughout all His discourses, His deeds. His sorrows, we feel something divine uplifting him above mankind, even the best ".^ So too, in the second edition of *' The Gospel and the Church " not only does he insist that Jesus " for the faith is King and God eternally ", but in the name of history, he emphasizes anew " His unique relation- ship with God ", a relationship based " upon a sub- stantial communication of the divine Spirit, that is, of God Himself unto the predestined Messiah ".^ Of course, this new element brought into " the his- tory of Christ " has its importance. Why was it not pointed out in any way at all, when, previously, we were shown the veritable Christ of history? Why insist so complaisantly upon " the humble conditions " of Jesus' historic ministry, and so prominently uphold the reality of His humanity without in the least emphasizing the peculiar features of His person, of His words, and of His deeds, which, on the other hand, show " something divine ", a " quite special relationship of union " with God, a substantial communication of the divine Spirit " which is nov/ in- dicated to us after all that has been said before? Why, especially, instead of firmly adhering to these new observations, of setting forth their value, of mak- ing them the point of agreement between the incom- plete exposition in his first book and the fulness of Catholic doctrine, — why be content to notice them casually in a brief, general formula? Why, more- over, try to weaken their meaning in the context, and 1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 38, 2d ed. 2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 51, 125. 19 290 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL bring them finally to the former insufficient conclu- sions which they were apparently meant to correct? If, then, we are not satisfied with the mere appear- ance of words, but are seeking for the author's real thought beneath somewhat obscure and equivocal terms, the following facts appear to be quite evident. On the one hand, " we find in the history of Christ " that there was " a unique communication of the divine life ", a '' species of intimate and ineffable permeation of the Man-Christ by God ". But, on the other hand, we are made to plainly understand that the idea of Christ's divinity is not at all encountered by Loisy in the Saviour's own teaching. After remarking, and somewhat justly, that '' the divinity of Jesus is not a fact of Gospel history which is verifiable, critically speaking, as to its reality, but . . . the definition of the relationship existing between Christ and God, that is, a belief, the origin and development of which the historian can simply ascertain ", he continues " : " This belief would be a part of the teaching of Jesus, and it should be recognized by the historian, if the Fourth Gospel was a direct echo of the Saviour's preaching, and if the saying in the Synoptists about " the Father who alone knoweth the Son and the Son who alone knoweth the Father " was not a product of tradition. But the Fourth Gospel is a book of mystic theology wherein is heard the voice of the Christian conscience, and not the Christ of history ; and in *' The Gospel and the Church ", I have explained why the text of Matthew and of Luke is very likely a fruit of theological speculation, the work of a Christian prophet, like the Fourth Gospel ".^ In Loisy's opinion, then, the historical Christ never in the least manifested Himself as the true Son of God. He also gives us to understand, even more plainly than he did in his other book, that Christ was 1 Loisy, Autour, p. 130. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 291 never at all aware of being the true Son of God and true God. *' Is it not true ", he says, " that the conciliation of this theory with history would not be without its diffi- culties if we would have the theory to be the exact expression of history? When Jesus answers a man who had called Him ' Good Master ', it is by the re- mark : ' Why call you Me good ? None is good but one, that is, God '. And when He makes that act of resignation : ' Father, not what I will, but what Thou wilt ', the natural sense of the words does not agree with the theory, and, besides, the Fourth Gospel does not assign such sayings to Him. The critic may, then, suspect the authenticity of these declarations which, in any supposition, would correspond to a Christology other than that of S. John; for the theory does not teach us anything about the Saviour's inner life. In itself, the dogma is a doctrinal construction which theologians are inclined to interpret as a psychological reality: but, for the occasion, they create a special psychology which, in fact, is no psychology at all, since its basis is not observation but reasoning due to an unhistoric interpretation of the Gospel. The theo- logian conceives of two distinct intelligences and wills, of a sort of double consciousness, the one above the other and, as it were, possessing a reciprocal penetra- tion : the human faculty is entirely subordinated to the "divine, and the Man-Christ, although fully aware of his humanity, is also aware of being God. ... If at all authorized, this theory needs to be explained, especially nowadays, by the exegetical theologian, rather than it furnishes light for the historical inter- pretation of the Gospel ".^ Loisy is so unequivocal in his manner of represent- ing the consciousness of the historical Christ that we know full well the meaning of the following remarks : 1 Mk. X. 17-18; xiv. 36; Loisy, Autour, pp. 148-149. 292 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " Jesus, while living on earth ", he says, *' was aware of His humanity, and He spoke and acted according to such conviction. He lived in the full knowledge of His Messianic vocation, and taught in accordance with what Hght He had of this vocation. His discourses, His conduct, the attitude of His disciples and enemies, all show that Christ was a man among men, ' in all things like to them, except sin ' : we may even add, except the intimate and undefinable mystery of His relationship with God. This relationship is expressed in the idea of Messiah ".^ We may at first ask ourselves if in Loisy's mind the restriction ** except the intimate and undefinable mystery of His relationship with God ", as also the expression, " except sin ", refers to an element in Christ which was only afterwards perceived by the Christian conscience, or rather an element which is positively attested by the Gospel history and of which Christ had shown Himself to be aware? But the analogous and unequivocal reflections found in the context leave no room for deception: in Loisy's opinion, the historical Christ was aware of his rela- tionship with God only in so far as He was aware of His character as God's representative for the estab- lishment and government of the Kingdom of Heaven. And it is wholly in this sense that he says : " this relationship is expressed in the idea of Messiah ". We find elsewhere a more explicit statement: " Critically interpreted, the Gospel shows that Jesus preached the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven, and that He made Himself known to His disciples and to His judges as the Messiah foretold to Israel. As to what was really the Kingdom of Heaven, and what was meant by the title Messiah, Son of God, I have shown it as clearly as could be, while refraining, as I 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 116-117. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 293 should, from introducing later theological speculations into the teachings of the Saviour ".^ What can be plainer than this? In Loisy's estima- tion, the Christ of the Gospels reveals Himself only as the Messiah, and the Messiah, as Loisy has con- stantly and clearly stated, is only " the principal agent and predestined head of the Kingdom ", and the Son of God in the sense that " He alone is the vicar of God for the Kingdom of Heaven ". It is, therefore, this and only this Messianic relation- ship, displaying itself through the " providential func- tion " which is to be exercised only at the end of time, that is implied in the " quite special relationship of union " existing between the Man-Christ and God. Naught more is supposed to be found in the Saviour's personal teaching nor in His historic consciousness. We see clearly, then, what to think of the following observations of Loisy, if we only take the trouble of looking through the outer veil of words : " The Gospel idea of the Messiah ", he tells us, " contains, in principle, the entire Christological de- velopment. It really implies the eternal predestination of Him who was to appear in this world as the Son of God, and also His final exaltation, and even, as an intermediary condition for predestination and glory, a quite special relationship of union between God and the Alan-Christ: a relation implying not merely the knowledge of the good God, but something far more mysterious and profound, namely, a sort of intimate and ineffable penetration of the Man-Christ by God, such as was visibly symbolized by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the baptized Jesus. The vocation of Jesus is not that of a prophet : it is unique in its kind, both as a providential mission and as a grace of God. A unique predestination of a human being for a unique role for which this human being (Christ) is fitted by 1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 131, 294 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL a unique communication of divine life that buds forth into a unique perfection of faith, hope, and love: this, is all we find in Christ's history." ^ Let us state the case with the greatest precision: '' The Gospel idea of the Messiah, we are told, implies the eternal predestination of Him who was to appear in this world as the Son of God ". Yes, to be sure ; but " eternal predestination " is not necessarily eternal pre-existence. The former imphes ideal pre-existence in God's intelligence and will, while the latter implies eternal existence in the real sense of the word; nor is this latter at all implied in the former. For, although the Man-Christ had been predestined, in the divine plan, to become the Son of God as Head of the Mes- sianic Kingdom, it does not logically follow that He pre-existed eternally before His advent into this world, as true Son of God in God. On the other hand, the Gospel idea of the Messiah, such as Loisy has explained it, does not positively imply " a relationship of union between God and the Man-Christ " other than that of His " providential function " as " vicar of God for the Kingdom of Heaven ". If, as Loisy claims, Jesus only gave Himself as the *' Ruler " and " Sole Maker " of the Kingdom, He really did not reveal that He had ex- perienced an *' intimate and ineffable penetration " of Himself '' by God " ; nor, strictly speaking, did He manifest that " unique communication of the divine life " supposed to be found in the history of Christ. If He has revealed it. He must have spoken otherwise than Loisy makes Him speak. His statements would point beyond that mere " eschatological role ", beyond that mere " providential function " in which, it is al- leged, is centered the Gospel idea of the Messiah Son of God. At all events, to affirm that the dogma of Christ's 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 133-134; cf. The Gospel and the Church, p. 51. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 295 divinity " existed in germ in the idea " which Loisy has given us of " the Messiah Son of God ", to pretend that the " Gospel idea of the Messiah contains, in principle, the entire Christological development " seems to be a mere play upon words. He tells us, that " the divinity of Christ is a dogma which has grown in the Christian conscience, although it is not expressly for- mulated in the Gospel, it exists only in germ in the notion of Messiah, Son of God ".^ The Gospel idea, indeed, serves as the basis for the dogma, but this basis is wholly extrinsic and without any natural bearing upon the dogma : it does not con- tain it either in germ or in principle. It does not con- tain it as the root does the germ which shall normally develop into a tree with trunk and branches, but rather as the spike fixed in the wall contains the first link of the chain which is attached to it. The Gospel idea of the Messiah does not contain in principle the dogma of the Christ-God because its essential constitutive elements, namely, Christ's eternal pre-existence. His real participation in God's nature, are not taken from the Gospel idea : they do not issue therefrom as though previously contained in it, they are introduced from without. So true is this that, by the adaptation of these new and extrinsic elements, the Gospel idea becomes totally transformed; it is Hke a great hiatus, a radical separation between the former idea which means one thing and the second idea which implies another ; between the Christ of the Gospel, the simply privileged Messiah of God, and the Christ of the Christian conscience, the true Son of God and true God. In vain does Loisy say : " Theological endeavor does not start outside of history and from mere specu- lation. The Greek explanation is not made aside from the initial- fact; it rests upon the fact and coincides 1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 117. 296 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL therewith; we may also say that it issues from it. . . . The character of the Johannine thought is not Jewish, but the substance of that thought was in the Synoptists, and the thought of the Synoptists reflects what we may be allowed to call the Psychological con- sciousness of Jesus. No break of continuity is notice- able between the fact and its interpretation. The one is not a fiction foreign to the other ; nor, on the other hand, does the Gospel fact when well understood, go against the theological interpretation, if it be taken for what it is worth, nor does it destroy this latter. . . . The persuasion which Jesus had of His union with God is wholly undefinable. It is enough to show that the expression which He Himself has given of it is substantially equivalent, as far as we can see, to the ecclesiastical definition ".^ Such kind of language appears to us like a mirage and a sophism if it be used in the hypothesis of Loisy. For, to pretend to find " the substance " of the Johan- nine thought, " the substance " of Church definitions on the Christ-God in the Gospel facts such as they are set forth in the author's books, implies a deception and a use of words against their obvious sense. If, as is af- firmed, *' the psychological consciousness " of Jesus, as " reflected in the thought of the Synoptists " made him aware only of his quality of Messiah, the predestined Head of the Kingdom; if the declarations made by the historic Christ do not express a relationship of a far more excellent kind between Himself and God, and rightly and logically expressed by the idea of His real participation in God's very being, it were false to allege a " substantial " equivalence between the Gospel fact and its theological interpretation. No doubt, we may well believe that Christ, although God in the fullest sense, maintained a kind of reserve in revealing His divinity. Nor may we at all refuse ^ Loisy, op. cit, pp. 135, 138. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 297 to concede that '' the divinity of Christ "... is a dogma that was not expressly formulated in the Gos- pel ", or that *' the theology of the Incarnate Word " is not found therein " formally ". Says Loisy, " It is claimed that the theology of the Incarnate Word is connected with the Gospel of Jesus. It is, indeed, in a way connected therewith, although it be not contained therein. The imperious desire of theologians cannot make us find it there in its formal expression." We may also add with Loisy : " We are not surprised that the historical Christ gave no definition of His person and of His role according to the methods of Greek thought ".1 The theology of the Incarnate Word, however, must be logically connected with the Gospel and really con- tained therein under one form or other, Christ must have been truly aware of His divinity and must have, in some manner, positively suggested the idea of the essential transcendence of His union with God, if there be any reason for claiming that " the Greek explana- tion . . . issues from the initial fact ", and that " the expression " given by Jesus as to His conviction of being united with God is " equivalent substantially ... to the ecclesiastical definition ". If Christ were not truly aware of His substantial union with God; if His psychological consciousness were limited to the idea of His Messiahship, such as Loisy has explained it to us, we could not say that the theological dogma issues from the Gospel fact like a plant from its germ, but rather as a plant from the soil wherein it lies, or as a flower from its surrounding vase. Between the one and the other there is only a material relation, there is only an exterior agreement, without, however, a dependence of origin founded upon their nature. We are told that " the Greek explanation is not 1 ]Loisy, op. cit., p. 117; cf. Le Quatr. Evang., p. 138. 298 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL made aside from the initial fact " ; that, in a manner, '' it rests upon the fact " ; and nevertheless, in its sub- stance, in its essential elements it is foreign to this initial fact and wholly separate from its basis. For, the dogma expresses an idea different from the Gospel idea, — a second idea in no way contained in the first. It is not really an interpretation, but a new construc- tion. The explanation given of the Gospel fact does not place in proper light the elements which it con- tains, since it is understood that the Gospel fact his- orically speaking, does not contain them. The very essential parts of the dogma, and not merely the acci- dental ones, are constructed by means of elements that are foreign to " the personal teaching of Christ ", and furnished only by faith. The Christian conscience did not draw from the Gospel what was historically con- tained therein: its endeavor was not confined to dis- covering and formulating what was latent and implicit in the Saviour's discourses. It put there what was not there; it drew from its behef ; and it is the edifice of the faith that was built in its entirety upon the base of the fact through a sort of extrinsic superposition, without, however, the Gospel fact being destined for this construction nor, even, critically speaking, sus- ceptible of receiving it. Has it not, indeed, been claimed by Rationalists that the idea of the Christ-God was due to the fact that the Gospel expression, Son of God, had been taken in a wrong sense by Greek Christians and interpreted to mean a real divine Sonship by those who did not perceive the general and figurative meaning attached to it in the Hebrew and Aramaic languages? If we had to admit that the dogma of the divinity of Christ arose from such an erroneous interpretation, we might perhaps still say, to borrow Loisy's words, that the explanation was not made " aside from the fact ", but even " based upon the fact " ? But could we say that " it coincides therewith ", that " it issues from it ", JESUS THE SON OF GOD 299 that it was therein contained " in germ " and " sub- stantially '■ ? Assuredly not. And the reason is plain : between the fact and its interpretation there would be a " real break of continuity " ; the Gospel fact having its own meaning while the interpretation given thereto would have a different one. In Loisy's theory, the case is somewhat similar, the difference being that he finds that the meaning given to the facts by the theological interpretation thereof is founded upon faith. But it remains true, however, that such a meaning was, historically speaking, foreign to the Gospel fact, and that, critically viewed, it was not even contained therein. So that, on the one hand, we have the fact with its own meaning and, on the other, the interpretation whereby this fact receives a new meaning, a sense by no means warranted in his- tory but resting upon faith. Between the fact and its interpretation, whatever Loisy may say, there is, critic- ally speaking, a " real break of continuity": from the fact to its interpretation the way, indeed, is found only by faith. For the interpretation of Gospel facts, faith can as- suredly offer elements unknown to history, which go be- yond the formula admitted by critics and which impart thereto a meaning that they could not suspect. Thus, a direct inspiration from God, or a special assistance of His providence may reveal to faith what science cannot discern. But if this were so in the case viewed by Loisy, he would at all events have to cease looking in history for what faith alone can supply. The dogma of Christ's divinity would, then, no longer rest upon the Gospel; it would no longer rest upon the Saviour's personal testimony. The dogma would have only an extrinsic basis upon the fact of history; its essential elements would come only from faith ; and, against the data of faith, there would stand this difficulty, which if not peremptory, is assuredly annoying and startling enough, namely, the strange instance of a God-Man Christ who was not aware of being God ! 300 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " The gravity of the problem," says Loisy, '' does not escape me in the least ; nor have I stated it without due reflexion ". Still, he thinks that such critical hypotheses are compatible with dogma; for he affirms that '' the believing historian perceives naught in these facts to disturb his faith. And he reasons thus : " The natural representation of things as they appear to the observer's view is fully compatible with their super- natural explanation. This explanation, however, is not a matter of history. . . . All such historical re- searches tend only to verify and to represent facts which, in turn, cannot contradict any dogma precisely because they are facts and because the dogmas them- selves are ideas that represent the faith which seeks, not the humanly knowable, but the divinely incom- prehensible ".^ Thus, in his estimation, dogma would be wholly in- dependent of facts. No conflict could occur between the one and the other because the one sprang from science and the other from faith; because there is be- tween science and faith a closed wall, as it were, and an entirely separate domain. We do not care to dis- cuss the reasons for this general view of the relation- ship between science and faith, between fact and dogma; but we may be allowed to remind Loisy that, although the object of faith be " the divinely incompre- hensible ", it must also have a basis in " the humanly knowable ". Dogma, indeed, is not as independent of fact as he would wish it to be. In fact, he speaks of the divinity of Jesus as " a belief " of which the his- torian " can verify the origin and development ", and he endeavors to ascertain if this belief does or does not belong to the Saviour's teaching.^ " The persuasion which Jesus had of His union with God," he rightly remarks, " is wholly undefinable ". ^ Loisy, Autour d'un petit Uvre, pp. ii, 51, 132, 150. 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 130, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 301 I And yet this fact itself does not prevent him from investigating the " expression which He himself has given of it ", nor from asserting that he deems it " substantially equivalent " to the dogma. So that, he is somewhat convinced that dogma may be founded upon fact, and that, in particular, the dogma of Christ's divinity might rest upon Jesus' personal testimony.^ Loisy does not, indeed, admit Jesus' testimony on this point ; but he cannot rightly refuse to do so. He does not believe that Jesus has testified to His real divinity; but he cannot deny that, if the Saviour had done so. His word would be a solid foundation, his- torically speaking, for our faith in His divinity. Let it be granted, for a moment, that, as he says, " the divinity of Christ, even if taught by Jesus Himself, would not be a fact of history but a religious and moral fact, of which we become certain in the same way as we do of the existence of God, and not by the mere investigation of the Gospel testimony ". He will grant us, I hope, that it is not at all an indifferent matter whether or not Christ has taught this truth; that the reality of the Gospel testimony which is an historical fact is not without its importance to give our certitude a reasonable basis and serve as a motive of credibility for that religious fact known as the divinity of Christ.2 In a word, to deny, in the name of history, that the Saviour attested His divinity, and even that He was aware of it, is to ruin, not directly faith in the Christ- God, but one of the most reliable and rational grounds upon which our faith has hitherto stood. It would seem, however that Loisy's faith in this dogma remains unshaken. Evidently, it can not be a castle in the air: it must have a foundation; and this basis he, like any theologian, seeks to find in the facts : 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 137-138. 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 215. 302 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL so true it is that between the fact and the dogma there is not that radical separation which the critics allege. " Does not faith in the divinity of Christ ", he asks, *' rest also on the divine influence w^hich he has never ceased to exert upon souls, even despite the strictly Jewish sense which is still attached to His quality of Messiah, and although the formal definition of His divinity was only developed progressively in Christian tradition." ^ Thus, in Loisy's estimation, faith in Christ's divinity would rest upon the humanly observable fact of " the divine influence " which Christ has never ceased to exert upon souls. Moreover, it is this very influence of Christ, historically evident, guiding the Church in the beginning, and acting therein in order to per- petuate it until the end of time, that rationally estab- lishes our belief in the divinity of the Church. It is thus, at least, that we may likely interpret the follow- ing slightly enigmatic words of the author. " The divine institution of the Church ", he says, is founded upon the divinity of Christ, which itself is not a fact of history but a fact of the faith attested by the Church and which, from the very beginning of the Church, appears, we may say, in the birth and the perpetuity of the Church. ... To the historian who limits himself to the consideration of observable facts, it is faith in Christ which has founded the Church ; from the view-point of the faith, it is Christ Himself, living for the faith and thereby accomplishing what the historian sees realized ".^ We do not think that Loisy means that faith is absolutely independent of observable facts: he plainly recognizes that the fact is a rational basis for the faith. The historian shows that the Church's founda- tion and perpetuity practically rest upon belief in the 1 Loisy, op. cit., p, ii6. 2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 162, 172. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 303 [ Christ-God; the historian-philosopher judges that the truth of the belief is guaranteed by the very character of the fact observed, that is, by the perceptible marks of Christ's living and incessant influence; but it re- mains for the believer to make the act of faith in Christ's real divinity, and, at the same time, in the divinity of that Church wherein He has never ceased to live and to act. Thus understood, Loisy's apologetic work is not without its value. We are very far from contesting that Christ's influence makes itself perceptibly felt in the life of the Church from the first and throughout the course of its history, just as it has not ceased to be felt in the Ufe of souls. This is a very sound proof, and one on which we cannot insist too strongly, of the truth of our faith. Loisy might have also observed that Christ's divinity and that of the Church rest upon the sohd basis of the rational necessity of admitting a personal God who watches over men and approves of a positive religion; for, at present, whoever sincerely seeks this personal God, and whoever wishes to go to Christ, knows well that He can be found only in the Church. It remains true, none the less, that in presenting the moral proof, — drawn from the influence exerted by Chrisrt, — as the only rational basis for faith in His divinity, Loisy deprives this faith of one of its firmest foundations, namely, Christ's historic testimony to the fact that He was aware of His divinity. Moreover Loisy goes counter to what until now has been the general teaching of theologians concerning the psychological consciousness of the Christ God. What he advances is indeed a complete revolution in the manner of conceiving the Saviour's interior at- titude towards God and Jesus' own declarations as to this attitude. We will perceive how serious all this is after reading the author's venturesome and too often repeated remarks. 304 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " The progress of history ", he says, sets forth in new terms the problem of Christ . . . What dis- turbs the minds of the faithful as regards Christ's divinity and ' His infallible knowledge ' is the fact that it is impossible to reconcile the natural meaning of the most certain Gospel texts with what theologians teach, or seem to teach, concerning Jesus' consciousness and knowledge. . . . And as to the interpretation of texts, is not a reasonable exegesis impossible, if we do not admit, first of all, that the Church's actual teaching, which serves as the standard for the theo- logian and the Catholic preacher, is distinct from the historic sense of Scripture?" ^ " The biblical question ", he continues, " pertains to the important question of the intellectual formation of Catholics, to the question of the intellectual regime of the Church. . , . Catholicism will become, by the force of circumstances, what it should not be, namely, a party, nay a reactionary party, given over to in- curable decay and fatal ruin, as long as ecclesiastical teaching shall apparently want to impose upon our minds a view of the world and human history that is not in accord with the results of scientific endeavor during the last centuries. . . . The crisis (of the faith) is born of that opposition which ardent minds perceive between the theological and the scientific spirit, between what is presented as Catholic truth and what is more and more presented as the truth of science. . . . It is begotten within the field of religious history through the obstinacy of present dog- matism in rejecting the evidence of facts and the legitimacy of the critical method ".^ Such bitter reflections, mingled as they are with accusations so unseemly, and coming from a believing critic, are serious enough. But he goes on to say that 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. xxiii, xxv, 64-65. 2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. xxxiv, 216-217. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 305 i " facts are facts, and, if so, the first conclusion to be drawn therefrom is that they are naught else. A mountain of syllogisms can avail nothing against a grain of nature's sand. It is simply a question whether " The Gospel and the Church " represents the Gospel fact in sufficient conformity with reality. ... If that explanation is defective, it is by efforts of a similar and more satisfactory kind that its imperfec- tions may be corrected. Even if it were radically false, we should still have to seek the true explanation of the ancient facts and to show how the doctrine of the Church does not contradict them. . . . We must strengthen the faith in Christ's divinity by inter- preting the Gospel and the documents of ecclesiastical antiquity in accordance with the rules which are nowa- days usually applied to all human texts, and by taking into account the progress of contemporary thought in the philosophic order ".^ Accordingly, at Loisy's invitation, we will ascertain if the facts are really such as he has given them, if his representation of the Gospel fact is integral and exact, or, on the contrary, if it is incomplete, inade- quate as regards the entire sacred testimony, and, as a consequence, without sufficient conformity to the full reality. This study demands a minute and complete exami- nation of the contents of the Synoptic Gospels, and, undoubtedly, it also requires a particularly careful and well-balanced interpretation of their testimony. For, may it not be, that Jesus was really aware of His divine origin and nature, that He really manifested His own divinity, and that, nevertheless. He sur- rounded this manifestation with some discretion and reserve ; that He did not publish this secret openly and as plainly as his disciples were to do it one day? Such an attitude on His part should not surprise us. 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. xxviii, 114. 20 306 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Jesus' reserve in manifesting His Messiahship must have been even surpassed when He revealed Himself as the true Son of God. As regards His Messiahship, in fact, had He not revealed it rather by His works than by His formal declarations; had He not led His disciples to gradually form their conviction on this matter by a personal experience in order that after- wards they might proclaim it freely ? Should He not, therefore, have cast even a deeper veil over the incom- parably more astounding mystery of His divine nature, and led them to believe in it rather through insinua- tions and suggestive declarations, the full sense of which would be disclosed at an opportune time? As- suredly, this inference is quite legitimate. Let us, therefore, take up the first three Gospels and endeavor to submit to the most attentive as well as most loyal criticism the testimony that is found therein concerning the person of Jesus. HI. The Divinity of Christ in the Synoptists. I. THE special significance OF JESUS' STATEMENTS AS TO HIS DIGNITY, PRIVILEGES, AND POWERS. A striking feature of the Gospels is the unusual character and import of Our Lord's declarations con- cerning His dignity, privileges, and powers. As we have seen, naught is more surprising than the manner in which He places Himself above every creature. Greater than the most illustrious personages of the Old Law ; greater than Jonas or Solomon ; greater than David who had called Him his Lord; greater than Moses or EHas who appeared beside Him on the Mount of Transfiguration; greater even than John the Baptist, whose dignity as Precursor ranked him above the sons of men; yea, greater than the Angels of God, — thus does Jesus reveal Himself. In fact, after the Temptation, in the desert, the angels come to minister unto Him: He has but to say one word. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 307 and His Father will send them to His aid in a dozen legions. Nor are they merely His Father's angels : they are His also; they are His messengers, His ser- vitors, the executors of His will. At the last Advent, they shall form His escort of honor. He shall com- mand them Himself; He shall send them into His harvest in order to separate the wheat from the chaff, to assemble the just, His chosen people, from the four parts of the earth. When, also, there is question of drawing a line between man, the angels. Himself, and His Father, He ranks Himself above the angels and takes His position at the right hand of God. " Of that day or hour no man knoweth ", says He ; ** neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son ; but the Father ".^ It has been remarked, indeed, by Dalman that the words : *' nor the Son ; but the Father " are a later addition to the text; but we think it hardly credible that the Church subsequently thought of attributing to the Saviour a declaration which might appear to imply an attack upon the universal extent of His knowledge.^ The Saviour, undoubtedly, assumes qualities, powers, and authority such as seemingly place Him wholly above and beyond mankind, and very close to God. He demands as had never been done before, nor could have been demanded by any mere man, that His followers manifest both for His gospel and person a faith, an obedience, and a love such as might entail the renouncement of every contrary affection, and the sacrifice of the most precious goods, — nay of Hfe itself: and in return. He promises the greatest rewards for all eternity. " If any man will follow 1 Mk. i. 13; Mt. iv. 4, II ; Mt. xxvi. 53; Mt. xiii. 41 ; xvi. 27; Mt. xxiv. 31; Mk. xiii. 27; Mk. viii. 38; Lk. ix. 26; Mt. xxv. 31 ; Mk. xiii. 32. 2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 194; Schmiedel, art.: In Prot. Monats- hefte, 1900, p. 20; Bovon, Theol. du N. T., vol. i, p. 425; Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., par. 14, col. 4698. 3o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL me ", He says, " let Him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For, whosoever will save his life, shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his Hfe for my sake and the gospel, shall save it ". Again : " Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven." . . . He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me ". So too, we are told : " Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they perse- cuted the prophets that were before you ". And again we read: *' Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who shall not receive a hundred times as much, now in this time : houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions : and, in the world to come, life ever- lasting ".^ Jesus, moreover, as we have already noticed, de- clares Himself to be *' the Lord of the Sabbath ". In fact. He assumes exceptional authority over the Old Law. In a way. He places Himself upon an equality with the divine Lawgiver of Sinai, and, in His own name, interprets, specifies, and perfects the traditional commandments. Thus, He says : *' You have heard that it was said to them of old . . . but, I say to you ".2 1 Mk. vi ii. 34, 21^ ; Mt. xvi. 24, 25 ; Lk. ix. 22,, 24 ; Mt. x. 2)^, ZZ, 37-38; Lk. xiv. 26-27, 31; Mt. V. 11-12; Mk, x. 29-30; Mt. xix. 28-29; Lk. xviii. 29-30. 2 Mt. V. 22y 28, 32, 34, 39, 44. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 309 He also heals the sick, casts out demons, and com- mands the elements of the natural world in His own name and by His authority. He can work miracles because of a " power " which, though hidden, is per- ceptibly and personally experienced by all who draw near to Him. He does not, indeed, act apart from the Spirit of God, but His divine power is so special to Him as to be seemingly identified with Him. He says but one word, and all obey Him: as when He said : " Damsel, I say to thee, Arise ", and the daughter of Jairus returned to life ; or, again, " Speak no more : and go out of the man ", and the demon at once left him; or, at another time: "Peace, be still!" where- upon the wind ceased, and there was a great calm upon the Sea of Galilee.^ So eminently, indeed, does Jesus possess the power of performing miracles that He imparts to His disciples the gift of working the like wonders by His authority and in His name. To the twelve He says : "Going, preach, saying: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils : freely have you received, freely give ". And they immediately go forth upon their mission of preaching penance: many demons do they indeed expel, and, by anointing the sick with oil, they restore them to health. So that, in turn, they may joyfully assure the Saviour : " Lord, the devils also are subject to us in thy name!" And, even after Pentecost, it is still " in the name of" Jesus Christ of Nazareth that the apostles perform many miracles and prodigies.^ A still more unusual power assumed by Jesus is 1 Mt. xii. 28 ; Lk. xi. 20 ; Mk. v. 30 ; Lk. vi. 19 ; Mk. v. 41 ; Lk. viii. 54; Mk. i. 25; Lk. iv. 35; Mk iv. 39; Mt. viii. 27; Lk. viii. 25. 2Mk. iii. 15; vi. 7; Mt. x. i; Lk. ix. i, 2; Mt. x. 8; cf. Mk. xvi. 17; Mt. vi. 13; Lk. ix. 6; cf. Mk. ix. 37; Lk. x. 17; cf, Mk. ix. 38; Ac. iii. 6, 16; iy. 10, 30; ix. 34; xvi. 18, 3IO CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL that of purifying the human soul through the forgive- ness of sins. He does not deny that this is a divine privilege; and yet He asserts His power in this re- spect and gives striking proofs of possessing it. We may well suppose that His remarkable miracles in the order of nature are a guarantee for the truth of His miracles in the invisible order. God alone can for- give sins. Be it so. And yet, the " Son of Man " asserts and proves that He has, even on this earth, the power of forgiving sins. What, then, are we to conclude unless it be that God abides within this very " Son of Man " because of the authority and entirely incommunicable powers which He gives Him? Upon the soul-world, as upon the corporeal sphere, God acts in and through Jesus. Such is the implied reasoning of the Jews themselves in asking the ques- tion : " Who is He that can forgive sins ?" Neverthe- less, Jesus goes even further. He asserts His right to directly impart to others this very power of for- giving sins precisely because He is aware that He enjoys it Himself by reason of His divine personal authority : and it may be noted that His declaration as found in S. Matthew is analogous to that in the Fourth Gospel. In the one we read : " Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven ; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven " ; and, in the other : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained ".^ To this unheard-of claim to pardon sins we must add the no less apparently exorbitant right which Jesus assumes of being one day the supreme judge of the living and the dead. He is not content to call Himself that redeemer of mankind " who is come to 1 Mt. xviii i8; Jo. xx, 22; cf. Mk. i. 10; Mt. ix. 6; Lk. v. 24; Lk. xix. 10; cf. Mt. xviii. 11; Greek Textus Receptus and Vulgate. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 311 save what was lost ", and " to give His life as a ransom for many " ; He is not content with striving to rule the world by His teaching and virtuous example, or to leave after Him followers with whom He prom- ised to be all days even to the consummation of the world: no, this is not enough; He promises to come, at the end of days, even as the supreme judge of the living and the dead; He foretells His appearance at that time in all the splendor of His divine glory, attended by the holy angels and sharing the full power of His Father, and, as judge of the human race, pro- nouncing, in His own name, the final sentence of ever- lasting life or death upon each individual soul ! ^ And, as a last promise, Jesus tells His apostles that He will send the Holy Spirit upon them; and His manner of making this promise shows plainly how far He enjoys God's confidence and shares the divinest privileges and powers. It was by the action of the Holy Ghost that He had been conceived and had assumed human nature within the womb of Mary, His Immaculate Mother, and had been, at His bap- tism in the Jordan, solemnly proclaimed the Son of God. All His deeds are influenced by the same Holy Spirit by whose power He also heals the sick and casts out demons. And yet, wonderful to tell, He has authority over this very same Holy Spirit; and He shall fully exert this power after entering upon the possession of His Father's glory on Ascension day. The Father, indeed, promises this Holy Spirit to Him, but it is really He who shall send it upon His own beloved apostles.^ To His chosen twelve He says : " I send the promise 1 Mk. X. 45; Mt. XX. 28; Mk. viii. 38; Mt. x. 32; xvi. 17; Lk. ix. 26; Mt. vii. 23; Lk. xii. 8, 9; xiii. 27; Mk. xiii. 26-27; Mt. xxiv. 30-31; Lk. xxi. 27; Mt. xxv. 34, 41; Mk. xiv. 62; Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 2Lk. i. 35; Mt. i. 20; Mt. i. 10; Mt. iii. 16; Lk. iii. 22; Ac. x. 38; Mk. i. 2; Mt. iv. i; Lk iv. i, 18; x 21; Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20. 312 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL of my Father upon you: but stay you in the city, till you be endued with power from on high ". So that, on the day of Pentecost, S. Peter could rightly tell the Jews : " This Jesus hath God raised again, whereof we are all witnesses. Being exalted, therefore, by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath poured forth this which you see and hear "/ a. The Eminence of the Sacred Humanity. Such are the extraordinary privileges, the incom- parable powers, the extensive rights ascribed to Jesus. But, we may ask, in what sense do they belong to him ? They are His directly in His character of Messiah and in His divinely privileged humanity. It is be- cause He was sent by His Father that He preaches and teaches ; it is in virtue of the divine power im- parted to Him that He heals the sick and dispels demons ; it is by divine delegation that He remits sins on earth. His action being ratified, so to say, by God in heaven, and that He sends the Holy Spirit, although after having beforehand asked and obtained His Father's authorization. And it is directly owing to His Messianic dignity that Jesus, after His Father had endowed Him with power to exercise His earthly ministry, is to receive also a share in His supreme authority and in the splendor of His glory, for the work of judging all men and inaugurating the reign of God in triumph. How far, indeed, do these claims which Jesus made surpass the notion which ordinary Jews had of their terrestrial Messiah ! In the Christ-Man, as we behold Him, the Sacred Humanity stands upon a plane unusually lofty, nay inaccessible, and fairly surpassing all other men in an infinite degree, as also the angelic world itself, and even reaching unto the divinity, ^ Lk. xxiv. 49 ; Ac. ii. ^2>^ b JESUS THE SON OF GOD 313 We may note what Bovon has to say with regard to the text of S. Mark xiii., 32, where mention is made of the fact, that neither the angels, nor the Son of Man are aware of the time of the final judg- ment. " This enumeration, then, places Jesus apart from other men, as it also does the angels ; but, on the other hand, it argues a very close relationship between the Father and the Son. How can we explain such an unusual situation? It is not enough to say that Christ claims it because He believes Himself to be the object of God's good pleasure; for, in that case. He would not be warranted in ranking Himself above the angels. So that, we are compelled to exceed the limits of the theory of Christ considered as Prophet, in order to vindicate, in behalf of Him who claims such a glorious privilege, a divine origin of a special kind. In other words, this text rightly leads us to the idea of the Only-Begotten Son mentioned in the Fourth Gospel ".^ This very text is, in fact, so suggestive that Schmidt has observed : " We cannot attribute the position held by the Son between the Angels and the Father merely to an exaltation of Christian thought concerning Jesus ".2 In any case, we must admit that, between Christ and God, there was an incomparable union, a union of a surpassing and absolutely special kind. Besides, so strict is Jesus' association in the powers and rights of God, so extraordinary is the kind of identification with God which results therefrom, that the very nature of His union is apparently far beyond strictly human conditions and surpasses the common order of God's dealings with His creatures. ^ Bovon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 425. ? Schmidt, art; Son of God, E. B., par, 14, col. 4698L 314 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL b. The Consubstantial Union, To be more explicit: Is the Savior's signal pre- eminence explained solely by His character as Christ, that is, by supposing Him to be, in His very nature, a man among men? Are the incomparable privileges that He enjoys only based upon a casual quahty, a merely accidental dignity, divinely super-added to Him as man, as a partaker in human nature, but in nowise affecting the inner nature of His being, and, sub- stantially considered, leaving Him in the possession of mere humanity? To suppose that a mere man had been chosen by God for elevation to so eminent a dignity and for a share in privileges so divine, seems rather a hard claim. If He were a mere man, even though extra- ordinary privileged by His very dignity, could the Messiah have thus claimed what seems, in truth, to pertain only to God ? And, in that case, would He have been authorized in directly remitting sins, nay, in delegating this power to others, as God Himself would do, and yet without at all sharing God's nature ? Would He have been allowed to command, by His own power, the winds and the waves; to heal the sick, to expel demons, and to confer upon His dis- ciples the power to perform the same miracles, not in- deed in His Father's name, but in His own name? Would He have received such authority and pre- eminence over the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God Himself, the Spirit who abides in God and proceeds from God? Would He have, in fine, been thus asso- ciated in the majesty of His Father to the extent of sitting at His right hand, of sharing His throne, and, amid the splendor of His Glory, of passing final judg- ment upon the living and the dead, and of ruling His kingdom forever ? ^ In thus deifying Jesus as the Messiah, there is ap- 1 Mt, xxviii. 19; I Cor, ii. 10-12. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 315 parently only one reasonable explanation, namely, that, this Alan-Messiah is something more than man, that, in His most perfect humanity, He enjoyed, from the first and essentially, a mysterious although real share in the divine nature such as justified His very special privileges and powers and in a manner authorized such an elevation of His humanity to the plane of the divinity. In other words : Jesus' mes- sianic claims are such that they appear to really desig- nate Him, not simply as a Messiah who possessed a human nature, but rather as one who, in a way, was a divine Messiah in virtue of a higher part of His being, — a God-Ma.n Messiah. We see, therefore, that the idea of Christ's con- substantial union with the Father is not discordant with the Synoptic data which we are studying, but seems to harmonize exactly therewith, and that this idea should be taken as their most authentic ex- pression. To be sure, the idea is not expressed with the exactness of a definition, but it is implied in all the facts narrated and is a logical and necessary con- sequence of such facts. Christ, moreover, is repre- sented as enjoying with God a special union which implies a sharing in powers so unique that, appar- ently. He is no stranger to the divine nature but verily is united with the divinity. God abides within Him; not merely accidentally and in passing, as though by His power, by His grace, and by His influence ; but substantially, that is, by His nature and by His essence. So that we may rightly call Christ by the name of God. Not, indeed, that He is God in as far as He is man and as sharing the nature of man, but because in Him human nature is united sub- stantially to the divinity, and because, above and be- yond His assumed human nature He essentially shares the divine nature. Christ, who is verily man, must also be truly God. 3i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL c. The Saviour s Attitude In Receiving Homage. We are also led to the same conclusion after con- sidering the Saviour's significant manner of accepting the many acts of homage paid to Him. It fact, we see Him accepting honors which, although not in themselves religious and divine, nevertheless display such a character in various circumstances. Thus, He allows many whom He meets to prostrate themselves before Him and to adore Him. Such is the at- titude of the Leper who, at the foot of the Mount of Beatitudes humbly asks to be cured; and also of Jairus, the leader of the Synagogue, who prays that his daughter be restored to life ; of the demoniac of Gerasa, who hastened to salute Him as Son of the Most High ; of the boatmen who, seeing Him crossing the sea of Genesareth, cried out: "thou art truly the Son of God " ; and of the Holy Women and the Dis- ciples who thus also render their homage to the risen Christ.^ It should be noted that the terms '' adoration ", and " prostration " do not always imply homage in the sense usually given to them. They may serve to de- note the action of a servant when kneeling before his master, of a subject in presence of his king. Thus, in the parable found in Mk. xviii. 26, the servant is described as lying prostrate before his master whilst asking a favor. The Magi and Herod himself speak of going to adore the new king of the Jews, undoubtedly in his proper capacity as king of the Jews. So too, the soldiers of the Pretorium intend to mock Jesus by prostrating themselves before Him in derision as though they recognized his royal dignity.^ It may also be remarked that the Greek term 1 Mt. viii. 2 ; ix. 18 ; Mk. v. 6. 2 Mt. xiv. Z3', Mt. xxviii. 9, 17; Lk. xxiv. 52; cf. Jo. ix. 38; Mt. xviii. 26; Mt. ii. 2, 8, 11; Mk. xv. 19; cf. Apoc. iii. 9, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 317 " Trpof/cweiv " signifies literally "to give a kiss with the hand " in token of reverence. This also is the precise sense of the Latin term which is found in the Vulgate text, namely, '' ad-orare ". In reality, however, these two terms, the Greek and the Latin, as employed in the Old and the New Testaments, indicate the atti- tude of kneeling or of prostration. In Hebrew, the corresponding term is the verb hishtahavdh, which signifies : to fall prostrate at anyone's feet. Through- out the Orient, indeed, people perform the act of adoration by means of prostration: this act is called the " salam ", and consists in one's falling down on his knees and touching the ground with the forehead as a sign of profound reverence. Such is the meaning that we should give to the texts in question. It may be noted, too, that in the Vulgate the text of Mt. xviii. 26, reads " orabat " instead of " adorabat ", or, **TrpoaeKvvei*' . Nevertheless, the expression does possess a religious meaning; and when such is the case it is always that of adoration, properly speaking, of the supreme hom- age due to God alone. It is thus used with reference to the services of the Temple at Jerusalem, to that religious duty which the Jews were to render to the Lord in the Holy City. The author of the Apocalypse also employs this term to represent the honor rendered to the eternal and living God by the four and twenty Ancients who surround the throne. It is also thus that Jesus replies to Satan who demands this homage from Him : " The Lord, Thy God, shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve." ^ When performed in a religious spirit, this homage so plainly bears the character of adoration, strictly speaking, such as is reserved to the true God alone, that it is in fact refused by those men and angels to 1 Jo. iv. 20, 21, 22; xii. 20; Ac. viii. 27; xxiv. 11; Apoc. iv. 10; V. 14; vii. 11; xi. 16; xix. 4; cf. xiv. 7; Mt. iv. 10; Lk. iv. 8; cf. Jo. iv. 23, 24. 3i8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL whom it happens to be offered. CorneUus the cen- turion, when surprised by the appearance of S. Peter, falls down at the Apostle's feet, as though to adore him. S. Peter promptly bids him to rise up, saying: " Arise, I myself also am a man ". In Lycaonia, the same thing happens when the people of Lystra after witnessing a miracle take SS. Paul and Barnabas for gods descended upon earth and proceed to offer sacri- fice to them ; and the apostles exclaim : *' Ye men, why do ye do these things ? We also are mortals, men like unto you, preaching to you to be converted from these vain things, to the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all things that are in them". And S. John recounts, in his Apocalypse, how he desired to fall prostrate at the feet of the Angel of the great revelations and to adore him ; but he was told : " See thou do it not : I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren. . . . Adore God ".^ With Jesus, however, it is otherwise : He never for a moment declined such homage, even in circumstances that marked it with a religious stamp: He accepts it, He approves of it. No doubt, it is not always that those who thus prostrate themselves at His feet intend to offer Him the adoration reserved to God alone. Often, however, such prostration bears the general character of religious homage. Was it not, for in- stance, to a great wonder-worker to a man of God, that the adoration rendered by the lepers and by the chief of the Synagogue was apparently directed ? But, above all, the demoniacs of Gerasa, and the boatmen of Genesareth plainly disclose the true meaning of their prostration when, in falling down at Jesus' feet, they proclaim Him to be the " Son of God ", the " Son of the Most High "., So too, the holy women and the apostles who fell prostrate before the Risen Lord undoubtedly thus meant to pay Him religious 1 Ac. xiv. 14 ; Apoc. xix. 10. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 319 homage. If then reHgious adoration could truly prove to be an honor exclusively divine, how was it that Jesus so readily favored it? That one so humble, so jealous of the rights of His heavenly Father, so attentive to discard the honors of men, should not oppose their attitude but rather willingly agree to it; that, instead of protesting like S. Peter. " I myself also am a man ", or like the angel in the Apocalypse : " I am thy fellow-servant. . . . Adore God," He rather accepts and approves such homages, — it must be that He really believed that He had the right to receive religious worship from men, that He believed that He could be adored equally with God. But, on the Saviour's part, such an ex- treme pretension is inexplicable if He were simply a man, whom God had indeed called to the highest voca- tion, yet a total stranger to the divine nature. That Jesus accepted these homages because of His messianic dignity, is admissible, but this Messiahship must have been intimately associated with the divinity. To have assumed honors which are apparently re- served to God, Christ must have been more than a mere Man-Christ : He must have been the Christ-God, and, in some manner, sharing the grandeur, the ma- jesty, and the very being of God. It has been observed by Loisy that '' in their daily intercourse with their Master, the disciples had no other worship for Him than a religious reverence. Even after the confession of Peter, there was no alteration of the simplicity that governed the relations between Christ and the apostles. The glory of the Messiah was still to come, and no homage would be rendered till the glory was made manifest. But the respective situations of the Saviour and His followers were entirely changed as a result of the Passion and the Resurrection." Loisy, imdoubtedly as a result of this general view, would willingly attribute to later Tradition, influenced by the Messianic belief, such 320 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL adoration as that rendered by the lepers, the chief of the Synagogue, the demoniacs, or the boatmen. But, is it impossible that, although the Saviour's fol- lowers habitually showed for Him only the " religious reverence " mentioned, they should also, as in the in- stances related by the Evangelists, have felt a special and sudden impression which caused them to assume the attitude of " reUgious adoration " ? We need not suppose that the faith of those who fell down before Jesus was perfectly expUcit: it suffices if they had a certain persuasion of the divine nature within Him, and if, under this mysterious im- pression, their homage appeared, under the circum- stances, to have a religious stamp. The whole force of our reasoning is due precisely to the fact that the Saviour accepted such homage.^ The Titles " Messiah " and " Son of God ". To come now to those statements of Jesus that have a special bearing upon His position as Son of God. They surely afford an important confirmation of our previous conclusion. What, we may ask, does the title Son of God really mean ? What is its significance as assumed and employed by Christ the Saviour? And, first of all, to discuss Loisy's opinion on the matter. " More than one passage in the Gospels ", he writes, " can be found without difficulty from which the conclusion is clear that the title, Son of God, was for the Jews, the disciples, and for the Saviour Him- self the equivalent of the Messiah. It is enough to recall the different versions of the confession of Peter in the synoptic Gospels, and the questioning of Jesus by the High Priest. In Mark, Peter says to the Saviour, ' Thou art the Christ '. In Matthew, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God '. In Luke, ' Thou art the Christ of God.' In the 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 251. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 321 second Gospel Caiphas says to Jesus, art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' In the first Gos- pel, ' I adjure Thee by the Hving God to tell us if Thou art the Christ, the Son of God '. In the third, the priests first ask Jesus if He is the Christ, and because He does not reply clearly, they re- peat the question in the form, ' Art Thou then the Son of God?' to which Jesus replies in the affirma- tive, as in the other two synoptic Gospels." And Loisy concludes : " In so far as the title of Son of God belongs in an exclusive sense to the Saviour, it is equivalent to that of Messiah, and takes its meaning from the rank of the Messiah. . . . Jesus named Himself the Son of God to the extent to which He avowed Himself the Messiah." He is the Son of God, par excellence, the only Son of the Father by reason of His incommunicable Messianic function, in- asmuch as He is " the sole maker of the kingdom of Heaven ", as also " the single organizer of the King- dom ", or again, the only vicar of God for the kingdom of Heaven ".^ Despite the boldness of these assertions, we may ask if, indeed, it is fully settled that the title, Son of God, which the Saviour applies to Himself, has not a deeper and higher meaning than the title, '' Messiah " ? It is really true that, in the texts mentioned, the titles " Christ " and " Son of God " are interchangeable and somewhat synonymous. It is true, furthermore, that a comparison of the Old Testament usage of these titles justifies us in supposing that the " Son of God " is first of all God's especially privileged Elect, His beloved Christus, or Anointed, in a word, the Messiah. We may remark, by the way, that in the fore-part of this work, wherein we viewed Jesus in His role of Messiah, we provisionally accepted this primary and 1 Mk. viii. 29 ; Mt. xvi. 16 ; Lk. ix. 20 ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 63; Lk. xxii. 67-70; Loisy, op. cit., pp. 91, 105; Rev. d'Hist., 1903, p. 406. 21 322 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL fully warranted meaning of the title " Son of God ". We will now proceed to study it more closely, and first of all examine the two texts that serve as Loisy's principal basis, in order to ascertain what relation they bear to the two titles given to Jesus. S. Peter's profession of faith, so heartily approved and ratified by the Saviour is thus given in S. Mark: " Thou art the Christ " ; in S. Luke : " Thou art the Christ of God " ; in S. Matthew : '' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Uving God ". A comparison of these three accounts would seem to prove that S. Peter wants to directly assign to Jesus the role of " Christ ", or God's " Anointed ". This inference is supported by the fact that, in the very account which S. Matthew presents, and just after the confession of S. Peter, Jesus warns His followers to tell nobody about what had happened, to tell no one that He was '* the Christ ". But, does it necessarily follow that, in this instance, S. Peter perceived His Master to be only and merely the human Messiah whom the Jews had awaited? When he declares Jesus to be " the Christ ", does he regard Him as a mere man whom God has chosen to establish His kingdom upon earth, and nothing more? It would seem not. ^ During the first two years of His public ministry, our Lord, alike by His words and deeds, seeks to reveal Himself discreetly to the people, but especially to His disciples. He had, in fact, impressed them with the idea that His personality was superhuman, intimately related to God, and enjoying a share in divine prerogatives and power. Thus, the disciples had witnessed the fact that He forgave the sins of the paralytic and of the sinful woman, and, like the Scribes, had undoubtedly won- dered : " None can forgive sins but God alone. . . . Who then is this man that He forgiveth sins ?" They * Mk. viii. 29; Lk. ix. 20; Mt. xvi. 16. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 323 had seen Him suddenly calm the storm and had ex- claimed : " Who is this that He can command the wind and the sea ?" They had beheld Him walk upon the waters, and, falHng down at His feet, had said: " Thou art truly the Son of God ". They had heard also, no doubt, the unusual testimony of the demoniacs, although the Saviour had promptly checked them : " I know that Thou art the holy one of God ", " the Son of God", ''the Son of the Most High". Perhaps, too, they were aware of the solemn revelation at the Baptism and of the mysterious words pronounced by the heavenly Father : " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased ". And, indeed, they were to hear soon afterwards this very same voice at the Transfiguration; nor did this latter manifestation ap- parently modify, in any important degree, their pre- viously formed notion of Jesus the Messiah and Son of God. So that, we are entirely led to believe, it would seem, that in declaring the Saviour to be " the Christ ", S. Peter did not behold in Him only the Man-Christ, existing in His mere humanity, but " the Christ, the Son of God ", who was closely related to God, even though he had undoubtedly been hitherto without a perfectly clear and definite idea of the true nature of such divine Sonship. Therefore S. Matthew's addition to the formula given in the other Synoptists, namely, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ", is not merely synonymous with the word " Christ " to which it is added as an apposition. We must not lower the term " Son of God " to the level of the term " Christ " as implying an entirely human Christ. Rather, the term " Christ " should be raised to the higher level of the term " Son of God " so expressive of a mys- terious and surpassing reality. Hence if S. Matthew's qualifying remark were not an authentic part of S. Peter's profession of faith, — and this is not proven, — 324 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL it nevertheless explains and very exactly defines its meaning.^ The term '' Sort of God ", in Van Manen's opinion, does not in this particular passage designate the Mes- siah as theocratic king, but should be understood in a metaphysical sense. While H. J. Holtzmann thinks that the addition, *' Son of God ", was designed to bring out, by way of opposition, the transcendence of the '' Son of Man " mentioned in S. Matthew c. xvi., V. 1 6. And Dalman says that " it is evident that he who is called the Son of Man is in reaHty the Son of God. And this is why it is next stated in c. xvi., v. 17 that Peter had acquired this conviction, not through men, but from God." ^ Thus, apparently the transcendent meaning of the title " Son of God " in this passage is well estabHshed. Moreover, it seems to be recognized that, in this in- stance, the expression accentuates the real meaning of the title of Messiah ". '' To the interpolator, says Schmidt, *' ' the Christ ' was no longer a mere equiva- lent of ' Messiah ' ; it had no doubt already assumed the same significance as the ' Son of God ' ".^ Such admissions are worth retaining. And, on the other hand, it remains true that the transcendent sense, which the two synonymous terms share in common, does not supply a reason for concluding, as do the critics, that we have here a later interpolation ; for, as we have just seen, its equivalent is met with again in the most authentic Christological texts. On the other hand, Jesus' reply to S. Peter plainly shows what meaning should be attributed to the apostle's declaration, and in what sense He should be considered the " Son of God ". S. Matthew, indeed, is the only evangelist to relate these words ; but this 1 Ac. ix. 20, 22 ; I Jo. ii. 22 ; v. 15. 2 Van Manen, art.: Theol. Tijdschrift, 1894, p. 184; Holtz- mann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 257; Dalman, op. cit., p. 254. 3 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 19, col. 4700. \ JESUS THE SON OF GOD 325 additional phrase is expressed in so manifestly primi- tive terms, it harmonizes so well with the context, such as it is given, whether in S. Matthew, or in the two other Synoptists, it corresponds so exactly with what the entire apostolic tradition teaches on the sub- ject of S. Peter's primacy, that we cannot reasonably doubt that these are authentic words of the Saviour, which, like many others, are omitted by two evan- gelists and preserved by a third. Now, Jesus' reply is of such a kind that it appears indeed to imply that, in S. Peter's confession which the Saviour approved, there is at least an allusion to the superhuman trans- cendence of His Messiahship, a sort of suspicion and, as it were, an insight into the superior character of His divine Sonship. Notice, in the passage, the appellation : Simon Bar- Jona, that is, Simon Son of Jona; again the play upon words in the use of Petrus and petram, thus implying the primitive Aramaic term " Kepha " or Rock ; and, finally, the quite Hebraic figures of speech : "Gates of Hell", and "Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven "/ As regards the text of Mt. xvi, 17-19, Schmidt claims that it has long since been recognized as " a later interpolation. It serves to show the pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, and has been more correctly interpreted by Catholic than by Protestant commen- tators ".^ But, how explain the fact that, for such supposed interpolation, choice was made of St. Matthew's Gos- pel and not that of S. Mark which the most ancient tradition connects precisely with the Church in Rome and with S. Peter? On the other hand, how explain the fact that persons who were so bold as to insert 1 Jo. i. 42; xxi. 15, 16, 17; Mt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; Jo. xx. 23; Mt. xvi 17 j xi. 27; Lk. x. 22. 2 Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., col. 4700, Mt. xvi. 17-19; Wernle, Die Synop. Frage, p. 192, 326 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL in the traditional text the declaration that favors the chief of the apostles, in nowise modified nor lessened the blame which the Saviour so severely administered to him soon afterwards with the words : '* Get thee behind me, Satan " ? Are not rather the claims of the bishop of Rome and Simon Peter's very evident pre- eminence, from the first days of the Church, explained only by Jesus' authentic declarations, like those con- tained in this passage? " Even among the Twelve ", says Loisy, '* there is one who stands first, not only by priority of conver- sion or the ardor of his zeal, but by a kind of designa- tion by the Master, accepted by the apostolic com- munity with consequences still felt in its subsequent history." ^ Indeed, the apostle's profession of faith must have had something remarkable about it in order that the Saviour might thereby be justified in making so magni- ficent a promise as that of founding His church upon the apostle thus privileged : " And I say to thee : That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven ". Above all, it must have had a very extraordinary import, a very deep meaning in order that Jesus might ascribe it to a particular revela- tion granted by His heavenly Father : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven ". The fact of attributing to a revelation from the heavenly Father the faith of the apostle seems surely to indicate, in a suggestive manner, the super- natural grandeur and the superhuman character of the 1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 147 ; Sanday, art. : Son of God, H, D., p. 572; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 253. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 327 title which Simon had just proclaimed: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ".^ Is it not in the same transcendent sense of Messiah- Son of God that Jesus replies to the question of the Sanhedrin? Caiphas asks Him if He is truly "the Christ, the Son of God ", or " the Son of the Blessed ". The Saviour answers affirmatively : " Thou hast said it ", and, in order to fully indicate the meaning of His response, He adds that people will one day see Him, " the Son of Man, sitting on the right hand of the Power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven ''. Thus did He place before the eyes of His judges the idea of His Messiahship in its most transcendent and most divine aspect. Not only is He the Messiah such as they had expected, — the mere son of David and temporal king of the Jews, but indeed the Messiah- Son of God, exalted in power and glory to the very plane of God. And so, indeed, do the Sanhedrists understand: they cry out that He blasphemeth, and at once declare Him worthy of death. ^ More explicit still is the account given in S. Luke's gospel. The High Priest begins by asking Jesus if He is really the Messiah. Jesus answers by affirming that He shall one day appear as " the Son of Man . . . sitting on the right hand of the Power of God ". His judges perceive that He identifies Himself with the Messiah whom the prophet Daniel described under the features of a Son of Man ; but they understand above all that He claims to stand upon a level with God and to be a Son of God equal in power to God. And so they then put that further question to Him : " Art thou then the Son of God?" ^ Why, we may ask, this change of expression? If we are to believe Loisy, it is but the same query stated 1 Dalman, up. cit., p. 284. 2 Mt. xxvi. 6z ; Mk. xiv. 61, ?Lk. xxii. 66, 70. 328 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL in another form owing to the fact that Jesus " does not reply clearly " to the first question. But how is it that, to secure a clearer reply, the members of the Sanhedrin actually employ an expression less simple and less usual than the one used in their former in- terrogation? If they do not ask simply "Art thou then the Christ f is it not because Jesus had just con- fessed more than His quality of Christ? It would seem then that the change of expression, '* thou art then the Son of God?" is fully intelligible only if Jesus' reply served to specify His quality of Christ as a close relationship with God, and if, while avow- ing Himself the Christ, he at the same time proclaimed Himself the Son of God and an equal to God in power. So that it was owing less to His avowal of Messiah- ship than to His claim to be the Son of God that Jesus was declared guilty of the most horrible blas- phemies and condemned to death.^ All this, indeed, corresponds exactly with the testi- mony of the Fourth Gospel which shows that its sacred author was very well informed about all that concerns the Passion of Jesus : " We have a law ", repHed the Jews of Pilate, *' and, according to the law. He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God ".^ In a word, we are not justified in discovering in the text mentioned by Loisy the proof that the title. Son of God, which was given to Jesus should be lowered to the human level of such a Messiah as the Jews were actually awaiting, but rather that the very title of Messiah should be elevated to the dignity of the title Son of God taken in a mysterious and super- natural sense. In reality, the Saviour's declarations, which we have interpreted, in the fore-part of this work, as simply a Messianic manifestation, appear to possess a more profound significance, and to lift Jesus 1 Mk. xiv. 62, ; Mt. xxvi. 65, 66 ; Lk. xxii. 71. 2jo. xix. 7; cf. V. 18; X. 3. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 329 I the Messiah to a superhuman rank, in a way to the very plane of God, because He is, par excellence, the Son of God. Several critics, in fact, recognize the special signifi- cance of the Saviour's response as recorded in the third Gospel. Thus, Dalman, referring to the second question of the High-Priest, acknowrledges its trans- cendent meaning ; he says that " it must mean that Jesus is really, and according to His ov^n declaration, not the Son of Man, but the Son of God". It is also the opinion of J. Weiss and Bousset that, in pres- ence of the Sanhedrin, Jesus affirms not so much His character of Messiah as that of Son of God in a supernatural sense. Schmidt, however, thinks that the meaning implied by the text is so clear that it must be ascribed to a later tradition. "At the time when these accounts were elaborated, he says ' Son of Man ', ' Christ ', and ' Son of God ' had become synonymous, and ' Son of God ' was understood as ' God ' ; so that the blasphemy of making Himself equal with God could be conceived of as a charge brought against Jesus ".^ Such conclusions certainly go against Loisy's inter- pretation of the text. Besides, we are not authorized in supposing that S. Luke's account is less authentic than those of the other two Synoptists. It specifies them, indeed, but without changing their meaning. The transcendent meaning of Christ's Messiahship underlies the triple account, and corresponds to all the other declarations of the Saviour : we cannot refuse to recognize its authenticity. It is suggested, indeed, by H. J. Holtzmann that Jesus was accused of blasphemy simply because of His claiming to be the Messiah. But, in reality, such 1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 255 ; Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesu, 2nd ed. ; Bousset, art.: In Theol. Rundschau, Aug., 1902, p. 311; Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 20, col. 4701. 330 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL a claim could have been considered as " blasphemy " only inasmuch as the Messiahship which Jesus asserted impUed a close relationship with God similar to that which we have seen clearly implied in His own state- ments. Moreover, there remains the general impres- sion that what seemed to the High Priest to be the supreme blasphemy, and what caused him to rend his garments in indignation, was really Jesus' formally expressed claim to be the Son of God.^ Jesus the Only Son of God. It is particularly, however, in the texts which record Jesus' declarations about His relation of Sonship with His heavenly Father that His de- clarations, which we have mentioned above, are explained and determined. In the first place, an examination of these various texts proves peremptorily, as it were, that the title of Son of God, in the Saviour's opinion, did not imply that He was only, nor directly, the Messiah, the chosen representative of God, but rather the Son who enjoyed strictly filial relations and an incomparable intimacy with God. While, on the other hand, the very extraordinary and unique char- acter of these relations of Sonship serves to confirm the idea which we have thus far obtained of Christ's transcendent personality. In referring to this feature as found throughout the texts of the New Testament, Loisy remarks that '' The Spirit of God is the agent of the divine Sonship of Jesus; but the nature of His activity and that of the Sonship are not presented in the same light. If we take the view of the second Gospel, Jesus will be the Messiah, Son of God, because He received at His baptism the divine Spirit ; and it will be hardly possible to suspect the metaphysical character of His divine Sonship. If we take Matthew and Luke alone, Jesus 1 Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 266, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 331 will be the Son of God because He is man without being born of man, and the descent of the Holy Spirit will apear as a complement to the former grace "/ These assertions give only a part of the truth. It is true that, in the second Gospel, Jesus appears as the Messiah Son of God at His baptism and in the two other Synoptists at His conception. We may also admit that the manifestation of the Holy Spirit at the baptism, like the intervention of this divine Spirit in the virginal conception, justifies the Saviour's divine filiation in as far as His humanity alone is concerned. As man born of the Spirit of the Most High, as man invested by the Spirit of God for the inauguration of His Messianic career, Jesus is the Son of God. But above all, as Loisy recognized, the appearance of the Holy Spirit at the baptism, as narrated in S. Matthew and in S. Luke, does not indicate that Jesus then received the divine Spirit for the first time, or that only then did He become the Son of God : it serves merely to complete and confirm what occurred at the moment of His conception, to manifest and proclaim what was accomplished within the womb of the Blessed Virgin. Now, the episode recorded in S. Mark's gospel may have exactly the same meaning: the second evangelist does not indeed mention the Infancy of Jesus; but this affords no reason to suppose that he intended to assign to the baptism the beginning of His Messiah- ship and divine Sonship. On the other hand, this is not all the testimony that the Synoptists give to Christ's divine filiation. Independently of His virginal conception and endowment by the Holy Spirit at the baptism, Jesus appeared as Son of God by the very special filial relations which He enjoyed with God. And it is precisely these filial relations that we should study in order to ascertain whether Jesus' divine Son- 1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 231 ; Rev. d'Hisi., 1904, p. 93. ^^2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ship belonged to Him only as man and implied in Him naught more than His humanity. Loisy says that " if we take the view of the second Gospel it will be hardly possible to suspect the metaphysical char- acter of the divine Sonship ". Perhaps, then, it may be somewhat suspected; and perhaps more so than he would care to admit. As regards, then, Jesus' references to His relation- ship to His Father, we find that He constantly calls God " my Father ", " my heavenly Father ", " my Father who is in heaven", or simply, "the Father; and, in turn, He calls Himself " the Son ", " the Son of God ". It is because He is Son that He must be about His Father's business. He stands toward Him in loving dependence and rejoices in spirit when be- holding what had seemed good in His sight.^ So greatly, indeed, does He love to do His Father's will, and so ardently does He seek His Father's glory that, among the very first words of that great prayer which He taught his disciples, are the words : " Our Father . . . hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done ". All His affections, all His predilections are for those who do His Father's will and keep His commandments. If He is so anxious about the welfare of the souls of little children, it is because their guardian angels in heaven behold the face of His Father. Naught more touching, whilst He endured His agony in the Garden, than His gener- ous acquiescence and filial abandonment to the designs of His Father. In dying, His last word is to proclaim iLk. ii. 49; Mt. XX. 2S; Mt. xvi. 27; Mk. viii. 38; Lk. xxii. 29; Mt. xxv. 34; xxvi. 29, 53; xxvi. 42; xi. 27; Mt. xv. 13; xviii. 35; Mt. vii. 21; x. 32, 33; xii. 50; xiv. 13; xviii. 10, 19; Lk. ix. 26; Mt. xxvi. 39; Mk. xiv. 36; Lk. xxii. 42; Lk. xxiii. 46; Mt. xi. 25, 26, 27; Lk. x. 21, 22; Mk. xiii. 32; Mt. xxiv. 36; xxviii. 19; Ac. i. 4, 7; Mt. xi. 25; Lk. x. 21; Mk. xiii. 32 ; Mt. xxiv. 36 ; xxviii. 19 ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 63 ; Lk. xxii. 70; Mt. xvi. 16; cf. Mk. xii. 6; Mt. xxi. 37; Lk. xx. 13; Lk. ii. 49; Mt. xi. 25; Lk. x. 21. JESUS THE SOX OF GOD 333 that He gently breathes forth His soul into His Fath- er's hands. Wherever we look, we feel that, in this word " Father ", which He addresses God, He con- centrates all the respect, fihal submission, confiding trust, and devotedly generous love that can be found within the heart of the best of sons/ And, on the other hand, as Son, He is the object of His Father's especial affection. He is His cherished and well-beloved Son in whom He finds the greatest delight. He has but to ask His Father for assistance, and His Father will send Him a dozen legions of angels. All things have been given Him by His Father. He s-hall grant the Kingdom to His disciples, but He has first received it from His Father directly, and with sovereign power to dispose of it. It is on the Resurrection day that He enters upon the com- plete and final possession of His powers. He can de- clare, on that day, that all power has been officially given to Him in heaven and earth ; so too, at the last day. He shall be seated, amid the splendor of the divine glory, at the right hand of His Father.^ Hence, the title Son of God, employed by the Saviour is warranted directly and independently, as it were, of His Messianic character, by the filial relations uniting Him to God. Not only does God act towards Him as a Father, bestowing upon Him the most striking marks of His love and predilection, but He Himself acts as though He were really His Fath- er's son, and showing for Him all the sentiments which a son should have for his Father. So that, the idea of those filial relations did not necessarily enter into the notion of the traditional Messiah : it surpassed the 1 Mt. vi. 9-10; Lk. xi. 2; Mt. xii. 50; cf. vii. 21; Mt. xviii. 10; Mk. xiv. 36; Mt. xxvi. 39, 42; Lk. xxii. 42; Lk. xxiii. 46. 2 Mk. i. 16; Mt. iii. 17; Lk. iii. 22; Mk. ix. 6; Mt. xvii. 5; Lk. ix. 35; Mk. xii. 6; Lk. xx. 13; Mt. xxvi. 53; Mt. xi. 27; Lk. X. 21; Lk. xxii. 2g; Mt. xxviii. 18; Mk. viii. 38; Mt. xvi. 27; Lk. ix. 26; Mk. xiv. 62; Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 334 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Messianic theme. Jesus' relations with His heavenly Father possess a separate and special meaning inde- pendently of that relationship existing between Jesus as Messiah and that God whose chosen one He is. Renan, B. Weiss, Wendt and Harnack. — The foregoing facts are fully appreciated by such critics as Renan, B. Weiss, Wendt, and Harnack. Thus Renan says : " The men who have best comprehended God . . felt the divine within themselves. We must place Jesus in the front rank of the great family of the true sons of God. Jesus has no visions ; God does not speak to him as to one outside himself: God is in him. He feels himself close to God, and draws from his own heart all that he says of his Father. He lives in the bosom of God by contact at every moment ; He sees him not, but hears him . . . He believes him- self to be in direct communication with God; He be- lieves himself to be a son of God. The highest con- sciousness of God that has existed in the bosom of hu- manity is that of Jesus." ^ B. Weiss goes so far as to derive Jesus' conscious- ness of being the Messiah from the fact that He was previously aware of being the Son of God. " He could place everything", he says, " in its proper rela- tion to His mission only if convinced of the Messianic character of His calling, but He could never infer the latter from the former. So there is nothing left but to assume that the popular expectation which He en- countered first gave Him a clear understandmg of His calling; and that it was only during the course of His ministry that He assumed the character of Messiah ".^ And Wendt observes : " We cannot claim that Jesus, in personally styling Himself the Son of God, desired to affirm merely His Messianic vocation. 1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 131, 132, 2 Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 280 ; cf. Bibl. Theol. N. T., vol. i, pp. 82, 400. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 335 What He wished in the first place was to indicate His incomparably pure and strict union with God, and, in His estimation, the title would have had no reason to exist if it had not, first of all, signified the entire real- ity of that personal union ".^ Harnack in turn, writes that " Jesus Himself gave a meaning to this conception which almost takes it out of the class of Messianic ideas, or, at all events, does not make its inclusion in that class necessary to a proper understanding of it ".^ " Both the Synoptic and the Johannine reports of Jesus' teaching ", says Stevens, " require us to suppose that the sonship to God which He claimed was not so much an official as a personal relation. To the mind of Jews, His sonship designated, not primarily a his- toric function, but an intimate fellowship and union with God. This unique and reciprocal knowledge be- tween Himself and the Father, and the inscrutable union upon which it was founded, was for the con- sciousness of Jesus the basis and condition precedent of His historic mission. Jesus was the Messiah be- cause He was par eminence the Son of God ".^ Sanday, also, remarks with reference to the title Son of God that " its meaning was very far from being exhausted by the holding of a certain office or function such as that of Messiah. For Jesus, the phrase means the absolute fullness of all that it ought to mean, — the perception of Sonship in relation to God; in a word, just all that sum of relations and habitudes of feeling and thought and action that we have seen so amply set before us in the- Gospel of St. John".* We see clearly, then, what we should think of this 1 Wendt, op. cit., p. 421, Ger. ed. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 137. 3 Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 10 1. * Sanday, art.: Son of- God, H. D., p. 576.- 336 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL statement of Loisy : " In so far as the title of Son of God belongs in an exclusive sense to the Saviour, it is equivalent to that of Messiah, and takes its mean- ing from the quality of Messiah; it belongs to Jesus, not because of His inner disposition and His rehgious experiences, but because of His providential function as the sole maker of the kingdom of Heaven . . . He is the Son, par excellence . . , because He alone is the vicar of God for the kingdom of Heaven ".^ No! After consulting all the Gospel testimony, it does not seem that the divine filiation of Jesus pre- sents, first of all, the character of an excelling divine choice, of an extraordinary consecration, incom- municable, received from God, and in virtue of which He will be " the sole maker of the Kingdom." It more directly implies the idea of a veritable divine filiation, of a real relation with His Father. Jesus does not seem to be called the Son of God merely in a sense analogous to the ancient kings of Israel, as sovereign of the ideal theocratic kingdom, and Jehovah's lieutenant for the kingdom of Heaven; but also, and chiefly, as truly holding towards God the position of a son towards His Father, and maintaining with Him particularly intimate filial relations. This much cannot be doubted : in emphasizing so constantly and so expressly the idea of His divine Sonship, Jesus fully shows that He was the Messiah only be- cause being at the same time the Son of God. Son of God and Son of Man. It may be asked, in the next place, what is the precise nature of that divine Sonship? At first sight, it apparently belongs to Jesus in His sacred humanity. For, the dependence, the respect, and the love which we have seen Him manifest as Son towards His 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 105, 106. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 337 I heavenly Father are such as may exist between every human creature and God. Indeed, His disciples are called " sons of God ", and God is also called " their Father ".^ True enough. And yet a study of the Gospel texts shows the remarkable fact that the Saviour constantly places Himself, in dealing with His Father, upon a plane apart from other men, and indicates that His divine Sonship is of a different and incomparably higher order. Not only, in fact, is He the only one who shares His Father's entire possessions, the only one who receives universal power directly from Him, as also the kingdom and the glory, whilst others are admitted thereto only by His mediation ; but more- over, as enjoying filial relation with God, He is always careful not to rank Himself iipon the same plane as His disciples. Thus, Dalman, referring to the divine sonship enjoyed by other men, says that " their dignity stands in dependence upon His own. It is by com- munication that they possess what properly belongs to Him alone. He receives the sovereignty because He is the Son ; while they receive it because they are the followers of the Son ".^ Jesus constantly speaks of '' My Father ", of " Your Father " but never of " Our Father " in speaking of Himself and of His disciples. Nor is the prayer known as the " Our Father " an exception, since it is solely in the mouth of His disciples that the Saviour places it : " Thus shall ye pray : Our Father who art in heaven ". In fact Jesus keeps to the same rule in circumstances where, placing His disciples side by side with Him before God, He must have felt called upon to speak of " their Father " rather than of " His 1 Lk. vi. 35 ; xx. 36 ; Mt. v. 9, 45 ; Mt. v. 6, 45, 48 ; vi. i, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 26, 32; vii. 11; X. 20, 29; xi. 25, 26; xviii. 14; xxiii. 9; Lk. vi 36; xi. 2, 13; xii. 30, 32. 2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 281. 22 338 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Father ". As we read : " I will not drink from hence- forth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it zvith you anew in the kingdom of my Father. ... I send the promise of my Father, upon you. . . . Come ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ". What does all this mean but that the relation of sonship uniting Jesus to God His Father is not of the same order as that which binds the rest of mankind to God.^ It may be noted, too, that S. Luke xi. 2, the parallel to S. Matthew's text, reads : " When you pray, say : Father, hallowed be thy name ". Perhaps Jesus had told His disciples to say simply : "Abba ", i. e. " Father " when praying to God. However, in either Gospel, the prayer is given simply as the utterance of the disciples. H. J. Holtzmann, indeed, supposes that, in the above instance, the Saviour had prayed in common with the disciples ; but there is nothing to au- thorize such a supposition; so that, as Dalman ex- pHcitly admits, S. Matthew's text conveys the true meaning of the invocation addressed to the Father.^ Schmidt thinks that Jesus never used any other ex- pression than the general one of "Abba ", or " Father, and that the variant terms " My Father " and " Your Father " were due to the Greek evangelists.^ Dalman, however, a critic so noted for his knowl- edge of the Aramaic language, holds that it is beyond doubt that Jesus actually ranked Himself apart from His disciples and close to His heavenly Father. " The unique position assumed by Jesus also follows in other passages from the invariable separation be- tween * my Father ' and ' your Father ' ".* 1 Mt. vi. 9 ; xxvi. 29 ; Lk. xxiv. 49 ; Mt. xxv. 34. 2 Holtzmann, H., op. cU., p. 268; Dalman, op. cit., p. 230. 3 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 12, col. 4696. * Dalman, op. cit., p. 193. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 339 And Stevens says : " God is to Him the Father, and He is to God the Son in an absokite sense. . . . Jesus never puts Himself in the same category with others when speaking of God's Fatherhood, or men's Sonship to God ".^ God is truly " the Father " of His disciples, but rather as their creator and all-loving Providence. His disciples are also '' sons of God ", but only on certain conditions, and in a restricted and imperfect sense. After the Resurrection they shall be sons of God; for then they shall be " as the angels " in that celestial kingdom wherein God shall recognize them as His own and treat them as His children. On earth, they may in a manner merit this title. Jesus applies it to them only in a single circumstance, and then merely to advise them to show, by their good-will towards all men, that they are sons worthy of their heavenly Father who makes His sun shine upon the just and unjust alike. But He Himself is the *' Son of God " in an unconditional and unrestricted sense, that is, by His nature and essence.^ If, then, the Saviour was so careful, so anxious to distinguish between the relations which He held with His Father and those which His disciples enjoyed; if He who was so humble, so full of condescension, so tenderly affectionate for His own, whom He calls " His friends ", nay more '' His brethren ", acted in this manner, He must have used these terms because He was impelled to do so by the necessity of the case, that is, because of the actual transcendence of His divine Sonship.^ Schmidt, therefore, quite erroneously affirms that 1 Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 60; Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol. N. T„ vol. i, p. 78. 2 Mk. xii. 25 ; Mt. xxi. 30 ; Lk. xx. z^ ; Mt. v. 9 ; Lk. vi. 35 ; Mt. V. 45. ^ Mt. xii. 50 ; XXV. 34 ; xxviii. 10. 340 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL "A careful examination of the Gospels tends to pro- duce the conviction that Jesus never assumed the title ' Son of God ' either to designate Himself as the ex- pected King of Israel or to intimate that His nature was unlike that of other men, but that He spoke of men in general as ' the Sons of God ', and of God as their Father, and also used the expression as a mark of distinction for those whose character resembled God's ". The truth is that, even apart from the pas- sages, wherein we have seen the Saviour consider Himself expressly as the Son of the Father, and which Schmidt mercilessly eliminates by a process of entirely negative criticism, " Jesus although he never applied to Himself the title ' Son of God ', yet made it in- dubitably clear that He was not merely ' a ', but * the ' Son of God ''."■ This divine transcendent filiation belongs to Jesus even in His human nature. It is as man that He enjoys such incomparable filial relations with God His Father as unite Him to God in a manner absolutely different from that experienced by other men. His human faculties, in the first place, must be regarded as the organ of those relations which He declares that He has with His Father. Thus, it is His intellect, divinely formed, which conceives of the greatness and good- ness of His heavenly Father. It is His human will which humbly submits to His designs ; it is through His human heart that He testifies to His filial affec- tion. His complacent love in His perfections and de- votedness to His glory. Basis of the Divine Sonship. So intimately, however, is the Saviour's humanity united with His heavenly Father, so extraordinary are the privileges and powers which rightly impart to Him His character of Only Son of God, that we are 1 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 25, col. 4703 ; Dal- man, op. cit., p. 281. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 341 led to ask: Have such filial relations their founda- tion only in the created humanity assumed by Jesus? It is very unlikely that a mere man, even though privileged with the vocation of Messiah, could have thus set Himself apart from other men in the relation of divine Sonship and become exalted to so special a degree of union with God and of participation in His powers. To warrant in some way such relations of Sonship, must there not have been a real elevation of the Saviour's humanity to a plane above that of pure human nature by means of a substantial union which would unite Him with the divinity and thus make Him, the Christ, equal to His Father? The majority of Protestant critics are content to state this incomparable excellence and unique perfec- tion of Jesus' divine Sonship. They admit that the Saviour sets Himself apart from all men in claiming to be pre-eminently " the Son of God " ; they maintain, or even imply, that such transcendence merely means an unusual union between Christ's humanity and God/ But, as Dalman justly observes, there is nothing to show that we should restrict Christ's divine Son- ship to a simply moral union with His Father. " Nowhere," he says, '* do we find that Jesus called Himself the Son of God in such a sense as to suggest a merely religious and ethical relation to God, — a re- lation which others actually possessed or which they were capable of attaining or destined to acquire ".- On the contrary, everything would indicate that this incomparably transcendent divine Sonship has its primary foundation in an essential relation of the human nature of Christ with God. Jesus' attitude in assuming special divine privileges and powers is suffi- ciently explained only by supposing that there was a substantial permeation of His human nature by the 1 Cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 230. 2 Dalman, op. cit:, p. 287. 342 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL divinity; so that the exceptional character of Christ's intimate union with God is reahzed only if this Man- Christ is exalted above mere humanity even unto God Himself through a mysterious communication of the divinity. " We must also admit ", says Stevens, " that the exegetical result, in the case before us, raises a prob- lem respecting the person of Jesus Christ with which the mind cannot decline to deal. As Son of God, Jesus stands in a unique relation to the Father. The title involves his ethical perfection. Now we cannot simply stop short with these assertions : to do so is to decline the problem to which this uniqueness gives rise. Why was Jesus the only sinless man? Was his sinlessness an accident? Why has it never been re- peated? If, as is admitted, he possessed the clear consciousness of sinlessness, what is the explanation of so exceptional and marvelous a fact? We are told that His consciousness of perfect union with God and of sinless perfection was " purely human " ; if so, it still demands some explanation which the representa- tives of this view have not given and make no effort to furnish. It is open to the radical theologian to say that the positing of a metaphysical union with God as the basis of the unique consciousness and charac- ter of Jesus is a subsequent explanation which Paul and John have given. But it is an explanation, and the mere assertion that Jesus' consciousness was " purely human " is not. It is, moreover, an explanation which these Apostles base upon the teaching and life of Jesus as they knew Him ".^ Similarly, Reuss, in referring to this moral union of Jesus with God, says : " The ethical relationship, if really such as we have described it, is not self-ex- planatory, nor above all is it explained by the analogies that can be supplied by the historic experience of man- 1 Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 63 ; Schmidt; Hermann, art. : In Theol. Stud, and Krit., 1889, p. 423. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 343 kind. We are necessarily led to understand it as the manifestation of a metaphysical relationship which is truly far above and absolutely beyond all that this world and its history can produce or explain for us "/ The Eternal Son of God. But in what does the substantial union of Christ's humanity with God exactly consist? How should we describe this mysterious share in the divinity which the Saviour must enjoy in the higher part of His be- ing? In many texts of the Synoptists, Jesus is rep- resented as pre-existing before His earthly birth, and coming here below as the Envoy of His Father. In many texts it is said that He is " come ", and " sent " to preach the Gospel to Israel, to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, to heal and save the souls of sinners, to give His life as a ransom for many.^ True, such texts may, in part, refer merely to Jesus' entrance upon His public career ; for. He had left Nazareth, and hence He comes to preach the Gospel ; and it is in this sense that He compares His coming to that of John His precursor. But it is none the less true that, at times. He seems to clearly indicate that His earthly advent is, as it were, from a higher region where He existed before His Incarnation.^ Thus, the demons exclaim : " What have we to do with thee, Jesus Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" Jesus also says:"/ am come to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be enkindled ? Again : " Believe not that / am come to bring peace upon the earth ; / am come to bring, not peace, but the sword". So, too, in S. Mark, 1 Reuss, Hist, of Christ. TheoL, 3rd ed., vol. i, p. 234. 2 Mk. i. 38; ii. 17; ix. 7,6', x. 45; Mt. v. 17; ix. 13; x. 34, 40; XV. 24; XX. 28; Lk. iv. 43; V. 32; ix. 48, 56; x. 16; xix. 10; cf. Mk. i. 24; Mt. viii. 29; Lk. iv. 34. 3 Mt. xi. 18, 19 ; Lk. vii, 33-34- 344 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL there is the same expression, " I am come ", a favorite term with S. John to designate Jesus' coming forth from the heavenly Father. All the foregoing texts, indeed, seem to exactly correspond v^ith the still more formal and expHcit passages of the Fourth Gospel wherein Jesus expressly states that He descended from heaven where He abided with His Father, and came down upon earth in order to teach and to save mankind.^ The entire Synoptic teaching, moreover, fully agrees with this idea. It portrays Jesus as essentially sharing the divinity because of a higher element of His being; it can be realized only above and beyond His human- ity ; it is independent of His human existence ; it may be indeed prior thereto; or, rather, its origin cannot arise in the course of time. Christ, who is substan- tially united with God, must necessarily, from all eternity, have subsisted in God. Previous to His earthly advent, He subsists eter- nally in God and, as S. John describes the Word, He is at once God and proceeds from God, and, in the course of time, assumes human nature. This view of Christ exactly accounts for all that is transcendent and divine in the Saviour's historic personality; nor can the Gospel realities be accounted for by any other ex- planation. But, on the other hand, do we not find a basis for attributing the formal quality of Son of God to Christ as a divine person in the transcendent and su- pernatural perfection of His divine Sonship even as man, as also in His mode of appearing in all re- spects as rather proceeding from God and subsisting in God than purely and simply identical with the Father? We may say that the unique character of Jesus' divine filiation, such as we have endeavored to prove 1 Mt. viii. 29 ; Lk. xii. 49 ; Mk. i. 38. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 345 it, affords the best confirmation of the primitive ac- counts which describe Him as begotten of God in His human nature. But do we not also find therein mo- tives for supposing a still more excellent begetting whereby He really becomes a participant in the divine nature? In other words, is not Jesus who, even as man, is the Son of God, also such, independently of His human nature, because, prior to His Incarnation, and as regards the higher part of His being. He is be- gotten of God's very substance? Moreover, the real- ity of this higher divine fihation appears to be in- sinuated and suggested in some way as a necessary con- clusion by the incomparable, transcendent and unique character which Jesus claims for His relationship with His Father. The most perfect relationship uniting Christ's humanity with God is rightly per- ceived as the human phase and created expression of that superior Sonship which Jesus enjoys in virtue of His divine nature.^ In referring to this matter, Sanday says : " It is equally little open to question that, in the Fourth Gos- pel, Christ is conceived as pre-existent. Is He pre- existent as Son ? In the case of S. John, there is a clear presumption that it is so suggested. It seems just to imply what the other Gospels lead us to the verge of, without directly supplying ".^ " The Son of David ". The foregoing conclusions are confirmed by an at- tentive study of several texts wherein the Saviour dis- creetly lifts the veil that hides His divine origin and His superior nature as Son of God. Does not Jesus, it may be asked, insinuate the essential transcendence of His divine filiation in asking the Scribes : " What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He? They say to 1 Lepin, op. cit., pp. 72, 211. 2 Sanday, art. : Son of God^ H. D., p. 576. 346 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Him: David's. He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his Son?" ^ The Saviour does not deny that He is the Son of David. He had said so equivalently on several occa- sions. Thus, He healed the sick who had invoked Him by this name; He approved the multitude who had acclaimed Him under this title. And, now, by an irrefutable '' argumentum ad hominem ", that is, by accepting the authority of David whom His ques- tioners regarded as the inspired author of Psalm 109, which was deemed Messianic, He compels them to realize that He is more than a mere son of David; nay, that He is even the " Lord " of David, and is to sit at the right hand of the Eternal as a partaker of His power and glory. It may be noted that the Hebrew text reads : *' Word of Jehovah (laveh) to my Lord (Adon)"; and that in the Greek text of the Septuagint version which was used in Palestine during the time of Jesus, the word " Lord ", or nmoc is the equivalent both of laveh and Adon, namely, the Eternal and His Messiah; and it was to this Messiah, according to the traditional in- terpretation of the Scribes, that the word referred.^ Jesus, moreover, not only declares that the Messiah shares the divine attributes, but He also implies that if He is so especially associated with God, it is precisely as Son of God. Wendt remarks that the Psalmist's language affords the Saviour " the proof that what forms the essential basis of Christ's Messiahship is not Davidic filiation, but something far higher. And to Jesus, this can be solely the Messiah's relation to God, or the divine Sonship ".^ ^ Mk. xii. 35 ; Mt. xxii. 42 ; Lk. xx. 41. 2C/. Ps. ex. I. * Wendtj op. cit., p. 424, Ger. ed. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 347 "An unbiased reader of the statement of Jesus cannot avoid the conclusion that the Messiah is in reahty the son of one more exalted than David, that is, the Son of God ".^ And Loisy, in referring to the text of S. John x. 31, admits that " all this discussion is a counterpart of the Synoptic discussion about the Messiah the Son of David who, indeed, is rather the Son of God ".^ Does Loisy mean that he would not hesitate to as- sign the synoptic text also to later tradition? Surely this could be only owing to a theological motive on his part. The text, in fact, is admitted without ques- tion by Wendt, Dalman, B. Weiss, Stapfer, Wernle, and O. Holtzmann. However, the last three writers interpret it as though Jesus wished to deny His Davidic descent. This text is recognized also by H. J. Holtzmann; but, wrongly enough, he apparently wants to attribute to the account in the First Gospel a metaphysical sense not encountered in the other two Synoptists and which he would attribute to the influence of tradition. " This passage ", he claims, " is dependent upon the confes- sion of S. Peter. ... In two instances does the first Evangelist appear as the theologian who beholds, in the Son of Man, the counter-part of the Son of God, and thus prepares the way for the doctrine on the two natures ".^ " The Synoptic accounts, Dalman observes, are here in virtual agreement. For it is of no real consequence that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus should Him- self propound the question ; how the Messiah should 1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 285. 2 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 628; Wendt, op. cit., p. z^4, Ger. ed. ; Weiss, Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 384, Ger. ed. ; Stapfer, The Death and Res. of Jesus Christ, p. 29, Fr. ed. ; Wernle, op. cit., p. 47; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 353, Ger. ed. 2 Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 258. 348 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL be called a son of David, whereas in Matthew Jesus first causes the Pharisees to say that, from their point of view, the Messiah is a son of David. The aim in either case is the same, — to awaken reflection in regard to the origin of the Messiah rather than to His dignity or exalted rank "/ The evident comparison between the quality of Son of God and that of Son of Man apparently warrants the acceptance of both terms as analogous. What means the title, " Son of David " ? It is certainly equivalent to " Messiah " ; but to the Saviour, as to traditional opinion, it means a real descendent of the great king. Says Wendt : " Jesus would have hardly accepted this title as His own, if He had not found it verified in His real descent from David. Indeed, apart from other New Testament testimonies, the way that S. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, testifies that Jesus Christ is born of David according to the flesh, appears so decisive that we have not the least right to doubt the reality of that Davidic origin ".^ Ihe quality of Son of God, therefore, would seem to belong to the Saviour even in the proper and natural sense. In this title, and rightly so, Dalman perceives the proof that Jesus was aware of a divine supernat- ural intervention at His Incarnation, to which, pre- cisely, the accounts of His miraculous conception bear witness. Must we not see also in this title an indication of an even closer divine Sonship which constitutes Christ, even beyond His human nature, the true Son of God, sharing His Father's essence, and thus accounts for the unique privileges conferred upon His humanity? The Wicked Husbandmen. The exceptional character of the Saviour's divine 1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 285 ; cf, Lepin, op. cit., p. 18 ; Wendt, op. cit., p. 425, Ger. ed. 2 Op. cit, p. 425. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 349 filiation is brought out even more explicitly in the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. God is therein represented as a rich father of family who sends forth into His vineyard, which typifies Israel, servants charged with the task of gathering the fruit and who represent the prophets of Israel, under the Old Law. One after another these servants are badly received, covered with stripes, and some of them killed by the faithless people. At length, the master decides to send into his vineyard " His own Son ", " His well- beloved Son ", " His heir ". But the stewards put Him to death just as they had killed the servants ; and in punishment for their crime their city shall be sacked and destroyed; the vineyard shall be given over to other laborers who shall gather therefrom fruits in due season.^ It is clear that, by this son who follows upon the servants, or the Prophets, and who, like them, is to be the victim of the hatred of the people, Jesus signifies Himself. He is, therefore the Son of God. And what a Son of God He was ! Between Him and the ancient Prophets there lies an essential divergence. He surpasses the most illustrious of them by all the distance lying between the son of a householder and the common servants: while they are simply God's servants, He is the Son of God, His only beloved Son.- Remarkable, indeed, are such expressions. Could we account for them in the hypothesis of Jesus' pure humanity? Undoubtedly, the character of Messiah itself is enough to place the Saviour above the great- est personages of the Old Law ; but would it warrant Him in proclaiming Himself the only Son of God to the exclusion of all the Prophets, looked upon as com- mon servants, if, like them, He were at most naught 1 Mt. xxi. sy; Mk. xii. 6; Lk. xx. 13; Mk. xii. 7; Mt. xxi. 38; Lk. XX. 14. 2 Heb. i. I. 350 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL more than man? If God had superadded the Mes- sianic dignity to His mere humanity, Christ would have thereby become the greatest of Prophets, the Prophet par excellence. Apparently, it would not have marked ,Him as essentially different from the other Prophets, or established a distinction of nature such as that existing between common servants and the son of the householder. The Saviour's language is intelligible only if we suppose that He was aware of being more than man, and more than a Prophet; that His actual union with God was not simply closer, in the same human and created order, but of a higher and transcendent character ; that He was by nature the true Son of God, while even the greatest Prophets were, as it were, only strangers and servants.^ This plainly confirms the reality of that physical sonship which unites Christ to God even in His hu- manity by reason of His miraculous birth. But, the manner in which Jesus presents Himself as being the Son of God from the time of His mission to Israel, and seemingly prior thereto, and on the other hand, the essential contrast established between His precise nature as Son of God and the mere position of ser- vants pertaining to the Prophets, seems also to be the confirmation of the reality of this higher and divine filiation which should belong to Christ as pre-existing in God. Some critics, indeed, have attacked the authenticity of this remarkable Parable. Loisy, for instance, who follows in the lead of Jiilicher, observes . " The story of the Wicked Plusbandmen is probably not to be classed among the Parables of Jesus ; it is rather a pro- duct of the influence exerted by the allegorizing tra- dition upon the parables ". The following summary of Loisy's views on this matter may prove interesting: Jesus spoke in parables, but never in allegories. It 1 Cf. Mt. xxii. 2. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 351 was only after the Saviour's death that the Christian Church witnessed the development of the allegory which, under the transparent veil of figurative lan- guage, directly describes the real fact which it is in- tended to illustrate. Primitive tradition, in its ef- fort to show that the Master's discourses contained predictions of the great events accomplished after His death, imparted to His authentic parables some one or other allegorical feature bearing upon a fact of Church history, or even made up from beginning to end, and placed upon the Saviour's lips complete alle- gories based upon accomplished facts. The allegori- cal features and allegories proper are, therefore, re- cognized as later additions to Jesus' own teaching as they are met with here and there in the Synoptics. Moreover the Fourth Gospel is so far the product of this allegorizing tradition and so little the authentic summary of the Saviour's discourses that " it contains no parable at all ", but only allegories. And with re- gard to the passage under discussion, it so minutely describes the destiny reserved to Jesus and the chas- tisement awaiting Jerusalem because of its crime, that it too is a product of such allegorizing tradition, — a kind of allegorical prophecy which was composed sub- sequently, although its figurative features were based upon the accomplished fact.^ To enter into a complete discussion of the above hypothesis of Loisy would require a special essay. It will suffice to present a few remarks. Without con- sidering whether or not Jesus could have foreseen and foretold His future destiny, and simply taking the view-point of exegetical criticism, we think that Loisy's theory about the parable and the allegory, as stated in his method of reasoning, is greatly open to suspicion. The fact is that there is no such distinction as he 1 Loisy, Etudes Evang., pp. 34, 57 ; Jiilicher, Die Gleichnis- reden Jesu, Introd., 1886; Commentary, 1899, vol. ii, p. 385 et seq. 352 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL makes between the parable and the allegory: the two things, both of them derived from comparison or from simile, are parallel and connected, and often inti- mately blended. The Saviour, indeed, loves to present His lessons under a concrete and picturesque form that commands attention and appeals to one's emotions. Hence His constant use of comparison, of metaphor, of figures of speech that are drawn from daily experience and the passing observation of men and things. The parable, and the allegory are but a special form of comparison presented in a sHghtly developed and very vivid manner. What, indeed, is the parable but an imaginary re- cital, based upon the ordinary customs of Hfe, offering nothing unlikely, and written in view of teaching a moral lesson by way of comparison? As for the allegory, it is intended, also, to afford instruction. Its peculiar feature, however, is that it does not form, by itself, and in its material tenor, an account separate from the moral lesson and merely placed side by side with the explanation to be given. The very terms of the account represent directly and in figure the object intended ; they are used not in their material sense, but symbolically; the concrete expression given in the account is only a Hght covering, a transparent veil, through which the entire symbolized reality is imme- diately discovered and whence it follows directly. Whatever Loisy may say, the Fourth Gospel, as we shall see afterwards, includes both parabolic and al- legorical elements ; and even in what are usually called " Johanniiie allegories " these two strata are closely mingled. If, however, the parable is dominant in the first three Gospels, these writings are not entirely with- out allegorical elements, nor is it possible to ascribe them all to the work of later tradition. Thus, to note a few instances : " You are the light of the world. . . . You are the salt of the earth. . . . JESUS THE SON OF GOD 353 I shall make you fishers of men. . . . The harvest in- deed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He send forth laborers into His harvest. . . . Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. . . . Enter ye in at the narrow gate. ... If any man will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. . . . Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypo- crites, because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness ". Are not all these figurative features simply so many allegories in brief outline?^ To discover this intimate union of parabolic and al- legoric elements, it is not even necessary to look out- side of the passage now under consideration and there is no reason either for attributing the former to the Saviour and the latter to tradition. In fact, the de- tails of the metaphor do not always correspond with parallel features in the thing imagined. Otherwise, unless this passage is really not wholly an allegory but essentially a parable, why do we find such reflexions as these? "A certain man planted a vineyard and made a hedge about it, and dug a place for the wine- fat, and built a tower, and let it to the husbandmen; and went into a far country. . . . This is the Heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours ".^ Therefore the principle of exegesis emphasized by Loisy and Jiilicher has a very a priori character, and it leaves large room for arbitrary and imaginative 1 Mt. V. 14; Mt. V. 13; cf. Mk. ix. 49; Mk. xvii. ; Mt. iv. 19; Lk. V. 10; Mt. ix. 37-38; Lk. x. 2; Mt. xvi. 18; Mt. vii. 13; Lk. xiii. 24; Mk. viii. 34; Mt. x. 38; Mt. xvi. 24; Lk. ix. 23; xiv. 27; Mt. xxiii. 25; cf. Mt. xxv. 32; Lk. xx. 17; xxiii. 31. 2 Bugge, Die Haupt-Parabeln Jesu, 1903; Fiebig, Die Alt- jud. Gleich. und die Glelch. Jesu, 1904; cf. Wellhausen, Das Evang. Marci, 1903. 23 354 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL conclusions. It may be remarked, also, that Jiilicher's radical views on this point have been especially ques- tioned by Bugge and Fiebig. In addition to the foregoing very debatable prin- ciple, Loisy alleges a number of reasons that tend to weaken the authenticity of this text. He claims that " before the event, there was no reason to show that the death of Jesus was the last limit of divine pa- tience ". Was there, indeed, no reason ? And why not? But, he continues: "' It is very strange that this discourse incited the auditors soon afterwards to com- mit the crime whose consequences they had just been warned about ". As though the pharisees were habi- tually accustomed to regulate their conduct by the words and advice of Jesus ! ^ And finally, Loisy observes : " If Jesus proclaims Himself the Son of God in presence of so many wit- nesses who understood what He said, we do not at all see why His case should be difficult to present before the High-Priest ". Of course, the Saviour had not explicitly declared : " I am the Son of God ". He was content to insinuate as much by way of parable. The parabolic method admirably suited His plan of prudent and suggestive manifestation. Before the High-Priest, His accusers look for a formal avowal, and it is remarkable that the confession which the authorities want to draw from Him bears precisely upon His character of Christ and Son of God. Former discourses, significant enough, although not absolutely explicit* can alone explain His judges' in- sistence in interrogating Him on the matter.^ It will be admitted, then, that such reasons cannot suffice to cast suspicion upon the authenticity of a pas- sage which the three Synoptists agree in giving as the very utterance of the Saviour, and which, moreover, 1 Loisy, Etudes Evang., pp. 52, 53. 2 Lagrange, Rev. Bib., April, 1903, p. 304. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 355 is admitted as authentic by critics in general. Schmidt, indeed, Hke Jiihcher, maintains that the parable is non- authentic; but B. Weiss, Wendt, Dalman, O. Holtz- mann, and H. J. Holtzmann admit its authenticity, although they do not all interpret the text exactly in the same sense. " The Son ", says H. J. Holtzmann, " means merely the ' Kronprinz ' who occupies a special place in the kingdom. Still, this special dignity as God's lieutenant leads to a specific- ally religious idea. It follows, from the outcome of the parable, that Jesus considered the Son of God as the object of God's loving design." Wendt thinks that " He was aware of standing towards God in the relation of only, and well-beloved Son ". While Dalman says that " There is no difference between ' the well-beloved Son ' and ' only Son ' of John iii. 16. The position of the only Son is, in these cases, as in Ps. 2, regarded as a lawful standing which confers a right to claim the entire household property. In the case of the Son of God, the reference can only be to the sovereignty of the world, and to such a sover- eignty as would be exercised, not by a Jewish king, but by God himself ".^ " No One Knoweth the Son hut the Father ". Among the most noteworthy testimonies which Jesus Himself has given of the transcendence of His divine filiation, we must also adduce the following utterances as found in the gospels of SS. Matthew and Luke: " I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea Father ; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight. All things are dehvered to me by my Father. 1 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 16, col. 4699 ; Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. ii, p. 423, Ger. ed. ; Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 266 ; Wendt, op. cit., p. 419, Ger. ed. ; Dalman, op. cit., p. 281 ; Holtzmann, op. cit., p. ZZ2, Ger. ed. 356 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father : neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and He to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him ".^ ' While rejoicing in the Holy Ghost, Jesus first of all praises His Father for having revealed to the humble, that is to His disciples, what was hidden from the wise and the learned. Why so? Doubtless because of His marvelous Messianic work. His power of per- forming miracles. His influence over demons, all of which His chosen ones would be given a share ; doubt- less, too, because of the secrets of the Messianic king- dom, and the very mystery of the Messiah's person. Addressing His Father, He exclaims : " Yea, Father ; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight " ; and then, speaking for His disciples and apparently in answer to a question put by them. He continues : ''All things are delivered to me by my Father ". The Saviour also re- calls the powers which He has received from His heavenly Father and which He has communicated to His disciples, — powers over the elements and over evil spirits. H the demons obey His messengers, it is because they are also subject to Him; He goes forth to destroy them altogether. The universal kingdom of Satan is to be replaced by His own kingdom, the kingdom of God: all things have been delivered to Him by His Father with the view that all may be given to Him in a still more excellent manner and finally on the day of His resurrection, as He seems to fore- see it prophetically.^ What, moreover, is the source of that supereminent dignity conferred upon Jesus? Why that universal power given to Him by His Father? The Saviour seems to show the reason for this in the unique char- 1 Mt. xi. 25-27 ; Lk. x. 21-22. 2Lk. X. 21; Lk. X. 17, 19; cf. Lk. xxiii. 24; cf. Mk. iv. 11; Mt. xiii. 11; Lk. viii. 10; cf. Mt. xi. 28-30; cf. Lk. x. 21; Mt. xi. 25; xvi. 17; Lk. x. 19; cf. Mk. iii. 23-27; Mt. xii. 25-29; Lk. xi. 17-22; cf. Mt. iv. 8, 9; Lk. vi. 5-6; cf. Mt. xxviii. 18. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 357' acter of His relations with God ; for, His nature is so exalted and His rank as Son of God is, humanly speaking, so impenetrable that, because of this essen- tial relationship which He bears to His Father, it is clear that the Father alone " knoweth the Son ". It is only the Father who knows all " that the Son is ", as His Son. Of such divine Sonship, the human intelli- gence can have an insight only by revelation from the Father Himself. No less remarkable, by way of contrast, is the emi- nent Fatherhood which God possesses as regards His Son. For, the Son alone " knoweth the Father " ; He alone knoweth " who the Father is " as His Father. So humanly inconceivable is the Fatherhood of God the Father that it can be really perceived only by a direct revelation made by the Son. This also discloses what is unusual and supernatural in Jesus' divine Son- ship. Not only does He declare Himself the Son of God, infinitely distant from other men and inaccessibly beyond the inquiry of the human mind; but He is moreover so closely related to God as to establish be- tween Him, the Son of God, and His Father, a sort of mutual union of mind that appears to argue a likeness of nature and a true equality.^ Protestant Critics. That there is something extraordinary about Christ's intellectual relations with God and about the unique character which thereby results in His divine Sonship, is recognized by Protestant critics, who, nevertheless, maintain that these extraordinary relations and such transcendent filiation exist within the limits of the Saviour's humanity. " The apostoHc source ", writes B. Weiss, '' pre- serves a saying in which Jesus calls Himself simply 1 Mt. xi. 27 ; Lk. x. 22 ; cf. Parallelism of Lk. x. 23 and Mt, xvi. 17; I Cor. ii. 10; Mt. xi. 2y, Lk. x. 22, 358 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Son of His Father, and undoubtedly with the view of expressing His unique personal relationship to God. Such relationship is not conceived as a relation of essence, but as being one of incomparably intimate familiarity between the one and the other "/ " Just as Father and Son know and trust each other, so do God and He. He takes the Messianic title as the expression of the closest intimacy with God, of the most absolute trust in Him ", remarks Wernle.^ " The concluding words suggest a lofty degree of self-confidence. Jesus realizes that he alone knows God ;" it is thus that O. Holtzmann views the matter.^ " He lives in a sphere of religion so pure and so exalted that no human breath was ever felt therein ", says H. J. Holtzmann.* The position that Christ holds towards God, both mentally and morally, is assuredly extraordinary. If not being content with stating it, one tries also to explain it, its basis must apparently be found solely in a substantial relationship which Christ, the Son of God, holds towards His Father. And, in the first place, such substantial relationship should af- fect Christ's humanity, which is certainly united to the divine nature by reason of His origin and the very constitution of His being. Such seems to be the neces- sary conclusion that results from the character of the Saviour's relationship with God, which critics recog- nize as both original and, in a manner, essential. " But in this case of mutual understanding, says Dalman, its thoroughness and absolute infallibility are assumed. He who stands in so uniquely close a relation to God is the only possible mediator for the knowledge of God, and also at the same time the ab- 1 Weiss, B., Bihl Theol, vol. i, p. 78. 2 Wernle, op. cit., p. 53. 3 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 284. 4 Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i. p. 275. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 359 solutely reliable revealer of the whole wealth of the divine mysteries. What a son is to his father, Jesus is directly with reference to God. So that the peculiar relation of Jesus to God is one that can- not be transmitted to others or be subject to change. His disciples, indeed, through His means can attain to the knowledge of God. But their knowledge is de- rived through a medium while His is acquired by di- rect intuition." ^ Wendt writes : " This mutual knowledge, perfect and unique in its way, is not something accidental to the Father and the Son ; but it is necessarily connected with their very being as Father and Son. The love uniting them as Father and Son imparts to each an understanding of the other such as cannot be found among those who have not the like relationship ".^ Bovon remarks : " Christ's person reveals such a vastness that God alone can sound its depths. The mutual activity of these two beings is understood only by means of a relation of life to which no one besides them has a right to pretend; even here the Redeemer holds dominion over our earth from on high; He is truly the only Son of God ".^ Now, it seems indeed that so direct and perfect in- tuition of God can be conceived as being fundamental and in a way, natural to the Saviour, only if we suppose that His humanity was essentially elevated above pure human nature by a substantial union with the divinity. On the other hand, such is the force of the terms used by Jesus, so profound is the meaning of His declaration, that we may therein perceive evidence of a knowledge of God which is directly intuitive and adequate, and which appears to pertain to Him above 1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 283. 2 Wendt, op. cit., p. 418, Ger. ed. 3 Bovon, op. cit, vol. i, p. 426. 360 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL and beyond His humanity. Has not Keim said: " Exclusively related to each other, each being to the other a holy unveiled secret, they mutually approach with love in order to enjoy each other in the enjoy- ment which is based upon the similarity of spiritual activity, upon the likeness of essence of nature ".^ Has not Wendt, also, affirmed : " The context clearly shows that Jesus is assuredly the Son who, in His very being, is fully known by the Father alone, just as He alone knows the essence of the Father ".^ And a propos of this passage, have we not been told by Stap- fer of Jesus' '' incomprehensibility ", in which this author discerns " one of the most certain signs of His divinity " ? ^ If this text has impelled these critics to thus express themselves, it must indeed insinuate something else than the knowledge of God which Jesus enjoyed even as man, and hint at a kind of intel- lectual compenetration with the divine essence, which ... is realized only in the superior and divine part of His being. That the Saviour had here wished to give an insight into His metaphysical relationship with God is not, however, admitted by B. Weiss, who thinks that " this is not historically conceivable and not, in any manner, indicated in the text ". Still, he cannot help finding in Jesus' declarations a certain indication that He had, indeed, within the depths of His consciousness, the idea of His eternal relationship to His Father. ''Precisely in this statement," he writes, ''the relation appears as a pecuHar love and confidence existing be- tween them according to which each knows the other as no one else does ; but it is certainly permitted, nay, even commanded to stop and ask whether the knowl- 1 Keim, Jesus of Nasara, vol. iv, p. 60. 2 Wendt, loc. cit. 3 Stapf er, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, p. 275. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 361 edge of this unique relation to God, on which the con- sciousness of His calhng was founded, may not have stretched beyond and over itself. He did not become possessed of His special knowledge through any divine revelation. He had met with it in Himself from the very beginning; He had not been chosen at some mo- ment in His human existence to reveal the same to His people ; it was the very purpose of His life upon earth in which was fulfilled the Eternal decree of the Father regarding His people's salvation. But His knowledge of God, which could not have originated upon earth, must have done so in heaven; His relation of Son- ship did not take its rise in time, but only in eternity. The duty of proclaiming the love of God as the ground of the eternal salvation promised to His people, could only have been imposed upon Him by that same eter- nal love. It is in this sense that it may be said that even such statements as these point to the profound secret of Jesus' self-consciousness ".^ The above avowal, despite its limitations, is a valu- able confirmation of our preceding inference, namely, that the Saviour's testimony to the intellectual union He enjoys with His Father must refer to something higher than His human soul. Therein we can per- ceive the discreet witness given by His human con- science to a direct intuition of the uncreated essence and to a divine, transcendent Sonship which belongs to Him, not only as Man substantially united to God, but even in His superior and pre-existent being, that is, as the Eternal Son of God. Harnack's interpretation of this text, however re- markable in certain respects, is different from the one we have offered. He believes that, in Jesus' words, he finds the proof that the entire reason for the title, Son of God, taken by the Saviour, lies in the 1 Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 342. 362 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL special knowledge which He had of God as Father. At the beginning of His soul-evolution, then, Jesus would have first of all known God as Father. Next, after becoming convinced that He knew God more ex- cellently than anyone else, and in an incomparable and unique manner, He would come to the idea of God as His Father. Thence, as a very practical conse- quence, He would become aware of being Himself the Son of God, charged with the office of imparting to others a share in His divine Sonship by the com- munication of what formed the essential reason of His quality of Son of God, namely, the knowledge of God as Father. " Let us first of all consider the designation, ' Son of God V' observes Harnack. " Jesus in one of His discourses made it specially clear why and in what sense he gave himself this name. The saying is to be found in Matthew, and not, as might perhaps have been expected, in John : ' No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him '. The ' knowledge of God ' is the sphere of the Divine Sonship. While imparting this knowledge He came to know the sacred Being who rules heaven and earth as Father, as His Father. The consciousness which he possessed of being the Son of God is, therefore, nothing but the practical consequence of knowing God as the Father and as His Father. Rightly understood, the name of Son means nothing but the knowledge of God. Here, however, two observations are to be made : Jesus is convinced that he knows God in a way in which no one ever knew Him before, and he knows that it is His vocation to communicate this knowledge of God to others by word and by deed, — and with it the knowledge that men are God's children. In this consciousness He knows himself to be the Son called and instituted of God, to be the Son of God, and JESUS THE SON OF GOD 363 hence he can say: My God and my Father, and into this invocation he puts something which belongs to no one but Himself." ^ " From that additional proposition : ' No man know- eth the Son but the Father ' " says O. Holtzmann, " His disciples could infer that He names Himself the Son of God owing to the so manifestly extraordin- ary character of His knowledge of God ".^ As regards the above appreciation given by Harnack, it is certainly interesting to find him so firmly admit- ting, like most Protestant critics, the unique character of Jesus' divine Sonship as disclosed by this text. But his interpretation as to what constitutes the es- sence of this divine Sonship apparently results from an a priori philosophical method rather than from a purely critical examination of the text, and it is far from corresponding with the whole significance of the reality. Loisy himself has shown this very clearly : " This text," he says, "is not put forward as an explanation of the Divine Sonship, but as the expression of a per- manent relation between the Father and the Son." That is, it is not the knowledge of God the Father which forms the divine filiation of the Son, but it is this very divine filiation which explains the knowledge which the Son has of His Father. The Son of God is not the Son of God because He knows God as His Father, any more than the Father is Father be- cause He knows His Son, but the Son knows God as Father precisely because He is the Son of God.^ " Obviously the text indicates a transcendental rela- tionship ", Loisy continues, " whence springs the lofty dignity of Christ, and not a psychological reality, which in regard to God is clearly impossible. Father and ^ Harnack, op. cit., p. 137. 3 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 91. 2 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 221. 364 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Son are not here simply religious terms, but have al- ready become metaphysical theological expressions, and dogmatic speculation has been able to take possession of them, without much modification of their sense ".^ Again : " The Gospel conception of the Son of God is more a psychological idea signifying a relation of the soul with God than is the Gospel conception of the Kingdom. There is absolutely nothing to prove — and even the text quoted does not say so — that Jesus be- came the Son because He was the first to know God as the Father. The compiler of the Gospel has not the least intention of indicating that God was not known as the Father, before the advent of Jesus : he wishes to say, and says very clearly, that Christ, (the Son) alone knows perfectly God (the Father), and that, because He is the Son; just as the Father, God, alone knows perfectly Christ His Son, and that be- cause He is the Father, because He is God. The thought is fundamentally the same that inspires the passage of John : ' No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him '. The special knowl- edge of the Son has for its subject God as He is, and is not merely concerned with the goodness of God, as though the hearers of Jesus needed to be taught that God was their Father. Such a thought is as foreign to the evangelists as it was to the Saviour Himself. It is an artificial and superficial explanation of the Di- vine Sonship of Jesus." ^ Strangely enough, however, Loisy thus defends the true sense of this text against Harnack simply in or- der to cast doubts upon its authenticity and to ad- vance the hypothesis that it was, not a saying of the Saviour, but, at least partly, a product of Christian tradition. " It is difficult to see in it ", he writes, " the 1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 94. 2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 96-97. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 365 literal and exact expression of a declaration made by Christ to His disciples. ... It is fairly probable that, notwithstanding its occurrence in the two Gospels, the portion including the text cited by Harnack is, at any rate in its actual form, a product of Christian tradi- tion of the earlier times. It is, however, a valuable testimony, as far as concerns the development of Christology in the early age of the Church; but a critic must use it with the greatest reserve, when it is a question of establishing the idea Christ in His teach- ing gave of Himself, His Divine Sonship and His mission." ^ We should, indeed, have very weighty reasons for thus suspecting the authenticity of a passage so promi- nently presented by two Synoptic Gospels, and which even the entire assemblage of critics does not think of questioning. Lagrange remarks that " this accord is very significant; for Luke and Matthew are not mutually dependent in their actual form. What Luke has not borrowed from Mark, he owes to tradition or to former written documents : As the passage is in Matthew, it was likely a part of a document underly- ing Matthew and known, rightly or wrongly, — and we think wrongly, — as the Logia. Naught is more venerable in Gospel tradition. And right here Luke and Matthew are very specially accordant as to the terms, as though they had perceived that so important a text should be reproduced as it stood ; in any case it is impossible to distinguish between a primary and a secondary form ".^ Its authenticity, as we have just seen above, is ad- mitted by B. Weiss, Keim, Wendt, Wernle, Dalman, O. Holtzmann, H. J. Holtzmann, Stapfer, Bovon, as also Sanday, Stevens, and even J. Weiss and Bruce. Stapfer, for instance says that " in one of the most 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 95, 96. 2 Lagrange, art. : Rev. Bib., April, 1903, p. 304. 366 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL authentic passages in the Gospel, a passage drawn from the primitive collections of the discourses of Jesus made by the Apostle Matthew, we find these words : 'All things are delivered to me by my Father ' . . . etc." ^ " In view of the statement in Luke's preface as to the method on which he compiled his Gospel, a sober criticism will not readily acquiesce in the theory that the passage in which this text is embodied is a free poetical composition by the evangelist in the spirit of Paulinism. ... It is much more probable that both evangelists found it in a common source containing a collection of the sayings of Jesus ".^ Loisy says that this Gospel saying " occurs in a kind of psalm, where the influence of the prayer that closes the Book of Ecclesiasticus is evident both in the general scope and in several details. Both pas- sages begin with the praise of God, and there is in both a marked preference for the name of Father: the declaration concerning the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son corresponds to the praises of Wisdom : the appeal of Christ to the weary and heavy laden seems inspired by the invitation that Wisdom addresses to the ignorant in the last part of the Prayer of Ben-Sirach. These correspondences are not acci- dental; and seeing that it is difficult to imagine that Jesus should have wished to imitate a passage of Ecclesiasticus in an oration or discourse apparently quite unpremeditated; seeing that the entire passage possesses a rhythm distinctly analogous to that of the Canticles reproduced in the first chapters of Luke ; and seeing that another passage can be found in Matthew, where Christ appears to be identified with Divine Wisdom, it is fairly probable that, notwith- 1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 234. 2 Bruce, art.: Jesus, E. B., par. 13, col. 2441; Sanday, art: Son of God, H. D., p. 575; Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 60; Weiss, J., Die Pred. Jesu, 2d ed., 1900. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 7,67 standing its occurrence in the two Gospels, the portion including the text cited by Harnack is, at any rate in its actual form, a product of the Christian tradition of the earlier times "/ In all this, Loisy follows Pfleiderer and Brandt, who admit also that the text has some dependence upon I Ep. Cor. Schmidt thinks that, " Neither of these views is perhaps capable of strict demonstration. But the underlying conviction that this cannot be a genuine saying of Jesus is as irresistible as the evidences of the gradual growth of such formulas is conclusive.^ To examine first of all the question of literary form, we may ask if it is really true that we have here " a kind of psalm ", and that " the entire passage pos- sesses a rhythm distinctly analogous to that of the Canticles reproduced in the first chapters of Luke " ? We may easily admit that the Saviour's tone is here more lofty than usual; but this is not at all surprising; does not St. Luke take care to mention the inspired transport which Christ felt in the ecstatic contempla- tion of the designs of His Father's wisdom? " In that same hour, He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, and said . . ." On the other hand, it requires a great deal of good-will to find in these verses a rhythm more accen- tuated than in many other most authentic discourses of the Saviour. It is easy enough to find instances where the parallelism of members is as clearly, not to say more plainly marked. Thus, we may quote a few texts from the Sermon on the Mount : " Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth : Where the rust and moth consume, And where thieves break through and steal; But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven : Where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, And where thieves do not break through, nor steal; For where thy treasure is, There is thy heart also. 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 95-96; Pfleiderer, Unchristen'thum, 1887, p. 513; Brandt, Evangelische Geschichte, 1893, pp. 561, 576. 2 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 13, col. 4697 ; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., 1903, p. 303. 368 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL The light of the body is thy eye: If thy eye be single, Thy whole body shall be lightsome; But if thy eye be evil, Thy whole body shall be darksome; If then the light that is in thee be darkness, The darkness itself, how great shall it be!" " Ask, and it shall be given you : Seek, and you shall find : Knock, and it shall be opened to you; For, every one that asketh, receiveth : And he that seeketh, findeth : And to him that knocketh it shall be opened." ^ With regard, then, to the matter of rhythm, it must be admitted that the text of S. Matthew xi. 27 is in no way in marked contrast with the most authen- tic discourses of Jesus. Naught warrants us in sup- posing that, on this point, it is a psalm composed by some Christian prophet. And as for the alleged resemblance of this text to the Canticle in Ecclesiasticus, we must say that it is hardly perceptible, and that we are not to suppose that this text was borrowed, still less to doubt that, as it stands, it was uttered by the Saviour. ^ Loisy tells us that " both passages begin with the praise of God, and there is in both a marked prefer- ence for the name of Father ". True enough. But it should be noted that the mutual resemblance bears only upon one or two essential terms: thus there is far from being a completely literal resemblance be- tween the saying of Jesus and the words in the Canticle:^ 1 Mt. vi. 19-23 ; Mt. vii. 7-8 ; cf. Mt. viii. 20 ; x. 24-42 ; Mk. ix. 41-49; X. 39-40, 42-45; Lk. vi. 39-45; xii. 22-23; xvi. 9-13, 15-18. 2 Grandmaison, art. : Etudes, January, 1903, p. 165. 3 Ecclesiasticus li. i, 10. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 369 Jesus. " I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth." ECCLESIASTICUS. " I will give glory to thee, O Lord, O King : And I will praise thee, O God my Saviour. I called upon the Lord, The Father of my Lord." On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the motive for praising God is totally different in the prayer of the Son of Sirach from what it is in that of the Saviour; the former thanks God for having deigned to withdraw him from a great peril; while Jesus glorifies His Father for having revealed to little ones what He has hidden from the wise ones of this world. It remains that, in either case, we find terms expressing the praise of God as Father, but such terms are found elsewhere in the Old Testament ; and, in the text at hand, they are used so naturally by the Saviour, so like those He employs in several occasions in invoking His heavenly Father, that it is quite use- less to suppose that he borrowed from the above text of Ecclesiasticus. It may be noted, by the way, that the phrase : " I will praise thee ", as an address to the Lord is fre- quently met with in the writings of the Prophets and in the Psalms ; on the other hand, the title of "Father" given to God is not at all special to this chapter in the Book of Ecclesiasticus; for it is found twice in the same Book, as also in the Book of Wisdom, and in the Prophecy of Isaiah. In the New Testament also, and especially at the resurrection of Lazarus, we find instances where Jesus often calls upon God as His Father.^ 1 Is. xii. I ; Dan. ii. 23 ; Ps. ix. 2 ; xviii. 50 ; Ixxxvi. 12 ; cxi. i; Ecclus. xxiii. i, 4; Wisd. xiv. 3; Is. liii. 16; Jo. xi. 42; cf. Mk. xiv. 36; Mt. xxvi. 39; Lk. xxii. 42; Jo. xii. 27-28; Lk. xxiii. 46. 24 370 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Must it not be a real prejudice on Loisy's part, therefore, to claim that *' the declaration concerning the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son cor- responds to the praises of Wisdom " ? Primitive tra- dition, indeed, in identifying Christ with the Word of God, at the same time identified Him with Wisdom: it refers to Him in the same terms as Proverbs, Eccles- iasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon had applied to the divine Wisdom, that most perfect image of God, formed in Him from the beginning, and assisting in the work of the world's creation. Note that the mean- ing of the text of Mt. xxiii. 34-36 is very doubtful as compared with Lk. xi. 49-51, ** where ", says Loisy, ^'Christ appears to be identified with divine Wisdom ".^ But, although the identification of Christ with Wis- dom was very exactly conformable to the thought of primitive tradition, nay more, we may say, to the Saviour's own conviction, it does not seem to be di- rectly intended and signified in this text, i. e. Mt. xi. 2^. Jesus' words themselves do not suggest that He here places Himself in relationship with the Eternal Wisdom ; in fact, if we compare these words with the text of Ecclesiasticus cited above there is no indica- tion whatever. The praise of Wisdom, as found in the prayer of the Son of Sirach, confines itself to proclaiming the benefits which it procures for those who cultivate it, as also to extolling the zeal displayed by the Son of Sirach himself in his quest for wisdom. No allusion whatever is made to any mutual knowledge between Wisdom and God; nor is there question of Wisdom as viewed in God, or of its relation with God. Where is, therefore, the correspondence be- tween " the praises of Wisdom " as man's' intel- lectual gift, and the Gospel " declaration concerning the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son " ? 1 Col. i. 15-17; Heb. i. 2-3; Jo. i. 1-3; Prov. viii. ; Ecclus. xxiv. ; Wisd. vii; Mt. xxiii. 34-36; Lk. xi. 49-51. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 371 Moreover, what ground has Loisy to claim that " the intention of the passage is not so much to explain how Jesus is the Son of God, as to give prominence to the Christ by identifying Him, as the Son, with eternal Wisdom that God alone knows in its entirety, although it reveals itself to mankind; while, on its side, Wis- dom alone possesses and represents the full knowledge of God, although it reveals God to His creatures " ? To speak thus, — is it not to lose sight of the term of comparison and to force the texts to square with a preconceived idea ? ^ *' The appeal of Christ to the weary and heavy laden ", we are told by Loisy, " seems inspired by the invitation that Wisdom addresses to the ignorant in the last part of the prayer of Ben-Sirach ". There is, indeed, a real resemblance between the words of Wisdom and those of Jesus. Thus we read : " Draw near to me, ye unlearned, and gather yourselves to- gether in the house of discipline. . . . And submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive dis- cipline " ; and on the other hand : " Come to me all you that labour, and are burdened and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart; and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my bur- den light ".2 It is remarkable, too, that the above verses are not in S. Luke, but only in S. Matthew. Did the latter insert them in their proper place? As it happens in his Gospel so frequently, may he not have reunited fragments of discourses uttered in different circum- stances? We may ask at least this much. At all events, the terms employed are not special to the fore- going text in the Book of Ecclesiasticu.s. The divine Master's request to accept His doctrine and to submit 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 95-96. . 2 Ecclus. li. 23, 26 ; Mt. xi. 28-30. 372 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL to His precepts are essentially similar to the many in- vitations that the sages of Israel addressed to their disciples.^ Moreover, in Hebrew literature, the terms *' yoke " and " burden " were in frequent use ; and even when employed as figures of speech to signify the respec- tive ideas of ** teaching " and '' discipHne ", we find that they served as equivalent terms. Thus we read: " Give ear, my son, and take wise counsel, and cast not away my advice. Put thy feet into her fetters, and thy neck into her chains. . . . For in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy ".^ Such formulas were, in a manner, the traditional and usual ones employed to express solemnly the in- vitation extended by a teacher to his disciples. They sound, therefore, natural enough in the mouth of the Saviour. Did He not declare Himself the only Mas- ter? " Neither be ye called masters ", He said, " for one is your master, Christ ". And how different was His spirit from that of the Scribes and Pharisees, of whom He said : '' they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders ". Nor would it be unlikely that the Master might have wished to apply to Himself even the language of Wis- dom, the tutor of men. He personified it excellently, and, in another circumstance, He appears to have borrowed the personification which is used to describe the invitation extended by Wisdom to men that they should attend the feast which it had prepared for them.^ " When he says, ' I am meek and lowly ', Bruce 1 Prov. i. 8; ii. 1-2; iii. 1-2, 21; iv. 10, 13, 20; v. i, 7; vi. 20-21; vii. I, 3, 24; xxii. 17; xxiii. 26; Wisd. vi. i, 12, 27', Ecclus. vi. 18, 24-34; xvi. 24. 2 Ecclus. vi. 24-29. 3 Mt. xxiii. 10; Lk. xi. 46; Mt. xxii. 1-4; Lk. xiv. 16-17; cf. Prov. ix. I. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 373 I remarks, Jesus of Nazareth speaks in the name of Wisdom (one of His self -designations according to Resch, Agrapha, p. 273SS) as the earlier Jesus had spoken before him ".^ But it is quite remarkable that this invitation of Wisdom to its disciples is found here and there as an habitual and favorite theme in the Sapiential books; and that it is not found in the chapter of Ecclesiasticus alleged by Loisy, wherein the only person appearing on the scene is the author of the Book, namely, the Son or Sirach.^ In a word, the similarities between this Gospel text and the prayer of the Son of Sirach are limited to resemblances that lie upon the surface ; they are con- fined to expressions that are very common and hardly characteristic; they do not hold good for the principal and truly important point. Naught, therefore, war- rants the conclusion that we have here a real case of affinity and borrowing. At most, we may suppose that there is but a partial and somewhat unconscious rem- iniscence, so little is it characteristic, and in any case quite natural. ..." It is perfectly conceivable " says Bruce again, " that Jesus was acquainted with Ecclesiasticus, and that his utterances borrowed its colouring from the closing sentences of that book.^ Under these conditions, there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that the Saviour may have pro- nounced the words even as they stand in the text. And, furthermore, they afford us a very authentic testimony of Jesus' own belief in the transcendence of His divine filiation. Need we, then, be reminded that the Saviour's declaration on this occasion, where He refers to the Divine Son's knowledge of the Father, as 1 Bruce, loc, cit.; Resch, Agrapha, p. 273. 2 Prov. i. 23; viii. 4-10, 32-36; Ecclus. xxiv. 26-27, 3 Bruce, loc. cit. 374 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL also His parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, is in harmony with all His most authentic discourses? It serves but to confirm what we have seen Jesus pro- claim, as it were, at each instant, namely, the incom- parable, extraordinary, and unique character of His position as Son of God. Jesus' and S. Peter's Confession. We come now to consider the Saviour's response to Simon Peter just after this apostle had made His profession of faith at Caesarea. Jesus declares that his apostle could not have humanly perceived His quality as Messiah Son of God, but that this knowledge was revealed to him by the heavenly Father. The fact that the Saviour attributes a supernatural origin to Simon's faith fully shows, as we have seen, the great importance of his declaration. On the other hand, it is quite natural to think that there is a veritable corre- lation between the " Son of God " who is revealed and the '' heavenly Father " the revealer ; inasmuch as the Apostle's confession such as the Saviour sets it off, must have formally referred to the quaUty of *' Son " which unites Christ to God.^ Now, if S. Peter directly attributes this divine Son- ship to the Christ-Man, a comparison of this text with that we have been just studying seems to show that, in this divine Sonship, the Apostle perceived a trans- cendent reality and a superhuman element which ex- pressly belongs to the Christ-God. When Jesus said : " Neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him " He meant that no one knows all that the Father is, and, in particular, all that He is, as Father, to the Son. Similarly, " no one knoweth the Son " means all that the Son is, and more especially what He is, as Son to His Father: no one knows, " except the Father alone ". 1 Mt. xvi. 17. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 375 The parallelism in this text would seem to de- mand : " and he to whom it shall please the Father to reveal Him ". Now, it is precisely this parallel development which the Saviour supposes in this pas- sage when He says to His apostle : " Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven " ; that is, he knew it not as man, by vir- tue of his human nature, but from God. Why is this revelation solemnly ascribed to the heavenly Father unless it be that Christ reveals it as Son of God, and that His divine Sonship is so eminent, so divine, and so humanly impenetrable as to be know- able only by revelation of God the Father, who alone knows His Son, and who is fully known only by His Son? It is not necessary that, at that moment, Peter should have perceived, as plainly as did the Church afterwards, the intimate nature of the metaphysical filiation which united Christ to God. He probably felt in his soul a sort of indescribable impression, a suspicion, very mysterious indeed, of Christ's trans- cendent and substantial divinity. But it is enough that, in some way. His act of faith should have been referring to the consubstantial Son of God: this suf- fices to warrant Jesus in formally ascribing it to a supernatural revelation from the Father. The Formula of Baptism. —Is not, also, the same interpretation to be given of the formula of Baptism which S. Matthew puts in the mouth of the Saviour? He says: "Going, teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you " ? ^ Some critics have questioned the authenticity of this formula; but we must say that their objections are not very conclusive. Conybeare and Schmidt, for 1 Mt. xxviii. 19. 376 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL instance, claim that this formula is not mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea in his gospel citations which were made before the Council of Nicea; and that prior thereto, he always cited the text thus : " Going, instruct all nations in my name, teaching them to ob- serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you ".^ This text, thinks Loisy, reads more smoothly in its Eusebian than in its usual form. Of the latter he says : " if the passage is a gloss, it was suggested by the liturgical formula. The formula of Eusebius is more in accord with the texts of Paul and of the Acts, which d^escribe baptism as being conferred in the name of Jesus Christ ".^ But despite Eusebius' quotations, the usual text is found in the oldest manuscripts and quoted by several writers of the early Church era. It is given by Origen, Tertullian, and S. Cyprian, who wrote between 200- 250 A. D. ; by S. Irenaeus who flourished towards the end of the second century; and by the author of the Didache, dated by most critics at the end of the first century, and which gives the text in such a manner that there is good reason to believe that its author had in mind the text of the first gospel which is so often cited. Thus in Origen's Scholia on the Gospel according to S. Matthew, ch. xxviii, we read : " Baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ". And S. Cyprian, in his Book of Testi- monies, says : " Likewise in the gospel, the Lord after His resurrection says to His disciples: 'All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth. Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 1 Conybeare, The Eusebian Form of the Text Mt. xxviii. 19; art.: Zeitschrift fur die Neut. Wiss., 1901, pp. 275-288; Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., par. 15, col. 4698. 2 Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, pp. 231-232, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 377 commanded you ' ". S. Cyprian, in his Book of Testi- monies, says : " Likewise in the Gospel, the Lord after His resurrection says to His disciples : 'All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ' ". And, in his Twenty-second Epistle, he writes : " For, while the Lord has said that the nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ". . . Tertullian writes : " The law of Baptism has been imposed, and the formula prescribed: ' Go', He saith, ' teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ' ". And S. Irenaeus : " Giving to the disciples the power of regeneration into God, He said to them, ' Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ' . . .". In the Didache it is stated : " Baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ". In his First Epistle, Clement of Rome has the expres- sion : " For as God liveth, and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who are the faith and the hope of the elect, so surely shall he ... be en- rolled and have a name among the number of them that are saved through Jesus Christ, through whom is the glory unto Him forever and ever Amen ".^ S. Paul thus conveys the same teaching : " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all ".^ 1 Origen, Schol. on the Gosp. ace. to S. Matthew, c. xxviii. 19; S. Cyprian, Ad Quirinum, Testimonia, bk. ii, c. xxvi; Epistle, xxii., n. 3; Tertull,, Baptism, c. xiii ; S. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. iii, c. xvii., n. i; Teaching of^ the Twelve Apostles, n. 7; S. Clement of Rome, I Epistle Iviii. 2; Funk, Patres Apostolici, 2d ed., 1901, vol. i, p. 172, .2 II Cor. xiii. 13. 3/8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " The single verse, II Cor. xiii. 13," remarks San- day, " seems to require something very Hke what we find in Matthew and John." ^ In any supposition, then, we may infer that a formula of Baptism so firmly established during the early Church epoch could not have been independent of the Saviour's personal teachings ; and had it been a mere liturgical formula, it could not have crept into this very verse of S. Matthew's Gospel as a later gloss. If it be true, indeed, that the Acts of the Apostles refer only to the baptism which was given " in the name of Jesus Christ ", and of " the Lord ", we must not therefore attribute the formula given in the Gos- pel to later tradition. In fact, it contains nothing that goes beyond or against the most authentic teach- ing of Jesus concerning His Father, and Himself, and the Holy Spirit. It may have been uttered by the Master without being utilized immediately in the Baptismal service, but moreover, is it not implicitly suggested in the very formula as found in the Acts of the Apostles ? ^ Robinson asks us to choose between two hypotheses : "Either Matthew does indeed report exactly the words uttered by Jesus, but those words were not regarded as prescribing an actual formula to be used on every occasion, and the spirit of them was fulfilled by bap- tism in the name of the Lord Jesus ; or Matthew does not here report the ipsissima verba of Jesus, but trans- fers to him the famihar language of the Church of the evangelist's own time and locality ". Robinson himself, prefers the latter supposition, while Swete, on the contrary, favors the former.^ 1 Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 624; cf. I Pet. i. 2. 2 Ac. ii. 28; viii. 12, 16, 31-38; x. 48; xvi. 31-33; xix. 5; Sanday, loc. cit., H. D. 3 Robinson, art.: Baptism, E. B., col. 474; Swete, art.: Ex- positor, Oct., 1902, JESUS THE SON OF GOD 379 While Plummer thinks rather that " when S. Luke relates that the Gentiles were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, he does not indicate the formula em- ployed in these baptisms, but the profession of faith demanded of the new Christians. . . . There is noth- ing to hinder us from thinking that the formula em- ployed in this case was also that which Christ had pre- scribed. ... It is a radical hypothesis to suppose that words of such importance were never uttered by Christ, and nevertheless they have been attributed to Him on the authority of the first Gospel ".^ If, then, our text somehow corresponds to the Saviour's thought, we ought to deem it a confirmation of all that our Gospel study has thus far disclosed. Jesus, along with the Holy Ghost, nay even prior to Him, is associated with the Father in a mysterious Trinity, sharing the same power, exerting the same action, and in some way enjoying the same unity. Thus, we read : " In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ". Would such ele- vation of Christ to the plane of God's divinity be in- telligible, if Christ's nature were merely human, and ever infinitely distant from the divine nature? To be thus placed on an equal footing with the heavenly Father, Jesus must have shared with His Divine Father a real union of being and life. Shall we say, then, that He stands beside the Father in His quality of Christ ? This indeed would imply that Christ is not merely man, but is united substantially to the divinity. Christ cannot thus be put on an equality with God un- less He Himself is essentially God. On the other hand, the manner in which He is pre- sented between the Father and the Holy Spirit, as be- ing one of the terms of the subsistence of the divine essence, seems to indicate that He thus appears be- tween the Holy Spirit and the Father because He is 1 Plummer, art. : Baptism, H. D., pp. 241-242. 380 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Son of God, not only as man united substantially to God, but even previously in His very divinity, and as one of the Eternal Trinity. Resume. — We may conclude, therefore, that in view of the extraordinary privileges and powers as- sumed by Jesus, or after interpreting His own declara- tions of His divine Sonship and relations with God, His Father, Jesus is not only the Son of God as man, but also apart from His humanity, in the higher and pre-existent part of His being. He is the Son of God not only as the Man-Messiah especially adopted by God, with whom He enjoys incomparable relations of Sonship, which exceed indeed the created order ; but He is also, as the God-Messiah, necessarily and really begotten by God, eternally and substantially sharing God's very being. To be sure, this doctrine is not stated explicitly nor made fully evident by the Master Himself, and we shall see the reason for this later, but all His declara- tions suppose it implicitly and suggest it logically. What is clear is that, in the Synoptic gospels, Jesus considers Himself the Son of God in a special sense, and as having exceptional relations with God and a full share in His most incommunicable privileges and powers. We must, therefore, logically infer that Jesus enjoys more than human nature. So essential is His share in the divine nature that it argues a like divinization of His humanity : He is not merely God's adopted Son, but He is truly the Son of God, begotten of God's very substance. IV. The Synoptists AND THE FAITH OF THE EARLY CHURCH. Was it, indeed, thus that primitive. Tradition under- stood Christ Jesus? To get a true and original idea of the Saviour's person, we cannot do better than to inquire into the belief of the Apostolic Church, the JESUS THE SON OF GOD 381 depository of the faith of those who had eaten and drank with the Master, who had heard His dis- courses and witnessed His miracles, who had beheld His ignominy and His triumph. We ask, then, does the Apostolic belief agree with the testimony of the Synoptic Gospels ? Does it serve to confirm, nay even to complete and determine our interpretation thereof? It will prove interesting to examine this point briefly. Acts of the Apostles. The author of the Book of Acts, who wrote be- tween the years 62-80 A. D., made use of earlier docu- ments which, in turn, date from the very cradle days of the Church. This much is admitted by all critics. In particular, the discourses which the first chapters present the Apostles as having uttered on the day after Pentecost, display remarkable features that appear to guarantee their full authenticity. What idea, then, do these discourses give us of the Lord Jesus? Schmiedel considers the Christology of S. Peter's discourses . . . '' important in the highest degree . . . A representation of Jesus so simple, and in such exact agreement with the impression left by the most genu- ine passage of the first three gospels, is nowhere else to be found in the whole New Testament. It is hardly possible not to believe that the Christology of the speeches of Peter must have come from a primitive source. It is nevertheless a fact sufficiently surpris- ing that it has been transmitted to us by a writer who in other places works so freely with his sources ". S. Luke's fidelity in reproducing the discourses of the chief of the apostles along with their primitive Chris- tology seems really, on the contrary, to warrant us in believing that he does not retouch his documentary sources as much as critics wish to maintain.^ 1 Schmiedel, art.: Acts of the Apostles, E. B., par. 14, col. 48. 382 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Jiilicher recognizes that *' the discourses of Peter, more than those of S. Paul, give out a Judaic tone that recalls the Old Testament ". But the explanation which this critic gives of it is quite insufficient; for he says : " This proves simply the good taste and rather historic tact of the author ".^ Headlam thinks that '* we cannot account for the special feature of these discourses unless we admit that the author has drawn from good authorities and that he was well acquainted with the facts and the per- sons whom he describes. The discourses are vivid, varied, too well suited to the circumstances to be substantially mere exercises in rhetoric ".^ What idea, therefore, do these discourses give us of the Lord Jesus? The whole apologetic endeavor of the Apostles is to prove to the Jews that Jesus is truly the Messiah predicted by the prophets. We are aware that they need not have insisted first of all upon what was possibly divine in the personality of this Christ. As they spoke to the very people who had known Him during His earthly life, they pre- sented Jesus to them just as He had appeared in His humanity : that is, as a man accredited by God because of the signs and wonders which God had wrought through Him amongst His people; as a servant of God, who died upon the cross after spending His life in performing miracles, and who, by His resurrection, entered into glory.^ But Jesus' disciples call Him " the Son of God ", as well as Christ the Servant. To Him are attributed qualities and powers that place Him incomparably above men and angels. He appears rather as Medi- 1 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 380. 2 Headlam, art: Acts of the Apostles, H. D., p. 34. 3 Ac. ii. 36 ; iii. 18 ; v. 42 ; ix. 20, 22 ; xvii. 3 ; xviii. 5, 28 ; xxiv. 24; xxvi. 23; Ac. ii. 22; Ac. iii, 13, 26; iv. 27, 30; Ac. ii. 36; iv. 27; X. 38; xiii. 23. JBSUS THE SON OF GOD 383 ator, standing between God and the world, enjoying both the nature of man and of God.^ Thus, S. Peter calls Him " the author of Hfe ", the ''corner-stone" that sustains the whole edifice, the only one by whose name we can be saved, for " there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved"; the "Prince and Saviour", the " Lord and Christ ", the " Lord of all ", the " judge of the living and of the dead ".^ His apostles, moreover, are glad to suffer persecu- tion for His sake, to endure outrages, to face im- prisonment and death. It is to Him that they ascribe their miracles, as it is in His name that they work them. It is also in His name that they administer the Baptism of penance and of regeneration; it is into His hands that Stephen the martyred deacon commends his soul, just as, on the cross, Jesus had consigned His own to His Father. So that the Christ of the early Church is the Christ-Son of God, intimately sharing the powers and privileges of God, the wholly divine Christ of the Synoptists.^ With regard to the texts wherein Jesus is called the " Son of God ", it is possible that the word " ^^k " is equivalent to " vi6g "^ and should be translated, not as " servant ", like the Hebrew term " ebed ", but by " child " or " son ". It is employed in this sense in Wisdom, in the Didache, and in the I Epistle of S. Clement of Rome. As Dalman remarks, in the Syriac text of the Peshito, we find the word " bar ",which means " the son ".* 1 Ac. ix. 20 ; xiii. S2- 2 Thayer, Lexicon, N. T., 4th ed., p. yj : apxvy^Q', ; Ac. iii. 15 ; Ac. iv. II ; iv. 12; v. 31 ; xv. 11 ; cf. Ac. xiii. 23; xvi. 31 ; ii. 36; X. 36; xi. 20; x. 42. 3 Ac. V. 41; XV. 26; xxi. 13; cf. ix. 15-16; Ac. ix. 32; xii. 6, 16; iv. 10; xvi. 18; xix. 13; Ac. ii. 38; x. 48; xix. 5; cf. viii. 12, 16, 37-38; xvi. 31-33; Ac. vii. 59. * Dalman, op. cit., p. 278; cf. Wisd. ii. 13; xii. 20; Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, c. iv. 2-3; S. Clement of Rome, Epistle I, c lix. 2, 4. 384 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL B. Weiss says that '' the Messiah who is elevated to that * KvptoTjjg ' or rank of lordship must evidently be a divine being ".^ Colani writes : '* I do not know of a more striking proof of the immense impression produced by the Galilean than this simple fact: twenty-five years after He had been crucified, a Pharisee like S. Paul, could see in Him the judge of the living and the dead: the fact is no less astonishing on the part of S. Peter, such a short time after the Passion." ^ Stevens says : " In view of the Septuagint use of kurios as a name for Jehovah, it is difficult to see how a Jewish mind could attach to the kuriotes, which is ascribed to Jesus, any meaning not implying His superhuman character ". And again, referring to Christ's personality, he writes : !' The absence of such a theory from these early chapters of the Acts is one of the marks of verisimilitude which they exhibit. But the descriptions which they give of Christ's abso- lutely unique character and work appear to me to be quite irreconcilable with the humanitarian theory of His person. ... I believe that the true conclusion is that to which we were led in the study of the self- testimony of Jesus, namely, that the facts of His teach- ing and life, as His immediate disciples knew them, warrant the doctrine of His essential divinity which was early developed in the Apostolic Church ".^ St. Paul's Epistles. It was about twenty years after the death of Jesus- Christ that Saint Paul wrote his Epistles. All these writings, excepting the Epistle of the Hebrews and the Pastoral Epistles, are now generally recognized as having been written by the great apostle. Even Renan himself said that the authenticity of the fol- 1 Weiss, B., Biblical Theol. N. T., pt. 39, p. 180. 2 Colani, op. cit., p. 155. 3 Stevens, Theol. N. T., pp. 266-267. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 385 lowing Epistles ascribed to S. Paul was unquestion- able and unquestioned: i. e. the Epistle to the Gala- tians, the two to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Romans. He also thought that the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, and the Epistle to the Phihppians were certainly authentic; while, the Epistle to the Colossians, as also the Epistle to Philemon, were prob- ably written by S. Paul ; although he had some doubts whether this Apostle really wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians. But he did think that the Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus were unauthentic; in other words that these, the Pastoral Epistles, were not written by S. Paul in any sense of the word.^ Harnack, whom critics nowadays look upon as the great historian of primitive Christian literature, has definitely settled, so to say, the authenticity of the nine Great Epistles ; and, of this number, he assigns the two Epistles to the Thessalonians to the years 48-49 A. D., and the others to the years 52-59 A. D. He thinks that S. Paul, was their original author in the sense that he left them as the groundwork that was later finished and developed by a subsequent editor.^ Jiilicher does not regard as decisive the objections alleged against the Second Epistle to the Thessa- lonians, or against that to the Ephesians ; while he readily admits the authenticity of all the others ex- cepting the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pastoral Epistles.^ B: Weiss practically admits that even the Pastoral Epistles have S. Paul as their author, and positively rejects only the Epistle to the Hebrews.* Zahn, also, takes the same stand ; and moreover 1 Renan, Saint Paul, pp. v-vi. 2 Harnack, Die Chron. der Alt. Christ Lift., pt. ii. vol. i. p. 238. 3 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 90. * Weiss, B., Lehrh. der Einleit, N. T., 1897; Das neue Test. Handausgabe, 1902, vol. ii. 25 386 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL dates the main Epistles at 53-63 A. D., and the Pas- toral Epistles at 63-66 A. D.^ Jacquier assigns the chief Epistles at 50-62 A. D. and the Pastoral Epistles at 62-67 A. D.^ What, then, does S. Paul think of Christ-Jesus? He always speaks of Him as the Christ (or Anointed), the Saviour and Redeemer, who, after giving His life as a ransom for sin, through His resurrection en- tered into the glory of His Father in order to come again at the end of days to establish God's eternal reign. Yes, He is man: He was born; He died like other men, and, even in glory. He still possesses human nature (which He had assumed.) And yet. He is not only a man: beyond and prior to His humanity, He is the Son of God. The Christ portrayed by S. Paul is the Son of God, who had become Man in order to serve as Mediator between God and men. In the very beginning of the Epistle to the Romans, we are told of that " Son who was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh ; who was predes- tinated the Son of God in power ". And what fully shows that He was not simply David's son as re- gards His human appearance, but the very Son of God, by the real intervention of the Holy Spirit, is the fact of His resurrection " from the dead ".^ As Rose observes : *' We think that the * -nvevfia dyiuavvTjQ^ here refers to the divine nature, to that divine nature which the position and the splendor of the Son of God requires. . . . The resurrection was not its starting-point. If it has revealed and declared Jesus Christ as the mighty Son of God; if it was the the day of His enthronement, it was not the day of His divine birth ".* 2 Jacquier, Hist, des Liv. N. T., vol. i. 3 Rom. i. 3-4. 4 Rose, art. : Rev. Bib., 1903, p. 359 ; Etudes sur la Theol. de S. Paul. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 387 No less clearly, in the main part of this Epistle, does the Apostle mention the transcendent Sonship of the Saviour as Son of God. For, in speaking of God as the author of grace and of glory, the Apostle asks : '* He that spared not even His own Son, but de- livered Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with Him, given us all thmgs?" Again, he tells us that God sent " His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin " in order to condemn sin in the flesh of this very incarnate Son, and to enable us to " walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit". So that, before His earthly appearance, Jesus pre- existed and He pre-existed with God as His only Son. " The Son," says Sanday, *' does not become Son by His mission, but He is already God's own Son, be- fore being sent.^ In the Epistle to the Galatians, also, we find the same doctrine : Before Christ's coming, we were slaves of the Law ; " but when the fulness of time was come. God sent His Son ", who was " made of a woman ", and who, as He was Man, was born " under the Law, that He might redeem them who were un- der the Law ". Thus it is that, from being servants, we become sons; yea, the adopted Sons of God, through Jesus His own Son by nature, and through the communication that He Himself has given us of His Spirit.^ Similarly, the Second Epistle to the Corinthians testifies to Christ's pre-existence. In appealing to Christ's example in order to encourage the faithful in almsgiving, the Apostle manifestly alludes to His pre-existence in God before His birth in time : " For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, 1 Rom. viii. 32 ; Rom. viii. 3. 2 Sanday, art.: Son of God, H. D., p. 577; Sanday and Headlam, Com. on Ep. to Romans; Gal. iv. 4-6; Lightfoot, Ep. to Galatians, loth ed., 1890. 388 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL being rich, He became poor for your sakes; that, through His poverty, you might be rich ".^ But, before His Incarnation, in what relation did this Son of God stand to God Himself? S. Paul in- dicates it briefly in several places. Thus, he calls Christ " the image of God ", " the image of the in- visible God ", a perfect representation of " the wis- dom of God ", and *' Wisdom " itself. On the other hand he represents Him as a sort of mediator in the work of creation : He is " the first-born of every creature; for in Him were all things created in heaven and earth " ; " all things were created by Him and in Him. And He is before all and by Him all things consist ".^ Such expressions, true enough, apply exactly to Christ as Man, as a visible manifestation of God's power and goodness, the model and archetype of all creation, natural and supernatural. Yet, they seem to aim higher and to state how Christ stood towards God prior to becoming man and apart from His hu- manity. The analogy with the Scripture passages, plainly reproduced by S. Paul, referring to the eternal origin of the Divine Wisdom, a comparison with the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which seems to present the same doctrine even more clearly, and, finally, the difficulty of understanding as a simple ideal pre-existence in God's thought, the Apostle's statement about Christ's priority to every creature, and His share in the creative work, — all this seems to show that S. Paul's expressions concerning the Incarnate Christ refer to the Son of God as pre- 1 2 Cor. viii. g ; Waite, // Ep. to Corinthians; Von Weiz- sacker, The Apostolic Age, vol. i, p. 145. "2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15; i Cor. i. 24, 30; Col. i. 15-17; I Cor. viii. 6; Lightfoot, Ep. to Colossians and Philemon, 8rh ed., 1886 ; Haupt, Die Gefangenshaftshriefe, 7th ed., 1897 ; Stevens, Theol. N'. T., p. 395; Sanday, art.: Son of God, H. D. ; Abbott, Com. Ep. Ephes. and Col., 1897. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 389 existing to his earthly advent, and thus designate Him as the substantial image of God and His veri- table collaborator in the work of creation. In S. Paul's thought, therefore, Christ, the Son of God, the image of God, who pre-exists before all things, and who, along with God, creates all things, really shares the divine nature and merits the name of God. The Apostle clearly states this when, in his exhortation to the Philippians to remain united in the charity of Christ by the sacrifice of self-love and of personal interests, he appeals to the grand example of disinterestedness given by the Saviour : " Let this mind be in you ", he says, " which was in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God," that is, who sharing the nature and enjoying the glorious attributes of God, " thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and, in habit, found as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross ".^ We may remark that, literally speaking, the term "robbery", which in Greek is called apirayfibv^ means " booty " which implies what is taken by force, and hence a possession that is unjustly acquired. Some critics, however, give this text in a slightly different form : '' Being in the form of God, He did not re- gard this equality with God, as " booty ", that is, as a rich and precious object which people possess, which they guard carefully, and refuse to part with.^ The same teaching is found elsewhere in the Epistles of S. Paul. Thus, we read : God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. ... In Him (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 1 Phil, ii, 5-7; Haupt, op. cif.; Von Weizsacker, op. cit.; Vincent, Commentary Ep. to Philippians and Philemon, 1897; Labourt, Notes D'Exeg. sur Ep. Philippians, c. ii. 5-1 1; Rev. Bihl., 1898, pp. 402, 553 et seq. 2 2 Cor. V. 19 ; Col. ii. 9 ; Rom. ix. 5. 390 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL corporeally ", that is substantially and under bodily form. And if, " according to the flesh " He is of the race of Israel, He is " over all things, God, blessed forever ".^ The text of Romans ix. 5, it should be noted, is thus rendered in the Tischendorf-Gebhardt edition: ''(The Israelites) of whose race is Christ according to the flesh: God, who is over all things, (is) blessed forever. Amen." We have, in the foregoing cita- tions, followed the text of Nestle's edition, which agrees with those of Westcott-Hort, of Weymouth, and of Weiss.2 In the Epistle to the Hebrews, also, we find the same doctrine stated, if not directly, at least under a derived form. That very Jesus, who is Christ and the Son of God made man, and who is called our Mediator and our Pontiff with Almighty God, is styled, " the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance ", as the One " by whom He also made the world " ; since to Him is applied the Psalmist's words : " Thou, in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the earth : and the works of Thy hands are the heavens ".^ To quote Renan : " Everything leads us to suppose that the Epistle to the Hebrews was edited between 65 A. D. and 70 A. D., and probably in the year 66 A. D. . . . This writer . . . represents himself as having been a hearer, not of Jesus, but of those who had heard him, and as a witness of the ' signs and 1 Text of Tischendorf-Gebhar.dt, Westcott-Hort, Wey- mouth, B. Weiss ; Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol. N. T., par. 76, vol. i, P- 393; Sanday and Headlam, Com. Ep. to Romans, 1895; Stevens. Theol. N. T., p. 397 ; Durand, art. : Rev. Bihlique, 1903, P- 550 • Eci Divinite de Jesus Christ dans S. Paul Ep. Rom., ix. 5. 2Heb. ii. 4; V. 7; X. 5; Heb. ii. 17; iv. 14; v. 1-7; vii. 24; ix. 7, 15, 24; X. 12; xii. 2, 24; xiii. 15; Heb. i. 3; cf. Wisd, vii. 7, 25-26; Heb. i. 2; ii. 10; i. 10; cf. Ps. cii, 26, 3 Hebr. i. 10. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 391 wonders ' manifested by the apostles by ' the gift of the Holy Spirit '. Still, he held a high rank in the Church. . . . The mere fact of addressing an Epistle to an important Church shows him to be a man of consequence. . . . The likeliest of all (authors) is Barnabas ".^ Harnack, also, thinks that this Epistle was written by S. Barnabas, who edited it shortly after S. Paul's time, say between 65-96 A. D. Such views are not, of course, a matter for dis- cussion in this book; but we may remark that, from the doctrinal standpoint, the Epistle to the Hebrews is generally recognized as having a relation to the other Epistles of S. Paul; and that, to some extent, this fact warrants us in viewing it as the expression of the Apostle's thought. If, however, we consider this Epistle as a work that did not have S. Paul as its author it would have, from our point of view, a still greater value, as an authorized and very clear con- firmation of the apostle's teaching concerning the per- sonality of Christ Jesus. ^ Other critics' opinions about the date of this Epistle may be thus given: Zahn thinks that it was written about 80 A. D. and perhaps by the disciple named Apollo. Jiilicher dates it at 75-90 A. D. and sees in it the work of a Paulinizing Christian. B. Weiss claims that it was written by S. Barnabas between 65-66 A. D. ; while Jacquier, who dates it before 70 A. D., makes it depend upon S. Paul.^ Stevens, also, in writing of this Epistle, says : " For our author, therefore, Christ must have been distin- guished from God, the fons et origo of divinity, but, at the same time, must have been an eternal being, 1 Renan, Saint Paul, p. Ixi; cf. Heb. ii. 3-4; Anti-Christ, p. 9. 2 Harnack, Die Chronologie, pt. ii, vol. i, p. 475. 3 Zahn, Einleit N. T., vol. ii; Jiilicher, op. cit.; Weiss, B., Lehrb. Einleit. N. T.; Jacquier, Hist, des Liv, N, T, 392 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL sharing the divine nature and attributes. His doc- trine is, in, substance, the same 'higher Christology ', which we find in Paul and John. Jesus Christ is, in the strict sense, divine, and, at the same time, per- sonally distinct from God, alike in His historic mani- festation, His glorified life in heaven, and His eternal pre-existence and activity ".^ To resume : S. Paul more frequently views Jesus the Saviour in His humanity; not exactly as Son of God pre-existing in God, but as the Son of God in- carnate. Hence it is that he so often distinguishes Him from God : " To us there is but one God, the Father, of which are all things, and we unto Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him "... There is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus : Who gave Himself a Redemption for all, a testimony in due times. . . . One Lord, one faith, one baptism ", as there is but " one only God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all ".^ In thus insisting upon the unity of God, the Apostle does not mean to exclude the divinity of Jesus the Saviour. The context proves that He speaks thus only in opposition to the manifold gods of paganism and thence to infer the unity of our Mediator and Lord. If, on the other hand, He seems to place Christ on a level with God and yet in contrast with God, this does not at all mean that he judges His na- ture as foreign to that of God. The very titles of Mediator and Lord given to Christ seem to suppose a real participation in the divine nature; this is sim- ply because he considers Him as constituted with His human nature, and because, in His human nature, the Son of God is not so much God equal to His Father as Mediator between God and men. 1 Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 504- 2 I Cor. viii. 6 ; i Tim. ii. 5 ; Eph. iv. 5-6. I JESUS THE SON OF GOD 393 Says Stevens : " Not only does Paul apply to . Christ the term kurios, the Septuagint name for Jehovah, but he freely applies to Him passages from the Old Testament which were spoken of Jehovah." ^ The Apostle, then, may mention Christ apart from God, and yet along with Him, as he does in the usual formula of salutation : " The peace of God the Father be given to you, and that of His Son Christ Jesus !" He may present Him as our Mediator and Redeemer, as the one by whom we have been reconciled to God, redeemed and justified, by whom we have access to the Father, and who intercedes for us at the right hand of God. But this does not at all keep him. from de- claring Jesus the Son of God in the real sense, pre- existing before every creature, collaborating in the work of creation, possessing the divine nature in its fulness, constituted as God's equal even in the very form of God, and God blessed forever above all beings.^ " It was, therefore, very natural," writes Loisy, " that men should pray to God through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and soon come to pray to Jesus Him- self, if, indeed, they did not do so from the beginning, since He was always with His own, ready to hear and with power to grant their prayers. . . . The inter- course of the Christian was in heaven with his Lord; if he distinguished God from Christ, none the less he saw God in Christ, so close and indissoluble was the union of the two; praying to Christ, he prayed to God, although the solemn prayers of the community were addressed to God through Christ, Jesus was, as it were, the countenance of God turned toward hu- manity ". We may note, by the way, that it is this 1 Stevens, op. cit, p. 390 ; cf. Rom. x. 13 ; Joel ii. 32 ; i Cor. X. 22; Deut. xxxii. 34; Weiss, op. cit., vol. i, p. 392; Rose, art. ct. : Rev. Bib., 1903, p. 345. 22 Cor. V. 18-19; Rom. iii. 22, 24, 25; v. 10; Eph. ii. 18; Rom. V. I ; Col. iii. 17. 394 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Christ Mediator who is more directly presented to view in the CathoHc Epistles of S. Peter, S. James,- and S. Jude.^ The Johannine Writings. If, now, we consider the description given of Christ in the Johannine writings, the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, we will find that He is none other than the Christ mentioned in the Epistles of S. Paul. He is truly man; and, in His humanity. He is our Reparator and Mediator with God. He is mentioned along with God the Father, whom He calls His God ; but He also sits at His right hand and shares His royalty. On the other hand, Christ is also " the Son of God " and His only true Son. He was with His Father before coming into this world ; for, " in this is shown the love of God for us, that He has sent His only Son into the world in order that we may have life by Him. . . . The Father hath sent His Son as Saviour of the world. . . . He hath loved us, and He hath sent His Son as a victim of propitiation for our sins ".^ S. Paul identified Christ, in His divine life, with the Wisdom of God described in the Sapiential Books : so, too, the author of the Johannine writings identifies Him with the Logos, that is, the Thought, or Word, of God, as the Greek equivalent read in the philo- sophical language of His time. As " Wisdom ", the Word was " with God from the beginning " ; as " Wis- 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 252, 253 ; Rom. viii. 34. 2 Jo. i. 14; I Ep. Jo. iv. 2; 2 Ep. Jo. V. 7; I Ep. Jo. ii. i; iii. 5; iv. ID, 14; Apoc. v. 9; iii. 2, 12; i Ep. Jo. i. 3; 2 Ep. Jo. V. 3; Apoc. i. I, 4-6; iii. 2, 5, 21; v. 7, 13; vi. 16; vii. 10; xi. 15; xii. 10; xiv. 4, 12; xx. 6; xxi. 22; xxii. i; Jo. i. 14, 18; XX. 31; I Ep. Jo. ii. 22; iv. 15; V. i, 5 ; Apoc. ii. 18; i Ep. Jo. iv. 9, 10, 14 ; cf. I Ep. Jo. i. 2 ; iv. 2 ; iii. 8 ; v. 6, 20 ; 2 Ep. Jo. v. 7; Jo. i. 4. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 395 dom ", He had co-operated in the work of the world's creation : " By Him all things were made, and without Him was made nothing that was made ".^ "As regards the name and the idea of the Logos," says Loisy, " S. John is influenced by the Alexandrian and Philonic philosophy. He does not, indeed, bor- row Philo's theory, but rather contradicts it. Still, he takes it as his starting-point, and lives in its sphere ; he uses it extensively. He views the Word as the Oracle, the organ of creation and of revelation ; and thus makes it agree with the Word of God mentioned in the Old Testament. Instead of being an abstrac- tion, devoid of a well-defined personahty, the Word is portrayed as a personal power. It is not an inter- mediary being: its nature is strictly divine. It is not called upon to fill up the abyss separating an abstract God from the world ; for, to S. John, God is personal and living. The relations of the Word with God are those of person to person ".^ Lagrange thinks it certain " that the doctrine of the Incarnate Word is a theological adaptation, but one which S. John could have made only by supposing that the divinity of Jesus was admitted as indisputable — which would permit us to give the Word its true character ".^ S. Paul had also portrayed Christ, the Wisdom of God and Son of God, as true God: so likewise does S. John describe Christ, the Word of God and Son of God, as really sharing the divine essence and meriting the name of God : " He is true God and Eternal Life. . . In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God ". The Incarnate Word of God, the Son of God made man, was to be the Mediator between God and 1 Jo. I, 3, 10 ; Grill, op cit 1902. 2 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., 1902, p. 455. 3 Lagrange, art: Bullet, de Lift. Ecct., 1904, p. 8, n. I. 396 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL man; owing to His pre-existence, He participated in the entire nature of God, and, after His incarnation, in the full nature of man : He was true God and true man. Such, then, is the idea given of the person of Christ Jesus in the Epistles of S. Paul and in the writ- ings of S. John.^ The Catholic Church has invariably held to this idea. In recognizing in Christ only one divine Person, namely the divine Person of the Word, the Church has always taken great care to safeguard the reality and perfection of His human nature. Jesus is true man, really formed of a body and soul, fully ex- ercising His intelHgence, free-will, and activity; but, because of that union which is termed hypostatic. His perfect humanity is, from the very first, possessed by the divinity and under the sway of the Person of the Word. Hence, His entire human activity must be ascribed to the Word of God who possesses it: no action of His is merely human : but, while all such actions are perfectly human, in their active principle, all are also divine, and perfectly so, as regards their principle of dignity and merit ; for Jesus is not merely a man, but is also God, and, in an indissoluble man- ner, the God-Man, The most perfect expression of this Christian dogma is found in the Athanasian Creed : " Now the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God is both God and man. He is God, of the substance of His Father, begotten before the world; and He is man of the substance of His Mother, born in the world : Perfect God and per- fect man ; of rational soul and human flesh subsisting ; Equal to the Father according to His Divinity ; and less than the Father according to His humanity. Who, although He be both God and man, yet He is not two, ^Jo. i. i; I Ep. Jo. i. 1-2; cf. Apoc. xix. 13; Jo. i. 3, 10; I Ep, Jo. V. 20; i. 1-2; Jo. i. I. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 397 but one Christ : One, not by the conversion of the God- head into flesh, but by the assuming of human nature unto God: One altogether, not by confusion of sub- stance, but by unity of person. For as the rational soul and the body constitutes one man, so God and man is one Christ." This Creed was introduced into the Roman Breviary at an early epoch. Its origin is generally assigned to Central France, and dated dur- ing the fifth or sixth century. Its authorship has been ascribed to some one of the writers belonging to the School of Aries, as S. Caesarius or S. Hilary, or to that of Lerins, as S. Vincent or S. Honoratus.^ Of course, when we try to represent to ourselves just how the hypostatic union between the two natures of Christ in the unity of the divine Person of the Word, actually operates, we are confronting a pro- found mystery that defies our human perception. It is none the less true that the doctrine thus expressed is the very interpretation of the data supplied by S. Paul's Epistles and the Johannine Writings. Harnack claims that the identification of Christ with the Logos was due to those Greek philosophers who were converted during the second century. And yet he is obliged to admit that " ancient teachers be- fore them had also called Christ the Logos among the many predicates Avhich they ascribed to Him ; nay, one of them, John, had already formulated the proposition : ' The Logos is Jesus Christ ' ... It was, indeed, a marvelous formula ; and was not the way prepared for it, nay, hastened by the speculative ideas about the Messiah propounded by Paul and other ancient teach- ers? "^ Renan had written long before : " The belief that Jesus was the Logos of the Alexandrian theology 1 Burn, The Athanasian Creed; Tixeront, art.: Athanase, Diet, de Theologie Cath. de Vacant. 2 Harnack, What w Christianity F p. 218. 398 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL would no doubt suggest itself very early, and that in a strict logical way. . . . But in the year 68 He is already called " the Word of God ". . . . The doc- trine of the Epistle to the Colossians is much like that of the Fourth Gospel: Jesus is represented in that epistle as the " image of the invisible God ", the * first-born of every creature ', through whom ' every- thing has been created ', who was ' before all things ', by whom ' all things consist ', in whom ' dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily ' ".^ Again, we read : '' In the later epistles " we find " a theory of the Christ, conceived as a sort of divine Person, much like the Logos-theory, which later took its final form in the writings ascribed to John . . . His earher, and doubtless genuine writings have in them the germ of this later style. In certain relations the terms ' Christ ' and ' God ' are almost interchange- able : Christ exercises the offices of divinity ; like God, His name is invoked in prayer; He is the essential mediator of approach to God. . . . Veneration for Him, which in James does not go beyond dulia or hyperdulia, extends with Paul to a true latria, such as no Jew had ever paid to a man or woman born ". Such admissions suffice to prove eloquently the perfect accord that exists between the teaching of S. Paul and that of John on the subject of the Person of Christ, the Word of God.^ Harnack also holds that the real divinity of Christ the God-Man was elaborated only during the third century, and deduced from the prevailing idea of the mystery of the Redemption as a genuine elevation to the very life of God. With regard to the formula of the Logos, he says that " in spite of its sublime meaning, it could be also so conceived as to permit of 1 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 425; cf. Apoc. xix. 13; Col. i. 15; ii. 9- 2 Renan, Anti-Christ, pp. 83, 84, 85. I JESUS THE SON OF GOD 399 the bearer of the title not being by any means of a truly divine nature but possessing one that was only half divine. . . . But if actual interference in the con- stitution of human nature and its deification are in- volved, then the Redeemer must Himself be God and must become man. . . . The Logos, then, must be God Himself, and He must have actually become man ".^ Nevertheless, in a way, Harnack is obliged to re- cognize that ''it is true that this conception found a safe starting-point in the Gospel, and a support in the Pauline theology ". This admission is quite signi- ficant. But he forgets to note that the dogma of the God-Man existed in the second, as well as in the third century.^ Thus S. Irenaeus, a valuable witness of the tradi- tional faith of the chief centres of Church life during the latter half of the second century, views Jesus as the Incarnate Word and also gives Him the title of "God" and of "God Incarnate ".« Tatian, also, who, as Harnack admits, wrote about 150 A. D., speaks to the Greeks of " a God born in the form of man." * S. Justin, writing at the same period, proves from the Scriptures that Christ is " God ", and that He " should be adored ". He speaks of " God Incarnate " just as did S. Irenaeus and Tatian.^ S. Ignatius of Antioch, at the beginning of the 1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 248, 249. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 249. 3 S. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. i, c. viii, n. 5 ; bk. 3, c. xviii, n. 7; c. xix, n. 2; c. xx, n. 4; c. xxi, n. i : 6 Qebg ovv av- dpuTTog eyevero; bk. 1 7, n. 3. * Tatian, Orat. Against the Greeks, n. 21 : Qebv iv avOp^irov fJ-opcpy yeyovEvai. ^ S. Justin, Dial. Trypho, n. 56, 61, 63, 68, 126, 127, 128; n. 48: Qeog . TvpoaKVvrjTog Geof (,n> koI yeykwrjiac avOpuirog-; cf. n. 34: Kat 6eoc . . . Kai avBpoTroc. 400 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL second century, also refers to Jesus Christ as " God ", and as '' Our God ". To the faithful at Ephesus he writes : " Our Physician is one who is at once flesh and spirit, begotten although unbegotten, God incar- nate, true life in death, formed of Mary and of God, at first capable and then incapable of suffering, — Jesus Chris't, our Lord ".^ It would seem, too, that Harnack forgets that the dogma of the God-Man was taught implicitly in all S. Paul's Epistles and in the writings traditionally ascribed to S. John; so that the formal identification of Christ with God was for later Tradition what Renan called " a mere matter of words ".^ Nor did the Fathers of the Early Church invent this formula of the Logos. S. John had said : " The Word was God. . . . And the Word was made flesh ". And again : '' He is true God and eternal Mie ". And he had also described S. Thomas the Apostle as ex- claiming to the Risen Saviour : " My Lord and my God". And had not S. Paul called Christ: "He who is above all, God blessing forever " ? ^ Agreement zvith the Facts of History. The foregoing data are not only a matter of un- questionable belief for the faithful ; but must be deemed by any impartial critic as in full accord with historical truth. In fact, the data found in S. Paul's Epistles cannot be due to a personal and inexact view on his part. They must surely agree with the faith of the Church in his day, with the still vital tra- dition of Christ and His Apostles. S. Paul wrote scarcely twenty years after the death of Jesus, and 1 S. Ignatius of Antioch, Epist. to Ephesians, n. 15, 18; to Romans, n. 3, 6; to Polycarp, n. 8; to Thall. n. 7; to Smyr- neans, n, i, 10; to Ephesians, n. 7. 2 Renan, Saint Paul, p. 164. 3 Jo. i. I, 14; I Ep. Jo. V. 20; Jo. XX. 28; Rom. ix. 5. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 401 many persons were then living who had known the Master, who had hved with Him, heard His discourses, witnessed His death and resurrection. Of the risen Christ the Apostle could say : *' He was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present time, and some have fallen asleep ".^ Harnack, however, apparently thinks that S. Paul's statements disclose the personal and inexact character of His private opinions ; for he says : '' Under the in- fluence of the Messianic theology, and greatly im- pressed by the personality of Christ, Paul became the author of the speculative idea that, not only was God in Christ, but that Christ Himself was possessed of a peculiar nature of a heavenly kind ".^ Renan's opinion, of which Harnack's here as else- where is but the reproduction, is thus stated : " Paul became mystical, theological, speculative after having been at first practical. . . . His idea of Christ is changed. He dreams thenceforth less about the Son of God appearing in the clouds and presiding over the general resurrection, than of a Christ established as an active participant in the divinity. . . . What is certain is that the great images of the first Apocalypse and of the resurrection, otherwise so familiar to Paul and in some manner represented in each page of the Epistles belonging to the second and third journeys, and even of that to the Philippians, hold a secondary place in the last writings of his captivity. The views there given are supplanted by a theory that views Christ as a sort of divine Person — a theory very anal- ogous to that of the Logos, which is to attain definite form in the writings ascribed to S. John." ^ 1 I Cor. XV. 6. 2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 199. 3 Renan, The Apocalypse, pp. 75, 76. 26 402 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Elsewhere he says : " The theory of the Logos na- turally resulted from the disappointments of the first Christian generation. What m.en had hoped to see realized in the actual order of events was transferred to the ideal. Every delay in the coming of Jesus was one step more towards His deification; and this is so true that, at the very hour when the last Adventist dream vanished, the absolute divinity of Jesus was proclaimed " ? ^ Thus does Renan feel compelled to estabHsh a doc- trinal contrast between S. Paul's earlier and later Epistles, which he apparently supposes as separated by a considerable period of time. But the Epistle to the Colossians, written in 62 A. D., did in reality ap- pear shortly after those to the Romans and Corin- thians which were respectively written in 58 and 57 A. D. Harnack's chronology is : Col. 57-59, or 56-58 : Rom. 53-54, or, 52-53 ; Cor. and Galatians 53 or 52. S. Paul's later Epistles, however, should be dated still earher, say from 8 to 10 years before the Fall of Jeru- salem in 70 A. D. Now, had the Church, in that ter- rible year, ceased to await the coming of Christ for the last judgment? Is it not in the year 68 A. D. that Renan himself dates the Epistle to the Hebrews, wherein we read : *' For yet a little while, and a very little while, and He that is to come will come, and will not delay " ? And, as for the Apocalypse, while most modern critics assign it to 95 A. D., he dates it in 68 A. D.2 H, finally, we compare S. Paul's earlier with his later Epistles, we must recognize that they contain the same doctrine about Christ's person. Christ, the true Son of God, pre-existing before His Incarnation, is not only the Christ portrayed in the Epistle to the Colossians, but, as we have seen, is also the Christ de- 1 Renan, Life of Jestis, p. 126. 2 Heb. X. 27. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 403 \ scribed in the Epistle to the Corinthians, Galatians, PhiHppians and Romans.^ Curiously enough this is also admitted by Renan who says : '' The most energetic expressions of the Epistle to the Colossians were only a short advance upon those of the anterior Epistles " ; and, in a note, he refers to very characteristic passages : " See es- pecially Rom. ix. 5; I Cor. viii. 6; II Cor. v. 19". (S. Paul, p. X and note). Elsewhere when speaking of the Christ of the early Epistles, which were written about 54 A. D., he observes : " Jesus is the Lord, the Christ, a personage entirely superhuman, not yet God ( !) but very near being it ( !). One hves in Him, one dies in Him, one rises in Him. He was in truth already a divine personality, and when the time comes to identify Him with God, it is only a question of words, a mere * communication of idioms ', as the theologians say. We shall see that Paul himself at- tained to this : the most advanced formulas that are to be found in the Epistle to the Colossians existed already in germ in the older Epistles. ' For to us there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by Him' (I Cor. viii. 6). A few words more, and Jesus shall be the Logos, Creator, and the most exaggerated formulas of the consubstan- tialists of the fourth century can already be fore- seen .^ S. Paul, let us remember, keeps in permanent touch with the Church of the Apostolic age. During his first missionary journey, his companion was S. Barna- bas, one of the most eminent members of the flourish- ing Church centre at Jerusalem, and one of the ori- ginal disciples of Christ's apostles. From Antioch, where they had founded a numerous Christian com- 1 Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 343. Engl. tr. p. 386. 2 Rom. ix. 5 ; i Cor. viii. 6 ; 2 Cor. v. 19 ; Renan, Saint Paul, pp. ix, 164; I Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 16; Jo. i. 3. 404 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL munity, S. Paul and S. Barnabas go to Jerusalem for the purpose of consulting the Twelve Apostles, and, these authorized guardians of the Saviour's teachings do not at all reprimand him for his doctrines. On his return from Jerusalem to Antioch, S. Paul was ac- companied by two disciples of the apostles, namely Judas and Silas, the latter eventually settling down at Antioch and becoming the Apostle's companion on new missions/ There is, then, a constant interchange of courtesies and the utmost harmony between the two Christian churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. Necessarily the relations were equally frequent and seemingly just as cordial, between the divers communities evangelized by S. Paul and the members of those Church centres founded by the other apostles. Thus he writes to the Romans; and although he had hitherto been un- able to visit them as he had desired, and hence did not claim them as his peculiar children in Christ, never- theless he feels assured that their faith, whose fame is world-wide, is the same as his own ; and, as a matter of fact, when he reaches Rome as a captive, the breth- ren there greet him gladly.^ As to the Apostle's visit to Jerusalem, Sabatier says : " Is it too hazardous a conjecture to suppose that, during the fifteen-day visit he paid to S. Peter in Jerusalem, after his conversion, he had carefully asked him about the Hfe of their common Master? Are we not inclined to think so from S. Paul's remark? Else how did this zealous servant of Jesus-Christ obtain the full mastery of all that valuable Gospel tradition so piously guarded by the early Christian communities and the source whence the first three Gospels have issued?"^ 1 Ac. XV.; Gal. ii. i-io. 2 Ac. XV. 22, 32-34; cf. Ac. xi. 22, 27; xxi. 18; i. 11-15; XV. 2-24; i. 8, 11; xxviii. 14-15. 3 Sabatier, L'Apotre Paul, 3rd ed., p. 66; Gal. i. 18: IcToprjaaL Kv(pav. Weiss, B., op. cit, vol. i, p. 279; Von Weizsacker, op, cit., vol. i, p. 35. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 405 It is remarkable, too, that, as is plain from the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, S. Paul sends his greetings, or salutations, to many brethren and kinsmen who were living at Rome prior to his visit to that city. Of course, critics insist that this chapter of the Epistle to the Romans really belongs to an Epistle to the Ephesians which he had sometime written and addressed to the Church in Ephesus. This was the impression of Renan, and is also that of Jiilicher. But this view has been recently questioned by Spitta. This author proves, in the light of recent inscriptions, that the Apostle salutes persons who, as far as their names are concerned, more probably be- long to the Church of Rome than to that of Ephesus. On the other hand, Spitta thinks that the extant Epistle to the Romans is really composed of two parts, and that the second part, which includes the last chapter of the received Epistle to the Romans, was written by the Apostle at a time when he had already become personally acquainted with the members of the Church in Rome. What shall we say to this? Simply that the thesis advanced by Spitta is far from being proved.^ If, then, we ask: what did S. Paul think of Christ? there is no lack of testimony on this point. And, moreover, we are well aware of his opposition to every unwarranted innovation in doctrinal matters. So that we may rest assured that, on so essential a point as that of Christ's divine personahty, S. Paul has not given a teaching different from that of the other Apostles, and, at all events, the faith that he imparted to his Christian followers was of truly apostolic origin. " What strikes us in all these statements about Christ's pre-existence ", says Beyschlag, " i^s that the apostle nowhere really establishes or teaches the pre- 1 Rom. xvi. ; Renan, Saint Paul, p. Ixix; Julicher, op. cit., p. 140; Spitta, op. cit, 1901, 4o6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL existence of Christ; but, especially in his earlier Epistles, presupposes it as familiar to his readers and disputed by no one. It must, therefore, have been a notion which was not in the least strange even to the primitive apostolic Christians before Paul, such for example as the readers of the Epistle to the Romans ".^ Moreover, the testimony of the Johannine writings present, as many critics admit, either his own teach- ing, or, at least, the tradition which the beloved dis- ciple had handed down to his immediate followers. We will, then, find in the sum-total of his testimony just exactly what an Apostle thought of the person of the Master of whom he had been an assiduous wit- ness. This is a valuable confirmation of S. Paul's testimony. Of course, we cannot suppose that the data supplied by the Johannine writings depend upon those given by S. Paul. For, how could we believe that the Beloved Disciple allowed his appreciation of the Master's personality to be influenced by the views of a new-comer like the convert of Damascus? If, however, the Epistles of S. Paul, as also the Johannine writings, give us the same idea of Jesus' personality that His apostles and disciples had treas- ured, we cannot help seeing in the Christ of the Early Church, the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made man, the true Christ of history. As regards the writings attributed to S. John, Renan, for instance, accepts the Apocalypse, or Revelation, as the authentic work of that Apostle ; and thinks that it was written in 68 A. D. ; while such Johannine writ- ings as the Gospel and the Epistles were written by one of his disciples, — probably by the one whom Papias calls John the Elder, that is, by one of the Ancients of the Church in Ephesus.^ Harnack says that all the Johannine writings were 1 Beyschlag. N T. Theol. II, p. 76. 2 Julicher, op. cit, pp. 375, 389- JESUS THE SON OF GOD 407 written by the same disciple who had recorded the ApostoHc tradition early in the second century/ Jiilicher regards as worthless the assignment of the Johannine compositions to John the Presbyter, of whom we have no reliable information ; while he thinks that the Fourth Gospel was composed by a Christian who lived during the early part of the second century, and who wrote this work in dependence upon S. John. " This writer ", he says, " was convinced that he re- produced the portrait of Christ exactly as he had re- ceived it from John ". It was to John that '' he owed, as did the entire Asiatic church of his time his knowledge of the Lamb of God, of His divine character, of the absolute character of His re- demption "." Wendt and Soltau think that the final editor of the Fourth Gospel employed an earlier document written by S. John himself.^ Lately, the full authenticity of the Johannine writ- ings has been upheld by B. Weiss, Zahn, Reynolds, J. Drummond, Sanday, and Calmes.* So that, in rejecting even the partial authenticity of the Johannine writings, H. Holtzmann, J. Reville, Schmiedel, and Loisy advance merely their personal theories and thus do not merit the approval of most critics.^ iHarn. Chronol. Pt. II. vol. I, p. 656. '^Einleit in das N. T., 1901, p. 324- 3 Wendt, op. cit., 2nd ed., Ger. ; Soltau, art. : Zeit. fur N, T. IViss., vol. i, pp. 140-149. 4 Weiss, Lehrb. der Einleit. N. T., 3rd ed., 1897; Zahn, Einl. in das N. T., vol. ii, 1899 ; Reynolds, art. : John, Gospel of, H. D. ; Drummond, J., The Fourth Gospel, 1903; Sanday, The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, 1904; Calmes, L'Evang. Selon S. Jean, 1904. ^ Holtzmann, H.. op. cit., 3rd ed., 1892 ; Reville, J., Le Quatr. Evang., 1901 ; Schmiedel, art, : John's Gospel, E, B. ; Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., 1903. 4o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL In referring to the attitude of Christian thought during the ApostoUc age, Harnack says : " Where can we find, in the history of mankind, any similar instance of men eating and drinking with their master, seeing him in the characteristic aspects of his human- ity, and then proclaiming him not only as the great prophet and revealer of God, but as the divine disposer of history, as the ' beginning ' of God's creation, and as the inner strength of a new life? . . . That, in spite of suffering and death, it was possible to see in him the promised Messiah, and that, side by side with the vulgar Messianic image of him, men should have regarded him as the present Lord and Saviour, — ^this is what is astonishing ! ^ Harnack further remarks that, " besides the four written Gospels, we possess a fifth, unwritten; and, in many respects, its voice is clearer and more effective than that of the other four, — I mean the united testi- mony of the first Christian community. It enables us to gather what was the prevailing impression made by this personality, and in what sense His disciples under- stood His words and the testimony which He gave of Himself ".2 It is indeed surprising, if not inconceivable, that the direct witnesses of Christ's words and works, the immediate inheritors of the tradition held by such witnesses, — persons whose powers of observation and practical turn of mind had been fully borne out by the events of history; — it is improbable that Apostles and disciples could have erred so strangely, so egre- giously, as to regard as the true Son of God that Master who had so plainly asserted His humanity, and as to ascribe a divine origin and nature to Him whose sufferings and death were a scandal to the Jews, un- less all His words and deeds were meant to authorize, 1 Harnack, What is Christianity f pp. 166-167. 2 Harnack, Christianity and History, p. 57. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 409 nay more, to force upon them such a belief. The im- partial critic must admit that the early Christfahs' be- lief in Christ's divinity can have no basis except the facts of history. Wernle, however, insists that " Jesus Christ is op- posed to the old gods as the new and stronger God. That is the meaning of the ' Divinity of Christ '. The idea arose amongst the heathen, and must be conceived as an antithesis to the heathen gods. The notion is as little Jewish as it possibly can be. The Jews sim- ply have no room for a second being called God in the strict sense of the word. . . . But among the heathen, apotheosis was exceedingly common. The number of their deities is not limited. . . . The Gentile Christian immediately gives Jesus a place in his worship. He sings his ' carmen Christo quasi Deo ', . . . The new God, Christ, is contrasted with the heathen gods ' .^ Schmidt, in fact, ascribes the origin of this dogma to the Hellenic circles wherein the Jewish mode of thought was " influenced by Greek speculation " and by the religious habits of the Greco-Roman world.^ Such views do not square with fact ; for, as we have seen, the dogma of Christ's divinity was a part of the belief of the early Christians in Palestine, of Jesus' own disciples : it is found in is own statements and impHed in His very Hfe. The superhuman character of Jesus' own testi- mony and His true position as an historical person- age is, indeed, expressly admitted by Wernle. Whilst Schmidt says that as " the conception of ' the Son of God ', who is Himself God, which comes distinctly to view in the Fourth Gospel, so this itself is the pro- duct of a long development of thought. . . . The con- tribution of Jesus Himself to this development was the indelible expression of His own personality ". 1 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 114, 115, 116; above p. 271. 2 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E, B., par, 22, col. 4702, 4IO CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL And Bousset, like Harnack, extols Jesus' transcendent personality and wondrous influence, His position as the Son of God in a unique manner, as the Founder of the final religion, as " the way, the truth, and the life ".^ A study of the faith of the early Christians, as also the content of the Synoptic gospels, should there- fore suffice to show the agreement between these sources of testimony. Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, who, as the Second divine Person, essentially shares the divine nature, just as He really shares all human nature after the moment of His Incarnation: such truly is Christ Jesus, as we behold Him after studying the first three gospels. And the faith of the early Church corresponds exactly with the data thus presented, which are the faithful reproduction, the authentic interpretation of the intricate combination of human and divine elements so evidently manifest in the personality of our Saviour. V. Christ's Reserve in Revealing His Divinity. I. A RESULT OF THE SAVIOUR's POSITION. Why, we may ask, is not the transcendent character of Jesus' really divine filiation more expressly revealed, nor more formally stated in His own sayings? Rea- soning from His reserve in manifesting His Messianic dignity, we have previously inferred that this was to be expected. The motive lies in the Saviour's very position itself, so extraordinary and unusual. To consider the actual conditions : We behold the Word, true Son of God and true God, forsaking the abode of His Heavenly Father in order to become man, as other men, and, whilst living among men, devoting Himself to the work of teaching and saving souls. 1 Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 229 ; Engl, tr, p. 272 ; Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 25, col. 4704 ; Bousset, Was wissen wir von Jesiisf 1904. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 411 What an exceptionally complex and delicate position! Could He, with any good reason, reveal His divinity openly ? Could He declare directly and undisguisedly : " I am to all appearances a man like other men ; but really I am the Son of God, eternally begotten of God: I am the Creator of heaven and earth: I am God!" A well-nigh impossible situation, let us say; and were we to search the Gospels for such explicit declarations, we might rightly suspect their authen- ticity, inasmuch as they would be untimely and out of place. If, as we believe, Jesus was the Incarnate Son of God, He could not have well revealed His personality to men otherwise than He actually did make it known. He wanted to reveal His Messianic dignity indirectly and progressively to men : with greater reason He had to thus act as regards His divinity. He could not have acted with greater wisdom nor more opportunely. By His whole life He had suggested and insinuated that supernatural reality; His discourses were full of allusions to His transcendent privileges and powers, to the unique character of His quality as Son of God. Although it was not expressed in a dogmatic formula, like a definition of faith, the true divinity of His per- son was, none the less, easily perceived behind all His declarations. It followed as a certain theological con- clusion, and His disciples must have found it impos- sible, especially after His resurrection, to be mistaken about the true meaning of His manifestation. The declarations given in the Gospels, moreover, are not the utterances of the Son of God as subsisting sim- ply in the divine essence ; but as constituted in human nature. Not only did Jesus have the lips and speech of men, but also a human mind and thoughts. What He says of His person, of His dealings with His heavenly Father, of His powers, of His destiny, He says as man, united truly to the divinity, but directly and properly speaking as man, as giving human ex- 412 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL pression to His human thought. So that it was to be expected that he would refer to Himself such as He was in His humanity, and not as He existed prior to His humanity and independently thereof. The same Jesus could undoubtedly testify to His eternal pre- existence in the bosom of the Eternal Father as Son of God and God; and nevertheless, let us say it again^ His human discourse concerning Himself must have more naturally viewed Him as the Son of God In- carnate in His human nature. Was not this the motive that led Jesus to designate Himself more habitually as " the Son of Man " ? And this also explains the following propositions, at first sight so strange, wherein the Saviour seems to mark Himself as really distinct from God : " Why callest thou Me good? He says to the young ruler, " None is good but One, that is God "'. The Divine Master, no doubt appeared to the youth as simply an ordinary Jewish Rabbi. Seemingly, Jesus rejects, as belonging to God alone, a title which is given to Him only as though He were merely man. Perhaps, however, He did not absolutely re- fuse it, and prudently wished to suggest to His ques- tioner, or to the assembled disciples, that He to whom this title of " good " is applied, and who, as they well know, merits it so deservedly, is not only and solely man, but God. Indeed, there is naught to show us that the Saviour wants to formally reject this title of " good " : it would, indeed, be strange and out of keep- ing with His usual manner. Had He not said: " Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart "? His reply, then, to the young man : " Why callest thou Me good?" seems rather intended to make him reflect upon the unconscious but perfect exactness of the title. So too, at another time, the divine Mas- ter had asked the Jews : " How do the Scribes say that Christ is the Son of David?" And the Saviour's later remark may recall. His way of acting in remitting JESUS THE SON OF GOD 413 the sins of the paralytic: God alone forgives sins, as you say yourselves. As for Me, I also forgive sins and I prove my right to do so. And here He says : You call Me good? That title is deserved: thou thyself hast judged Me by way of comparison with other Masters; so that I do not decline the title; but, remember, none is good but God alone ! ^ Again, speaking of the last advent, Jesus said: " Of that day and hour no one knoweth, no, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone ". This very Son who is unaware of the time of the final advent, is the Son of God, but the Son of God as constituted in His humanity and undoubtedly he is unaware of the date of that event only and simply as man. The idea, in fact, that Jesus wants to bring out is that the hour of judgment is as such impenetrable to the human mind, and is known only to God alone : no creature, whether the most excellent and most perfect, not even the angels of heaven, not even the Son of God as regards His created human nature, can naturally know that hour: properly speaking, it is the secret of God.^ And from the Cross we hear that agonizing cry of the dying Son of God " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Surely this is the utterance of the Son of God as constituted in His human nature. As a human creature. He can appeal to God as " My God ", just as He can call Him " My Father ". As man. He can be tried and abandoned by His God, as long as God, in His wisdom, deems this good, in view of the redemptive mission confided to Him.^ As man, then, as the Man-God indeed but still as created and mortal man, Jesus maintains towards His Father the attitude of a suppHant and inferior. So 1 Mt. xix. 17; Mk. X. 18; Lk. xviii. 19; Mt. xi. 28; Mk. xii. 35-37; Mt. xxii. 41-46; Lk. XX. 41-44. 2 Mk. X. 18; Mt. xix. 17; Lk. viii. 19; cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 414; Engl. tr. p. 463. 3 Mk, XV. 34; Mt. xxvii. 46. 414 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL also, He marks the difference between a blasphemy ut- tered against Himself, the Son of Man, and one against the Holy Ghost who operates in Him; thus He de- clares He fulfills His exorcisms by the power of the Holy Spirit of God ; thus He attributes His miraculous cures to God. It is also, in a certain sense, in His humanity that He apparently enjoys more than all others the filial relations which He claims to have with His heavenly Father, and the Messianic powers which He holds as a gift of His Father's liberality.^ We may note, too, the significant turn which the Evangelists give to Jesus' words : " Go into thy house to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Deca- polis how great things Jesus had done for him "... The text of verse 39 in S. Luke even has " how great things God hath done for thee." Thus, between Jesus and God, there is established a remarkable iden- tity like that noticeable in the accounts of Our Lord's Infancy.^ If, moreover, the Saviour " could not do any miracles " at Nazareth, it was only " because of their unbelief ", inasmuch as faith from them was demanded as a condition for Him to exert His power as a won- der-worker. So too, if, in order to cure the deaf-mute of Decapolis, Jesus wanted to make use of His saliva and to touch him with His fingers; if He restored sight to the bhnd man of Bethsaida only by degrees and progressively; there is, in this circumstance, a particular design which does not at all imply that His power was defective. He who restored to life the son of the widow of Naim and the daughter of Jairus; who on two occasions so profusely multiplied the loaves of bread; who by an act of His will healed, 1 Cf. Lepin, op. cit., pp. 222, 291 ; Mt. xii. 32 ; cf. Mk. iii. 29. 2 Mk. V. 19-20; Lk. viii. 39; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 73; Engl. tr. p. 125 sq. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 415 even at a distance, the Centurion's servant, the daugh- ter of the Canaanite woman, and the ten lepers, could not feel Himself powerless when confronting a blind man or a deaf-mute.^ 2. A GUARANTEE OF SYNOPTIC HISTORICITY. As remarked in our Introduction to this book, the prominence given to the humanity of the Son of God and the veiling of His divinity throughout the Synoptic account, are not the least guaranty of the truthfulness of our Evangelists. They wrote at a time when the dogma of Christ's pre-existence as God's eternal and real Son was, as it is now, firmly held as an article of faith. If, therefore, the Synoptists refrained from attributing to their divine Master more explicit declarations in keeping with the current belief, if they did not fear to set forth the Saviour's humanity so forcefully and accredit Him with sayings apparently at variance with the dogma of His divinity, their pro- cedure is a very convincing argument in behalf of their sincerity as chroniclers. Historians who are able to abstract, to such a degree, from the prevaihng views of their time, as also from their particular beliefs, — such as S. Luke the Evangelist, who was also S. Paul's disciple and who fully understood his master's teach- ings,) — in order to write history as it actually hap- pened, are evidently men who merit the entire con- fidence of the most exacting critic. So that, if one accepts as incontestably historic their testimony to Christ's real humanity, one has no right to reject, at the same time, their testimony to His divinity.^ In observing that the Synoptic Gospels were edited some years after S. Paul's Epistles, Loisy says that 1 Mk. vi. 5-6; Mt. xiii. 58; Mk. vii. 33; Mk. viii. 23-25; cf. Mk. ix. 24-26; Jo, ix. 6; Mk. viii. 13; Lk. vii. 10; Mk. vii. 29; Mt. XV. 28; Lk. xvii. 14. 2 Cf. Lepin, op. cit., Introd., p. Ixvii ; Engl. tr. p. 52. 4i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Apostle ** affirms the eternal pre-existence of the Messiah ", that '' he comes to identify Christ, more or less, with Eternal Wisdom, attributing to Him a cosmological function " that " this double theory of Christ, in His relations to the universe and to human- ity, could not fail to enter into the evangelical tradi- tion, and did in fact enter ".^ Such, indeed, is the logical and necessary inference from Loisy's general conception of the mode in which the Gospels were compiled. And it is interesting to see to what extent this inference is verified. Loisy further adds that the cosmological theory which identi- fies Christ with Eternal Wisdom, has been actually allowed to enter into the Gospel tradition. But how far, indeed ? Loisy writes : '' The doctrine of the Re- demption appears in Mark ; that of the Eternal Christ, Wisdom of the Father, agent of all Divine Works, is hinted at by Matthew and Luke, and finds its definite statement in the Gospel of John ".^ But the critic should say just in what texts this doc- trine is hinted at ; we are referred to one text, a single text, the famous text which is common to S. Matthew and S. Luke : '' Neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him ". But as we have seen above, this very text is far from supporting Loisy's hypothesis, and, in particular, its relation to the idea of '' Wisdom of the Father, agent of all the divine works ", can be estab- lished only by means of an arbitrary and hazardous exegesis. Even in Loisy's view, this isolated and un- specific text would be also exceptional. So that he feels bound to say with some reserve : " It must be said, however, that the Messianic element, dominant in Mark, is still the element most in evidence in Matthew and in Luke ; the theory of universal salvation, ex- 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 45. 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 46. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 417 pressed in the Synoptics, influences them only to a slight degree ; and the theory of the Eternal Christ, of Divine Wisdom revealed in Jesus, appears still more discreetly ". This, v^e think, is the best con- demnation of Loisy's conclusion, and hence of the general system that led him thereto, namely, his theory of the influence exerted on the Gospel contents by a process of elaboration and of idealization of the primi- tive impressions, a process that went on in the depths of the Christian mind.^ Again, with regard to the Synoptist assertion of Jesus' divinity, we must say that modern critics who claim to be most independent in their views betray a manifest Rationalistic party spirit. Thus, Wrede thinks that Christ as portrayed in S. Mark, that is in the Gospel which is considered as reproducing the best primitive Tradition, seems to be endowed with a mysterious and supernatural quality and exerting a miraculous influence like the Christ described by S. John. Wrede, however, infers that S. Mark himself loses sight of what is real and historical. Why so? Because, forsooth, history cannot admit of super- natural facts such as Miracles and Prophecy. In reply to Wrede, we might allege the very criticism which he had himself passed upon the Rationalistic method, too often employed in Germany : " Each author preserves the traditional sayings suitable to his view of facts and to his view of historic possibility ; the rest is rejected ".^ The twofold testimony is, therefore, inseparable. What shows that Christ truly shared the divinity is in- dissolubly connected with whatever proves His real share of humanity, and affords the same guarantees of historic truth. Christ's identity, as true God and true 1 Mt. xi. 27 ; Lk. x. 22 ; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 328 ; Loisy, op. cit., p. 46. 2 Wrede, op. cit., p. 86 ; cf. Rev. Bib., 1903, pp. 300, 625 ; cf. Lepin, op. cit. Introd., p. Ixvi, n. i ; p. Ixx, n. 3 ; Engl, tr. p. 51. 27 4i8 Christ and the gospel Man, such as His portrait is sketched in the Synop- tists, appears from many scattered details, from oc- casional features, the main and sole purpose being to narrate history. A critical comparison will show that all such features are in wonderful agreement and so complete one another as to afiford a perspective that is consistent and harmonious. Such narratives as these are not due to mere invention, whether conscious or not: they can be only the authentic reproduction, the exact photograph of a sublime, but truly living reality. Besides, what confirms this inference is a comparison of the three Synoptic Gospels, at once so different and yet so closely identical, as also a comparison of these with the Fourth Gospel, which in turn is so apparently unlike these, but, as we shall see later, so fundamentally equivalent. Finally, let us not fear to repeat it, these very special details that assure the historical character of the Synoptic narratives, are at the same time one of the most persuasive proofs of the Saviour's sincerity, and of the truth of His claims to be the true Son of God. The deeper we study the Gospel, the further we study the method followed by Jesus in revealing and manifesting Himself, the more we are impressed with the wisdom of His plan, with His marvelous opportunism, with His incomparably prudent and pro- gressively suggestive manner in disclosing, under His really Hving human nature, His quality of true God and true man. There is never the slightest thing to dazzle the view, nor a declaration which, so to speak, forces faith upon one: all serves to leave the pro- found impression of sweet and charming light. To quote a remark in the Revue Biblique : *' The decisive feature in the comparison between S. Paul and Jesus Christ is that, although so great, one is never tempted to see in the author of the Epistles anything else than a man, while, in reading the Gospel, we cannot resist the mysterious charm of something higher ". The In- lESUS THE SON OF GOD 419 carnate Son of God could not have acted more hap- pily; on the one hand, veiling his divinity sufficiently, in order not to frighten his followers nor crush them, as it were, under the weight of His majesty; on the other hand, letting it be sufficiently surmised, render- ing it sufficiently perceptible, reveahng it slowly and progressively, so that the faith in the same divinity might enter the souls of His disciples, might therein become gradually grounded, and at last, confirmed, per- fected, and completed when the hour should arrive for the supreme manifestation and the great revelation wrought by the Holy Spirit.^ VI. The Perfection of Christ's Knowledge. I. general survey. Before concluding this essay, we must examine the hitherto deferred question of the progressive character of Christ's human knowledge and, in particular, of that consciousness which He had of His Messianic role and relationship with God. As we have seen, Christ is man. The entire Gospel attests the com- pleteness of His human nature. He had a body and soul like ours, a soul endowed with the same powers, — of intelligence, of sensible perception, and of will. His body was submitted to the ordinary conditions of physical growth. Thus, seemingly. His soul-forces must have been under the law of intellectual and moral development. His sensibility is aroused by contact with men and things. His will is exerted under the influence of events and circumstances. Why should not his intelligence have acted in the same active and efficacious manner? Why should not self-reflexion, and daily experience with life, have constantly in- creased His mental perceptions and imparted to His human knowledge a veritable and continuous progress ? 1 Rev. Biblique, 1899, p. 633. 420 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL The Gospel, in fact, seems to indicate that the Saviour enjoyed an intellectual and moral development parallel to His physical growth. As we read : '' Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men ". It is thus that many Fathers of the Church interpret this text; and, taking it as his basis, S. Thomas Aquinas gives the following explanation: "Acquired knowledge is due to the activity of the in- tellect, which is exercised, not all at once, but suc- cessively ; so that, with this knowledge, Christ did not know everything at first, but gradually and in due time, that is, after reaching His maturity. This is plain; for the Evangelist says that He advanced in wisdom as in age ".^ Christ, however, is not merely man like other men. His humanity is closely united to the divinity. His human nature is penetrated by God's power, endowed with an ineffable influence of the Spirit of God, nay more, uniquely united to God's very essence by a union that is substantial and personal. What is the resultant of that mysterious union? Has not this un- usual contact with the divinity imparted to the Saviour's body and soul a special reflection of the divine glory and a special share in the divine power? 2. Christ's supernatural and experimental knowledge. As the Gospel clearly shows, the Sacred body of Christ was endowed with a supernatural power. He walks serenely upon the waters. He appears re- splendently and divinely bright upon the Mount of Transfiguration ; moreover, the sick daily crowd about Him and are cured by contact with Him. His very touch heals every infirmity; His person possesses a hidden and mysterious power that makes its influence felt by all who approach Him. 1 Lk. ii. 40, 52 ; Vacant, art. : Agnuctes, V. D., val. i, col. 590 ; S. Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheoL, pt. iii, art. 2, ad. i m. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 421 His soul, also, enjoys vast powers and manifests a superhuman force. In His will there abides a superior power. By a word, by a gesture, by a wish He heals maladies; He raises the dead; He commands the ele- ments. He seems to have at His disposal the divine power itself, the faculty to employ it at will and in a sense to participate in God's omnipotence.^ The same feature is noticeable in His intelligence. Thus He knows hidden and secret things ; He reads the deepest thoughts of His followers ; He announces the various circumstances of His death and ensuing resurrection. Throughout all the incidents that led to it, He shows that He certainly knows its exact mo- ment and precise details. He tells His apostles that He will make them fishers of men ; and, by the symbol of the miraculous draught of fishes, enables them to foresee the marvelous results of their apostolate. He foretells the ruin of Capharnaum, the fall of Jeru- salem, and gives men to understand that the chastise- ment of the Holy City would occur during the present generation. He also announces the preaching of the Gospel through the whole world, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the eternal duration of the Church which He founded upon the rock of Peter. Thus Christ participates in the divine knowledge as well as the divine power : His soul is permeated and illumined by a supernal light. - We are not to imagine that the Saviour's various questions argue an ignorance of the point at issue ; they are rather a manner of speaking that conforms to His usual method of instruction and teaching. Thus, of the possessed man from Gerasa, He asked : " What is ^Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 269; Engl. tr. p. 307. 2 Mk. xiv. 13 and par.; xiv. 42; Lk. vii. 39, 47; xvii. 17; Mk. ii. 6-8 and par.; viii. 16-17; Mt. xvi. 7-8; Lk. vii. 39-40; xi. 38-39; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 194; Mk. xiii. 10; cf. Mt. xxiv. 14; Mk. xiv. 9; cf. Mt. xxvi. 13: cf. Lepin, op. cit., p= 387; Engl. tr. p. 436. 422 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL thy name ?" Of the infirm woman : '' Who hath touched me?" — "Who hath touched my garment?" Of the lunatic : " How often hath this happened to thee?" Of His disciples at the miracles of the loaves : " How many have you ?" And at Capharnaum, after asking His disciples : " What did you treat of in the way ?" as they dare not admit that they had been dis- cussing the topic of precedence in the kingdom of heaven, He replies directly to their hidden preoccu- pations by telling that whoever wishes to be first should take the lowest place and become the servant of all/ Jesus' human intelligence therefore, was apparently endowed with two kinds of knowledge: the one in- ferior and experimental, acquired by the exercise of His natural powers, conditioned by the time and place in which He happened to live, and, like that of other men, under the law of successive improvement: the other, superior and supernatural, independent of bodily organs, of environment and personal experience, and immediately derived from the divine light illuminat- ing His spirit. 3. THE PERFECTION OF JESUS' SUPERNATURAL KNOWLEDGE. To what extent, it may be asked, was this super- natural knowledge imparted to Jesus ? It could hardly have been an infinite perfection ; for the infinite is the privilege of God alone. If, in His divine nature, Christ's knowledge is divine absolutely speaking, in His human nature, it could be but finite and limited. Theologians, however, admit that in virtue of the Hypostatic Union, His supernatural knowledge was most extensive and supremely perfect in a degree knowable and perceivable by God alone, either be- 1 Mk. V. 9 ; Lk. viii. 30 ; Mk. v. 30 and par. ; Mk. ix. 20 ; Mk. vi. 38; cf. Mk. ix. 15; Lk. xxiv. 18; Mk. ix. 32-35 and par.; cf. Jo, iv. 16; vi. 5-6. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 423 cause from the moment of His Incarnation, His in- telligence enjoyed the immediate and constant in- tuition of all things in the divine essence, or because it beheld successively and at will the same objects through the medium of a specially divine light directly issuing from the divine being/ " Jesus Christ and His disciples " says Harnack, " lived in their day just as we live in ours ; that is to say, their feelings, their thoughts, their judgments and their efforts were bounded by the horizon and the surroundings in which their own nation was set and by its condition at the time. Had it been otherwise, they would not have been men of flesh and blood, but spectral beings. ... To be a man means, in the first place, to possess a certain mental and spiritual dis- position, determined in such and such a way, and thereby limited and circumscribed; and, in the second place, it means to be situated, with this disposition, in an historical environment which in its turn is also limited and circumscribed. Outside of this there are no such things as ' men '. It at once follows that a man can think, speak, and do absolutely nothing at all in which his peculiar disposition and his own age are not co-efficients." ^ Similarly, it is because he forgets what can and should produce the substantial union of Christ's hu- manity with His divinity, and because he seems to suppose as fully sustained the hypothesis that Christ's knowledge was infinite in character, that Loisy thus inveighs against theologians : " They represent the Saviour as dissimulating His infinite knowledge and leaving His followers in their ignorance. But, be- fore affirming this without proof, would it not be better to verify the soundness of the theory, and to consider whether a human brain is capable of the ^Vacant, op. cit, V. D., col. 593, 2 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 13. 424 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL knowledge ascribed to Jesus ; whether it is possible in an earthly being; whether it is compatible with the conditions of present existence, of moral life, of hu- man merit? . . . When theologians say that Christ's person, in virtue of His divine knowledge, had al- ways known what His human knowledge could pos- sibly ignore, so that, at least, in the higher part of His being, Jesus could not be ignorant of anything at all, — I fear that true philosophers realize that they are confronted by a mechanical and artificial arrange- ment, not by a rational conception of the matter, and that the sublimity of the theory does not seem to them to be free from weakness ".^ But, whatever Loisy may say, the theological teach- ing that ascribes to Christ's humanity both an acquired and a higher knowledge beyond the capabilities of human nature, is not a " mechanical and artificial " ar- rangement but rather a " rational and logical " one. Its basis lies in the data of integral and unbiased criticism which presents in the historical Christ " a quite special relation of union " with God, a " sub- stantial communication with the divine Spirit, that is, God Himself ", — such are Loisy's terms, — and on the other hand, manifold signs of a supernatural knowl- edge.^ Loisy, it is true, asserts that " all went on, during the Saviour's career, as if this extraordinary knowl- edge did not exist ". But to reach this conclusion, we must eliminate, on set purpose, the whole assem- blage of Gospel facts that prove the contrary, and, this having been done, there would still remain, in Jesus' entire Gospel personality, what Loisy calls " something divine that raises Him above common hu- manity, even the best ".^ 1 Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, pp. 139, 140. 2 Cf. Lepin, op. cit., pp. 246-247. 3 Loisy, Autour, p. 140; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 375; Loisy, Le Quat. Ev., p. 38.. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 425 4. THE END OF THE WORLD. It seems that these theological conclusions do not meet with the opposition of critics. The Gospel tes- timony, in fact, argues in the Saviour some partici- pation in God's omniscience, in this sense that human intelligence seemed susceptible of receiving indefi- nitely, as it were, the communication of divine knowl- edge; just as, in a way, divine omnipotence is at the disposal of His will. In this respect we truly find a positive basis for the current conclusions of theology; while, on the other hand, it does not seem that the critical data are formally opposed to them. Some critics, indeed, object that the Saviour did not know the time of His final advent, and also that He was really mistaken about the exact moment of its occurrence. We are told that He believed the world would end during the course of His own genera- tion; that He did not foresee the existence of that Church which, for centuries, was to be the preparation for the Kingdom of heaven. Such is the view of the extreme Rationalists like Renan, and is adopted by such Liberal Protestants as Vernes, Stapfer, Schwartz- kopf, H. J. and O. Holtzmann, as also by Loisy.^ But, a priori, nothing is more unlikely than such a hypothesis. If Jesus is truly the Messiah and Founder of the new kingdom, of the final religion, the supreme mediator between God and man, united substan- tially to God, is it probable that He should have been formally wrong on a point of such vital importance and of such influence upon His mission? Is it likely that He was mistaken about the very character of His work, that the Church which considers Him as its 1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 284, 288 ; Vernes, Hist, des Idees Mess., p. 192;, Stapfer, The Death and Res. of Jesus Christ, p. 48; Schwartzhopff, Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi, 1895 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrh. der N. T. TheoL, 1897, vol. i, p. 312; Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 358, Ger. ed., Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 2, 53, 123; Autour, p. 141. 426 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL founder and head could have been estabUshed without His intervention and foresight? This, indeed, seems impossible to grant. His very position as head of the future Kingdom can hardly be reconciled with a posi- tive error about the epoch at which He was to inau- gurate His triumphal royalty. His very position as chief of the Christian Church compels us to think that He has not altogether overlooked the future destiny of the Christian movement: a fortiori, His substan- tial and personal union with the divinity prevents us from supposing that His human soul was the vic- tim of an error of such character and importance. It is a question of fitness and dignity, but, it seems in- deed, of essential dignity and of necessary fitness. It must be said that this a priori consideration is singu- larly confirmed by the proofs which we have given, to the effect that, on a number of less important points, the Saviour possessed a superhuman knowledge which prejudice alone could refuse to recognize in Him. 5. PROPHECY OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. If we now submit to a critical examination the texts wherein, it is alleged, Christ affirms the near approach of His last advent, we can assure ourselves that they demand a quite different interpretation. What is very apparent at first sight in the sayings and discourses on the last things, is that the Saviour announces, as about to happen, a final catastrophe which would de- stroy His own nation. He frequently reproves the perverse generation, which, turning a deaf ear to His teachings, is going to put Him and His disciples to death, just as they have killed the prophets and holy ones of ancient Israel. To the guilty generation of His time He foretells a terrible chastisement, the spe- cial feature of which is the ruin of the Holy City. As Jonas had been sent to Nineveh to preach penance under threat of the destruction of the city after forty days : so Christ also is come on a mission of pardon ; JESUS THE SON OF GOD 427 but He gives the people to understand that, if Israel remains deaf to His voice, the fate with which Nine- veh was threatened shall befall its capital city. Jeru- salem shall be laid waste ; its homes desolated and de- stroyed; its children killed, because it has rejected its Saviour and unheeded the time of mercy. Yea, upon the present generation shall the scourge of God fall; it is upon that ungrateful generation which rejected Christ and persecuted His disciples that shall fall the chastisement of Israel for its bygone crimes.^ Such was Jesus' prediction. In its general tenor, its authenticity is undeniable; and to claim that it is based upon the catastrophe of 70 A. D., which is plainly its realization, is erroneous. Nor is the pro- phecy recorded in some isolated text, but in many passages that describe the Saviour's public ministry, and in a context which suggests the idea that the words were taken down just as they were uttered and noted as circumstances arose. The declarations are found notably in SS. Matthew and Luke; and a comparison of these two Synoptic accounts shows that these par- ticular narratives are independent, and both derived from the early collections of Sayings, or Logia. The three Synoptic Gospels mention in connec- tion with the principal one of these declarations, a feature so characteristic as to be beyond suspicion: Jesus leaves the Temple, where he has just com- mended the poor widow who had dropped two small coins into the box standing at the vestibule of the Temple. He goes on His way, followed by His dis- 1 The word eschatological — relating to the end, from the Greek eaxarog, last ; Mt. viii. 12 ; Mt. xii. 39, 42, 45 ; Mt. xvi. 4; Lk. xi. 29, 31, 32; Mk. viii. 28; Mk. ix. 18; Mt. xvii. 16; Lk. ix. 41; Mt. xi. 16; Lk. vii. 31; xvii. 25; Mt. xii. 39-45; Mt. xvi. 4; Lk. xi. 29-32; Mk. xiii. 2, 3; Mt. xxiv. 2, 34; Lk. xxi. 6, 32; Mt. xxiii. 33-39; Lk. xi. 50-51; Mk. xii. 9; Mt. xxi. 41; Lk. XX. 16; Mt. xxii. 7; Lk. xiii. 34-35; xix. 41-44; xxiii. 28-31. 428 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ciples and passes through the gate leading to the Mount of OUves. " Master," one of the disciples ex- claims, " behold what manner of stones, and what . buildings are here !" And He replies : " Seest thou all these great buildings? There shall not be left a stone upon a stone, that shall not be thrown down ". And whilst standing upon the Mount and facing towards the Temple, He gives them to understand that what He has just foretold shall happen before the end of that generation.^ The reality of the predictions of the Saviour is also confirmed by the unquestionable apprehensions of members of the early Church, which are so strikingly attested in S. Paul's Epistles written long before the Judaeo-Roman war. The general expectancy of an approaching catastrophe and of a great upheaval, wherein was perceived the near inauguration of the Kingdom of God, necessarily supposes that Jesus' de- clarations were analogous to those given in the Synop- tic accounts. The very charge brought against S. Stephen — a charge whose historical value is well guar- anteed, since the episode in which he figures and the terms in which it is expressed are so characteristic — certainly seems to refer to authentic statements whereby Christ had announced a real destruction of the Temple, leading to a complete revolution in re- ligious worship and traditions. Thus we read : " We have heard Him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the traditions which Moses delivered unto us." The terms of this charge would appear to suppose something besides the mere word uttered by Jesus when expelling the sellers from the Temple, and re- called by the false witnesses in presence of the San- hedrin.^' 1 Mk. xiii. I ; Mt. xxiv. i ; Lk. xxi. 5. 2 Ac. vi. 14; Jo. ii. 19; Mk. xiv. 58; Mt. xxvi. 61; Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 439, Ger. ed. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 429 Even the most independent critics, indeed, recog- nize in a general way the authenticity of the predic- tions made by Jesus concerning the Palestinian dis- aster. It is admitted not only by such scholars as B. Weiss, Wendt, O. Holtzmann, but also by Vernes, Stapfer, Wernle, Wellhausen, Schmiedel, and Renan. In his turn Loisy agrees that " the prophecies in the Synoptics concerning the ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple may have their starting-point in the teaching of the Saviour ".^ B. Weiss remark with reference to the saying *' There shall not be left a stone upon a stone " : *' All doubts about the authenticity of this prophetic utter- ance must be put aside. . . . Although S. Mark wrote after the Fall of Jerusalem, nevertheless the prophecy which he relates is in no way the mere recording of a past event ; for the Temple was really destroyed by the fire and not by the hand of man.'' ■ " Jesus was certain," says Wendt, " that His own generation would witness the great chastisement. . . . In truth He announced a divine judgment against Jerusalem." ^ O. Holtzmann also affirms the authenticity of the declarations made by Christ with reference to the punishment of His own generation, and of the text of S. Mark xiii. 2, and parallel passages.* Vernes writes: ''One of these elements (of the Discourses on the Last Things) emanates from Jesus. It contains a prediction of the ruin of Jerusalem and of the trials to which the disciples will be submitted before the advent of the Kingdom of God." ° Stapfer admits the authentic character of the pro- 1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 296. 2 Weiss, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 422, 437, 439, Ger. ed. 3 Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 594, Ger. ed. * Holtzmann. O., Life of Jesus, p. 145. 5 Vernes, op. cit., p. 237. 430 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL phecies about the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem. Referring to the discourse in ques- tion, he says : " Its authenticity, as a whole, appears to me beyond dispute. Who, indeed, could have in- vented Mark's account ? " ^ Wernle says : " It is true that the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem confirms the prophetic utter- ance of Jesus." 2 Wellhausen grants that Jesus had prophesied the ruin of the Temple and that the event itself has jus- tified his prophecy.^ Schmiedel thinks that " Jesus could have foreseen the destruction of Jerusalem." But we do not see how this critic can add " even without supernatural knowledge ".* ** One day," says Renan, " some of His disciples, who were better acquainted with Jerusalem than He, wished to draw His attention on the beauty of the Temple's buildings, the admirable choice of ma- terials, and the wealth of votive offerings that cov- ered the walls. ' You see all these buildings,' said He ; ' but I tell you there shall not be left one stone upon another ! ' . . . A profound feeling of sadness marred for Jesus the beauty of the spectacle that filled all other Israelites with joy and pride: ' O Jeru- salem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest those who are sent to thee !'...! tell you that all this blood will be required of this generation ! ' . . . The terrible dogma of the substitution of the Gentiles — the idea that the Kingdom of God was to be transferred to others, because those for whom it was 1 Stapfer, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, PP- 53-54, 6o, n. i, Fr. ed. 2 Wernle, The Beginnings of Christianity, p. 370, Ger. ed. 3 Wellhausen, Das Evang. Marci, 1903. * Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B., par. 145, col. 1888. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 431 destined would not receive it — recurs as a bloody menace against the aristocracy." ^ Naught, indeed, is more extraordinary than this prediction, naught more remarkable than its fulfilment. The humble Galilean goes about announcing a fright- ful cataclysm soon to befall His country. It is a dis- aster to which nothing can be compared in the history of mankind; it is the destruction of the theocratic capital as also the towns of the country districts along the lake of Genesereth : it is the collapse of this Temple wherein the nation's religious life is centered. The chastisement is imminent : it shall happen during the course of the present generation and apparently towards its end, when there shall still be Hving many of those who surround the Saviour. And lo, forty years later, the Roman armies sacked Palestine, put- ting everything to fire and sword, laying waste the Holy City, reducing its Temple to a heap of ruins. The national and religious life of Israel is no more. The sacrifices have ceased forever. Jerusalem no longer exists as the city of the great King. Ages shall come and go over the tomb of the ancient people of God. Is there not a marvelous agreement with the Sa- viour's prophecy in the unusual grandeur of that revo- lution and the precise epoch of its occurrence, and should we not see therein the proof of His super- human knowledge? Naught in the nation's poUtical and social situation could enable Him to foresee that approaching catastrophe ; naught, especially, could give to Him, concerning the exact moment when it would come, the astounding certainty of which He gave proof. The alleged familiarity which He enjoyed with the ancient apocalyptic writings does not at all explain the precise and assured character of His af- firmation concerning the epoch and the importance of 1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 330, 333, 341 ; Antichrist, pp. 259, 292. 432 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the revolution. Still less can we ascribe it to a happy coincidence that the event foretold should occur at the very moment announced ; that, in accordance with the Saviour's words, it should plainly bear the character of a chastisement meted out by a God who rejected His people; and that, in harmony with the ensemble of His declarations, it should mark the beginning of a new religious era in human history. Nineteen cen- turies have only served to prove, in an exceptional manner, the unusual import and superhuman char- acter of this prophecy of Jesus. Now, if the Saviour could so clearly foresee and fore- tell with so great an assurance an event so unique, so far beyond human foresight, is it not very unlikely that He was formally mistaken, as some claim, con- cerning the final epoch of the world? The reality of Christ's supernatural knowledge on the subject of the fall of Jerusalem is, to all appearances, logically ir- reconcilable with the theory of positive error concern- ing the nearness of the last advent. The supposition that Jesus was positively mistaken on this matter is expressly rejected, not only by all Cathohc authors, but also by Protestant critics such as Godet, Bovon, and Briggs, as also by the eminent An- glicans Swete, Plummer, Stevens, Salmond, Brown, and Sanday. It is also noteworthy that various Pro- testant authors, while fully admitting that the Saviour may hqve believed that He would return during the course of His own generation, nevertheless decline to charge Him with an error properly speaking, and sup- pose only a kind of conditional belief on His part. Among such writers are B. Weiss, Wendt, and Charles.^ 1 Mangenot, art. : Fin du Monde, V. D., col. 2272 ; Godet, Com. sur L'Ev. de S. Luc, 3rd ed., vol. ii, p. 430; Bovon, Theol. du N. T., 2d ed., vol. i, p. 483; Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, p. 157; Swete, The Gospel According to S. Mark, p. 310; Plummer, Com. on the Gospel According to JESUS THE SON OF GOD 433 6. THE EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY. Another fact that tends to confirm the correctness of the foregoing conclusion is that Jesus really an- nounced, as especially inevitable before His final ad- vent, a number of events which would require consid- erable time for their fulfilment, and which are unintel- ligible if the Saviour thought the world was to end after a single generation. From all the teachings of Christ, in fact, it follows that, in His view, the advent of the final Kingdom would be preceded by a time of preparation wherein the Gospel, which is not only the announcement of the future Kingdom, but a full and practical code of moral and religious life, completing and perfecting the Old Law, was to penetrate the souls of men, to Tegenerate and transform them in view of the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, the assembly of souls thus permeated with the new life, was to form a true society, preluding to the company of the elect who shall reign in heaven ; it was to be an anticipation of the Kingdom of God, or, rather, it is already that very Kingdom', realized in an initial and preparatory phase and awaiting that final and perfect stage which shall mark its consummation at the end of time. Loisy thinks that the Gospel presents the Kingdom of God only as destined to be inaugurated at the last advent. Even in that supposition, the coming of the real Kingdom would be preceded by a period of preparation, namely, the period of the Gospel preach- ing. He says himself, when speaking of the Kingdom, " its root is within ; it lies like a precious seed in the soul of each believer ". And referring to the Parable S. Luke, 3rd ed., p. 485 ; Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 169; Salmond, art.: Eschatology, H. D., p. 750; Brown, art: Parousia, H. D., p. 677; Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 620; Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, p. 446, Ger. ed. ; Biblical Theol. N. T., vol. i, p. 149; Wendt, op. cif., p. 581, Ger. ed. ; Charles, art. : Eschatology, E. B., par. 84, col. 1373. 28 434 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL of the Seed which grows without the farmer's heeding, he says that " in reahty, the comparison bears on the Kingdom as being preached to m_en and the Kingdom made manifest, the first corresponding to the sowing- time, the second to the harvest; between the two Hes the time when the seed germinates and the Gospel spreads. The parables of the mustard seed and of the leaven, which emphasizes the contrast between a small beginning and a great final result, refer also to the antithesis between the Kingdom started by the evan- gelical teaching and the Kingdom developed in its de- finitive manifestation." ^ It also appears to follow from numerous Gospel texts that the Saviour really described the Kingdom as being anticipated in an initial phase that was but pre- paratory to its completion. Whatever Loisy may think, the parables of the seed, of the mustard seed, and of the leaven do not simply refer to the Kingdom in its preparatory stage : they show it as an already existing and concrete reality, in process of formation, of improvement, and of extension. With relation to the future, it is a preparation ; but, in itself and under a particular form, it is already realized. The Saviour's parables are fully intelligible only if we suppose that He wished to announce the Kingdom as a present real- ity, established slowly and gradually, alike in the souls of individuals as in the world at large, and which, at the end of time shall expand into a glorious revelation and a shining transformation. Again, it is impossible to give any other satisfactory interpretation than this in the case of the following texts : " The Kingdom of God is within you " ; " if I, by the spirit of God, cast out devils, then is the King- dom of God come upon you " ; " Woe to you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ; because you shut the King- 1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 57, ^2, 67 ; Vernes, op. cit., p. 198. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 435 dom of heaven against men : for you yourselves do not enter in; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter " ; " And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away ".^ The same opinion is held by numerous critics, such as Sanday, Stevens, Bovon, B. Weiss, Wendt, O. Holtzmann, and Harnack. Wernle, also, while claim- ing that Jesus' view-point was strictly eschatological, recognizes that this view-point, both in S. Mark and in S. Matthew, is not exclusive of the presence of the Kingdom in an initial stage, and that we must trace to the Saviour the germ of the idea, found in S. Paul and in the Apocalypse, of the Kingdom of God as real- ized in the Church.^ Remarkable, indeed, it is that the Saviour should emphasize the idea that the Christian life would grow slowly in the hearts of the faithful, that the Gospel preaching would spread gradually in the world, like the grain of wheat which, after being put into the ground, takes root invisibly and grows silently. So, too, the mustard-seed becomes a large tree where the birds of the air gather together; and the lump of leaven transforms the whole mass ; and the field sown by the sower is at length covered with wheat, which, along with the tares, keeps growing until the harvest : thus the Church of the Gospel, or the Kingdom of God in its primal phase, was to grow slowly and gradually expand until its supreme completion should come.^ 1 Lk. xvii. 21; Mt. xii. 28; Mt. xxiii. 13; Mt. xi. 12. 2 Sanday, op. cit., p. 620; Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 165 ; Bovon, op. cit., 2d ed., p. 400 ; Weiss, B., Bibl. TheoL N. T., vol. i, par. 14, p. 68; Wendt, op. cit., p. 249, Ger. ed., Holtzmann, O., op. cit., pp. 196, 199, 334, Ger. ed. ; Harnack, What is Christianity F p. 42; Wernle, Die Reichgoitteshoffnung, 1903 ; Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 132, 165 ; Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 106 ; Lagrange, art. : Rcz. Bibl.. 1903, p. 307 ; Bat'ifol. art.: Bullet, de Litt. EccL, 1904, p. 38. 3 Mk. iv. 3, 20; Mt. xiii. 3; Lk. viii. 5; Mk. iv. 30; Mt. xiii. 31; Lk. xiii. 18; Mt. xiii. 24, 27. 436 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Bruce alludes to " the parables which represent the Kingdom as under the law of growth " and '' seem to imply a Christian era indefinitely prolonged " and he adds : " although some of these Logia pertain to a later period and one less guaranteed by tradition, there is no reason to doubt about their authenticity ",^ The work of preaching the Gospel, moreover, ac- cording to Jesus' intention, was to be carried beyond the frontiers of Palestine, the Christian life commu- nicated to the Gentiles, and the New Society extended throughout the whole world. After His resurrection He said to His apostles : *' Go . . . preach the Gospel to every creature ". This declaration is found in the three Synoptic accounts which, when compared, prove to be mutually independent and confirmatory. Nor, again, is the triple passage isolated; for, in two in- stances, SS. Matthew and Mark attribute this an- nouncement to Jesus, namely, on the occasion of the great discourse concerning the ruin of the Temple, and of the repast at Bethany. The meaning of the Saviour's saying is also found in His own interpreta- tion of the Parable of the Seed : " The field " sown by the Son of Man " is the world ". Many critics consider that S. Mark xvi. 9-20 is an addition to the primitive work, and written very early, if not imme- diately, after the main portion. Such is the view of Salmond and Swete. But we think that even in that case, the text mentioned may still reproduce an au- thentic primitive tradition. ^ Similarly, the various texts wherein Christ an- nounces the repudiation of the Jewish people and the call of the Gentiles serve to confirm the Gospel testi- 1 Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., par. 2,2, col. 2454. 2 Mk. xvi. 5 ; Mt. xxviii, 19 ; Lk. xxiv. 47 ; cf. Ac. i. 8 ; Salmond, art.: Mark, Gospel of, H. D., p. 252; Swete, Gospel ace. to St. Mark, p. cxiii; cf. Mt. xvi. 15 and Col. i. 6, 23; Mk. xiv. 19; Mt. xxvi. 13; Mk. xiii. 10; Mt. xxiv. 14; cf. Lk. xxi. 24; Mk. xiii. 38; cf. Mt. v. 13 and 14. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 437 mony. Thus, there is the Parable of the Wicked Hus- bandmen as recorded by the three Synoptists; the Parable of the Feast in SS. Matthew and Luke; the text given by S. Matthew, as a saying of Jesus, in recognition of the Centurion's faith and also presented by S. Luke in another context : " I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven ; But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness ".^ Even Jesus' declaration : " I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel ", and His command to the twelve : " Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ", are fully understood only if we perceive in them a secret allusion to a less restricted mission which the Master reserves it as His right to confide later to His apostles, and which He will manifest to them, at the destined time, by new and final directions.^ How, in presence of all these testimonies, is it pos- sible to maintain, as it has been by Harnack and Holtz- mann, that Christ never thought of attempting the re- ligious conquest of the world, and that we must at- tribute to the initiative of the disciples, impelled by circumstances, the fact that they ceased preaching to the Jews and began evangelizing the Gentiles? The mind of Jesus contemplates a universal expansion, and this very feature pervades the entire synoptic docu- ments, and its impress is therein so deep that it is im- possible for a wise and reasonable critic to efface it.^ 1 Mk. xii. 9; Mt. xxi. 42; Lk. xx. 16; Mt. xxii. i et seq.; Lk. xiv. 16 et seq.; Mt. viii. 11; Lk. xiii. 29. 2 Mt. XV. 24; Mk. vii. 27; Mt. x. 5; Wendt, op. cif., p. 584, Ger. ed. ^Harnack, Die Miss, and Ausbreit. des Christutum, p. 25; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 159; Wendt, op. cit., p. 583; Stevens. Theol, N. T., p. 147; Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 117; 438 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Nor, indeed, in the history of the early Church is there any ground for asserting that the universal ex- pansion of the new religion was wholly independent of its Founder's wish. Although the Apostles may have been slow to carry out their Master's desire, although they preached first to the Jews, and went to the Gentiles only after their relative failure with their own countrymen, compelled, as it were, by the events narrated in the Book of Acts, such as S. Peter's vision at Joppa and the unusual manifestation made by the Holy Ghost in behalf of the pagans — nevertheless, in all this there is naught against the authenticity of the Gospel testimony.^ The Saviour's utterance about the evangelization of the Gentiles was rather a prediction and a direction bearing upon the future activity of the Apostles than a really urgent and immediate command. Notice that the account in S. Luke and in the Acts conveys the idea of a merely prophetic future ; whilst the impera- tive mood is found only in S. Matthew and S. Mark, and thus likely denotes an exhortatory and directive future, as would be in accordance with the very genius of the Semitic languages.^ Christ, in fact, had told His disciples to begin their preaching in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. From this field they were to go forth unto the ends of the world when favorable circumstances and providential indications would enable them to realize their Master's commission, and to overcome forever their hesitancy about imparting the new faith to the Gentiles. Such were the Apostles' native prejudices, such were their natural tendencies to national exclusiveness, that they would have never thought of a universal preaching Grandmaison, art. : L'Expan. du Christianisme, Etudes, 1903, vol. xcvi, pp. 300, 459 et seq.; Battifol, art.: Bullet, de Lift. EccL, 1904, p. 54. 1 Ac. X. 9 et seq., 44 et seq. 2Lk. xxiv. 47; Ac. i. 8; cf. Mt. xxviii. 19; Mk. xvi. 15. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 439 of the Gospel if they had not been somewhat con- strained by the Saviour's will. One entering the vine- yard at the " eleventh hour ", like S. Paul, could never have compelled Christ's immediate apostles to adopt on this matter a program that was not conformable to the authentic ideas of the Master. The mere fact, then, that Jesus had planned a slow and progressive development of Christian life in the hearts of men and in the world at large seems hardly in agreement with the idea that the period assigned to such diffusion was to end after one generation. Such agreement is manifestly impossible if it be cer- tain that Christ intended a true religious conquest that would extend to all the nations of the world. True it is, as known to the ancients, the world was far from being as extensive as we know it to be. But leaving aside the fact that Christ speaks, in an abso- lute sense, of all peoples and all creatures, was not this ancient world still too vast to be, in His estimation, evangehzed within the space of one generation? In fact, to the north and west of Palestine, there extended all that vast Empire which encircled the Mediterra- nean: Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Gaul, Spain, Egypt. There extended toward the south and the east the great territories of Arabia, Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and Babylon. If less than thirty years were going to suf- fice for the spread of the Gospel over the principal parts of these countries, what else was this but the first and partial growth of the divine seed, the primal working of the mysterious leaven amidst the mass of human nature? How much more time would it not take, before the world could witness the advent, from the four parts of the earth, of that multitude of souls who, as the Master had said, were to sit at table in the Kingdom; or, again, as the Apostle expressed it, before " the fulness of the nations could be seen en- tering into the Church " ? Had not Christ foretold that the Gospel would be widely spread oyer the earth, 440 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL as also fully operative within the souls of men ? And were not these prophetic ideals a long way off — the world-spreading harvest, the mighty tree wherein the birds of the air would find shelter, and the measures of meal fully fermented by the leaven ? ^ S. Paul, it is true, applies to the preachers of the Gospel the text of Psalm xviii. 5, as we see from his Epistle to the Romans. Again, in Colossians, he men- tions the Gospel as being " announced in the whole world . . . preached to every creature under heaven." But it is visible that the Apostle wants chiefly to em- phasize the fact that the Gospel was, in principle, in- tended for all men, and that it had already begun to make its way into every land. His words were an echo of the Gospel, an allusion to Christ's teaching, and an early evidence of its accomplishment.^ Let us, therefore, accept the expansion of Chris- tianity as an historical fact. In the conquering march of the Gospel throughout the world, is there not, from first to last, a striking correspondence with Christ's predictions viewed in their full bearing and in their proper and natural sense? Must we not see, in the astonishing agreement between Christ's declarations and the actually accomplished fact, a proof of His having really intended a diffusion of the Gospel, more complete, more general, than could be actually wrought during one generation ? It would be useless to ascribe to a later tradition those Gospel features which are the more significant from the view-point of universal expansion ; for, at the very period of the formation of the Gosp.els, people could hardly foresee the marvelous fact which would be fulfilled ages afterwards. There can be no warrant for rejecting Christ's declarations. It follows, too, that His idea has its true interpretation in history, and that, therefore, He could not assign to 1 Rom. xi. 25. 2 Rom. X. 18; Col. i. 6, 23. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 441 the end of His own generation the completion of the preparatory stage of the Kingdom. R. H. Charles finds in the Gospel facts a proof that '' the Kingdom developed outwardly and also from within ; outwardly, until its final expansion was to be out of all proportion with its slight beginning; in- wardly, until it would transform and regenerate the national life, nay, the world itself. . . . The Gospel was to be preached even to the non-Israelites. Years hence, the Kingdom shall be taken from the Jews and given over to others who shall make it prosper. . . . The thought of the future plainly implies a prolonged period of time. Like the approaching Advent, it is traced back to Jesus ".^ 7. DELAY OF THE FINAL ADVENT. From the texts wherein Jesus gives prominence to the slow, progressive character of the Gospel's dif- fusion, we may direct our attention to those in which He insists upon the prolonged delay of the last advent. To the multitudes who looked for an immediate mani- festation of the Kingdom. He addresses the Parable of the Prince who returned with the royal investiture only after having sought it in a distant land. The Master mentioned in the Parable of the Talents leaves His servants and undertakes a long voyage and will not return for the reckoning until after a long period. In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, also, the Spouse is late in coming, and arrives only at midnight when the virgins, weary of watching, have fallen asleep. Thus, too, the Master who entrusts the care of His house to his overseer, prolongs his absence and returns only when he is not expected any more.^ " The two points continually emphasized," says 1 Charles, Eschatology, E. B., par. 84, col. 1374. 2Lk. xix. 12; Mt. xxiv. 14, 19; Mt. xxv. 5, 6; Mt. xxiv. 48, 50; Lk, xii. 36-40, 45; xviii. 8, 442 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Brown, " are the necessity of watchfulness, since the hour of the Parousia is uncertain, and the necessity of faithfulness, since, though the Lord seems to de- lay, He will surely come and reward His servants ac- cording to their works. It thus appears that the Syn- optics represent Jesus as predicting His own return now within His own generation, now after an indefi- nite future." ^ To attribute all the above characteristics to tradition would be too arbitrary : they are presented in such wise that an impartial critic cannot think of thus acting. If, then, the length of time is not specified which should precede the advent of the Kingdom ; if there is no positive indication that Christ's advent was to be delayed beyond one generation. His insistance in speaking of unforeseen lateness, of prolonged delay, fits in well with the reality of history and warrants us in believing that He had foreseen what actually hap- pened. It seems that the Gospel expressions quite naturally call for the comment found in S. Peter's Second Epistle : " One day, with the Lord, is as a thou- sand years, and a thousand years as one day ".^ In two other Parables, also, Christ suggests that it is after the complete rejection and final chastise- ment of the Jewish people that there shall be truly realized the accession of the Gentiles to the Gospel and to the Kingdom announced during His ministry. In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, those who were the first to be invited and refused to come, behold their city burned by the armies of the King, and are themselves exterminated. The allusion is plainly to the ruin of Jerusalem — a fate which was to be the Jews' punishment because of their hardness of heart. Now, the invitation extended to the chance guests seems to follow upon the chastisement of those who ^ Brown, art. : Parousia, H. D., p. 6yy, 2 2 Pet. iii. a JESUS THE SON OF GOD 443 were first invited. Is this not an indication that the general accession of the Gentiles would happen after the great catastrophe that was to signalize the final repudiation of the ancient people of God/ The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen as given in the Synoptists is in a like strain. The vine repre- sents the condition of the Kingdom in its preparatory period — the Old Law and the Gospel — of which the Husbandmen would have to give the fruit in due time. Because the Jews had killed the Prophets and rejected the Son of God, they were to be chastized: the vine shall be taken away and given to another and more faithful people. It seems also to be insinuated here that between the chastisement of the Jews by the great Palestinian disaster and the reckoning which shall be made at the final advent of the Kingdom, there shall be a long interval during which many Gentiles shall come from the four parts of the earth in order to replace the Jews in the bosom of the Chris- tian Church and to make the Gospel of Christ flourish throughout the world.- All these features, when compared, specify, explain, and complete one another. Taken in their entirety, they cannot be done away wnth. The most character- istic indications are presented in a manner so natural and so accordant with the rest that they are quite in- separable therefrom. It would indeed be a strange proceeding to remove from documents whatever sig- nificant data they contain, and then, after such an a priori curtailment to solemnly declare that one can- not find in them what has been carefully eliminated. 8. TEXTS IXDICATIXG THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND ADVENT. It is in the light of these preliminary remarks, there- ^ Mt. xxii. 7, 8 et seq. 2 Mk. xii. 9 ; Mt. xxi. 43 ; Lk. xx. 16. 444 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL fore, that we have the right and the duty to examine the texts wherein Jesus apparently indicates the epoch of His second advent. In His famous discourse on the last things, He declares the signs that will herald the Palestinian catastrophe and the coming of the Son of Man, and then adds : '*' This generation shall not pass till all these things be done ". What is the exact meaning of this declaration ? ^ As the context seems to show, " all these things '* that are to be realized during the present generation, are the very warning signs mentioned by Jesus. For, He has just said: " When you shall see all these things happening, know ye that the kingdom is near ". And it is plain that what marks simply the nearness of the Kingdom is not the advent of the Kingdom itself.^ Some critics think that the term " all things " refers to all that the Saviour has just described, including the final advent of the Son of Man. This interpreta- tion, however, can hardly agree with the context ; for, in the verses in question, we read : " When you shall see these things come to pass, know ye that it is very nigh, even at the doors " ; and then immediately after " Amen, I say to you, that this generation shall not pass, until all these things be done ". Nevertheless, we shall take this interpretation into account later. But what signs did Jesus make known to his disciples ? In order to ascertain this, we should bear in mind the oc- casion and purpose of the discourse. Remarkably enough, it is linked with a little episode which views directly the destruction of the Temple. The disciples admire the sacred edifice, and try to provoke the ad- miration of their Master. Jesus, in reply, declares that of this Temple there shall not remam a stone upon a stone. The impression made upon the disciples is that they are facing an extraordinary and unique event 1 Mk. xiii. 30; Mt. xxiv. 34; Lk. xxi. 32 2 Mk. xiii. 29; Mt. xxiv. 33; Lk. xxi. 31; Briggs, op. cit., p. 159. jBsvs thu son of god 445 which they think is closely allied with the striking coming of the Kingdom. It is in this sense that they question Jesus ; but naught indicates at first that this connection between the ruin of the Temple and the end of the world was also in the mind of Christ. Nay more, the fact that He had first predicted the ruin of the Temple so greatly admired by the Apostles, and the fact that SS. Mark and Luke state that the Apostles simply asked when such a great event would occur, and what would be the visible marks of its ap- proach, warrant us in believing that Christ's imme- diate purpose was to point out to His disciples the warning signs of that catastrophe which He had just foretold.^ What further strengthens this interpretation is a comparison made of this passage with the former ones wherein Christ uses the same kind of language with regard to the Fall of Jerusalem. After declaring that the Pharisees have exceeded the crimes of their Fathers, He says that the final chastisement shall be- fall them : " Amen, I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation ". The words *' all these things " which refer to this generation expressly mark the scourge that shall punish Christ's contem- poraries. We have good reason to believe that in again using the same expression in His discourse suc- ceeding the one delivered on the destruction of the Temple, Christ also directly and immediately referred to the ruin of Jerusalem itself. Hence the advent of the Son of Man would be above all presented as es- pecially to come after the signs mentioned, and, as it were, in the wake of that catastrophe which, it is stated, will surely arrive before the end of the present generation.^ 1 Mk. xiii. 1-4; Mt. xxiv. 1-3; Lk. xxi. 5-7. 2 Mt. xxiii. 36; cf. Lk, xi. 51; Beyschlag, op. cit., vol. i. p. 197; Godet, Com. sur L'Ev. de S. Luc, vol. ii, p. 427; Swete, Gospel ace. to S. Mark, p. 315; Plummer, op. cit., p. 485; Rose, 446 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Swete observes that ** the passage is similar to that of Matthew xxiii. 36, the meaning of which is not doubtful. The people actually living at that time shall see the fulfilment of the sentence pronounced against Jerusalem." ^ Plummer says : " The saying refers to the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, viewed as the type of the end of the world ". Such was also the opinion of Calmet.^ It is, to tell the truth, immediately after the catas- trophe that the last advent seems to be placed. After describing the trials of the period preceding the ruin of Jerusalem, its capture, and the flight of the Christians, the Evangelists at once present the picture of the last judgment. S. Luke, indeed, seems to imply an in- definite interval of time; while S. Mark suggests a mere transition, and S. Matthew employs the phrase: " immediately after the tribulation of those days." Thus, in S. Luke we read : " And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captives into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations he ful- filled." In S. Mark : '' But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light ". In S. Matthew : " And im- mediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light ".^ Swete says that " the Lord simply predicts that His personal advent shall follow the taking of Jerusalem, instead of preceding and preluding it, as certain per- sons may have been tempted to hope." * Evang. selon S. Marc, p. 135; selon S. Matth., p. 186; selon S. Luc, p. 201; Calmet, Com. Litteral, vol. xix; LEv. de S. Math., p. 532. 1 Swete, loc. cit. 2 Plummer, loc. cit. ^ Lk. xxi. 24. * Mk. xiii. 24; Swete, op. cit., p. 311; Mt. xxiv. 29. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 447 On the other hand, the Parable of the Fig-Tree ap- pears really to present the events described by the Saviour, the accomplishment of " all these things '' which the present generation shall surely see, as the sign of the proximity of the Son of Man and of the Kingdom, so that the naming of the time by Jesus, although referring directly to the warning signs of the fall of Jerusalem, also refers indirectly to that glorious advent of the Son of Man to which it is closely allied. This may be all true; but it is worth while to look at the matter more closely. If, from the view-point of composition, considering the literary features of Prophecies, we take into account the particular condi- tions of our Synoptic writings, it does not seem that we can derive a very positive conclusion from the fact that the description of the last advent is closely related to the Palestinian disaster, even admitting the particle evdeuc added by S. Matthew. Possibly, here as elsewhere, notably in the Sermon on the Mount, we are dealing with collected fragments of the Savior's discourses rather than with a single, entire discourse, presenting a really homogeneous char- acter. Thus certain portions of this discourse as given in S. Matthew are related by S. Luke in con- nection with different circumstances ; others, again, which SS. Mark and Luke insert in this place, are placed elsewhere by the first Evangelist.^ There is, then, some critical basis for supposing that certain sentences, pronounced on different occasions, were used to enlarge the great discourse on the last things ; that sentences are separated which should be connected; that others, originally united by inter- mediary remarks or joined to some incident which 1 Mt. v-vii; Lk. vi. 20-49; xi. 1-13, xii. 22-24; xiii. 24-27; cf. Mt. xxiv. 23, 27, 28; Mk. xiii. 21 and Lk. xvii. 23, 24, 27; cf. Mt. xxiv. 17-18, 37-41 ; Mk. xiii. 15-16 and Lk. xvii. 21-26, 35; cf. Mk. xiii. 9, 11-13; Lk. xxi. 12-17 and Mt. x. 17-22; Lk. xii. 1 1- 12. 448 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL specified their sense, have been grouped together with- out any transition or with artificial transitions that may be somewhat misleading as to the real and primitive view-point. Perhaps this holds good for the particle, " immediately " in the above text of S. Matthew ; and, if so, it should be considered rather as a logical transi- tion than as a strictly chronological connection. At all events, it may be that, in the original discourse de- Hvered by the Saviour, the diversity of view-points and of perspectives was more clearly defined than in our extant documents.^ That the different parts of the discourse on the last things, viz: Matt. xxiv. 4-14, 15-22, 23-28, 29-31, do not really follow each other in the order of time, but are rather a series of more or less parallel tableaux, is evident from the fact that, in the closing verse of the first section, v. 14, the author refers to the final " con- summation ". Before this consummation occurs, how- ever, it is expressly stated that there will be a period of universal evangelization. Possibly this verse 14 corresponds to the expression " times of the Gentiles " mentioned by S. Luke who, in stating that the times of the Gentiles were to intervene between the Fall of Jerusalem and the final consummation, merely gave prominence to a feature already contained in the Synoptic documents and made its true and authentic signification evident.^ All that we say is : possibly the Synoptic accounts, particularly that of S. Matthew, do not reproduce this discourse of Jesus with all the transitions or distinc- tions whereby the Saviour may have suggested the different perspectives. Some critics, indeed, go farther, which we believe we cannot do, and claim that the 1 Mt. xxiv. 28, 41 ; Lk. xvii. 35-37 ; Schmiedel, art. : Gospel, E. B. par. 145, col. 1885 ; Godet, Com. sur. I'Evang de S. Luc, vol. ii, p. 427, 436; Battifol, art: In Bullet, de Litt. EccL, 1904, p. 59. 2C/. Rom. xi. 25. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 449 Evangelists misrepresented the Master's thought and transmitted their own ideas, in thus immediately con- necting the coming of the Son of Man with the fall of Jerusalem. Others have even held that the Evan- gelists merged with the discourse originally pro- nounced by Jesus an Apocalypse written by a Judaiz- ing Christian ; the assertion, then, that the Son of Man was to come again during the course of the present generation would belong to this Apocalypse; the Savior Himself having simply announced that the ruin of Jerusalem was near, and that His own return would occur at an unknown moment.^ Still others maintain that Jesus never spoke of His second advent in the sense of a personal return upon the clouds of heaven in order to judge the world and to finally establish the Kingdom ; and that He meant a spiritual and ideal advent which His disciples had mis- understood, materialized, and distorted, owing to their false Jewish views. ^ These several theories are, however, irreconcilable with the Synoptic tradition, so full and firm, as also with the dependence of the beliefs of the primitive Church upon the Saviour's teachings. The tenor of the discourse harmonizes with many details scattered through the first three Gospels, as we shall see later. Naught of the Synoptic records; naught of the beginnings of Christianity is intelligible if we do not admit that Jesus spoke as the Evangelists make Him speak, and that, in particular, He predicted His final advent in the form given substantially in our docu- 1 Haupt, Die Eschat. Aussagen Jesu, 1895; Stevens, The Teachings of Jesus, p. 166; Theol N. T., p. 160; Bovon, Theol. N. T., 2 ed., vol. i, p. 483; Wendt, op. cit., p. 17; Charles, art.: Eschatology, E. B. par. 84, col. 1373; Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B. par. 124, col. 1857 ; Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 327. 2Renss, JJist. of Christ. Theol, vol. i, p. 249; Colani, op. cit., p. 145; Bruston, Les Predictions de Jesus, 1899. 2Q 450 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ments, and placed it in special connection with the ruin of Jerusalem. Lagrange proposes the following hypothesis: '* May we not admit that the Evangehsts, while faithfully re- producing Jesus' words, had expressed some of their personal apprehensions concerning the end of the world? . . . The discourses on the last things reveal a two-fold thought: that of Jesus, and that of the Apostles, who were led to beUeve in a near and bril- liant parousia ; that of Jesus is alone taught explicitly ; while that of the Apostles is only suspected through their expressions and their arrangement of the Mas- ter's words." ^ Battifol also remarks : " That Jesus' hearers had materialized His advent as they had also the Kingdom ; that they had applied to the circumstances of that ad- vent certain features borrowed from Jesus' predictions concerning the chastisement of Jerusalem; that they had overcrowded the panorama with terrifying signs suggested by the Jewish apocalypses ; that they had represented that end as imminent ; and that this dis- turbing conception of coming events had disturbed the written tradition of Jesus' ' sayings ' concerning His advent, had confused the perspectives and exaggerated their features — all this is undeniable by anyone that examines these Logia concerning the last things." ^ We ourselves merely say that the difference of per- spectives, which is only insinuated, in Jesus' discourses — we shall see the reason very soon — was not, perhaps, understood and remembered by - the disciples in its original reality, precisely because the Divine Master had only suggested it and had desired to give the gen- eral impression that His advent was nigh. The lack of perspective, indeed, is a feature of that 1 Lagrange, Rev. BibL, 1896, p. 475 ; 1903, p. 309 ; Godet, Com. Sur. L'Ev. de S. Luc, vol. ii, p. 427, 436, 439. 2 Battifol, Bullet, de Lift. EccL, 1904, p. 47. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 451 class of literature of which the above selection is a sample; so that this fact must be considered even if we admit that the discourse mentioned is an integral and homogeneous utterance of Jesus. Sacred pro- phecy usually resorts to descriptive tableaux of the future, each following the other without transitions, despite the divergence of the periods of time re- corded, and especially when the events are related one to the other as cause to effect, or as symbol to the thing prefigured. Hence, we may rightly think that the Saviour's discourse on the last things is a series of prophetic portrayals that refer either to the fall of Jerusalem or to the end of the world with a certain confusion of perspectives : a picture of the final com- ing might follow a description of the destruction of Palestine without it being stated that a considerable space of time should elapse between the two events, and without one being able to infer from mere literary juxtaposition, that there was an immediate chronolog- ical succession.^ But there is, no doubt, more than a juxtaposition of prophetic views of unequal extent. We may say, in- deed, that, generally speaking, the traits belonging to the different perspectives are intimately merged, or rather that the double perspective is sketched through- out the prophecy in such a manner that the descrip- tions given by the Saviour appear to refer at once to the Palestinian occurrence and to the end of the world. Nor is this surprising, if we but view the former event as a symbol and a figurative anticipation of the latter. Christ's final advent is to be above all else a judgment, the judgmen*t against the guilty world which shall be condemned and destroyed. But, before the end of the present generation, this final judgment shall 1 Salmond, art. : Eschatology, H. D., p. 750 ; Briggs, Mes- sianic Prophecy, p. 52; Messiah of the Gospels, p. 156; Davidson, art. : Prophecy and Prophets, H. D., p. 121, 452 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL be anticipated and its first act, as it were, performed: The unfaithful nation shall receive the chastisement for its crimes; the Son of Man shall come to begin the exercise of His authority as great Judge; while, on the other hand, the judgment which is to occur at the end of time shall prepare the way for the King- dom of God iri glory. Is it not indeed, this establishment of the Kingdom that we must see figured and anticipated in the Pales- tinian catastrophe? The destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple, in forever putting an end to the ancient order of things, actually marks the final repu- diation of the Synagogue, and in a way the real be- ginning of the Church, as visibly constituted Mistress of the world and conqueror of the universe. It is the " new nation " which takes the place of the ancient people of God; it is Rome that becomes officially the new Jerusalem : It is truly the inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth in the form of a universal society, publicly and definitely organized. Is it not, then, the symbol and the prelude of that glorious in- auguration of the Kingdom which shall follow the last advent ? ^ In this hypothesis, it is quite clear that the warning signs described by Jesus may, taken altogether and from a two-fold prophetic viewpoint, refer both to the Palestinian upheaval and to the end of the world. The same phenomena which were to precede the ruin of Jerusalem may have been adapted, transposed, and enlarged in order to represent the approach of the final cataclysm. Thus, that feature, " the Gospel preached to all nations ", first realized before the de- struction of Jerusalem inasmuch as the Gospel was 1 Mt. xxi. 43 ; Maldonat, Com. In Quat. Evang., in Mt. xxiv. 5; Calmet, op. cit., vol. xix : VEv. de S. Mt., p. 510; Fillion, Ev. de S. Mt., p. 469; Plummer, Com. Gosp. of S. Luke, p. 477; Rose, Ev. selon S. Marc, p. 125; Lagrange, Rev. Bib., 1896, p. 475. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 453 first carried to all parts of the ancient world previous to that event shall be finally accomplished by the really universal evangelization which is to take place before the end of time. Perhaps, when the Saviour prefaced His description of the final advent by the words, '' im- mediately after the tribulation ", He referred chiefly to His former descriptions, in so far as they repre- sented, under the figurative form of warning-signs of the Jewish catastrophe, the signs of the end of the world itself. It is also easy to understand that, viewing the Pal- estinian disaster as a first act of judgment and a de- cisive moment for establishing the Kingdom of God as a society, Jesus may have had more or less directly in mind this particular calamity although apparently describing only the world's final drama, and may have in some way represented the approaching ruin of Jeru- salem under the symbolic coloring of the great event that it prefigured. " When you shall see all these things come to pass," said the Saviour, " know ye that the Son of Man is at the doors, and that the King- dom of God is nigh." This imminent arrival of the Son of Man, this approaching establishment of the Kingdom is undoubtedly Christ's judgment against the sinful generation which had persecuted Him and His disciples; it is the chastisement of the theocratic city, indicating the end of the ancient law and the public inauguration of the new religious state : it is, so to say, the first reahzation of that last judgment and of that final establishment of the Kingdom which the Saviour had also suggested.^ It is thus that we should interpret the verse : " This generation shall not pass, until all these things be done," if we suppose that the expression " all these things " refers, not only to the signs that herald the coming of the Son of Man, but to that very advent 1 Mk. xiii. 29; Mt. xxiv. 35; Lk. xxi. 31. 454 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL itself. In affirming that His advent would occur dur- ing the present generation, the Saviour had directly in mind the chastisement of Jerusalem but depicted it with expressions characteristic of the last advent, of which the Palestinian catastrophe was the symbol. What tends to establish this point is, as previously noted, the comparison made between this text and the analogous passages wherein Jesus simply announces the chastisement that is particular to this " sinful and unbeheving generation " and the special misfortune of Jerusalem. Some critics have carried this interpretation to ex tremes and have claimed that Christ announced no other advent than that which was accomplished in a figurative manner in 70 A. D. So that, in their view, the Parousia as the Saviour had conceived it, should be considered as an event wholly passed, and nobody should look for a personal advent of the Son of Man at the end of time.^ To thus limit the idea that Jesus had in mmd, as stated in the entire Synoptic declarations, and in the belief of the early Church, which depends upon His teachings, is impossible. The divine Master, in refer- ring to what was to happen during His own genera- tion, may have directly contemplated the punishment of the Jewish nation in particular when employing terms that referred to the last judgment. But His way of depicting this final judgment as something uni- versal, as extending to all men and to all nations, plainly shows that His thoughts extend beyond the mere symbol, and that, beyond the fall of Jerusalem, which expressly symbolized the end of the world as also the beginning of the Kingdom of God as a so- ciety, He beheld a final catastrophe incomparably greater, a judgment far more extensive, a final estab- 1 Russel, The Parousia, 2 ed., 1887. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 455 lishment of the Kingdom of God in glory at some period still uncertain.^ We may interpret in the same sense the similar sen- tence found in S. Luke's Gospel : " When these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads ; for your redemption is at hand." This approaching deliverance is an image and a prelude to the great Messianic deliverance which shall take place at the end of time. So too, at the last day, the triumphant Christ shall put down every powerful enemy, shall soon ex- terminate those who have oppressed His disciples. The last convulsions of the period just about to close, com- pared to the renewed world of the Kingdom of God, shall be Hke unto the travails of a child-bearing mother : thus the approaching crisis would prepare the way for the new order of things inaugurated by the ruin of the ancient alliance and by the establishment of the Church as a society. In this chastisement of the persecuting Jews, and in the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, taking possession of the world. Christians will have a presage and an assurance of that perfect deliverance, of that ideal regeneration which shall one day be realized in the Kingdom of Heaven. 2 We may discover the same sense in a saying found elsewhere in S. Matthew, and which must belong to an eschatological discourse like the one we have just been examining : " When they §hall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen, I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel till the Son of Man come." This remark follows in the course of the tableau in which the Saviour outlines the trials and the persecutions awaiting the Apostles. This picture is identical with that found in the great discourse on 1 Mt. xxiv. 30, 31; Mk. xiii. 27; Mt. xxv. 31 et seq.; Calmet, op. cit., p. 510. 2Lk. xxi. 28; I Cor. xv. 24 et seq.; cf. Lk. xviii. 7-8; Mk. xiii. 8; Mt. xxiv. 8; xix. 28. 456 • CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the last things : there is good reason to beheve that, in either case, by the near advent of the Son of Man, which shall terminate the persecution waged by the Jews by inaugurating against them the final judgment, Jesus directly refers to the chastisement of Jerusalem.' It is in the same sense, finally, that we should under- stand the saying related, in the course of S. Peter's profession of faith, by the three Synoptists : " Amen I say to you, that there are some of them that stand here, who shall not taste death till they see the King- dom of God coming in power." The Saviour, it seems, desires to give His disciples a glimpse of that per- spective of the universal judgment which shall be held at His last advent : *' He that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful genera- tion: the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when He shall come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." ^ But, supposing that the Saviour, in thus speaking, referred only to His last coming, we need not think that, in the remainder of His discourse. He speaks of His approaching advent in exactly the same sense. S. Mark clearly separates the two statements by means of the short transition : *' And He said to them." In the text of the three Synoptists, they may very well reproduce two sentences pronounced by the Master in the same circumstance ; the second, however, denoting a special progress in His thought, a different point of view, as an answer, no doubt, to one of these questions with which His disciples were familiar, or to a secret anxiety that disturbed their minds as to the epoch of the great event. But the manner in which S. Mark's account intro- duces into the first saying the idea of " that adulterous 1 Mt. X. 23 ; cf. Calmet and Fillion ; Mangenot, art. : Fin du Monde, V. D., col. 2268. 2Lk. ix. 27; Mk. ix. i {Vulgate, Mk. viii. 39) ; Mt. xvi. 28; Mk. viii. 38; Mt. xvi. 27; Lk. ix. 26. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 457 and sinful generation/' leads one to think that the coming of the Son of Man in order to " render to every man according to his works," and especially to confound those who might be ashamed of Him, such as the Pharisees, refers not only to His last advent, but also and directly to His approaching judgment on Jerusalem which is symbolically represented with colours that suggest the final advent. The advent which the disciples anxiously await, the establishment of the Kingdom, the precise moment of which they were so eager to know, shall be first realized during the present generation : the Son of Man shall come like a king; He shall be the supreme judge of that guilty generation, and, by the terrible chastisement inflicted upon Jerusalem, He shall reveal "with power " the final establishment of His first Kingdom here below. This will be a sort or visible prelude and a real guarantee of what shall be realized at the end of time.^ Plummer remarks : " The expression * shall not taste death ' . . . implies that some people shall actually die after witnessing the advent of the Kingdom of God: which cannot refer to the Parousia," i. e., the Second Advent.^ If this be so, the Saviour does not fail to indicate, in a remarkable manner, the epoch of his first judicial advent. He appears to express Himself as if the catastrophe which menaces Palestine was to happen towards the end of the present generation, when only a few of His disciples would be alive. The expres- sion found in the Fourth Gospel presents exactly the same signification. After announcing to S. Peter the kind of death whereby He would glorify God, Jesus responds to his question about the Beloved Disciple: 1 Mt. xvi. 27 ; Calmet, L'Ev. selon St. Mt., p. 273 ; Fillion, Ev. selon S. Mt., p. 332; Rose, Ev. selon S. Mt., p. 80. 2 Plummer Com. Gospel ace. to S. Luke, p. 250 ; Godet, Com. sur I'Ev. de S. Luc, vol. i, p. 593. 458 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL " So I will have him to remain till I come : what is it to thee ? '' In fact, the Palestinian catastrophe was to occur forty years after the Saviour's prediction. Most of those who had heard Him would be no longer living. Peter himself would have then just shed his blood in that very Rome which, upon the violent disparition of Jerusalem, was to become mani- festly what it had been in germ, the capital of the new Christian world. Nevertheless, many had not tasted death. And of this number, was the Beloved Apostle, S. John, who could welcome, in the Chris- tian church, arising from the ruins of the Synagogue, the anticipation of that final Kingdom of Christ to which he did not cease to aspire with all his heart."^ It is, then, by no means certain that what Jesus an- nounced as about to occur, in the course of His own generation, was His final advent. Yet, it seems to follow from all His declarations that He wished to impress His disciples with the fact that this final ad- vent was near. If He insists upon the unexpected- ness of His last coming; if He gives to understand that it might be delayed longer than was expected, that a long period of preparation would possibly in- tervene before the complete establishment of the King- dom ; it is no less true that the manner in which He seems to present the two events under one view, as projected upon the same screen and regardless of per- spective ; the way in which He seems to present the Palestinian disaster under features recalling His com- ing for final judgment — all this suggests that He Him- self had wished to allow His disciples to continue in their behef in the proximity of the end of the world. 8. PERSUASION OF THE EARLY CHURCH. This attitude of Christ, which we cannot ascribe to error on His part, displays nothing more than we ^ Jo. xxi. 22; Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 150; Apoc. xxi, and xxii. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 459 could reasonably expect. We may rightly suppose, in- deed, that it was no part of His mission to reveal the distant date of His final advent, and that He had pro- vidential reasons for allowing His disciples to think that His coming was near at hand. Loisy, therefore, exaggerates when he thus sets forth the usual theological interpretation : " Christ, as man, possessed divine knowledge, and He deliberately left His disciples and posterity in ignorance and in error concerning a great many things that He could reveal without the least trouble " ; also when he qualifies that hypothesis as being " historically inconceivable ", and as " disconcerting to the moral sense ".^ On the contrary, the impression that Christ's coming was near at hand was a source of extraordinary moral strength for the primitive Christian Church. The disciples lived with their eyes turned toward heaven, watching the signs of the times so as not to be sur- prised by the arrival of the Lord ; ordering their con- duct in accordance with their conviction of expected judgment, fully heading the Master's teachings, freely breathing the Gospel life as a preparation for the Kingdom; drawing from the very intensity of their hope an heroic sanctity, a generous spirit of sacrifice, an intense zeal for the expansion of that new life which would give access to the Kingdom of God. If nothing unusual had happened before the end of the first Christian generation, Jesus' prophecy would have been given the lie in the most striking manner. But there came the great Palestinian catastrophe ! And what an unheard-of event it was ! In what striking accord with the Master's predictions ! Such a marvelous fulfilment of His word on this point fully served to assure people that the future kingdom also would come. The prospect of that Kingdom was, above all, a great hope which could only be strength- 1 Loisy, Autour, p. 139. 460 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ened by the terrible fate which befell Jerusalem. If, then, the glorious Kingdom was slow in coming; if the Son of Man did not as yet appear in triumph, people were naturally led to conclude that Christ, un- doubtedly, had not, as closely as it seemed, connected His last appearance with that disaster ; that the chastise- ment of the Holy City may have been the first advent of Christ the Avenger; that the Kingdom may have been already realized in the Church ; that all this great tragedy was a symbol, a prelude, and a sure warrant of that grand drama to be reaHzed at the end of time. From S. Paul's Epistles, indeed, as also from the Apocalypse, it seems to follow that, in a way, the King- dom of God is viewed as something already realized and recognized.^ Such a method of reasoning was logical and in keeping with the reality. The announcement of the end of the world during the present generation was taught more apparently than explicitly in the Saviour's discourses. What was certain is, that the ruin of Jerusalem served to confirm His word decisively. What was certain also is that His teaching could apply to a world destined to endure, as well as to a world about to end. So true is this that Renan could write : " If the doc- trine of Jesus had been simply the belief in an ap- proaching end of the world, it would certainly now be sleeping in oblivion. What, then, has saved it? The great breadth of the Gospel view, which has al- lowed men to find, under the same symbol, ideas suited to widely different moods of mind." Shall we say that the Saviour had not at all foreseen the adapta- tion of His Gospel to a world " continuing to endure?" Renan again makes this significant admission : " The world has not ended. . . . But it has been renewed, and in a measure renewed as Jesus wished. It is be- ^Rom. xiv. 17; I Cor. iv. 20; Col. i. 13; iv. 11; Gal. vi. 15; 2 Cor. V. 17. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 461 cause His thought was two-sided that it has been fruit- ful. This true Kingdom of God — this Kingdom of the spirit, which makes each man king and priest; tliis Kingdom which, hke the grain of mustard-seed has become a tree overshadowing the world, among whose branches the birds have their nests — was understood, wished for, founded by Him. . . . We must, then, attach several meanings to the City of God as con- ceived by Jesus. . . . He proposed to Himself to create a new moral condition of mankind, and not merely to prepare for the end of that which exists." ^ The Church, therefore, was right in not calling in doubt the veracity of her Christ ; nor has she ceased to be faithful to Him. Confiding in His word, she keeps marching onward, her eyes uplifted towards heaven, awaiting the Kingdom of God who shall come one day in His glory and of which, in its present preparatory stage, she is an actual realization. The prospect of the Son of Man's coming for the last judgment is, as it were,, resting on the horizon of each Christian generation, and continues to produce the same salutary impression. The dread of the last day, surely to come, as also the hope of the promised King- dom, is for the Church an ever fruitful source of strength, of fervor, and of generosity. What holds, moreover, for the entire Church is constantly realized by each individual. The Christian also lives for Him, his glance raised on high, uncertain of the moment of death, but assured of eternal life, and finding, in his incertitude about the coming of that last hour, a con- stant motive for vigilance, in the certainty of the final judgment a salutary fear, in his assurance about the Kingdom a consolation for the evils of life, as well as an effectual impulse along the way of holiness.^ ^ Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 288-289. 2Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 178; Autour, p. 158 ei seq. 462 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Whatever may be thought of the details of our in- terpretation, a close examination of the Saviour's dis- courses, in accordance with the rules regulating pro- phetic utterances, and in the light of events, seems to guarantee its correctness as a whole. The unques- tionable fact of the Palestinian disaster, so remarkably serving to confirm Jesus' word, and the no less mar- velous fact of the development of the Church, con- formably to the Saviour's thought such as an impartial study of the Gospel makes it known to us, absolutely forbids us to impute to Him the formal error which has been alleged. What no less prevents us from supposing such error is the Saviour's remark uttered after His great dis- course on the last things : " Of that daj and that hour, no one knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." Even supposing that this text implies a real ignorance on the part of the Son concerning the precise moment of the last advent, the declaration would at least prove that Jesus was aware of what He knew and of what He did not know ; and that His statements do not go beyond His positive knowledge.^ Naught is more remarkable than the Saviour's in- sistance upon the truth of His former prediction: " Of a truth I say to you : heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass." An assurance so firm and so strongly expressed necessarily implies that Jesus possessed a supernatural kind of knowledge of which He was fully conscious. The Saviour's for- cible assertion, then, is inteUigible only from the view- point oi our theory, namely, that His discourse di- rectly refers to the ruin of Jerusalem. The text is inexplicable if we do not admit that, in the first place, He asserts the imminence of the Jewish calamity, and 1 Mk. xiii. 2>^; Mt. xxiv. Z'^'y Mk. xiii. 30, 31; Mt. xxiv. 34, 35 ; Lk. xxi. 32, zz- lESUS THE SON OF GOD 463 that, by such an immediate display of His judicial and kingly power, He wishes to guarantee the cer- tainty of the final advent of the Kingdom in glory.^ The Saviour's utterance, at all events, as we have remarked before, does not compel us to suppose that He was absolutely ignorant of the epoch of the final advent. The Son who is ignorant of the last day is indeed the Man-Christ united substantially to the di- vinity ; but doubtless He is ignorant only as far as His humanity is concerned, because He cannot know that day by mere human science acquired by the natural process of His created intellect. Such knowledge may exist in His human intelligence, but only in virtue of a higher light cast upon it by the divinity ; and of this transcendent science the Saviour takes no account in the present case : it was not His mission to reveal this secret, nay it was His duty to practically ignore it because it was, and was to remain, the exclusive secret of His Father. The critics who admit that, in general, Christ was mistaken about the time of the last advent, interpret the fact referred to above as implying an absolute and real ignorance. Among Catholics, Schell has maintained such an interpretation and has been followed by Loisy.^ Jesus' declaration had essentially the same sense as that which He made at the moment of His ascension. He was asked if He were then going to restore again the Kingdom to Israel. But, leaving to the Holy Ghost the task of clearing His disciples' minds of their prejudices about the nature of the Kingdom, He merely answers : " It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in His own ^ Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 367. Above, p. 413. 2Lepin, op. cit., p. 378; Schell, KatoUsche Dogmatik, 1892, vol. iii, p. 142 et seq.; Loisy art.: Rev. Bib.: L'Apoc. Synop- tique, 1896, p. 341 ; Maldonat, Com. In Math., xxiv, 36 ; Calmet. L'Ev. S. Mt., p. 533 ; FilHon. Ev. selon S. Mk., p. 188 ; Knaben- bauer, Ev. sec. Marcum, p. 355 ; Rose, Ev. selon S. Mk., p. 136. 464 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL power." He did not say that He was ignorant about the matter; but He gave them to understand that it was not His part to reveal it.^ Nor is there anything to warrant us in believing that Christ had acquired, by His resurrection, a knowl- edge which He had not at all enjoyed as mortal man: remarkably enough, even in this instance He did not specify any more than He had done hitherto, what His disciples had no reason to know; and there is a perfect harmony between the discourses of the Risen Christ and those uttered before His resurrection. On the other hand, the specially characteristic expressions found in the Apostles' question, which we can in no way ascribe to the Evangelist nor to Christian tradi- tion, seem to fully guarantee the historical truth of the episode, and, in particular, of the Saviour's reply. It follows, therefore, that this statement supplies an au- thentic basis for our interpretation of Jesus' utter- ance.^ We may compare this text with Jesus' words to the Sons of Zebedee : '' To sit on my right hand, or on my left, is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father." The Saviour was to possess absolute power in the Kingdom; He was to preside at the last judgment; to pronounce sentence of admission or exclusion; to render to each one ac- cording to his works. But, as man, He enjoyed this power only by delegation from His Father, in virtue of His participation in the divine nature and divine dignity; and in this sense it is that He may say that such power did not belong to Him but only to His Father : He exercises it in His humanity, but He holds it only by reason of His union with the divinity.^ 1 Ac. i. 6, 7. 2 Lepin, op. cit., p. 61, 62. Above, p. 114-115. 3 Mk. X. 40 ; Mt. XX. 23 ; Mt. vli. 23 ; Lk. xiii. 27 ; Mt, xvi. 27; Lk. ix. 26; Mt. XX. 8; xxiv. 51; xxv. 14; Lk. xix. 12 sq.; Mt. xxv. 31 ; Maldonat, Com. In, Mt. xxiv. 36. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 465 The words of the divine Master are perhaps better understood, however, if we admit that, as Man, His ignorance of the last judgment was real, indeed, al- though only partial and relative. In fact, may we not suppose that the Saviour's supernatural knowledge, embracing all things — the last advent included — de- rivable from the divine light into a created intelli- gence, remained, in some manner, within a superior sphere of His soul, whence it had only a partial and discreet influence upon that knowledge which was practically to regulate His acts and to inspire His words ? The glory which, in virtue of the hypostatic union, should have fully clothed the Saviour's sacred body, was, in fact, held in abeyance by His oblation of Him- self as the victim for sin upon His entrance into this world; it was, for an instant only, revealed at the glorious transfiguration. In spite of the supernatural power inherent to His sacred humanity Jesus allowed free play to the outrages in the Praetorium and to the tortures on Calvary; just as the supreme beatitude, which should have permeated His soul so substan- tially united to the divinity, did not prevent His bitter sadness in the garden of Olives nor the anguish of His last agony upon the Cross. As S. Paul says : " He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant." May we not admit that, Hkewise, Christ's infused and most perfect knowledge, co-existed with an ordinary and practical knowledge which although assuredly excel- lent was still limited, incompatible with error, and yet susceptible of ignorance, influenced by the higher light to the extent required by His mission, and for the rest, more or less dependent upon its human resources ? ^ This hypothesis, we think, furnishes a good explana- tion of Jesus' word concerning His ignorance of the last day; it explains the lack of precision and the re- ^ Philippians ii. 7, 30 466 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL serve noticeable in the eschatological discourses ; it preserves the value of the testimonies which argue an experimental and progressive knowledge in the Saviour's mind, nor does it at all lessen that higher knowledge required by the hypostatic union, which, moreover, is attested by the entire history of Christ. Assuredly, it is hard to comprehend how there could exist in the Saviour's soul both a knowledge that was infused, independent of physical organs and of time, and a knowledge that was experimental, acquired, and maintaining, in ordinary life, its normal role and free exercise. But is it surprising to find mysterious features in Jesus' unique humanity ? Is it strange that our paltry psychology cannot analyse the intellectual operations of the Man-God? Since we are justified in admitting that the Saviour possessed two species of knowledge, it is reasonable to suppose that there was between these two sorts of knowledge an extra- ordinary and impenetrable relation. And is not the relation we have described in better accord with the Gospel facts, taking into account all the complex ele- ments displayed in Jesus' attitude and language? In any case, however limited and imperfect be the Saviour's ordinary knowledge, the especially important feature, which any impartial critic must admit, is that Christ possessed, in His humanity, a most perfect superior knowledge, in which, absolutely speaking, no kind of error is admissible. The hypothesis proposed above appears to us as suited to harmonize the exigencies of the hypostatic union, proper to the Saviour's humanity with the lit- eral sense of the text. It would also shed an abundant light upon some remarkable statements of several Fathers of the Church, especially S. Athanasius.^ It has been thus expressed by M. Olier: " The higher IS. Athanasius, Against the Avians, or. 3, n. 43; Epistle to Serapion, n. 9 ; Vacant, art. : Agnoetes, V. D., vol. i, col. 590. lESUS THE SON OF GOD 467 portion of the soul of our Lord, the understanding, the memory, and the will, was, so to say, divided in two, i. e., it acted in two different ways. By God's abso- lute power, one section of this higher sphere enjoyed God in the light of glory; and yet that very power so operated, that the soul was not absorbed in glory to such an extent that there remained nothing of that reasoning part which reasons about things even when despoiled or deprived of the light of glory. . . . The part which did not enjoy the glory was aware of things past, present, and future, as we, here below, enjoy the revelation of God's mysteries, but only in so far as is allowed during this passing life, in which we could not bear a full revelation of hidden mysteries. So God in some way desired to keep them hidden from His Son, as though He were a pilgrim on earth, and to reveal them to Him fully only after His resur- rection. It was a knowledge which His condition of Victim for the sins of men and His state of servitude had kept far from Him, and of which He had been de- prived hitherto. Hence it was as a pilgrim and as the Servant of His Father, that our Lord said to His disciples : " I know not such thing. ... I know not the judgment day." It is in this quality that He is ignorant of it. The Servant knoweth not what His Master doth, he is ignorant of His secrets. So, too, our Lord said to SS. James and John, before His re- surrection, when still a victim for sin : " To sit on my right hand, or on my left, is not mine to give to you, but to them for w^hom it is prepared." But I can, in my present condition, distribute the crosses, although not the glory. My Father has reserved that right to Him- self." ^ In a slightly different sense, Lagrange says : " If S. Matthew clearly affirms that the Son does not know the hour of judgment, to deny it on the pretext 1 Olier, Memoir e^ Mqnuscrits, March 16, 1641, 468 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL that Christ knew all things, is to go counter to the principle of S. Thomas : we must abide by the au- thority of Scripture. But to conclude from this par- ticular ignorance before the resurrection that Christ did not, even then, enjoy the beatific vision, is another paralogism ; for is it not possible to behold the essence of God without penetrating the secrets of His will ? " ^ 9. JESUS CONSCIOUS OF HIS PERSONALITY AND DESTINY. To apply, then, the foregoing principles to Jesus' consciousness of His own personality and of His des- tiny. Since we must admit that the Saviour possessed supernatural knowledge, derived from the divine light, it is hard to suppose that this supernatural knowledge did not have for its primary object the character of His own very being and the precise role which He had to play. Indeed, the hypostatic union, if it does not ab- solutely require, at least demands it as quite fitting, that He should be fully conscious of His relation with God and of His mission to men. Nor can we help thinking that, from His Incarnation, before He en- joyed the use of His bodily organs, before He had any experience. He perceived, by supernatural and infused knowledge. His substantial union with the divinity and His destiny as the Messiah-Redeemer. If, then, there was any progress in His conscious- ness of being the Son of God and Messiah, it could take place only in the experimental and inferior part of His consciousness. The fact that the Saviour pos- sessed a knowledge that was really human and ac- quired, subordinate to His higher knowledge while maintaining its natural exercise, warrants us in sup- posing that, as He grew in age, as His organs devel- oped, as His thoughts became deeper, and His experi- ence wider, He secured a more complete and more 1 Lagrange, Rev. Bib., 1896, p. 454; cf. Bullet, Litf, Eccl.y 1904, p. 15: JESUS THE SON OF GOD 469 perfect understanding of that transcendent union which He enjoyed with God and of that mission which He was destined to achieve among men. It is only in this sense that we may claim that events like the Baptism, the Temptation, the persecutions of the Pharisees, influenced His appreciation of His Mes- sianic vocation, of the character of His mission, and of His sufferings. Yet, we must not fail to remark that in no way do these events seem to play, in the formation of Christ's experimental consciousness, the important and decisive part which has been alleged. The Baptism, as pre- viously seen, does not appear to have led to an im- portant progress in the Saviour's own ideas about His Messiahship: it was rather the providential event which determined Him to undertake a mission which He knew fully before. Jesus did not then receive the final revelation of His vocation, but rather the solemn invitation which He had expected from His Father in order to enter upon His Messianic career, and a par- ticular communication of the Holy Ghost in view of the perfect fulfilment of His ministry. So, too, the Temptation in the desert did not apparently change at all the Saviour's ideas about His Messianic office, nor did the Pharisaic persecution really reveal to Him His destiny of death. Moreover, the truly important thing in this matter is that the existence, in the sacred Humanity of Jesus, of a higher and most perfect consciousness, apart from His acquired knowledge, is unquestionable, alike from the standpoint of Gospel criticism and of the- ology. As a matter of fact the Gospel represents Him as being conscious, long before the events, of the precise epoch and of the exact circumstances of His death: and it is impossible to ascribe to this knowledge a human origin. It is also a fact that, from the beginning of His ministry, Christ is repre- sented as being fully aware of His Messianic dignity 470 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL and of the spiritual character of His mission. And the Saviour, finally, appears to us enlightened from above, at the age of twelve years, concerning His di- vine filiation and vocation, and such is the inward con- viction to which He bears witness, so extremely deep is His persuasion, that, as we have seen, the most independent critics recognize a kind of inborn quality in His consciousness.^ Are we not, therefore, logically led to believe the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he de- scribes Christ, from the very first moment of His en- trance into the world, as offering Himself, body and soul, to His Father, in order to supplant the ancient sacrifices and to redeem mankind? CONCLUSION. In his book entitled '' The Gospel and the Church," Loisy claims to take '* the point of view of history." He also stated later that " he had endeavored to de- pict the historic physiognomy of the Saviour . . . the historic form of Christ's appearance." Now, in as- suming that position, he thought he was warranted in asserting that, theologically speaking, Christ was not conscious of being the Son of God. " It is simply a question of ascertaining," says he, " if the representa- tion of the Gospel fact, in the * Gospel and the Church,' sufficiently conforms to the reality." Again, he remarks: " If that explanation is defective, it is by writings of the same class, but more satisfactory, that his imperfections will be corrected. . . . The be- lievers in the divinity of Christ must be reassured by an interpretation of the Gospel and of the documents of ecclesiastical antiquity, according to the rules which are now usually applied to all human texts, due atten- tion being also paid to the movement of contemporary thought in the philosophic order." ^ ^Lepin, op. cit., p. 200. Above, p. 244. 2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 2 ; Autour, p. viii. 112, 114; xxviii. JESUS THE SON OF GOD 471 This is what we have sought to do in the present work; and yet, in taking the position indicated by Loisy, we have reached quite different conclusions. We have seen that the facts, since it is a question of facts, are not such as he has represented in his work on " The Gospel and the Church " ; that his " represen- tation of the Gospel facts," is narrow, incomplete; that it does not square with the entire sacred testi- mony, and consequently does not conform to the whole reality. In interpreting the Gospels according to the rules of the most serious criticism, we have shown that Jesus was truly aware of His divinity, and that He revealed it prudently, although sufficiently, in His words and deeds. The dogma of Christ's divinity, as afterwards for- mulated in the Christian Church, does not come, therefore, solely from the faith of Christians : it truly has its foundation and its principle in the Gospel , it is but the true expression, the exact translation of the testimony of history. Our conclusions are, indeed, such as can truly re- assure '' the believers in the divinity of Christ " ; and if it be admitted that those conclusions are firmly established in the foregoing pages, it would seem that, with better right than " The Gospel and the Church ", this present work might be deemed '' an homage to the Christ-God ". To quote a phrase Loisy used in referring to " The Gospel and the Church ", the little book, despite its faults and with all its didactic aridity, is an homage to the Christ-God ".^ Loisy thinks that, " in the matter of hypotheses or of theories corresponding to the data of human science at a given period of history, we refute only what we are able to replace by something better." It is for the reader to judge if our presentation of the Gospel testimony may claim to supplant the one given by 1 Loisy, Autour d'un Petit Livre, p. 22, ihid., p. 8. 472 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Loisy. We would be glad if we had succeeded in showing that, viewed in the light of exact and com- plete criticism, the Gospel really portrays the Christ of the Church: Jesus-Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, both true God and true Man. CHAPTER V. Recent Theories of Loisy on Jesus Messiah and Son of God. The ideas which were sketched out in the " Gospel and the Church ", and in '* About a Httle book ", on the messiahship and divinity of Jesus, have recently been taken up again and developed by Loisy in his large commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. What change have the opinions of our critic undergone con- cerning this capital subject? And what judgment must we pass upon his hypotheses, now that he gives of them a complete exposition which, very likely, em- bodies his final conclusions ? ^ expose of loisy's theories. Loisy continues to affirm that, undoubtedly, Jesus has believed and proclaimed Himself to be the Mes- siah. Messianic Manifestations and Declarations. — " The radical hypothesis of some critics,^ he says, who claim that Jesus Himself never thought He was the Christ, and that His disciples believed Him to be so only after they had acquired faith in the resurrec- tion of their Master, seems inadmissible. If Jesus has not been condemned as King of the Jews, that is to say as Messiah, we might as well contend that He never existed. And did not the disciples rather believe that Jesus rose again from the dead because they had 1 Cf., above, pp. 136, 174, 233-235, 280-305 ; Loisy, Les Evan- giles Synoptiques, vol. i, pub. by the author, 1907; in 8°, p. 1014; vol. ii, 1908, p. 818. 2 Brandt, Wrede. Wellhausen expresses almost the same opinion. Cf. above, pp. 129- 131. (473) 474 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL previously believed that He was the Christ ? " *' All subsequent speculations, including the most recent analyses of the messianic consciousness of Jesus, van- ish before these simple words : ' Art thou the Christ ? Art thou the King of the Jews? Thou hast said it.' Although His conception of the Kingdom was a purely religious and moral one, Jesus none the less looked upon Himself as the Messiah promised to Israel and the future King of the elect." ^ This first point being thus settled, critics ask them- selves when and how did Jesus manifest His quality of Messiah. '' From the point of view of history, Loisy declares, two things seem to be certain, which con- tradict and set at naught most of the explicit indica- tions that are now to be found in the texts : Jesus re- frained from declaring Himself to be the Messiah until a rather late period of His ministry, and He avoided giving Himself as such during the whole of the Galilean mission ; in going to Jerusalem, He had the intention of proclaiming Himself the Christ, or the hope of being pointed out as such by the manifes- tation of the heavenly Kingdom ; at least, it is in His quality of Messiah and because He acknowledged it, that He was condemned to death by Pilate, upon the denunciation of the Sanhedrin." - But, if we must admit that the explicit and direct manifestation of His Messiahship took place at a rather late period of His public life, it remains true, none the less, that the Saviour was conscious of His dignity from the very beginning of His ministry. " Several critics,^ Loisy remarks, have thought that Jesus began to preach without being conscious of His messianic vocation, and that He became aware of 1 Loisy, Les Evang. Synopt., vol. i, p. 212; Id. ibid., p. 192; cf. above, pp. 132-136. 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 192. 3 Renan among others. Cf. above, pp. 200-204. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OP GOD 475 this vocation during the course of His ministry, a short time before the disciples recognized it through St. Peter's confession. Such a hypothesis is in itself neither impossible nor unlikely. Yet, it is not easy to see how Jesus* experiences could have led Him to believe He was the Messiah, if He had not been con- vinced of it at first. The difficulties which very soon began to counterbalance His success, would have sug- gested doubt rather than certitude concerning the great advent and all that was connected with it. The Gos- pels do not really bear witness to any evolution taking place in the conscience of the Saviour and in His ap- preciation of the role which was assigned to Him by Providence. There is hardly any room for such an evolution in the short space of His public career. The most natural explanation of the initiative He took after the imprisonment of John the Baptist, does not seem to be that He thought it necessary to substitute Himself for the captive prophet, but that He thought He was qualified to prepare the approaching inaugura- tion of the Kingdom, since He was the predestinated Head thereof. The very simple fundamental ideas and sentiments which constitute His Gospel seem to be firmly rooted in His mind from the very beginning : namely, a purely moral and religious conception ot the Kingdom and of the conditions of admittance into it ; an intimate consciousness of possessing a unique authority to set off those ideas in His preach- ing and to bring about their realization. So Jesus is fully prepared for His role when He begins to teach. "^ " The Kingdom of God," Loisy goes on, " is not a political institution, and the establishment thereof is not to be brought about by those means which serve to found monarchies, or to promote, guarantee and protect the independence of nations. The joys of the heavenly Kingdom belong essentially to the moral 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 212-213. 476 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL order, its law is justice. . . . The Gospel therefore shall not be the undertaking of a holy war, with a view of securing, through rehgious motives, the national freedom ; it shall be a preparation of the hearts of men for the establishment of that justice which God de- mands from His faithful before manifesting His glory to them." ^ But, if Jesus was thus conscious of His vocation from the time He entered upon His pubHc career, why did He not im.mediately proclaim Himself the Mes- siah, and how is it that He still wishes to make a secret of this quality even after the disciples have ac- knowledged it in Him? Loisy continues to explain this fact by the hypothesis that Jesus believed Him- self to be, not the acting, but only the future Messiah, the Messiah by destination. He says : " If Jesus, in the discourses which we may look upon as the* most authentic expression of His thought, seems to be concerned chiefly about the King- dom, and not about His person and role, if He rather avoids proclaiming Himself the Messiah, if He im- poses upon His disciples the reserve which He Him- self keeps, it is because He was not yet playing that role of Messiah, it is because the present conditions of His existence and of His action were not such as became the Vicar of God on earth. As a matter of fact, there was no Messiah as long as there was no Kingdom. It was not Jesus' but the Father's part to manifest the Christ. The Messiah was to be revealed to all in the advent of the Kingdom of God. An un- timely and premature declaration could not fail to pro- voke a conflict with the civil authorities, and would undoubtedly be understood by many as a direct ap- peal to national independence. But these two motives would not suffice to explain the attitude and the lan- guage of the Saviour. If He does not proclaim Him- 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 231-232. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 477 self the Messiah, it is because there is no reason for it; in one sense He is not yet truly the Messiah, He only expects to become such ; an absolute claim would therefore be at variance with His present condition, with the idea He Himself has of the messianic func- tions. He is the person to whom these functions are reserved: Peter's confession has no other meaning." ^ " As the messianic King," Loisy writes, " Jesus will be the Vicar of God; as long as He is preaching the coming of the Kingdom, He has not yet entered upon His providential functions. He is not yet estab- lished in the relations which that role will create be- tween Him and the Creator. It must be taken for granted that, with due proportion, His own condition was to be altered just as much as that of all the pre- destinated inhabitants of the Kingdom; He Himself, indeed, was no more Christ than those who believed in His word were actually citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom; just as they did, so was He also expecting from the Father the fulfilment of His promises ; in the meanwhile, He was acting as a son, He was prac- ticing that absolute confidence which He recommended to His disciples as being the first, and we may say the only duty towards God." " But, the main point is to know whence did Jesus draw the conviction, found in Him from the very be- ginning of His ministry, that the messianic dignity belonged to Him. If we may believe Loisy, who is but an echo of Strauss, the Saviour from His early boyhood, had cherished in His soul the sentiment of a particularly close union with God; very early, too. He believed He was destined to devote His life to God by the fulfilment of a special religious mission; for, on the day of His baptism by John the Baptist, we see Him, free from all human ties, ready to entQr upon ^ Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 213. 2 Loisy, op. cit., vol, i, p. 242; above, pp. 174-175, 478 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL His public career; yet, it is on that day only that He seems to have had a complete revelation of the mes- sianic role that was awaiting Him. Says our critic : " Religious feelings together with the hopes of the Jewish people must have got hold of His soul from His most tender years and predomi- nated in Him during His youth, since we see Him, in His thirtieth year, free from all human bonds, ready to obey the call that impels Him to leave His work- shop, His home, His native land." " It was probably John the Baptist who, unknown to himself, awakened the Saviour's vocation. The crisis through which Judsea was passing had given rise to a Prophet. John was preaching penance and administering baptism for the remission of sins, in view of the great judgment that was about to take place, and of the Kingdom of God that was about to come. . . . Jesus was attracted like the others, but perhaps was He drawn, as nobody else was, by a deeper interest in that reign of justice which John the Baptist said was so near at hand. He caused Himself to be baptized and then remained for some time in the wilderness." ^ Long before Loisy, Strauss had written in his Life of Jesus: " It was not from the prophecies relating to the Messiah, or the conviction that He was the Mes- siah that the peculiar self-consciousness of Jesus de- veloped itself, but, conversely, it was from His own self-consciousness that He came to the conviction that in the messianic prophecies no one could be meant but He; the consciousness, therefore, that He was the Messiah was, looking at His general religious con- sciousness, not the first thing, but the second, not the original, but the derived consciousness." Again : " It was natural for Jesus to be induced to undertake the journey to the Jordan by what He heard of the Bap- tist, since He also was dissatisfied with the existing 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 206-207, JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 479 system of religion ;" and finally : " Jesus was bound by no domestic or social ties." ^ The Part Played by Jesus' Baptism. — " If it be permitted," Loisy says in another passage, *' to venture upon a hypothesis in so obscure a matter, one could say that Jesus, in the humble house of Nazareth, had grown up as a Son of God through piety, unfolding His pure soul under the eyes of the Heavenly Father, although the thought of the great role which the Messiah was to play in the world did not at first have any place in the intimate intercourse of that soul with God. This preoccupation probably entered His mind later on, either under the influence of the current messianic ideas, or as a result of the preaching of John announcing the near advent of the Kingdom of God. Be it as it may, the meeting with John was a circumstance eminently suited for a divine revelation ; it was there, by the side of the Prophet who gave himself as the precursor of the Messiah, or at least as the herald of the Heavenly Kingdom, that Jesus, who was already Son of God through the inti- mate consciousness of His union with the celestial Father, received the supreme intuition of His provi- dential mission, and that He felt He was the Son of God, the Messiah promised to Israel." - The baptism, therefore, has been ''a capital fact" in the earthly career of Jesus. Loisy, of course, does not wish us to take the evangelical narrative literally ; the tendency of tradition ''in this, as well as in other cases, has b^en to transform into a visible scene, into a ma- terial fact, what was chiefly, and one may say exclu- sively, an internal phenomenon, which the historian must not think of describing; " tradition seems to have " condensed into one fact a whole psychological pro- 1 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, Eng. transl., 1865, vol. i, I. 264, 265, 268. Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 408; above, p. 234 PP 2 48o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL cess which it could not, any more than we can, at- tempt to analyze." It remains none the less true that he regards the episode of the baptism as a decisive moment in the formation of the messianic conscious- ness of the Saviour, although this consciousness, it goes without saying, was still capable of more pre- cision and development.^ " That Jesus," he declares, " found in His bap- tism the decisive revelation of His messianic role, that the consciousness of His divine filiation got hold of Him with a force hitherto unknown and never to be lost afterwards, this at least may be considered as the solid foundation of the traditional narrative. But that this revelation was the first, absolutely speaking; that it was not prepared by the whole anterior life of Jesus and that it was not completed later on, this the critics cannot admit, and tradition, strictly speaking, never held. The revelation connected with the baptism could be made only to a soul disposed to receive it; on the other hand, the historical meaning of the ac- count of the temptation is that Jesus must have en- deavored to learn more about the providential con- ditions of His vocation; and one may say that this progressive education, which was partly the result of experience, went on up to the time of His death." ^ Thus, His stay in the wilderness, after His baptism, threw, it is assumed, a new and clear light, upon the moral conditions of His role. Such is, in fact, the meaning of our actual narratives. " Jesus more and more completely influenced by the idea of the Heavenly Kingdom, spent some time in the wilderness; there He was haunted by the consciousness, growing con- stantly clearer, of His own vocation." ^ " Had not tradition mentioned this retreat in the 1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 409; above, pp. 140-141. ^Id. ibid., vol. i, p. 408; above, pp. 234-235. ^Jd. ibid., p. 207. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 481 wilderness," Loisy observes, " we should almost pre- suppose it. ... A time for reflection and for prepara- tion was indispensable between the carpenter's Hfe and the manifestation of the evangelical preacher. We may admit that Jesus' vocation manifested itself on the occasion of His baptism, but, to follow this vocation, it was necessary, first of all, to weigh the conditions thereof ; the Spirit by whom Jesus was made the Christ could not fail to lead Him into the wilderness ; and Jesus in the wilderness was to be tempted by the Devil and agitated by opposite ideas : on the one hand, the ideal of simple, genuine piety which had been, so far, the food of His soul, together with the spiritual elements of the Jewish messianic conceptions ; on the other hand, the current fancies, the ideas of earthly triumph. The solution of the conflict is in the pro- gramme which Jesus has deliberately followed, and which asserted itself, in presence of the same tempta- tions, during the whole length of His ministry: to prepare men to the advent of the Kingdom by the conversion of the heart, and to rely entirely upon God for the determination of the day and manner in which the great advent was to be brought about." ^ Illusions Concerning the Future. — But, though He had definite ideas on the spiritual character of His vocation, Jesus was very far from having an equally clear consciousness of His suffering destiny. If we may believe Loisy, the Saviour's mind was running in a quite opposite direction, and He never foresaw with any degree of certitude what the future had in store for Him. The Kingdom whose advent He was announcing was to come. He thought, without delay; it was going to manifest itself shortly, unex- pectedly; He Himself, therefore, was about to enter into His messianic glory. Such was His hope while He was repairing to 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 427; cf. pp. 423-424; above, p. 141. 31 482 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL the Jewish capital : " He was not going to Jerusalem to die; He was going thither to prepare and bring about, at the risk of His own life, the advent of God." The obstacles which He had met so far, had simply caused Him to " surmise " and *' this, perhaps, only at rare intervals and in a vague manner, that the Mes- siah was running the risk of not entering into His glory except through the door of death." After the bold manifestation of His triumphal entry into Jeru- salem and His many challenges to' the religious leaders of the nation, the situation became such that " no denouement was possible, except through a miracle or a catastrophe, and it was the latter which happened to pass. Jesus had not failed to foresee it, but He had not ceased either to hope for the miracle, because He had not ceased to count upon the advent of the King- dom." ^ The same illusion He kept until the last Supper, until His agony in the Garden, until His last moment upon the Cross. ^ Thus '* Jesus considered death as being possible, and, in case it should come to pass, as being the provi- dential condition for the realization of the Kingdom about to come, but not as being in itself a necessary element of His messianic functions : He looked upon it as a risk He had to run, as a danger He had to face, but not as the salutary action by excellence, the ac- tion to which His ministry must tend and upon which the future essentially depended." ^ " Jesus," says Strauss, " might certainly have had a foreboding of His own fall and prepared Himself for the worst, but still, as an intelligent man. He must have had a scheme in readiness in case of His success, though that became more improbable every day." 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 213, 214, 218. 2 Id. ibid., vol. i, pp. 219-222 ; above, pp. 234, 242. ^Id. ibid., p. 243. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 483 And again : " Jesus might have foreseen that His end was approaching, He might, indeed, have had His suspicion against the faith of one, the constancy of another of His disciples, and not have concealed them. But He is said also to have known decidedly before- hand, and to have declared that on this very night His destiny will be fulfilled, to have expressly pointed out Judas as the traitor, to have predicted to Peter a three- fold denial of Him before the next crowing of the cock. . . Every part of this is as difficult to conceive historically as it is easy to explain psychologically." ^ Such would be, then, according to Loisy, the reality of history. Any detail which, in the Gospels, con- tradicts these simple data or in any way disagrees with them, is supposed to be the work of Christian tradition, the product of primitive faith or apologetics. The Work of Tradition —If we may believe him, Christian apologists first of all endeavored to do away with the scandal caused by the death of Christ, by representing it as determined upon by a divine decree, and foreseen and foretold by the Saviour Himself. But it was not enough that death should be for Jesus something more than the end of a grand illusion ; " it was necessary also that His ministry, including both His actions and His teachings should be in keeping with the messianic dignity." ^ Jesus had confessed His messianic dignity only towards the end of His ministry: by anticipation, the apologists ascribed to the beginning of His career messianic manifestations in great number. At the same time, the miracles, the cures of those possessed by the devils and others cures of a different kind, were appealed to and made use of as a direct evidence of 1 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, authorized transl., vol. i, pp. 384, 388. 2 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 180; cf. p. iii. See Les theories de Mr. Loisy, Expose et critique, Paris, Beauchesne, 1908, pp. 201-209. 484 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL His messiahship : they " became both a proof of His power and a messianic manifestation." " Thus primi- tive recollections took an ideal turn, received mes- sianic coloring, and were completed and enlarged into symbols of doctrine, of power, of divinity." ^ But " since the messianic manifestation was ante- dated and ascribed to the beginning of His ministry, it became indispensable to mark out the starting-point thereof, and it was of great importance that this start- ing-point should be significant. Thus are explained the theatrical scene of the baptism and the christian interpretations of the relations which had united Jesus and John. ... It was admitted that the baptism of Jesus by John had been really the baptism of Christy His consecration as the Messiah through the commg upon Him of the Divine Spirit who had from that moment taken possession of Him." ^ Later on, when tradition reached the end of its evo- lution, this messianic consecration " was ascribed even to the time of Jesus' conception." ^ "When the messianic dignity of Jesus," says Strauss, " began to be acknowledged among the Jews, it was thought appropriate to connect His coming into pos- session of the requisite gifts, with the epoch from which He was in some degree known, and which, from the ceremony that marked it, was also best adapted to represent that anointing with the Holy Spirit, ex- pected by the Jews for their Messiah ; and from this point of view was formed the legend of the occurrences at the baptism. But, as reverence for Jesus was heightened, and men appeared in the Christian Church who were acquainted with more exalted messianic ideas, this tardy manifestation of messiahship was no longer sufficient; His relation with the Holy Spirit was referred to His conception; and from this point 1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 182-185, 192. 2M ihid., p. 185; cf. p. 196; above, p. 140. 3 Id. ihid., pp. 196, 197 ; above, 107, 108. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 485 of view was founded the tradition of the supernatural conception of Jesus." ^ Concerning the fact of the virginal conception of Jesus, Loisy now upholds frankly the theory that it was a late belief, elaborated in hellenistic Christian communities towards the end of the first century; it was first adopted by the author of the first Gospel; then, through his influence it was introduced into the primitive documents used by St. Luke who embodied it in his Gospel, i. 34-35. This is also the hypothesis suggested by Usener, Schmiedel, Harnack and others.- While the christological theology was thus pro- gressively developing, the dogma of the Saviour's di- vinity was, it is assumed, being elaborated. No Claim of Sharing the Nature of God. — According to Loisy, " Jesus never pretended to be the historical manifestation of a being existing in God before revealing Himself to men." When He called Himself the Son of God, He meant that He was such because predestinated to be the Messiah King; and because of the interior feeling which united Him to God, author of His vocation," but not because of a real participation in the divine nature. The only title which He distinctly claims for Himself is that of Messiah, not that of Son of God. If " He considers God as His Father and all men as His children, if He looks upon Himself as Son of God in a special and unique manner, nevertheless it does not appear that He appropriated that quality of Son as one that would best sum up the idea He had of Himself and the con- ception He wanted others to form of His vocation. The sentiment of His Sonship is rather a general char- acteristic of these personal ideas than the direct and proper expression thereof." ^ 1 The Life of Jesus, Eng. transl., 1846, vol. i, p. 368 ; cf. A New Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 39 et seq. 2 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, 169, 170, 195-198, 290-294, 339; cf. above, pp. 123, 124. s Id. ibid., pp. 193, 241, 244. 486 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Therefore we have no conclusive statements of the Saviour affirming His own divinity. '* The passages in which Jesus speaks of His Father who is in Heaven, or simply of His Father, are very numerous, but do not contain an explicit definition of His Sonship. The passages in which the Father and the Son are men- tioned without an epithet of any kind, would be more significant indeed, but their authenticity is open to question." ^ Such is the word : " No one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither doth any one know the Father but the Son," in which the identification of Christ with the eternal Wisdom is implicitly formulated. " Al- though the words Father and Son are not merely meta- physical expressions, but represent, in this passage, God and Christ, the use of the term Son, without addi- tion of any sort, is extraordinary in Jesus' mouth ; but this is the language of tradition, not the language of Jesus, it designates the immortal, we may say, the eternal Christ. The reciprocal knowledge of Father and Son is not, moreover, represented as a relation which began in the course of time and is actually being realized; it has the supra-historical character of the similar statements to be found in the fourth Gospel; it does not express the idea of pre-existence, but it pre- supposes it. It is an affirmation interpreting the faith of the Christian community." ^ Strauss had said in a similar vein : " We may indeed conceive how Jesus, by means of the knowledge of God as the Father . . . which had sprung within Him in consequence of a state of mind in which every form of opposition between His own consciousness and the consciousness of God had been removed, might feel Himself to stand in a quite pecuHar relation to God; 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 243, note i. 2C/. above, pp. 355, 356; Loisy, op. cit., p. 194; Id. ibid., vol. i, p. 909; above, pp. 363, 364. TESUS MESSIAH AND SON Of GOD 487 He might feel that no one but He knew God aright, namely, as the Father, and that in the case of every one else, this knowledge was one which He had been the means of imparting to them. But why, then, does He add that no one but the Father knows the Son? Was then the Son, i. c, He Himself, Jesus, so mys- terious a being as to be capable of being known by God alone? Not so if He was a human being, but only in the case of His being somehow a superhuman being ; so that this speech which stands quite isolated in the first and third Gospel, refers us to a principle re- sembling that of the fourth Gospel, and appears, con- sequently, to be an addition intended to exalt the con- ception of Jesus above the naturally human, a step higher than is elsewhere made in those Gospels." ^ There is another passage which Loisy thinks may be a later gloss introduced by tradition, namely : *' But of that day and hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father (alone)." " Considering the circumstances in which the Gospel was preached, the assertion that, the knowledge of that day and hour was the secret of the Father, should have been sufficient, and the absolute use of the word Son, to designate the Saviour, does not belong to the lan- guage of Jesus nor to that of the primitive evangelical tradition. Had not this word been added by the Evan- gelist, then the whole passage would be open to sus- picion." ^ The same remark apphes to the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, in which Jesus is represented as the Son, sent by God to the tenants of His Vineyard, i. e., to the Jews who put Him to death and will there- fore be rejected and severely punished. " The narra- tive," says Loisy, " is not a parable rightly speaking, i Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, author, transl., vol. i, pp. 527s, 276. ? Loisy, op. cit., vol ii, p. 483; above, pp. 364, 365. 488 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL but an allegory completed by a prophecy. It is true that the allegory and the prophetical utterance which completes it belong to an old tradition, anterior to the final redaction of our Gospels ; there is, however, no guaranty that they are authentic words of Christ. The allegory and the prophecy express the idea which the men of apostolic times had formed concerning the mission of Christ : He was in their eyes the Son of God, sent by the Father, killed by the leaders of the Jewish people and glorified in Heaven by His resur- rection. In its present traditional form, the allegory of the Husbandmen seems to be a fragment of Chris- tian apologetics ; it betrays the same tendency, and perhaps did it receive its final literary expression at the same time as the passages in which the Saviour describes the circumstances of His own death and re- surrection." ^ As regards the account given by St. Matthew of Peter's confession at Csesarea, it is likewise to the Evangelist that we must ascribe " the antithesis we notice between the Son of man, as spoken of by Jesus in His question, and the Son of the living God spoken of by Simon Peter in his answer. Matthew is anxious to intimate that the Son of man is also the Son of God, and that the real human nature of the Saviour is com- patible with His divine origin: an antithesis which throws a good deal of light on Matthew's theology, and on his particular way of interpreting the mes- sianic title of ' Son of man.' " ^ The same interpretation holds good with reference to the question which Jesus is supposed to put to the Scribes concerning Christ the Son of David. We may well believe that the Saviour had contented Him- self with insinuating that " the Christ needs not be son of David, and that His dignity has a higher 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 318, 319; above, pp. 350, 351. ^ Above, p. 322 ; Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 3, JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 489 origin." But " the Evangelists are not content with that. Matthew, in this passage as well as in the ac- count of Peter's confession, seems to contrast the Son of David or Son of Man with the Son of God, who is the Lord, who is the Christ, just because He is the Son of God. Although he does not expressly use the same antithesis, St. Luke seems to have had almost the same idea: according to him, Jesus is the Son, not of David only, but of God, and the latter filiation sur- passes the former." ^ To Christian tradition we are also to ascribe the scene of the trial before Caiphas, in which we see Jesus accused of blasphemy for having declared Him- self the Son of God. " According to the two first Evangelists, Jesus' answer is considered by the high priest as blasphemous." Now, " to say : ' I am the Christ,' was not a blasphemy ; to say : ' I am the Son of God,' was not a sacrilegious use of the name of God, except the speaker, going beyond the moral and religious meaning contained in the idea of such filia- tion, intended to add to it some metaphysical import, more conformable to the spirit of paganism than to that of Judaism; except, again, he meant thereby the incarnation of a being who was, so to speak, a part of God, so that the claim, on the part of Jesus, to such a relation with God, could be interpreted as an insult to the Divine Majesty. Nothing is easier to explain, if the scene has been imagined by the Evangelist or is due to christian tradition." ^ At any rate, the accusation of blasphemy " is much more easily accounted for in the light of Matthew's and Mark's theology than in the light of historical veri- similitude. For, the members of the Sanhedrin are said to have agreed with Caiphas on the question of blasphemy, and to have condemned Jesus to death in 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. z^s \ above, p. 348. ^Id. ibid., vol. ii, p. 609, 490 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL conformity with the law of Leviticus. Now, according to that law, the blasphemer was to be stoned: and Jesus was crucified; he suffered that kind of punish- ment because He had been condemned by the Roman authorities, in a regular trial, in which the accusa- tion brought forward was, not that of blasphemy against God because of a claim to a divine privilege, but that of pretending to be the Messiah, King of Israel." Therefore, the trial before the Sanhedrim has been altogether invented by Christian tradition, with a view of shifting, from the Roman authorities to the Jews, the responsibility of the judgment rendered against Jesus. Tradition has made the Sanhedrim accountable for a " condemnation which it did not really pronounce " ; and " it is perfectly likely that the idea of blasphemy as well as the whole theatrical scene before Caiphas was invented in view of that condemnation." ^ As to the formula of baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, its value and import are, in the eyes of our critic, rather limited.^ First of all, " the doctrine of Trinity, i. e., the per- fect equality of the three persons in the unity of divine nature, is not taught in this passage, for the word name is understood before the mention of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and it is not meant that only one name, that is to say, only one essence, belongs to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. The Father is God who has sent His Son; the Son is the Messiah sent by God for the salvation of men ; the Holy Ghost is the messianic gift granted by God to the faithful, in view of the Son's merits.*' ^ On the other hand, it is possible that the clause: 1 Lolsy, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 609, 610. 2 Above, p. Z7^. 3 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 751, JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 491 '* baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," was not to be found in the primitive text of St. Matthew's Gospel, but was inserted therein only at the time of its final redaction, under the influence of the liturgical usage which is recorded in the Didache, and was probably universal in the Christian Church at the beginning of the second century. Be it as it may, we have not, in the passage in question, an authentic utterance of Christ. Should we suppress the clause now under discussion, we would have, even then, to maintain that the directions recorded in the last page of the first Gospel have not, historically speaking, been addressed to the Apostles. " The whole discourse is an utterance of Christ con- sidered as living in the Church ; it is the voice of the Christian conscience speaking through the glorified Christ. The Evangelist himself gives expression to a general view of religious philosophy concerning the earthly mission of Christ and that of the Church." ^ Jesus, therefore, never proclaimed Himself the Son of God, except in this sense that He was the chosen one to be endowed with the messianic dignity, and that He was united to God by relations of intimate affection. Such is Loisy's assumption. No Claim of Divine Privileges.— So also He never claimed for Himself privileges that cannot belong to mere humanity. In the way of miracles. He accomplished " but a certain number of marvelous cures, which in no degree demanded the intervention of divine power, and were generally wrought in favor of poor wretches afflicted with nervous diseases and cerebral troubles." Never did He give to His apostles the power of performing miracles spoken of by the first Gospel and inserted in the discourse He pronounced when sending His dis- ciples to their missionary labors.^ 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 749. 2/c?. ibid., vol. i, pp. 182, 207, 867; above, p. 309, 492 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Again, He did not pretend to remit sins by His own authority, nor did He grant that power to others. The narrative of the cure of the man sick with the palsy which, in so striking a manner, bears witness to the contrary, is somewhat open to question from the point of view of authenticity. " The assurance that sins are forgiven introduces an argument in favor of Jesus' messiahship; but this argument is, as it were, super- added to the narrative itself." Hence it is probable that we are in the presence of " a later, intentional ad- dition, tending to transform an extraordinary cure into a theological proof." As a matter of fact, '' the idea of remission of sins by Christ fits more naturally into the circle of Christian beliefs than into the teach- ing of Jesus." The account of the pardon granted to the sinful woman in St. Luke presents likewise arti- ficial features and must, therefore, be attributed en- tirely to the Evangelist. *' For, he reproduces the words which Jesus is supposed to have addressed to the man sick of the palsy in Capharnaum, and he attributes to the bystanders the scandalized feelings which the Pharisees manifested on that occasion, in order to attribute to Jesus. Himself the pardon of the sinful woman." ^ The texts of the first Gospel in which we see the Saviour granting to Peter or to the Apostles the power " to bind or to loose," are supposed to refer indeed to the disciplinary authority of the Church, and the power of remitting sins, but it is impossible to recognize in them an authentic discourse of Jesus ; they simply refer to the situation of the Christian communities in the time of the Evangelist.^ Again, in the reality of history, the Saviour did not 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 689 ; above, p. 154. 2 Matt, xvi, 19; xviii, 18; above, p. 310; Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 12, 13, 90, 91 ; cf., Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 2>77 ^t seq. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 493 place Himself above the temple nor declare that He was the Master of the Sabbath. The first of these two statements is found in St. Matthew alone, and was likely introduced by the Evan- gelist. '' For, we may well doubt that Jesus, at any period of His ministry, but especially in the beginning, ever used such an expression in a public discourse, with reference to His personal dignity and authority. It would have been looked upon as a blasphemy, since the temple, in the speech referred to, stands for the service of God. It is probable that the words : " There is here a greater than the temple," are an imitation of those we read a little farther : " Behold a greater than Jonas, a greater than Solomon here." ^ The other sentence is to be found in the three Evan- gelists, and in St. Mark himself; but it is not an in- dispensable part of the narrative, and even may be said to be an unnecessary addition to a remark previously made " on the Sabbath, which was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." " The second remark seems, therefore, to be a later addition," the more so that " it appears to be pointing to another direction, namely to the personal authority of Christ." ^ The absolute statement found at the end of the great eschatological discourse concerning " the words that shall not pass away," has no greater degree of au- thenticity. The historical Christ would never have said : " Heaven and earth shall pass away, my words shall not pass away " ; these words formed probably the conclusion of the apocalyptic document which must underlie the discourse as it is recorded in our Gospels, and " they were supposed to be said by God Himself," not by Christ.^ iLoisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 510; above, p. 153. ^Id. ibid., pp. 511, 512; above, ibid. 3 Mark xiii. 31; Matt. xxiv. 35; Luke xxi. 33; Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 99; cf., vol. ii, p. 436. 494 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Finally, the Saviour never pretended He was des- tined to judge one day the living and the dead. " As far as we are able to surmise, Jesus did not picture to Himself the judgment of God as a great seance in which the fate of the whole human race would be dis- cussed, and in which every man would hear, in pres- ence of all, the verdict that would settle his fate for eternity. He conceived it rather as a sort of selection which would be made suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, among men living at that time ; the just would be, as it were, ravished up to God, transported into the place of messianic happiness, changed into immortal beings, while the others would be, no doubt, left to their chastisement, in a state of death which would not exclude pain. The just who were dead would rise again at the same time." ^ Jesus, therefore, did not, at any time, speak of send- ing '' the angels ", " His own angels ", to gather the elect, as He is supposed to have said several times, according to the Evangelists. Neither did He give Himself as the supreme judge of the human race. " In the act preliminary to the institution of the King- dom, i. e., the selection of the elect, He does not seem to have claimed for Himself any special function. God alone is the supreme judge of the living and the dead. At most, Jesus presents Himself as a witness who recognizes, when needed, those who, by their attitude towards Him, have deserved eternal reward or eternal chastisement." " The final description of the great judgment, as it is found in St. Matthew, must have been conceived by the Evangelist himself." ^ Strauss has formulated the problem in pretty much the same terms, without reaching, however, such a completely negative conclusion : " Jesus speaks in the 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 237. 2 Above, p. 307; Loisy, op. cit., p. 779; vol. ii, pp. 21-36, 431; vol. i, pp. 241, 242; Matt. XXV. 31-46; above, p. 311; Loisy, op. cit., p. 134. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 495 Gospels ... of His own second coming . . . when He will appear in the clouds of heaven, in divine glory, and accompanied by angels to awake the dead, to judge the quick and the dead, and to open His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God or Heaven. Here we stand face to face with a decisive point. . . . For us, Jesus has either no existence at all, or exists only as a human being ; to a human being no such thing as He here pro- phesied of Himself could happen, li He did prophesy it of Himself and expect it Himself, He is for us noth- ing but a fanatic. . . . There is only a trifling differ- ence between this and the pretended utterances of Jesus about His pre-existence . . . : He who expects to come again after His death, as no human being has ever done, is, in our opinion, not exactly a madman, because, in reference to the future, imagination is more possible, but still an arrant enthusiast." Again : ." The expectation of such a thing on one's behalf is something quite different from a general expectation of it, and he who expects it of himself and for him- self will not only appear to us in the light of a fanatic, but we see also an unallowable self -exaltation in a man's (and it is only of a human being that we are everywhere speaking) so putting himself above every one else as to contrast himself with them as their future judge. . . ." '' If, indeed, Jesus w^as convinced that He was the Messiah, and referred the prophecy in Daniel to the Messiah, He must have expected, in accordance with it, some time or other to come with the clouds of Heaven. ... It might well be that together with the conception of Jehovah as the sole judge of all, that of the transference of the office to the Messiah, as His representative, might have been in existence even before the time of Jesus, and only have been adopted by Him as an appendage to the conception of the Messiah. He had preached the word of God to mankind, and according to that word they were to be judged. If this was so, the natural infer- 496 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ence was that the preacher Himself would have a principal part in that judgment to come." ^ Conclusion. — To sum up Loisy's teaching: Jesus in no way pretended to rise above mere humanity: He said He was the Son of God, but did not thereby put Himself personally on a level with God, nor did He really claim powers which belong to God alone. But, after the Saviour's death, when people pic- tured Him to themselves as sitting at the right hand of God, in the midst of glory, the behef in His divinity came slowly into existence. " Paul already conceives a Christ existing previous to His earthly mission, a superior man, a heavenly man, a divine man, who becomes the historical Mes- siah in the person of Jesus ; in the Epistle to the Colos- sians, this Christ plays a part in the foundation of the world; He is not only the antitype of Adam, He is the mediator between God and the world, just as be- tween God and man: He is Creator just as well as Redeemer. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we find, closely associated, the idea of the only Son, Word of Wisdom and power, by whom the world was made, and the idea of Christ, the High Priest, who recon- ciles with God the whole human race. The identifica- tion of Jesus with the Logos of Philo was now but a matter of time and a question of words : we find it realized in the Apocalypse and in the fourth Gospel." ^ " We should not, however, look upon the elaboration of Christian thought as an attempt to disfigure history for the sake of abstract opinions. It is the opinions themselves that are carried along in the progress of faith. Paul and the other theologians of the primitive period are unacquainted with scientific research or 1 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, pp. 322, 331-332. 2 I Cor. XV. 44-49; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Gal. iv. 4; Phil. ii. 8; Col. i. 15-20; ii. 3, 9; Hebr. i. 1-4; iv. 14; v. 10; vii., viii., ix., X. 18; Ap. xix. 13; Joan. i. 1-18; Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 194; above, p. 388 et seq. JESUS MESSIAH AXD SON OF GOD 497 even philosophical reflection ; their theories are mere visions. . . . Owing to the state of exaltation in which the first Christians lived, all this evolution whose com- plexity baffles all attempts of an analysis, worked itself out, spontaneously and rapidly, in that subconscious region of the soul in which are elaborated the dreams of all men, the hallucinations of some, and the intui- tions of genius. It is hardly possible to doubt that certain utterances attributed to Christ were heard by some enthusiasts in the rapture of their ecstatic prayer. The same remark applies to certain narratives of mir- acles, and, in a way, to all of them, since the invol- untary idealization of past memories in the imagination of a believer is a sort of vision." ^ Such is the present position of Loisy regarding the divinity of Christ. He himself has taken the trouble of remarking that his attitude is essentially the same as before : " In general," he says, " I have in my last writings followed the same lines as in the preceding ones. My chief endeavor has been to determine the historical position of the questions at hand, and to show, consequently, the necessity of modifying, more or less, the traditional views. As regards the divinity of Jesus-Christ, I have said nothing which does not agree with the ideas expressed in the fourth letter found in Aiitour d'lin petit lizre," ^ We see thereby how far advanced were our critic's ideas, even in those days.^ However he adds: " If I had to discuss that subject again, I would, with still greater insistence, call the readers' attention upon the inadequacy of the dog- matic formula, upon the ambiguity of the idea of per- 1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp 194, 195 ; cf. Strauss, A Neiv Life, vol. i, p. 412 et seq. ^ Loisy, Quelques Lettres sur des Questions Actuelles, publ. by the author, 1908, p. 252; letter Ixii, Febr. 17, 1908, to Baron Von Hiigel. 3 Above, pp. 287-306. 32 498 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL sonality when we try to apply it, in the same sense, to both God and man; finally, upon the partly sym- bolical character of the theological data: by which I mean that the general relations of mankind with God are prefigured in the special relations which are said to exist between God and Christ." ^ And here is the explanation now given by Loisy of his position : " It seems to me, he says, that the dogma of Christ's divinity has never been and is not, even now, anything more than a symbol, more or less perfect, destined to signify the relations existing be- tween God and mankind personified in Jesus. The contradiction implied in the theological formula re- ferring to the God-man, corresponds to the antinomy which has proved the stumbling-block of philosophical speculation, namely : God is nothing if He is not everything ; and yet, the world and man cannot be said simply to be God : they exist in Him, yet really dis- tinct from Him. None the less, every conscious indi- vidual may be represented either as the living con- sciousness of God in the world through a sort of an Incarnation of God in man, or, in turn, as the living consciousness of the world subsisting in God, as though the world were all summed-up in man. It is the whole human race that is a daughter of God, proceeds from Him, is immanent in Him and in which He is imma- nent, through that circumincession spoken of by theo- logians with regard to the divine Trinity. Jesus was deeply conscious of this relation which mankind, we. may say, has for the first time perceived in Him and through Him with such an intensity of light. Chris- tian speculation got hold of the christological idea, and, just as the Messiah of Israel was, in a certain sense, the religious personification of the nation, so also Jesus Christ became the divine personification of mankind." ^ 1 Loisy, loc. cit. 2 Loisy, Quelques Lettres, pp. 149, 150; letter xliv, June 17, 1907, to Mr. I'Abbe X, cure. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 499 This is, as far as ideas and their expression are concerned, the very theory of Strauss and Renan. So that our so-called Catholic critic was simply trying to induce the Church to reform her dogma after the most genuine principles of rationalistic philosophy. The following quotation from Strauss' Life of Jesus will amply suffice to prove it : *' This is the key to the whole of Christology that, as subject of the predicate which the Church assigns to Christ, we place, instead of an individual, an idea ; but an idea which has an ex- istence in reality, not in the mind only. In an indi- vidual, a God-man, the properties and functions which the Church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race, they perfectly agree. Human- ity is the union of the two natures — God become man, the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude; it is the child of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human history, the Spirit more and more completely subjugates nature, both within and around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active power. It is the sin- less existence, for the course of its development is a blameless one ; pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does not touch the race or its history. It is hu- manity that dies, rises and ascends to heaven, for from the negation of its phenomenal life there ever proceeds a higher spiritual Hfe; from the suppression of its mortality as a personal, national, and terrestrial spirit, arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, man is justified before God : that is, by the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity, the individual man participates in the divinely human life of the species.'.' ^ 1 Strauss. Life of Jesus, vol. iii, pp. 437, 438 ; cf. A New Life, vol. ii, pp. 435-439- 500 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF LOISY's THEORIES. What should we think of these diverse theories from the point of view of an impartial exegesis? Noteworthy Admissions. — First of all, thanks are due to Loisy for having explicitly rejected, because it renders inexplicable the origin of Christianity, the opinion which maintains that Jesus never believed or proclaimed He w^as the Messiah ; also for having dis- carded, as being groundless and practically unten- able, the hypotheses which represent the Savior as sharing, in the beginning of his career, the prejudices of the Jews regarding the temporal character of the Messiah's mission. We do not find in the Gospels any serious foundation for the evolutionary theories which claim to draw up a picture of the messianic consciousness of Jesus in the process of its development. Such a verdict is worth remem- bering. It had been, long before, the verdict of Strauss himself : *' Nowhere in our evangelical narratives is there a trace of Jesus having sought to form a political party. ... If we ask how this harmonious mental constitution had come to exist in Jesus, there is no- where in the accounts of his life that lie before us any intimation of severe mental struggles from which it proceeded. It is indeed well known that . . . those accounts embrace only the short period of His public ministry, and represent Him moreover from a point of view excluding all human peccability; hence one might suppose that that period of cheerful unity with himself might have been preceded by another of gloomy struggle and also of numerous deviations from the right way. But, unless all analogies deceive us, traces of this must have been discoverable in His later life, regarding which we are not without informa- tion. In all those natures which were not purified until they had gone through struggles and violent dis- ruption (think only of a Paul, an Augustin, and a Luther), the shadowy colors of this exist forever, JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 501 and something harsh, severe and gloomy clings to them all their lives; but of this in Jesus no trace is found. Jesus appears as a beautiful nature from the first, which had only to develop itself out of itself, to be- come more clearly conscious of itself, ever firmer in itself, but not to change and begin a new Hfe." ^ Questionable Theories. — More questionable is the explanation which Loisy gives of Jesus' reserve in manifesting His messianic character. Our critic grants that the reason of this reserve is to be sought neither in ignorance nor in uncertainty, on the Savior's part, concerning His own vocation. This is the most important point and, hence, such a con- cession must be duly noted. But Loisy claims that he can successfully account for that discretion by the fact that Jesus believed He was only destined to be endowed with the messianic dignity at som.e distant date, and that, for the present. He looked upon Himself as being only a future Messiah. Now, such an explanation is wholly inadequate. For, in presence of His disciples from the time of the episode at Csesarea, and before Pilate at the time of His trial, Jesus confesses Himself to be the Christ, the King of the Jews. But, if the fact that He was not yet ex- ercising the full and definitive functions pertaining to His role did not prevent the Saviour, during that period of His ministry, from proclaiming Himself the Christ, why should He have hesitated to manifest Himself as such before, since we take for granted that His intimate consciousness had not changed since the beginning of His public career? We are con- fronted by this alternative : if He really intended not to claim the messianic dignity before the striking manifestation of the Kingdom, then we are at a loss to account for His admissions, made with no restric- tion whatever, at Csesarea and afterwards ; if, on the 1 Strauss. A Nezv Life of Christ, vol. i, pp. 282-283 ; cf. Harnack, cited above, pp. 232, 233, 259. 502 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Other hand, His poHcy of expectancy was not really decided upon in His mind, then we are not warranted in giving it as a motive of His discretion. As a matter of fact, the Gospel texts reveal to us other motives which, precisely, have the best chances to be the true ones, and agree with the most certain facts of history. Jesus had to take into account the state of mind of the multitudes and of His own dis- ciples. The mission which He had in view was purely spiritual and moral : the Kingdom of God which He intended to establish was exclusively of the religious order. And yet, the word " Messiah " aroused in the souls of men a whole world of national and earthly ambitions. Hence, before He could openly proclaim Himself the Messiah, Jesus had, first of all, to work out a deep change in the ideas of those around Him, to convince His disciples of His true character, but rather by His works and by progressive declarations than by an overt and positive proclamation.^ On this point we may well accept the judgment of Strauss : nobody will suspect him of partiality in our favor : " It is conceivable that Jesus, though already fully convinced of His own Messiahship, did never- theless, in reference to others, select, to designate Him- self, an expression not yet stamped as a title of the Messiah, in order not to force anything from without upon His disciples and the people, but to allow the con- viction that He was the Messiah to arise spontaneously within them ; hence also His visible rejoicing when He had got so far, at least with His nearest friends, that He saw the germ of the right view of His character springing up in the mind of one of them." ^ The rest of Loisy's assertions refer to Jesus' illu- sions concerning the realization of the messianic King- dom before His death, His anticipated messianic glori- fication and consecration, during His earthly career, 1 Above, pp. 146-150. 2 Strauss, A New Life, vol. i, p. 310, JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 503 finally concerning the fact that his messianic con- sciousness was posterior to the consciousness of His filial relations with God. But, the statements of our critic on these various points constitute a collection of mere hypotheses grounded upon rationalistic pre- judices and contradicted by the precise data of our documents. Mere Hypotheses. — Loisy, for instance, main- tains that Jesus believed in the imminent coming of the Kingdom and did not foresee that He would have to suffer and die before its realization. This hypothesis closely resembles the one imagined by Reimarus in the eighteenth century; the work of the old German critic was first partly published by Lessing in 1774, under the title : " Fragments from an Unknown Man '* ; in the last Fragment, published in 1778, it is asserted that Jesus' aim was to re- establish the Kingdom of David and Solomon. All that which, in the Gospels, does not agree with this plan, has been invented by the Apostles, who have thus tried to lessen the failure of their Master. Jesus had an accomplice in the person of John the Baptist; they had secretly agreed that they would praise and commend each other. The day chosen for the insur- rection destined to bring back to life the ancient Jew- ish Kingdom was Easter day; but the scenes which took place in Jerusalem when Jesus entered trium- phantly in the city, caused the complete collapse of the plans ; for, the Master's revolutionary triumph stirred up the multitude against the legitimate authori- ties; moreover, he violated the majesty of the Temple by an act of unheard-of audacity, as though He was persuaded He could do anything He pleased. Being arrested by the leaders of His own people, He found a cross instead of a crown. This denouement He had not foreseen, and His disappointment and despair manifested themselves with a strange bitterness at His last moments; H? repented while dying, and on the 504 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL instrument of His death, He declared He was aban- doned by God. His disciples, after His death, gave a spiritual turn to his statements on the Kingdom of God and an ideal setting to His life and doctrine." ^ That Loisy practically agrees with Reimarus is shown by a remark we borrow from an article in the Revue d'histoire et de litterature religieuse; reviewing the work of A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, he says significantly : " Schweitzer shows very clearly that Reimarus' work betrays a remarkable insight." The only difference between Loisy and Reimarus is that, in the eyes of the old German critic, the King- dom which Jesus purposed to re-establish while going to Jerusalem for the Passover, was the temporal King- dom of David, while Loisy, together with Strauss, maintains that the Saviour was only thinking of a sud- den catastrophe which was to upset the world and to establish therein the conditions of a new life, favorable to the eternal reign of God and of His elect. But such an opinion can be maintained only by one who makes from among the evangelical documents a very special and limited selection, and gives of the texts thus set apart an arbitrary and exaggerated in- terpretation. Jesus' acceptance of the triumphal reception ten- dered Him by the people of Jerusalem can be easily accounted for otherwise than by His firm belief in the imminent coming of the Kingdom. The Saviour knows that His last hour is near at hand; the Jewish leaders are about to deliver Him into the hands of the Roman authorities; the multitude which appears now so sympathetic will soon clamor for His crucifixion. The Passion is imminent with its retinue of shameful outrages, with death upon the cross, marking the utter ruin of the messianic dream. So that the Saviour may well now accept the ovation which He had up to this 1 F. Vigouroux, Les livres saints et la critique .... 3d edit, 1890, vol, ii, p. 418. lESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 505 time so carefully avoided. And then, spontaneously, He accepts that ephemeral glorification, as an antici- pated protest against the scandalous events about to happen. Such conduct on the Saviour's part is cer- tainly easy to understand. Jesus affects to represent the coming of the King- dom as being near at hand: but this does not neces- sarily mean it will come in an immediate future; the language of the Saviour is easy enough to understand if, as a matter of fact, the Kingdom is to be realized in its initial, earthly phase, as a preparation for its final consummation, and if, on the other hand, Jesus wants to show that the supreme advent of the Son of man is prefigured, and in a certain sense anticipated, in the catastrophe which threatens Jerusalem.^ None of the texts, none of the facts, referred to, really proves that Jesus considered the realization of the eschatological Kingdom as being imminent: the complete and definitive interpretation of these texts and facts must be subordinated to the meaning of the clearest data furnished by the Gospels. Now, it is certain that the Gospels contain a mass of facts which are at absolute variance with the hypothesis main- tained by Loisy. Facts against Loisy's Theories. — First of all, there are all the texts in which is announced the event spoken of by Jesus under the image of the Kingdom of God, and seemingly identical with the Palestinian catastrophe which was to inaugurate the social reign of Christ : it shall happen before the end of the present generation, at a time when only a few of the Saviour's hearers shall survive.^ Again, there are the numerous passages in which Jesus expressly warns His disciples not to be surprised if there is a delay in the coming of the Kingdom, and to be always ready, because it shall come unex- pectedly.^ 1 Above, p. 453 cf seq. 2 Above, p. 443 ef seq., p. 453 et seq. 3 Above, p. 441 et seq. 5o6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Then, we have the different parables intended to teach us how Christian hfe must progress slowly in the hearts of men, how the preaching of the Gospel is to spread little by little in the world. Nay more, in the Saviour's intention, the Gospel is to go beyond the borders of Palestine, to be communicated to the Gentiles, and finally spread over the whole universe.^ ''In these passages (Matt. xi. 12; Luke xvi. 16; Matt, xii. 28)," says Strauss himself, ''the Kingdom is repre- sented as that which is already here present, that has been founded and opened by Jesus during His life on earth. If, moreover, we compare the parables of the grain of mustard-seed, and particularly of the leaven, where the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth is compared with the gradual leavening of a mass of dough, then Jesus appears to have contemplated a perfectly natural and gradual development of the Kingdom. One view does not quite exclude the other . . . an invisible presence of Jesus must be distin- guished from His visible second coming, as, in the parable of the tares, the presence of the Kingdom of God in an imperfect condition of preparation and de- velopment, must be distinguished from its perfect re- alization in the future." ^ The Master, moreover, does not fail to foretell to His Apostles the trials, the persecutions, the sacrifices implied in such a work of universal evangelization: " He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that shall lose his Hfe for me shall find it." Loisy is of the opin- ion that this sentence is incontestably authentic, and he himself thus comments on it : " He who shall lose his life, that is to say, he who shall be put to death for the sake of the Gospel, shall truly find it, because he shall thus attain a blessed Hfe in the Kingdom of Heaven." ^ i Above, pp. 436, 437. 2 A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 329, 330. •^ Loisy, op. cit., vol, i, p. 896. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 507 In another passage, Jesus gives His disciples to understand that they must consider themselves as men condemned to death, carrying their cross behind Him ; they must expect to be hated, persecuted, ill-treated, put to death. ^ All these statements, which hold such an important place in the Gospels, are incompatible with the hy- pothesis according to which the Saviour was persuaded of the imminent coming of the Kingdom. Moreover, is not such a hypothesis contradicted by the very manner in which Jesus constantly speaks of His com- ing or of the Parousia ? " You shall not finish all the cities of Israel till the Son of man come." " He that shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful gen- eration, the Son of man also will be ashamed of him when He shall come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." " There are some of them that stand here who shall not taste death till they see the King- dom of God coming in power." " Be you also ready; for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will come." Noah's contemporaries were caught unaware by the deluge : " so shall also be the coming of the Son of man." The Son of man is Hke unto a prince " who went into a far country to receive for himself a Kingdom and to return " ; he may be compared to the bridegroom who went to receive the bride and for whose return his servants are watching, that they may open to him immediately, or whose coming the vir- gins are awaiting, in order to accompany him to the wedding banquet; again, he may be likened to a master who, going into a far country, delivered his goods to his servants, and who comes back after a long time and reckons with them. On that last day, the Son of man shall be seen " coming in the clouds, with 1 Mark viii. 34; Matt, xvi. 24; Luke ix. 23; Matt, x. 38; Luke xiv. 27. 5o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL great power and glory." He shall be seen " sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of Heaven." " When the Son of man shall come in His majesty and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty and all the nations shall be gathered together before Him." ^ Such a way of speaking, usual with the Saviour, cannot be reasonably understood, except we admit that He had in His mind that He must, first of all, leave this world, go to His Father, and take possession of His Heavenly Kingdom in order to return in the day of His final advent. Strauss admits it unhesi- tatingly : " Jesus, he says, separated from the present, as a time of preparation, a future, as that of perfec- tion; from this life, as a period of service, a fife to come, as that of recompense ; and with the beginning of this perfection he connected a change in the world to be brought about by God. This appears in all the Gospels in the most decided manner, if these are to be supposed to have any historical validity whatever." ^ Thus we are led to conclude that not only the Master was not mistaken about His messianic destiny, but that He also positively foresaw His disappearance from among His own and His death. As a matter of fact, the Gospels abound in testi- monies to that effect. In the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus mysteriously gives His disciples to understand that the " bridegroom shall be taken away from his friends," and this sentence is connected with an episode whose authenticity is not doubtful in the least. The exhortation which, on another occasion, 1 Matt. X. 23 ; Mark viii. 38 ; Matt. xvi. 27 ; Luke ix. 26 ; Mark viii. 39; Matt. xvi. 28; Luke ix. 27; Luke xii. 40; Malt, xxiv. 44; Matt. xxiv. 2>7 \ Luke xvii. 30; Luke xix. 12, 13, 15; xii. 36 et seq.; Matt xxv. i, 6, 10, 14, 19; Mark xiii. 26; Matt. xxiv. 30; Luke xxi. 27; Mark xiv. 62; Matt. xxvi. 64; Luke xxii. 69; Matt. xxv. 31. 2 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 330. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 509 He addresses to them, to carry their cross after Him, " has no meaning, Loisy thinks, except in connection with the Passion, and except we bear in mind the cir- cumstances of Jesus' death." Now, this exhortation is closely connected with the sentence concerning the life to be saved or to be lost, which, according to the same critic, is undoubtedly authentic/ Moreover, this last sentence does not refer to the disciples alone. Loisy is obliged to admit it : " Jesus had said for Himself as well as for His disciples : ' Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whoso- ever shall lose his life shall save it.' " Now, it is ar- bitrary to claim that Jesus thereby considered the mere possibility of being put to death for the sake of the Kingdom. And, above all, how could we account for the fact that He considered that eventuality so seriously as to refer to it publicly, in the explicit terms men- tioned above, if He had been so deeply convinced, as critics want Him to be, of the imminent manifestation of the Kingdom, at the time of His journey to Jeru- salem ? Finally, at Csesarea Philippi, in Galilee, on the way to Jerusalem, at the banquet in which He was anointed, in the parable of the wicked Husbandmen, at the last Supper, everywhere does the Master appear fully conscious of His approaching death.^ How is it possible to set aside such a mass of tes- timonies, namely, those referring to the delay of the last Advent, and those who bear out Jesus' prevision of His suffering destiny? Loisy eliminates them all systematically, because compelled by the necessity of giving a basis to his preconceived hypothesis. Radical Views on the Gospels' Historicity. — True it is that in his recent work, the two tableaux 1 Above, pp. 240, 241 ; Loisy, op. cif., vol. i, p. 895 ; above, p. 506. 2Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 215 ; cf. The Gospel and the Church, p. 20; quoted above, p. 242. 5io CHRIST AND TUn GOSPEL entitled *' The Career of Jesus " and *' The Teaching of Jesus " are prefaced by a long study on each of the three synoptic Gospels, and on the character and de- velopment of evangelical tradition/ in which the author is supposed to examine in the most impartial spirit the guarantees of authenticity offered by the Gospels: the distinction which he makes between the authentic primitive data and the later additions due to the pen of the final compiler, the considerations he makes on the manner in which tradition has worked upon and transformed history, seem all drawn from an impartial study of the documents ; consequently, his general views on the ministry and teaching of the Saviour appear to be but the conclusion of a scientific criticism of the texts. But this is a mere illusion. One w^ho follows attentively Loisy's analysis of the evangelical writings, and weighs carefully the reasons for which this statement is declared to be authentic and that one to have been invented by the compilers or by tradition — comes to the conclusion that the dis- tinctions are the outcome of a systematic and partisan spirit. We may remark that, in spite of contrary appear- ances, the judgments of Loisy on the historicity of the Gospel narratives, are independent from the ques- tion of the relations existing between the three synop- tic Gospels. The proof is that, with the exception of a few details, his conclusions are, from beginning to end, identical with those of Strauss. And yet, while Strauss adopted the hypothesis of Griesbach, accord- ing to which Luke and Mark were dependent upon Matthew, Loisy adopts the theory, more current now- adays, which maintains that Mark was the chief source of the two others. Moreover, his conclusions do not rest at all upon a previous examination of the guar- antees of historicity which the Gospels are supposed 1 Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 84-174, 175-202, 203-224, 225-253. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 511 to owe to their origin. In his Synoptic Gospels, vol. i, p. 65, Loisy praises Strauss for having " subordi- nated the critical examination of the Gospel records to the critical examination of the evangelical history. For, if the narratives concerning Christ v^ere myths, they could not come from eye-v^itnesses or v^ell-in- formed chroniclers, and therefore the question of com- position had but a secondary importance." Following the example of the Tiibingen Doctor, Loisy begins with an examination of the evangelical records from the rationalistic point of view, and finding them full of supernatural features, he proclaims them legendary and concludes that they do not come from the par- ticularly well-informed authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, pointed out by tradition. This is exactly the reverse of a truly critical examination ; in good logic, the au- thenticity of the books must be inquired into before their historical value is examined. As Renan himself justly said : " At what time, by what hands, in what conditions were the Gospels written? This is the capital question upon which depends the opinion we must form of their credibility." ^ The Question of the Parousia.— To return to the question of the Parousia: our critic centres his attention upon the passages in which Jesus seems to announce the coming of the Kingdom as being im- minent; these passages, interpreted in the strictest manner, are carefully set forth and brought into prominence; Jesus' illusions, supposedly proved by these texts, are asserted as an absolute, intangible truth,; this is, of course, logically demanded by Loisy's philosophical system, according to which Jesus' science must be purely natural, and His messiahship chimer- ical. All the portions of our texts which square with those so-called facts, thus boldly asserted, are pro- claimed genuine; all that which does not fit into the '^Vie de Jesus, 13th ed., p. xlviii; cf. Les theories de Mr. Loisy, Expose, 1908, pp. 219-226. 512 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL system is declared to be a later addition, and therefore unhesitatingly eliminated. It is the most arbitrary and intolerant method, called upon to foster the cause of the most rationalistic criticism/ • Now, such a method must be rejected both on ac- count of its arbitrary character and of the violence it does to documents whose historical value seems so strongly established, when they are studied without prejudice. It is not in a few isolated and doubtful texts that Jesus' foreknowledge of His death and of the Kingdom's delay is attested: it is to be found in every one of our four Gospels, it permeates every page of them, and in many a passage it offers particularly significant proofs of authenticity. We have seen, in particular, how more definite an- nouncements of Christ's passion are repeated in a sort of gradation after St. Peter's confession, and coun- terbalance, as it were, the more striking manifesta- tions of Jesus' dignity. From the point of view of history, nothing is easier to understand, but from the point of view of the later compilation, nothing is more unlikely than this sort of compensation by which the shining eclat of the Saviour's messiahship is dis- creetly overshadowed by the dark vision of His cru- cifixion, pointed out by Himself. The authenticity of the prediction made at Csesarea receives a very special confirmation from the spontaneous protest which it draws from St. Peter, and from the severe rebuke with which this same protest is met by Jesus. " There is every probability, remarks Strauss, in favor of the fact that the first revelation of this kind which Jesus made to His disciples was most displeasing and re- pulsive to them. . . . For, they shared the common conception of the Messiah, which, up to this time, Jesus had attempted rather to modify indirectly and virtually than to combat expressly; and to this con- ^C/. Theories de Mr. Loisy, p. 243 et seq. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 513 ception, sufferings and the death of a criminal formed the most glaring contrast ... so that the inevitable result (viz. Jesus' death) might have come upon them before they had familiarized themselves with the thought of it.'' Finally we find no less significant guarantees of truthfulness in the remarks referring to the surprise, the sadness, the mysterious fear with which other predictions inspire the Apostles.^ It seems by far more logical, or, let us say it plainly, more critical, to take into account the ensemble of the characteristic features found in our writings, including all these texts, so numerous and whose genuineness is so well established, than to base an opinion upon a category of passages skilfully set apart from the rest. In the name of the Gospels, in the name of history^ we have a right to affirm that the Saviour did not, con- cerning His immediate messianic destiny, labor under the delusion attributed to Him. The Messianic Consecration. — According to Loisy, the primitive Christian tradition connected the messianic consecration of Jesus with His resurrec- tion; soon after, the glory of the Messiah was, by anticipation, traced back to His earthly career; this was done by multiplying His declarations concerning His quality of Christ and by turning His miracles into evidences of His dignity ; at the same time tradi- tion is supposed to have put the messianic consecra- tion in immediate connection with the baptism that marked the beginning of the Saviour's career, and finally to have traced it back to the very origin of His Hfe. This theory offers, indeed, a seducing appearance; it presents itself as a system not only very simple but also well balanced and perfectly consistent. But we 1 Above, pp. 239, 243 ; Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol, i, pp. 320, 321. 33 514 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL must confess that the system is very arbitrary and built up without regard to the texts. Our critic admits that, in the episode at Caesarea, Jesus was spontaneously hailed as Messiah by Simon Peter; now, the assurance with which the chief of the Apostles expresses the conviction of the Twelve at that time can be accounted for only if we admit that the Saviour had, previously to this incident, manifested His messianic character in a discreet but sufficiently significant manner. Was there not a real need of quite decisive revelations, in order to overcome com- pletely the very serious objection which the Jews had against recognizing God's Messiah in a man whose claims and conduct were giving the lie to all their ex- pectations? If Jesus Himself provoked His own to a profession of faith, it must be because He was con- scious of having done enough to beget it and bring it to maturity in their hearts. Loisy has made, in that regard, very significant admissions : *' Jesus also, he says, announced that the Kingdom of God was near at hand; but His hearers must have felt, from the very beginning, that He was attributing to Himself, in that Advent, an important place which John did not claim ;" . . . " During those days of common and intimate life, the disciples, no doubt, got a deeper in- sight into Jesus' true character and attached them- selves more and more to His person. ... It is thus that the role which was to be His in the supreme manifestation appeared more clearly to the eyes of the Twelve, and that they felt disposed to hail Him as Christ, without His having expressly declared that He was the Messiah." ^ The things being so, it is easy to understand that, from the very beginning of His ministry, He did not hesitate to allude to His quality of Messiah, as the Gospels testify He did, especially by revealing His '^Les Evang. Synopt., vol. i, p. 207. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 515 unique relations with God; easy also to understand that He habitually turned His miracles into as many implicit arguments in favor of His messianic charac- ter. Again we can understand why it pleased Him to designate Himself by the name of Son of man, which conveyed a mysteriously messianic meaning, while, at the same time, He proclaimed Himself the Son of God by excellence. Nay more, we should not be surprised to see that, here and there, more explicit recognitions of His messianic quality are interwoven in the rest of His more discreet manifestations : these recognitions are destined, as it were, to stimulate the hearers' curiosity, to call more vividly upon the mes- sianic idea the attention of minds which the humble conditions of Jesus' ministry were certainly calculated to baffle. The declarations of those possessed by the devil, which were indeed very discreet and checked by Jesus as soon as permitted, form a part of that programme of progressive messianic pedagogy which has every chance to agree with the exact data of his- tory. " Jesus, remarks Strauss, might feel Himself induced to choose this method the more He must have feared, by declaring Himself from the first to be the Messiah, to excite all those political hopes of the na- tion which ran directly counter to that sense in which alone He thought of being the Messiah." ^ Did christian tradition at first represent Jesus as Messiah consecrated by His resurrection? This is not really intimated by the texts. The Saviour had pro- claimed Himself Messiah during His hfe and He had been recognized as such. Then, we are facing this al- ternative : people thought that this dignity was to be be- stowed upon Him only at the time of the inauguration of the Kingdom : in that case one cannot see why christian tradition would have thought of represent- '^ A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 310; above, pp. 157-165, 143-167. 5i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ing Him clothed in His messianic dignity from the very moment of His resurrection. Or again — and this is, as we have seen, the only plausible hypothesis — He was thought to be the Messiah from the time of His earthly career, although He might postpone until later days the decisive manifestation of His role ; in that case, the first thought of tradition — if tradition was ever anxious to mark out the exact moment of the messianic consecration — must have been to assign it to a time long preceding the resurrection.^ Moreover, it is not very likely that, considering the high idea which people immediately formed of Christ, they would imagine there was a moment in His life when He was consecrated as Messiah, not being clothed in that dignity before. Even from the point of view considered by the critics, the very first ten- dency of Christian piety must have been to look upon the Saviour as Christ from the beginning; which is equivalent to say that our narratives of the Baptism and of the childhood do not represent the progressive developments of a traditional process, working upon the idea of Jesus-Messiah. On the other hand, the official recognition of Jesus as Messiah at the time of His baptism fits very well into the reality of history; it is in keeping with John the Baptist's role, for whom the celestial vision and voices seem to be intended, and with the role of Jesus whose entry upon His public career is thus marked out.2 This messianic meaning of Jesus' baptism does not impair in the least the significance which we attach to the evangelical records of His birth. St. Mark, it is true, begins the story of Christ's life with the scene enacted on the banks of the Jordan river; but nothing permits us to believe that, in his eyes or in 1 Above, p. 178-183. 2 Above, pp. 249-253. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 517 the eyes of the particular tradition upon which his narrative depends, the Saviour begins to be Christ at that moment, and that, only then, He is set apart from ordinary mankind in order to be consecrated Son of God and Messiah. The two other Synoptists relate the birth of Jesus and present Him as Christ from that very moment; yet, they do not fail to de- scribe His baptism and to attribute to it exactly the same significance which St. Mark gives it: hence they do not think that either of those two events could possibly impair the meaning of the other, and the bap- tism did not appear to them as the true consecration of the ]\Iessiah. Are we to believe that their view on the subject differed from those of primitive tradition? St. John himself gives to the baptism full prominence, and yet, we cannot doubt that, in his eyes. He whose baptism he relates is the Incarnate Word, the only Son of God, and that from His very birth.^ One has no right, therefore, to maintain that the evangelical narratives in which the Saviour appears clothed in His messianic dignity from the beginning of His ministry and from the origin of His life, are the outcome of christian speculation. The hypothesis representing Jesus as living at first with the consciousness of a particularly intimate union with God, and becoming, slowly and by degrees, aware of His vocation to the role of Messiah, such a hy- pothesis is due to the desire of giving a natural explan- ation of that messianic consciousness, but it is, in all other respects, purely gratuitous. Origin of the Messianic Consciousness. — For the texts, in fact, show that Jesus was conscious of His messianic dignity even before His baptism, and simul- taneously He believes Himself to be the Son of God. Loisy himself points it out as a thing worth mention- ing that Jesus, in His thirtieth year, "is free from 1 Above, pp. 123, 124. 5i8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL every social bond, all ready to follow His vocation." Our critic even goes so far as to admit that the re- ligious sentiments and hopes of Israel, which underlie His conviction of being the Messiah, must have taken possession of His soul " from His most tender age." This is equivalent to recognizing that one who is free from rationalistic prejudices is led by all our texts to declare the messianic consciousness of Jesus to be as old as He Himself was. This is not all. Taken as it stands, the naturalistic hypothesis contains features gravely inconsistent with historical likelihood, and throws us into mysteries by far more repugnant to reason than the traditional dogma. How imagine that Jesus, at a certain moment of His hfe, after beheving that, so far. He simply had familiar relations with God, suddenly passed to the idea that He must be the Messiah? Let it be care- fully noticed that there is no question of a vulgar messiahship such as the common people imagined. That such a vocation to be a temporal Messiah, a Mes- siah liberator of His own people, could have sprung up in a mind exalted by patriotic feelings, excited by the glorious memories of Israel, anxious to avenge the honor of the chosen people by shaking off the hated yoke of its pagan enemies, this is quite easy to under- stand. But Jesus has nothing in common with a politi- cal and conquering Messiah ! His messiahship belongs entirely to the moral and religious order. And what an extraordinary idea He has of it ! He is no common preacher of the Kingdom of God, no mere converter of souls as John the Baptist was, nor even an author- ized interpreter of the Almighty's will, as were the old seers of Israel ; in His relations with God, He places Himself above the greatest prophets, above all men; He claims for Himself an absolute authority, He considers Himself the Head of mankind and af- firms that one day He shall judge the living and JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 519 the dead; it is He who shall pronounce over everyone the sentence of eternal life or of eternal damnation, He who shall introduce men into the Kingdom or exclude them therefrom, He who shall be forever the supreme ruler thereof ; sitting at the right hand of the Almighty and sharing forever His glory. That the idea of such a vocation might have arisen from the previous sentiment of His union with the Heavenly Father, this sentiment itself should have been of an absolutely unheard of character. What intimacy with God must a man be conscious of, to think himself called upon to receive such a transcend- ent, such a truly superhuman and divine dignity ? The problem, then, is only put off; and one continues to strike against this enigma: how did it happen that a mere carpenter in a small Galilean village believed Himself to be the Son of God to a degree that elevates Him incomparably above the rest of men and war- rants Him in proclaiming Himself the Lieutenant of God by excellence, the supreme Head of mankind, the sovereign Judge of the living and the dead, the President of the eternal Kingdom of God? Illusion in this case would imply such a disorderly imagination, such an extravagant pride as are in no way shown by all we know about the natural conditions in which the Saviour lived, about the tendencies of those around Him, as also about the uprightness, the modesty, the mental balance which characterize His intellectual and moral temper. " The interior light of His conscience, Loisy re- marks, seems to have been His principal master, the teacher that helped Him to understand the world, to judge men, to perceive the deep meaning of that King- dom of God which everybody was awaiting, and whose realization He felt, one day, He was called upon to bring" about." ^ 1 Op, cit., vol i, p. 206; cf. Retian, quoted above, p. 201. 520 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL The origin of the messianic consciousness of Jesus, such as we ought to represent it to ourselves in the reahty of things, cannot, then, be accounted for by any natural explanation, that is to say by the hy- pothesis of an illusion. Whatever may be the part played by experience and personal reflection in the formation, in Jesus, of the interior consciousness of His dignity, His JNIessiahship has its foundation in the divine order of things : it has its origin in the very reality of the being which Jesus owes to His birth and to His relations with God. This is what the Gospels bear witness to ; and is not their testimony truly confirmed by all we know about the Saviour's hfe? about His teaching which forces ad- miration on the mind; about His works which it is impossible to reasonably deprive of their miraculous character ; about His resurrection which one cannot deny without doing violence to history and without rendering the origin of the Christian Church really incomprehensible; finally, about the destinies of the religion of which He is the founder and which is still living under our eyes ? The new explanation which Loisy, following in the wake of Strauss and Renan, proposes of the dogma of Christ's divinity, is prompted by his pantheistic the- ories. He affects to give a certain religious setting, he takes care to distinguish it from purely material- istic rationalism, and claims that his ultimate conclu- sions are not leading to the belief in a complete an- nihilation ; but elegant formulas do not create realities, and no man of sense, no thinking man can seriously and sincerely declare that he is satisfied with them.^ This is not the place to discuss the philosophical consequences of such a theory. The only question we are now concerned with is to know whether, from 1 See, Les theories de Mr. Loisy, pp. 1 16-120. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 52J the point of view of evangelical history, it is exact to say that Jesus always and absolutely distinguished Himself from God, and that He never pretended in any way to be on an equality with God. The Faith of the First Christian Generation. — Loisy is obliged to recognize that the dogma of Christ's divinity is clearly formulated in the fourth Gospel, and expressed equivalently in St. Paul's Epistles. It is, indeed, an undeniable fact.^ Now, the fourth Gospel remains for us a first-class document, not only as a source of precise information concerning the belief of the Church at the end of the first century, but also as an authoritative record of Jesus' life and doctrine.^ As to St. Paul, he lived during the first christian generation and was in contact with the immediate disciples of Christ. It is impossible to believe that, concerning the personality of Christ, he could have openly and persistently put forward a teaching dif- ferent from and opposed to theirs. The doctrine of the great Apostle on such a matter must have corres- ponded to the sayings and teachings of the witnesses ; his faith must have been identical with that of the direct Apostles of Jesus.^ But such a faith is inconceivable on the part of the Apostles, if Jesus distinguished Himself from God as absolutely as critics claim He did. It cannot be rea- sonably accounted for, except we admit that the Master insinuated and suggested the idea of His di- vinity in a manner significant enough ; so that His own suggestions, together with the memories of His works and the miracle of His resurrection, might give rise to that firm belief concerning His person, which we find current in the earHest days of the Church. 1 Above, p. 384 et seq. 2 See La valeur historique du quatri^me Evangile, (M, Lepin, 1909), 3 Above, pp. 400-410. 522 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL We are not in the present case, groping about in the obscure domain of legend. Thanks to St. Paul's Epistles, we have under our eyes the very life of the primitive Christian community, cradle of that great Church of the second century which appears to us in the full light of history. In the time of the Apostles as well as in the days of St. Ignatius, of St Polycarp and Irenseus, the intense spiritual life of the Church is guided and permeated by faith in Christ the Re- deemer, eternal Son of God and true God Himself: it is logical to conclude from this fact that Jesus Him- self must have, in some way, suggested the idea of His divinity. As a matter of fact, what do the Gospels say? Loisy admits that the Synoptics bear witness to the divine nature of Jesus and put on His lips significant declara- tions bearing on this point. I mean the passages in which Christ calls Himself the Son, side by side with the Father, without adding a word; or the Son of God by excellence and in an absolute manner : such is, for instance, the sentence on the Father who alone knows the Son and on the Son who alone knows the Father; again, the statement concerning Christ, Son of one greater than David, the answer to Peter's con- fession in St. Matthew, the parable of the Wicked Hus- bandmen, the declaration of Christ before Caiphas, the trinitarian formula of Baptism. And besides, there are all the texts which show us the Saviour claiming the right of remitting sins, pretending to be greater than the temple. Master of the Sabbath, Lord of the Angels, supreme judge of the living and the dead. Value of the Texts.— Now, what right have the critics to declare all these texts unauthentic? Are their claims based upon a critical analysis of the docu- ments ? Not in the least. True it is that the trinitarian formula of Baptism and the answer to the title of Son of God given by Simon Peter at Caesarea, are to be found in St. Mat- JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 523 thew alone ; but the sentence on the reciprocal knowl- edge of the Father and the Son, is in both St. Matthew and St. Luke; now, as the two Evangelists are in- dependent from each other, this sentence undoubtedly belongs to the fundamental and primitive documents utihzed by both. As for the sentence on Christ, Son of David, the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, the declaration before Caiphas, they are common to the three Synoptists and belong therefore to the primitive tradition. Almost everyone of these passages had already been called in doubt by Loisy in his former works, and we had, in a previous chapter of this book, to vindi- cate their authenticity, which is, by the way, admitted by the majority of critics, even the most independent: in his last work, Loisy brings forward no new argu- ment to support his negations.^ As a matter of fact, he is not so positive as regards the interpolation of the trinitarian formula of Bap- tism into St. Matthew's primitive text. Referring to the quotations from Eusebius of Csesarea, in which the formula is wanting, he contents himself with re- marking : " An attempt has been made to account for that particular feature of Eusebius' testimony; but it does not seem that the objection drawn therefrom against the authenticity of the trinitarian formula in Matthew's xxviii chapter, has been completely and successfully solved." Let us remark in connection therewith, that, in reality, the abnormal citations of Eusebius cannot give rise to any serious objection, since the words omitted by him are certainly known by more ancient writers and, moreover, quoted by the bishop of Caesarea himself in another passage of his works. On the other hand, it is in vain that our critic remarks that " the perfect equality of the three per- sons is not taught in the passage in question"; for 1 Cf. above, pp. 324, 325, 350-355. 364-379- 524 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL he is obliged to admit that the mention of the Son side by side with the Father and the Holy Ghost is none the less extraordinary, and suggests something which very closely resembles the doctrine of Trinity. " It is undeniable, he says, that the personal mention of the Holy Ghost and the juxtaposition of the three persons imply the existence between them — independently from the part they play in the economy of salvation — of a fundamental relation whose nature is to be de- termined by considerations different from those which the Gospel betrays in this passage." ^ Let us now say a word about the two passages which Loisy seemed to admit up to this time, or which he had no occasion of expressly rejecting. He had previously contented himself with insinu- ating that the discussion concerning Christ, Son of David, might possibly have been imagined by tradition. To-day he positively asserts it: but his affirmation is as gratuitous as ever. The passage in question, re- produced by the three synoptists, is a part of a series of episodes which offer a strikingly historical charac- ter ; they refer to discussions between Jesus and His adversaries, Pharisees and Sadducees, who have united themselves in order to ensnare Him by their insidious questions and impair His authority in the eyes of the multitude. But Jesus foils His enemies' efforts ; His answers throw them into confusion, and He Himself does not hesitate to take the offensive. It is what He does, in particular, in the circumstance now under ex- amination. ^ He asks the Pharisees : whose son should Christ be, according to the teaching of their Scribes? They an- 1 Op.^ cit., vol. ii, p. 752, n. i; ibid., p. 751; cf. above p. 375; Th. Riggenbach, Dei- Trinitarische Taufhefehl nach seiner ursprungUchen Textgestalt, 1903 ; F. E. Chase, The Lord's .Command to Baptize, in Journal of Theolog. Studies, 1905, pp. 481-521. 2 Above, p. 347. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 525 swer: David's. This answer gives to the Saviour an opportunity to show, from the very Scripture to whose testimony they cannot take exception that Christ is not merely a descendant from the great King. Noth- ing is more conformable to the usual method of the Master than this way of arguing, consisting, as it does, in asking a question, in obtaining an admission on some point, and in grounding a lesson on the principle thus recognized as true/ The very terms of the discussion can be properly understood only if we admit the reality of the evan- gelical history, but would be incomprehensible from the point of view of a subsequent tradition. For, it seems, at first sight, that the Saviour intends to refuse the title of Son of David ; several critics have thought, wrongly indeed, that such was really His intention. Now, we know that, from the very time of St. Paul, in the early Church, the belief in the Davidic origin of Christ was firmly established. How could we com- prehend that tradition would have imagined a scene in which Christ seems Himself to deny that origin? Strauss who also admits the authenticity of the passage^ thinks that Jesus '' indirectly refused the title." *'In this case, he says, only one of two things is conceivable. Either Jesus had a solution in reserve which reconciled the relation of subordination involved in the appellation of the Messiah as David's Son with the relation of superiority involved in the description of Him as David's Lord ; but this could only have been the supposition of a higher nature in the Messiah, by means of which He was, according to the flesh or according to the Law, a descendant of David, but according to the spirit a higher being proceeding im- mediately from God. . . . The only remaining suppo- sition therefore is that Jesus considered the contra- 1 Mark ii. 9, 25 ; iii. 4 ; Luke vii. 42 ; Mark iii. 23, S3 ', Luke X. 36; Matt. xxi. 31; Mark xi. 30; xii. 9, 16. 526 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL diction as really insoluble, and therefore, as he evi- dently sided with the Psalms, . . intended to de- clare the theory of His being the Son of David as in- admissible." ^ Someone will say, perhaps, that tradition chiefly intended to insinuate that Davidic sonship is nothing in comparison with the divine filiation that belongs to Christ. But this difficulty remains, that the Davidic origin is, as it were, set aside, and this would be in- comprehensible at a time when controversies with the Synagogue were most acute, when the chief point was precisely to prove, against the Jews, the quality of Messiah belonging to Jesus, when, therefore, it was supremely important to bring into prominence the fact that Jesus was, through His ancestors, connected with the great King of Israel. On the other hand, it would be inexplicable that, concerning the idea of Christ, Son of God, tradition should have contented itself with such a discreet insinuation. The mysterious fashion in which Christ suggests that He is the Son of one greater than David is easier to understand on the part of the historical Christ than on the part of Christian piety. The Interrogatory before Caiphas.— Loisy is still less justified in attributing to tradition the in- vention of the scene of the interrogatory before Caiphas, the authenticity of which he had admitted until now, in agreement with all the critics. The episode is related by the three Synoptists, it is an integral part of the history of the Saviour's last days, and it ofifers such guarantees of authenticity as can- not be rejected except on set purpose.- First of all, the hypothesis that the scene is an in- vention of the apologists destined to shift the respon- sibility of Jesus' death from the Roman authorities to 1 A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 304 ; above, p. 347. 2 Above, pp. 320, 321. I JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 527 the Synagogue: such a hypothesis cannot be main- tained. Extenuated though it be, Pilate's responsi- bihty is none the less clearly set forth in our actual nar- ratives : the governor did not act on his own initiative, it is true ; he was willing to absolve, but he was forced to act against his own will : it remains true, however, that he condemned Jesus ; it is he who, after all, de- livered Him unto death ; it is his own soldiers who executed the sentence. His resistance previous to the pressure of the Sanhedrists serves only to bring into greater prominence his weakness and cowardice. Now, could we comprehend a narrative built along those lines, if the author really had the apologetical views attributed to him? If the redactor really in tended to disengage the Roman responsibility, he would have adopted an altogether different method. Christians, capable of inventing a condemnation by the Jewish Sanhedrim, would not have stopped mid- way; it would have been quite easy for them to com- pletely dissimulate the part played by Pilate in the tragedy of Calvary. Moreover, the apologetical tendencies which, in the judgment of critics, gave rise to this narrative, have no probability in their favor. The episode is related by the three Evangelists : it belongs therefore to the ancient tradition which underlies their documents. Now, there is nothing to show that this fundamental primitive tradition originated in a country and among people so very favorable to the Roman Empire. It originated in the early Palestinian Church : can we believe that, amidst such surroundings and at such a time, the desire of flattering Rome was so keen as to prompt such a scheme ? No doubt, the first converts had it at heart to win over new adepts to the Gospel ; but were their hearers so devoted to the honor of Rome that a condemnation of Christ by a Roman procurator would have scandalized them? There is not the slightest probability in favor of such a thesis. 528 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL It seems impossible to admit that Pilate's participation in the death of Jesus should appear to the first preach- ers as an obstacle to the conversion of the non-Jewish element or even of the Roman citizens, and especially such an obstacle as to prompt them to alter unhesi- tatingly the facts of history in order to overcome it. The Gospel narrative, on the contrary, has in its favor every historical probability, and we may say, offers the best guarantees of certitude from the point of view of history. Jesus was crucified; this kind of death proves that He was condemned and executed by the Roman authorities : this is perfectly exact. But it is equally certain that the Roman government did not take the initiative of that condemnation; the Saviour's teachings did not present any feature cap- able of disturbing public order or of alarming the Procurator. Pilate judged and condemned only as a consequence of a previous intervention of the Jews. And for what reason did the Jews deliver the Master unto him ? They could not arraign him except as a malefactor and a seditious man; and this is, in- deed, what the Gospels tell us. But was this really their charge against Him? No; for they knew that Jesus did not plan any enterprise against the existing authorities, and had nothing in common with their ordinary messiahs ; moreover, if He had really mani- fested such pretensions, which corresponded so well to their own desires, would they have thought of de- nouncing Him to the Roman representative? The charge which they bring forward in Pilate's presence is, therefore, a mere formality. The true motive of their hatred — their constant atti- tude during the Saviour's ministry bears witness to it — is that this obscure and ignorant Galilean has as- sumed an extraordinary religious mission ; he has claimed for himself superhuman privileges and powers ; he has presented himself as a man of God sharing the power of the Almighty and realizing the JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 529 ancient messianic prophecies in their most transcen- dental features; and that, indeed, in defiance of the authorities estabhshed at Jerusalem, nay more, in mak- ing it his business on every occasion to discredit and to impair the prestige of the same authorities. Such is their personal grievance against the Saviour. It has an essentially religious character. The case being so nothing agrees better with historical probabilities than this solemn session in which Jesus appears before the Sanhedrim to answer for His claims. The Saviour professes to be the Messiah, and the Messiah Son of God. For this reason He is declared to be " guilty of death ''. Why is not the sentence ex- ecuted by the Sanhedrin itself, as in the case of the deacon Stephen? Why, instead of being stoned after the Jewish fashion, in punishment of His blasphemy, is Jesus crucified after the Roman way, as though He were paying the penalty for His claims to a royal, title? The reason must be found in the very circum- stances which surround the fatal tragedy. Upon the unexpected offer of Judas, the Jews de- cided to seize Jesus during the paschal festivities, at a time when His Galilean followers were in great num- bers in Jerusalem, and when the Roman Procurator resided personally in the capital with his cohort. In such circumstances, the arrest of the Saviour ran the risk of causing a commotion and even of provoking troubles ; it could not be made without the knowledge of the Roman authorities. Nay more, it was advan- tageous to secure the help of the public forces, either to make sure the success of the arrest, as we are ex- pressly told in the fourth Gospel, or, before all, to bring to a successful issue the prearranged plan of death, according to the testimony of all our documents. It is, therefore, easy to understand why the Sanhe- drists, instead of keeping the affair for themselves, refer it to Pilate's tribunal, — although they are obliged to modify the expression of their grievances, — and 34 530 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL why, before the Roman governor they hasten to give up their rights, in order to induce him to pronounce the sentence himself and to charge his soldiers with the execution thereof.^ To sum up: the episode of the judgment presided over by Caiphas^ and in which Jesus makes a solemn declaration concerning His title of Son of God, has in its favor every historical probability, and its authen- ticity seems to be admitted even by Strauss.^ It is, therefore, the very sum total of the texts called in question by Loisy, that present themselves with the most serious guarantees of authenticity. Their signifi- cance in favor of Christ's divinity is admitted, and one cannot refuse to see in them the personal testimony of Jesus, except one gives up all objective and impartial criticism. Moreover, the texts under discussion are in close harmony with others which Loisy himself is forced to receive as authentic. The Title of Son of God —Formerly our critic absolutely maintained that in the authentic portions of the Gospels, the title of Son of God was simply equivalent to that of Messiah. It is in that sense that he tried to explain, in particular, the answer of Jesus before Caiphas. Since then, he came to realize that this last declaration has a higher meaning, which is one of the reasons why he now rejects the entire episode whose authenticity he had at first admitted together with the majority of critics. But it is im- possible to eliminate in that fashion the mass of texts in which Jesus speaks of His Father who is in Heaven and of His relations with Him: they hold too large a place in the Gospels. How, then, must we estimate them ? ^ 1 Cf. Jo. xviii. 3. "Life of Jesus, Engl, trans., vol. iii, p. 210 ei seq; New Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 342 et seq. 3 Above, pp. 281, 320. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 531 Loisy slips in a mere foot-note this remark that, " many as they are " on Jesus' lips, these passages " do not contain an express definition of His Son- ship," and he contents himself with acknowledging that Jesus " regards himself as the Son of God in a very special and unique manner," not only '' because he is predestined to be the messianic king, but also on account of the interior feelings by which He was united to God, author of that vocation." This admis- sion is worth remembering. But it is necessary to con- sider this matter still more closely.^ From the many texts in which Jesus speaks of His Father, it follows that He, the humble, the meek and condescending Master, never places Himself on a level with His disciples, when He speaks of the Heavenly Father, but always on a plane apart, as though He had with God incomparable and incommunicable relations, as though God were His Father, and He His Son, in a unique sense. That such a way of speaking does not contain an '* express definition " of His sonship everybody will readily confess ; but is it not also true that it is inexplicable on Jesus' part, if He was con- scious of nothing more than a relation of intimacy with God, howev-er deep that intimacy might have been; if, again, the bond that connected Him with the Father, peculiar as it was, presented essentially the same characters, religious and moral, as the relations of other men with God? The very special language constantly found on the Saviour's lips, positively sug- gests the idea of a superior divine sonship.^ Besides the many texts in which Christ represents Himself as the Son of God, there is the series of declarations referring to His privileges and extraordi- nary powers. These passages are not less significant and their authenticity offers the same guarantees. To 1 Above, pp. 485-486. ^ Above, pp. 336-343. 532 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL claim that the formula : *' Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," must belong to the ancient apocalypse which is supposed to under- he the discourse in the three synoptic Gospels, and that the words in question are God's, not Jesus' words, is a hypothesis not only gratuitous but devoid of all probability. The contested text comes after the sen- tence : " Amen, I say to you that this generation shall not pass until all these things take place." Now, this sentence expresses, beyond doubt, the Saviour's thought, as is shown by many other evangelical texts; on the other hand, the declaration on the words that shall not pass away, is evidently a complement to the formula : *' Amen, I say to you," which surely does not belong to a foreign apocalypse, and it gives an ex- cellent conclusion to the authentic discourse of the Saviour/ Very extraordinary also is the Saviour's language in the Sermon on the Mount: ""You have heard that it was said to them of old . . . but / say to you." Strauss himself did not fail to remark it.^ Likewise it is in the three synoptic Gospels that we find the sentence on the Son of Man who is Master of the Sabbath. No exegetical argument warrants us in rejecting it. It is added to a previous remark: " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- bath " ; but the two sentences are not exclusive of each other. Each one conveys a lesson. This happens often in our synoptic documents, in which the Saviour's instructions are thus grouped and summed up in a short account that gives us nothing but the most salient features, set forth in mere juxtaposition. On the other hand, the title of " Son of Man " given to Jesus in this passage is in itself, whatever Loisy 1 Above, p. 457. - Above, p. 308 ; Strauss, A New Life, vol. i, p. 283 et seq. JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 533 may say to the contrary, a sure guarantee of authen- ticity.^ We cannot think of discussing here in detail the question of the miracles attributed to the Divine Master. Suffice it to remark that the Synoptists relate, as having been accomplished by the Saviour, a great many marvelous cures, several raisings from the dead, and various striking prodigies wrought on material elements. Prejudice alone and not exegesis prompts Loisy to call in question the miraculous character of the cures whose reality he is obliged to admit, to deny that the raising of Jairus' daughter was a resurrection properly so-called and that of the widow of Naim*s son a reality, and finally to interpret as mere symbols the evidently supernatural prodigies wrought by Jesus on natural elements. Now it is certain that this fac- ulty of performing miracles presents itself as inherent to the Saviour and in no wise borrowed from outside.^ Moreover, it is hard to deny that Jesus bestowed upon His disciples the. power of performing the same miracles in His own name. Loisy, however, calls this in question on the plea that the passage of the dis- course — previous to the mission of the disciples — which expresses the communication of this privilege, is to be found in St. Matthew alone and is wanting in the parallel passages of St. Mark and St. Luke. But those two Synoptists do not fail to recall elsewhere the same fact. And moreover, is it not sufficiently attested by the Acts of the Apostles, one may say even by the whole succession of Christian history ? ^ The episode of the paralytic of Capharnaum, in which Jesus so manifestly proves His power of re- mitting sins, is certainly one of the most authentic facts to be found in the Gospels. Here again, preju- 1 Above, p. 54. 2 C/. Les Theories de Mr. Loisy, pp. 314-320; above, p. 309. 3 Mark vi. 13; Luke ix. 6; x. 17; Mark xvi. 17; above, p. 309. 534 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL dice prompts Loisy to cut off from the text, as con- tradicting his theory, all that which refers to this power of divine forgiveness claimed by Christ. As a matter of fact, the instruction given by the Saviour presents itself in the most natural fashion, in full con- formity with His usual pedagogical method. He begins by telling the paralytic that his sins are for- given; the Pharisees are scandalized by such a pre- tension, but Jesus justifies it by the sudden cure of the patient. Such a way of acting, so delicate and so re- served, becomes the Christ of history far better than it does tradition. Tradition would have imagined a more express declaration and it would have avoided making Christ assume the title of " Son of Man." The episode of the sinful woman related by St. Luke has the same significance and it is no less trust- worthy. Christian tradition would not have invented such a meeting. All critics unanimously recognize that the scene has a decidedly historical character. Now, it is most arbitrary to attribute to the imagina- tion of the Evangelist the account of the pardon granted to the woman. If tradition has recorded such an episode, it must be owing to the significance that was attached to it. There is no doubt that this sig- nificance lies in the kindness shown by Christ to the sinful woman, and there is no reason to suspect that this kindness found an expression different from that recorded by the Evangelist. Not being content with thus remitting sins on His own accord, in His own name, did Jesus also grant this power to His apostles? Loisy admits that such is the meaning of the words addressed to Simon Peter and to the twelve according to St. Matthew's Gospel, He thinks, however, that these words simply express the situation of the Christian communities in the time of the Evangelist. We must recognize, then, that, even in those early days, it was admitted that the Church leaders possessed absolute authority in matters JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 535 I pertaining to penitence. Now, it does not seem that this can be accounted for except by a tradition based on the words of Christ; the power of remittnig sins could not exist in early Christian communities except as the result of a formal concession or of a positive order of the Saviour. Finally, it is impossible to reasonably deny that Christ claimed for Himself the right of judging one day the living and the dead. If we may believe Loisy, Jesus simply thought of a separation of the elect that would, as it were, take place spontaneously, without any special intervention on His part ; at most, He pos- sibly reserved to Himself the right of bearing witness to those who will have shown themselves worthy of Him, and of rejecting those who shall have despised Him. But here again, the arbitrary method of our critic betrays itself. Two passages from St. Matthew, quoted by him, may, strictly speaking, fit into his interpretation : " Every one that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in Heaven, but he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in Heaven." " Many will say to me in that day : Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? And then I will profess unto them : I never knew you ; depart from me, you that work iniquity." We must confess, however, that these passages are susceptible of an entirely different explanation and that they fit very well into the scene of the last judgment. Very significant indeed is the part attributed to Christ : why does He assume such an attitude of authority in pres- ence of His Father, if the Father is the only judge? And then, can the sentence : " Depart from me " be understood in such a hypothesis ? ^ 1 Matt. X. 32, ss ; vii. 22, 23 ; cf. Luke xiii. 26, 27 ; Matt. XXV. 12, 536 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL In the many similar passages, the idea of Christ, Judge of men, appears clearly, and it is these passages that reveal the true meaning of the former ones. The idea does not only underlie the whole description of the judgment given by St. Matthew ; it is to be found clearly expressed in many isolated sentences like this one : " The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels ; and then will He render to every man according to his works ; " and equivalently in the texts of St. Mark parallel to the first passage from St. Matthew quoted by our critic : '' And I say to you : whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God; but he that shall deny me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God." '' He that shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when He shall come in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels." " This last text is from St. Mark. Loisy recognizes its special significance : '' Jesus," he says, '' appears as a judge, not as a witness; He does not present men to His Father, He comes in the glory of His Father, and accompanied by the angels. . . Christ the Judge is not to bear witness any longer ; His attitude toward those whom the scandal of His cross will have caused to fall, shall be that of a divine King whose dignity has been offended." But, the language of the second EvangeHst does not fit into the hypothesis of our critic ; he concludes that it does not correspond to the authentic utterances of Jesus ; and as the hypothesis agrees better with the text reproduced, in a slightly different form, by the first Evangelist, Loisy declares that the " primitive form " of the sentence " has very Hkely been preserved by St. Matthew.^' And yet, ac- cording to Loisy's theory, Mark has been the founda- ^ Mark viii. 38 ; Luke ix. 26, lESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 537 tion of Matthew, and whenever the data of the second Gospel fit into his system, he does not fail to em- phasize the more primitive character thereof. The ar- bitrariness of the method appears at once.^ It is needless to remark that the idea of the judg- ment being presided over by the Son of Man is not really at variance with the sentences or parables that show Him sending His angels to separate the good from the wicked.^ Conclusion. — We have, then, in our Synoptic Gospels a whole series of texts referring to the super- natural privileges of Jesus, and which, being the counterpart of the passages that reveal the trans- cendency of His divine filiation, are a confirmation of them, and, together with them, contribute to establish the reality of His divinity. Loisy systematically rejects that mass of testimonies whose deep significance he cannot deny. It is preju- dice that inspires his criticism. There is no more question of scientific exegesis or of dispassionate ap- preciation of documents ; conclusions are determined upon beforehand by philosophical preconceptions. No impartial critic can approve such an arbitrary method. When one studies without bias the origin of our documents, when one tries to determine from the texts themselves, from their literary character, from the peculiarities of the narratives, what guarantees of authenticity they possess; or again, when one en- deavors to ascertain, on the most significant points, their relations with the faith of the primitive Christian Church, one cannot make up one's mind to see in them the outcome of tradition working upon historical recol- lections, to the extent and in the manner Loisy claims that it was done. When we remember that the testi- monies in question are to be found in the most ancient 1 Loisy, Les Evangiles Synopf., vol. ii, pp. 25, 26. 2 Matt. xiii. 41, 49; Mark xiii. 27; Matt. xxiv. 31. 538 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL Gospels which record the earliest traditions ; that they furnish us with the adequate and necessary explana- tion of the immediate belief of the Church in Christ, Son of God, we are forced to acknowledge it as a fully historical fact that Jesus Himself has asserted His divinity before the world.^ Thus, Jesus believed and really declared Himself to be the Messiah ; from the very beginning of His pubHc career, He regarded His mission, contrary to all Jewish prejudices, as a purely spiritual and moral one, He even foresaw that He would have to suffer and die, and that the Kingdom of God would be real- ized only after that. All attempts to explain His con- sciousness of being the Messiah by a natural evolution of His conviction that He had filial relations with God, are arbitrary and contrary to facts and even to histori- cal probabilities. Finally, the Saviour did not fail to manifest discreetly and to reveal in a sufficiently clear manner. His properly so-called divinity. Such are the conclusions which, after as before the publication of Loisy's new books, are the necessary outcome of a prudent and impartial criticism of the Gospels. 1 Above, p. 48-56, LIST OF NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES Saint Matthew— i". IS p. 247 iii. 16, 17 pp. 137-142 iv. 3. 10 p. 139 vi. 9 pp. 336, 2>Z7 vii. 22, 23 p. 536 viii. II P- 437 viii. 29 pp. 144, 145 ix. 1-8 pp. 154, 310, 492, 533 ix. 15 pp. 170, 238, 508 X. 5 p. 437 X. 2Z pp. 456, 507 X. Z2-ZZ p. 535 X. 39 pp. 242, 505, 506 xi. 3 pp. 156, 185 xi. 25-30 pp. 356, 374, 416, 486 xii, 5, 6 pp. 153, 493, 532 xii. 8 pp. 153, 493, 532 xii. 28 p. 156 xii. Z2 pp. 54, 414 xiii. 58 p. 415 XV. 24 pp. 437, 438 xvi. 13-16 pp. 167, 321-327, 488 xvi. 17-19 pp. 325, 492 xvi. 21-23 p. 243 xvi. 27, 28 pp. 456, 457, 507, 536 xvii. 5 p. 168 xvii. 21. 22 p. 243 xviii. 18 pp. 310, 492, 534 xix. 16, 17 pp. 265, 291, 412 XX. 18, 19 p. 243 XX. 23 p. 246 xxi. 33-43 PP- 348-355, 443, 4^7 xxii. 41-46 pp. 345-348, 488, 524 ' xxiii. 36 p. 445 xxiv. isq pp. 428-432 xxiv. 29-35 PP- 444, 448 xxiv. 35 pp. 493, 532 xxiv. 36 pp. 462-468 XXV. 31-46 pp. 311. 495, 508, 536-538 xxvi. 28 p. 246 (539) 540 NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES Saint Matthew — xxvi. 57-66 pp. 489, 526-528 xxvi. 63 pp. 61, 173, 194, 327 XXVI. 64 pp. 173, 194 xxvi. 65, 66 p. 328 xxvii. II p. 474 xxvii. 46 pp. 54, 413 xxviii. 19 pp. 375-380, 436-439, 490 Saint Mark — i. 10, II p. 137 1- 24 pp. 143-145, 185 ?: 34 pp. 143-145, 185 H- ^-^2 PP- 154, 310, 492, 533 11; 19. 20 • • • pp. 170, 239, 508 iii- 12 pp. 143-145 lii. 23-29 pp. 156, 265, 414 V. 7 pp. 143-145 V. 19, 20 pp. 414 415 vi. 5, 6 p. 415 vii. 31-33 pp. 88, 149, 243 vii. 33 p. 415 viii. 23-25 p. 415 viii. 27-29 pp. 167, 189, 321, 322 viii. 38-ix, I pp. 456, 457, 507, 536 ix. 6 p. 168 ix. 9, 30, 31 P- 243 X. 17, 18 pp. 54, 265, 291, 412 X. 33, 34 P- 243 X. 40 p. 416 X. 45 pp. 246, 311 xii. 1-9 pp. 348-355, 443, 487 xii. 35-37 PP- 345-348, 488, 489, 524, 525 xiii. isq pp. 427-432 xiii. 24-30 pp. 444-456 xiii. 27 p. 307 xiii. 31 PP- 493, 532 xiii. 32 pp. 54, 265, 307, 313, 413, 463-468, 487 xiv. 24 p. 246 xiv. 35, 36, 39 PP- 266, 291 xiv. 53-64 pp. 489, 526, 530 xiv. 61 pp. 173, 191, 194, 327 xiv. 62 pp. 173, 194 474, 508 xiv. 63 *. p. 328 XV. 2 p. 474 XV. 34 pp. 54 413 xvi. 15 pp. 436-439 NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES 541 Saint Luke — i. 1-4 p. 109 i. 34sq. pp. 124, 48s i; 35 p. 123 ii. 40, 52 p. 420 ". 49 p. 257 ill. 21. 22 pp. 137-143 iv, 3-12 pp. 138, 139 iv. 18, 19 p. 152 iv. 34, 41 pp. 144, 185 V. 17-26 pp. 154, 310, 492, 533 V. 34, 35 PP- 170, 239, S08 vi. 5 pp. 153, 493, 532 vii. 19 pp. 156, 185 vii. 36-50 pp. 154, 492, 534 viii. 28 p. 144 viii- 39 p. 414 ix. 18-20 pp. 320, 321 ix. 22 p. 243 ix. 26, 27 pp. 456, 507 ix. 35 p. 168 ix. 44, 45 p. 243 X. 21-24 pp. 356, 374, 416, 486 xi. 2 p. 337 XI. 20 pp. 156, 265, 413 xii. 8, 9 p. 536 xiii. 29 p. 437 xviii. 18, 19 p. 412 xviii. 31-34 p. 243 xix. 38 pp. 73, 173 XX. 9-16 pp. 349-355, 443, 487 XX. 41-44 pp. 346-348, 488, 524 xxi. 5sq pp. 427-432 xxi. 25-33 pp. 444-455 xxi. 32 pp. 493, 532 xxii. 19, 20 p. 246 xxii. 66-71 pp. 489, 526-530 xxii. 66 p. 327 xxii. 69 pp. 173, 194 xxii. 70, 71 pp. 173, 191, 194, 327-328 xxiii. 3 p. 474 xxiv. 47 pp. 436-439 Saint John — i. 1-3, 10 pp. 400, 401, 496 i. 26 p. 252 vi. 14 PP- 72, 77, 147, 167, 191 XX. 22 p. 310 xxi. 22 p. 458 542 NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES Acts of the Apostles — i. 6, 7 pp. 147, 463 ii. 36 pp. 179-183 X. 38 pp. 138, 141 Romans — i. 3 p. 386 viii. 3 p. 387 viii. 32 p. 387 ix. 5 pp. 390, 400 I Corinthians — i. 24, 30 p. 388 ii. 10-12 p. 314 viii. 6 pp. 388 II Corinthians — iv. 4 p. 388 V. 19 p. 389 viii. 9 pp. 388, 496 Galatians — iv. 4-6 pp. 387, 496 Ephesians — iv. 5» 6 p. 392 Philippians — ii. 5-7 pp. 389, 46s Colossians — i. 1S-17 pp. 388, 496 ii. 9 pp. 389, 496 I Timothy — ii. 5 P- 392 Hebrews — i. 2, 3, 10 pp. 390, 496 X. 5 pp. 262, 496 I John— iv. 9, 10, 14 P- 394 V. 20 pp. 394, 400 Apocalypse — iii. 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Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, 2d ed., 1902. Durand, A., La divinite de J. C. dans St. Paul, Rom, ix, 5, in Revue Biblique, 1903. Encyclopaedia Biblica, edi.ed by T. K. Cheyne and J. S. Black, 4 vol., 1899-1903. fitudes publiees par des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus, annee 1903. Expositor, 1902, Fiebig, P., Der Menschensohn, 1901. Al jiidische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu, 1904. Pillion, fivangile selon St. Matthieu, 1879. Flemming, J., Das Buch Henoch aethicp. Text, 1902. und Radermacher, Das Buch Henoch, herausgegeben, 1901. Funk, Patres Apostolici, 2 vol., 2d ed., 1901. Geffcken, J., Oracula SilDyllina, 1902. Godet, F., Introduction au Nouveau Testament, 2 vol., 1898. Com.mentaire sur 1' fivangile de St. Luc, 2 vol., 3d ed., 1888. Engl, transl. Commentaire sur 1' fivangile de St. Jean, 3 vol., 4th ed., 1902. Engl, transl. Gore, C., Dissertations on subjects connected with the Incar- nation, 1895. Grill, T., Untersuchungen uber die Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums, 1902. 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Headlam, A. C, art. Acts of the Apostles in Diction, of the Bible, vol. I, 1898. Heinze, Die Lehre von Logos, 1872. Hillmann, J., art. Die Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu nach Luc, in Jahrbiicher fiir protestantliche Theologie, 1891. Holtzmann (H. J.), Enleitung in das Neue Testament, 1885; 3 ed., 1892. Lehrbuch des neutestamentlichen Theologie, 2 vol., 1897. Die Synoptiker (Hand-Commentar zum N. T.) 3 ed.. 1901 Holtzmann (O.); Neutestamentaliche Zeitgeschichte, 1895. Leben Jesu, 1901. Engl, trans, by Bealby and Canney, 1904. War Jesus Ecstatiker? 1903. Icard, Doctrine de M. Olier, 1889. Jacquier, E., Histoire des Livres du Nouveau Testament, t. I, 2 ed., 1903. Engl, trans, by Rev. J. Duggan, 1907. James, art. Esdras (Fourth Book of) in Encycl. biblica, vol. II, 1901. Journal of Theological Studies, 1905. Jiilicher, A., Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 1894, 3 ed., 1901. Engl, trans, by Rose Janet Ward, 1904. Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2 vol. 1886 and 1889. Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, 2 vol. 1867. Engl, trans. Kittel, Zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1899. Knabenbauer, Evangelium secundum Marcum, 1894. Commentarius in Actus Apostolorum, 1899. Labourt, J., Notes d'exegese sur Philip, II, 5-1 1, in Revue biblique, 1898. Lagarde, Prophetae chaldaice, 1872. Lagrange, Jesus et la critique des fivangiles in Bulletin de litterature ecclesiastique, 1904. art. Les propheties messianiques de Daniel, in Revue biblique Oct., 1904. Other articles and Book Reviews in Revue Biblique. Lepin, M., art. L'origine du Magnificat in I'Universite Catho- lique, 1903. Liddcn, H. P., The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 1866. Lie^zmann, Der Menschensohn, 1896. Lightfoot, J B., St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 10 ed., 1890. St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon, 8 ed.. 1886. Loisy, A., Histoire du Canon du Nouveau Testament, 1891. BIBLIOGRAPHY 547 Les fivangiles Synoptiques, vol. I, 1893-1894. Etudes evangeliques. 1902. V fivangile et V Eglise, i ed., 1902; 2 ed., 1903; Engl. trans : The Gospel and the Church by Chr. Home, 2 ed., 1908. Autour d'un petit liyre, 1903. Le quatrieme fivangile, 1903. art. L' Apocalypse Synopiique in Revue biblique, 1896. art. Le second fivangile in Revue d' histcire et de lit- terature religieuse 1903. Chronique biblique in same Review. Les fivangiles synoptiques, 2 vcl. in 8°, 1907-1908. Quelques lettres sur des questions actuelles et sur des evenements recents, 1908. Maldonat, Commentarii in quatuor Evangelistas, 1595 Manen (Van), art. in Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1894. Mangenot, E.. art. Chronologic biblique, in Diet, de la Bible, vol. II, 1899. art. Fin du monde, ibid. Mangey, Th.. Philonis Judaei opera. London, 1742. Marti, K., Das Buch Jesaja, 1900. Minocchi, S., II Nuovo Testamento tradotto e annotate, I, Vangeli, 1900. Moffa:t, J., The historical New Testament, 1901. Nes.le, E., Novum Testamentum graece, 4 ed., 1903. Noldeke, art. Aramaic language in Encycl. bibl. vol. I, 1899. Nowack, W., Hand-Commentar Zum Alt. Test., 1902. Olier, J. J., Memoires manuscrits, 1641. Vie interieure de la tres Sainte Vierge, 2 vol.. 1866. Oltley, R. L., art. Incarnation in Diet, of the Bible, vol, II, 1899. Pfleiderer, O., Urchristenthum, 1887. Engl, trans. 4 vol., by Montgomery. Philonis Judaei opera, edited by Th. Mangey, London, 1762. Piepenbrig, Theologie de I'Ancien Testament, 1886. Plummer, A., A critical and exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke, 3 ed., 1900. art. Baptism, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. I, 1898. Preuschen, E., Analecta, 1893. Protestantische Monatshefte, 1900. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, 1901. Ramsay, W., Was Christ born at Bethlehem? 1898. Raymond, Martini, Pugio fidei adversus Mauras et Judaeos, 1687. Reimarus, H. S., Fragmente eines Ungenannten, edited by Lessing, 1774- 1778. Renan, E., Vie de Jesus, 13 ed. 1867; engi. trans, by T. H. Allen, 1895. 548 BIBLIOGRAPHY Les Apotres, 1866; Engl, trans., 1898. Saint Paul, 1869; Engl, trans.. 1899. — — L'Antechrist, 1873; Engl, trans., 1897. Les fivangiles, 2 ed., 1877; Engl, trans., 1885. L' £glise chretienne 2 ed., 1879 ; Engl, trans., 1886. Resch, A., Agrapha. Das Kindheits Evangelium nach Lucas und Matthoeus, 1897. Reuss. E., Histoire de la theologie chretienne au siecle apos- tolique, 2 vol. 3 ed., 1864. Reville, J., Le Logos d' apres Philon d' Alexandrie, 1877. Le quatrieme fivangile, son origine et sa valeur his- torique, 1901. Revue biblique, 1892 sq. Revue d' histoire et de litterature religieuse, 1896-1908. Reynolds, H. R., art. John's Gospel in Diet, of the Bible, vol. II, 1899. Riggenbach, Th., Der Trinitarische Taufbefehl nach seiner urspriinglichen Tex'.gestalt, 1903. Robinson, J., Ar., art. Baptism in Encycl. biblica, vol. I, 1899. Roerich, E., La composition des fivangiles, 1897. Rose, v., fitudes sur les fivangiles, 2 ed., 1902. Engl, trans : Studies on the Gospels by Robert Eraser, 1902. £vangile selon saint Matlhieu, 1904. fivangile selon saint Marc, 1904. fivangile selon saint Luc, 1904. art. fitudes sur la theologie de St Paul in Revue biblique, 1903. Russel, J. S., The Parousia, 2 ed., 1887. Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, commonly called the Psalms of Solomon, 1891. Rzach, Oracula sibyllina, 1891. Sabatier, A., L' Apotre Paul, 3 ed., 1896. Salmon, F., art. Mark (Gospel of) in Diet, of the Bible, vol. Ill, 1900. art. Eschatology, ibid., vol. I, 1898. Sanday, W., The Criticism of the fourth Gospel, 1905. art. Jesus Christ, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. II, 1899. art. Son of God, ibid., vol. IV. 1902. Schell, H., Katolische Dogmatik, 3 vol., 1892. Schmidt, H., art. in Theologische Studies und Kritiken, 1889. Schmid^ N., art. Son of man in Encycl. biblica, vol. IV, 1903. Schmiedel, O., Die Hauptprobleme der Leben Jesu Forschung, 1902. Schmiedel, P. W., art. Gospels in Encycl. biblica, vol. II, 1901- art. John's Gospel, ibid. art. Mary, ibid., vol. Ill, 1902. BIBLIOGRAPHY 549 art. Acts of the Apostles, ibid., vol. I, 1899. art. in Protestantische Monatshefte, 1900. Schiirer, E., Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu-Christi, 3 vol. 3 ed.. 1898-1901. Engl, trans: A his- tory of the Jewish people in the time of Jesus-Christy by Taylor and Christie, 5 vol. art. in Theol. litt. Zeitung, 1903. Schwartzkopff. P., Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi, 1895. Engl. trans : The Prophecies of Jesus Christ. Schwei.zer, A., Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 1906. Sellin, Serubbabel, 1898. Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der jiidischen Ge- meinde nach dem babylonischen Exil. I, Der Knecht Gottes bei Deuterojesaia, 1901. Shahan, T. J., Patrology; Engl, trans, of Bardenhewer's Patrologie, 1908. Soden (von) art. Chronology, N. T., in Encycl. bibl. vol. I, 1899. Soltau, Unsere Evangelien, ihre Quellen und ihr Quellenwert, 1901.- art. in Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft, 1901. Soulier, La doctrine du Logos chez Philcn d' Alexandrie. 1876. Spitta. F., Untersuchungen iiber den Brief des Paulus an die Romer, 1901. Stanton, V. H., art. Gospels, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. II, 1899. art. Messiah, ibid., vol.- Ill, 1900. The Jew'sh and the Christian Messiah, 1886. Stapfer, E., Jesus-Christ avant son ministere, 2 ed.. 1897. Jesus-Christ pendant son ministere, 2 ed., 1897. La mort et la resurrection de Jesus-Christ, 2 ed., 1898. Engl, trans, by Louise Houghton, 3 vol. Stevens, G. B., The Theology of the New Testament, 1901. The Teaching of Jesus, 1902. Strauss, F., Vie de Jesus, trans, from the 3d German ed. by E. Littre. 2 vol. 2 ed., 1854; Engl, trans.: Life of Jesus, 3 vol., 1848. Nouvelle vie de Jesus, trans. Nefftzer et Dollfus, 2 vol." 1866; Engl, trans.; New Life of Jesus, 2 ed., 1879. 2 vol. Swete, H. B., The Old Testament in Greek, 3 vol., 3 ed., 1901. The Gospel according to St. Mark, 1902. art. in Expositor, Oct. 1902. Thackeray, art. Esdras (Second Book of) in Diet, of the Bible, vol. I, 1858. Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1903. Theologische Rrndschau, 1902. Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1894. 550 BIBLIOGRAPHY Tixeront. J., art. Athanase (Symbole de Saint) in Diet, de theol. cath. edited by Vacant, vol. I. Turner, C. H.. art. Chronology of the N. T., in Diet, of the Bible, vol.' I, 1898. Usener. H., Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuehungen, I, Das Weihna'chtsfest, 1889. art. Nativity in Encycl, bibl. vol. Ill, 1902. Vacant, A., art. Agnoetes in Diet, de theol. cath. vol. I. VerneS; M., Histoire des idees messianiques, 1874. Vincent, M., Commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon, 1897. Vclz, P., Jiidische Eskatologie von Daniel bis Akiba, 1903. Waite, J... The second Epis'.le to the Corinthians (The Speaker's Commentary), 1881. Walker, art. Targum, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. IV, 1902. Weiss, B., Lehrbuch der Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 3 ed., 1897. Engl, trans. : Introduction to the New Testa- ment. 1886. Das Leben Jesu, 2 vol., 4 ed., 1902 ; Engl, trans. : The Life of Christ, 3 vol. 1888. Lehrbuch des b^blischen Theologie des N. T., 7 ed., 1903 ; Engl, trans. : Biblical Theology of the N. T., 2 vol., 1892. Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 2 ed., 1900. Das aLeste Evangelium, 1903. Weizsacker (C. von), Untersuehungen iiber die evangelische Geschichte, 2 ed., 1901. Das apostolische Zeitalter der chrisllichen Kirche, 3 ed., 1902; Engl, trans.: The Apes olic Age of the Christian Church, by James Millar, 1894. Wellhausen, J., Israelilische und Jiidische Geschichte, 1894, 3 ed., 1897- Skizzen und Vorarbei'en, VI, 1899. Das Evangelium Marei, 1903. Wendt, H., Die Lehre Jesu, 2 vol., 2 ed., 1901 ; Engl, trans. : The Teaching of Jesus, 2 vol., 1907. Wernle, P., Die Synop'.isehe Frage, 1899. Die Anfange unserer Religion, 1901 ; Engl, trans. : The beginnings of Christianity: The Rise of the Religion, by G. Bienemann, 2 vol. Wrede. W., Das Messiasgeheimniss in den Evangelien, 1901. Zahn, Th., Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, 2 vol.. E'nleitung in das Neue Testament, 2 vol., 1899. 7ei^schrift f^'r neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1901. Zeller, Die Philosophic der Grieehen, vol. Ill, 1881. ALPHABETICAL INDEX Acis of the Apostles, Historical value of, pp. 22, 132, 133, 134, 381; Christology, pp. 381-384. Adoration of Christ, pp. 316-320. Advent, the final, pp. 198-206; epoch, pp. 425-468, 482, 503-513. Allegory and Parable, pp. 350-353- Angel of Jehovah, p. 99. Angels, relation of Christ with the, 306, 307, 313. Apocalypse, pp. 20, 406. Assumption of Moses, The, pp. 65-66. Athanashts, Creed of Saint, pp. 396-397. Authority of Jesus as a Teacher, pp. 150, 151, 307, 493, 531- 533- Autour d' un petit livre, p. 287. Baptism of Jesus, significance of the, pp. 137, 138, 184, 225- 227, 244-253, 258, 259, 288, 331, 469, 479-481, 484, 516, 517; historici.y of the Gospel narratives recording the, pp 139-141. Baptism, the triniarian formula of, pp. 375-380, 490, 522, 523. Barnabas, The Epistle of Saint, p. 5. Bariich, The Apocalypse of, p. 67. Batiffol: on the authorship of the Gospels, pp. 13, 23, 25, 29- 30, 42, 55, 56; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on the eschatological discourses, p. 450. Birth of Christ, the virginal, p. 485. Bousset : on the " Sen of Man" in Daniel, p. 94; on Christ's transcendence, p. 329, 410. Bovon : on Christ's divinity, pp. 313, 359; on Christ's knowl- edge, p. 432; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on the eschatological discourses, p. 449. Bruce : on the authenticity of some Gospel texts, pp. 366, 2)73 '■, on Christ's humanity, p. 271 ; on Christ's teaching, p. 208; on the Kingdom of God, p. 436. Calmes : on the authorship of the Gospels, p. 29. Canon of Muratori, pp. 6, 9. Celsus, p. 13. Childhood of Christ, historicity of the narratives recording the. pp. 107-117, 123-124. Christology, the doctrinal development of, pp. 282, 395-403- Chronology of Christ's ministry, pp. 143, 144. Church, the divinity and authori'y of the, pp, 3-4, 267-268, (551) 552 ALPHABETICAL INDEX Church, the early: its belief in Jesus' Messiahship, pp. 132- 134, 176-183; its belief in Jesus' divinity, pp. 267, 268, 380-410. Clement of Alexandria, pp. 6, 7, 8, 11. Colani : his opinion on the impression made by Christ, p. 384. Confession of Saint Peter, pp. 160, 162, 167, 320-327, 374. Consciousness of Jesus, the divine, pp. 282, 291, 468, 469; the filial : its relation to the messianic, pp. 253-255 ; the source of the, pp. 255-261, 519; the messianic, pp. 128, 129, 198- 262, 468, 469, 477-481, 517-520. Cf. Divinity of Christ, Son of God, Messiah. Creed of Saint Athanasius, The, pp. 396, 397. Dalman: on the messianic hope, pp. 91, 94, 97; on Christ's messianic consciausness, pp. 256, 259; on the "Son of Man," pp. 159, 161-164; on the "Son of God," pp. z^Z^ 328, 336, ZZ7, 340,, 341, 345-347, 355, 3S6, 358. Demoniacs, the messianic declarations of the, pp. 130, 138, i^-i4(>, 156, 185. Disciples' (the), opinion of their Master, pp. 166, 188-190. Discourses on the end of the world : cf. End of the world. Divini'y of Jesus Christ : contemporary criticism, pp. 263-306, 485-499; testimony of the Gospel of the Infancy, p. 122: personal testimony of the synop'.ic Christ, pp. 306-380; reserved expression thereof, pp. 305, 306, 410-419; source of the dogma of Chris I's divinity, pp. 282, 283, 290, 295, 396-400, 408-410, 495-497, 520-522. Divinity of the expected Messiah, pp. 90-106. Dogma, the christological ; cf. Christology, Divinity of Jesus Christ. End of the world, Christ's discourses on the, pp. 443-462; cf. Final Advent, Last Judgment. Enoch, The Book of, pp. 62, 62,. Eschatology; cf. Final Advent, End of the World, Last Judgment. Esdras, The fourth Book of, p. 6y. Eusebius, pp. 11, 12. Godet: on the first chapt. of St. Luke's Gospel, pp. 116, 117; on Christ's divinity, p. 280; on the eschatology of the Gospels, p. 432. Gore : on Christ's divinity, p. 280. Harnack: on the transcendence of Christiani'y, pp. i, 2; on the messianic hope, p. 75 ; on the value and authorship of the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 21, 32, 2>3'y on the authorship of the Johannine Wri ings. p. 407; on the Gospel of the In- fancy, p. 108; on Christ's virginal birth in St. Luke's Gospel, p. 124; on Christ's humanity, p. 272; on His knowledge, p. 423 ; on the messianic consciousness of I I ALPHABETICAL INDEX 553 Jesus: its reality, pp. 133, 134; its source and evolution, pp. 140, 226. 227, 229, 232, 233, 245, 255, 259; on the title " Son of Man," p. 163 ; on Christ's moral temperament, p. 212; on His humility and extraordinary claims, p. 209; on His teaching, pp. 210, 211; on His influence, pp. 214, 408; on His transcendence, pp. 273, 274, 275, 276, 334, 362, 363, 397-399, 408; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on Jesus' view concerning the universal expansion of the Gospel, p. 437. Hebrews, Epistle to the: authorship and Christology, pp. 390- 399. Holtzmann, H. J. : on the authorship of the Gospels, p. 21 ; on the messianic hope, pp. 91, 98; on the title "Son of Man," pp. 159, 162, 197; on Jesus the Son of God, pp. 324, 329, 330, 338, 347, 355, 358; on Christ's knowledge, p. 425; on His eschatological discourse, p. 449. Holtzmann, O. : on the Gospels, p. 40; on the messianic hope, PP- 76, 77; on the Gospel of the Infancy, p. 108; on the significance of Christ's baptism, pp. 138-140; on the evo- lution of Christ's messianic consciousness, pp. 225, 227, 228, 232, 257, 258, 261, 355; on Christ's character, p. 212; on His knowledge, p. 425 ; on His transcendence, pp. 276, 277. 355, 358. Holy Spirit, the. His relation to Jesus, pp. 122, 123-125, 137- 139, 224, 225, 244, 250, 288, 330-332; subject to Jesus' power, p. 311. Humani;y of Christ, the, pp. 263-266, 271, 272, 279, 411-415, 419, 420. Humility of Jesus, the, pp. 209, 210, 272, 273. Husbandmen, the parable of the wicked, pp. 348-355, 487, 488. Ignatius of An'ioch, Saint, on Christ God, pp. 399, 400. Ignorance of the Son of God concerning the last judgment, pp. 413, 462-468. Illusion, Hypothesis of Christ's messianic, pp. 198-204. Imposture, Hypothesis of Christ's, pp. 198, 199. Influence of Jesus, the, pp. 212-215. Irenaeus, Saint, on the Gospels, pp. 7, 10; on Christ God, p. 399. . John, Samt, the Gospel and Epistles of : authorship, pp. 8-10, 19, 20, 23, 289, 521 ; Christology, pp. 394-396, 406, 407. John the Baptist, Saint, pp. 137, 156, 157, 185, 186, 237, 247, 248, 249, 478, 479. Jerusalem, the Fall of, pp. 16, ^\ cf. Prediction; Christ'c en'ry into; cf. Palm Sunday. Jubilees, the Book of, p. 66. Judgment of Christ by Caiphas, pp. 173, 191, 194, 195, 207, 327-330, 489, 526-530. 554 ALPHABETICAL INDEX Judgment, the last, Christ's part in, pp. 169, 170, 207, 310, 311, 494, 535-537. Jiilicher: on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 28, 36, 39, 50, 51-55; on the first chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, p. iii; on the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, p. 351 ; on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 391 ; on the Gospel of St. John, p. 407. Justin Martyr, Saint, on the Gospels, pp. 5, 12; on the Mes- siah expected by the Jews, pp. 79, 89, 104, 105; on the Christ God, p. 399. Keim : on the reciprocal knowledge of the Father and the Son, p. 360. Kingdom of God, Jewish views of the, pp. 80-87; Jesus' teaching on the, pp. 175, 176; spiritual character of the, pp. 475, 476, 500. Knowledge of the Father and the Son, the reciprocal, pp. 355-357, 486. Lagrange: on the Synop'.ic Gospels, pp. 25, 29, 42, 56; en the messianic hope, p. 106; en the "Sen of Man" in Daniel, pp. 94, 95; en the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on Christ's eschatolcgical discourse, p. 450; on Christ's knowledge, pp. 467, 468. Logos, pp. 100-103; the Incarnate Logos, pp. 394-400, Loisy: on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 17, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 36, 2,7, 38, 40, 47, 52, 509-511; on the fourlh Gospel, p. 407; on the authenticity of some texts from the Synoptics, pp. 145, 160, 162, 241, 242, 246, 290, 347, 350, 351, 353, 354, 364-367, 376, 415, 416, 483, 485-494; on the authen- ticity of the Gospel of the Infancy, pp. 107, 108; on Christ's, virginal conception, pp. 123, 124, 484; on the his- toricity of the records of Christ's baptism, pp. 140, 141, 479, 480; on the significance of Christ's baptism, pp. 140 246, 251, 252, 479-481, 484; on Christ's temptation, pp. 141, 470, 471 ; en the duration of Christ's public ministry, p. 144; on Christ's messianic manifestation, pp. 135, 136, 145, 149, 150, 183, 184, 473; on the title "Son of Man," pp. 160, 162; on the escha'.ological Messiah, pp. 174, 175, 183, 184, 476, 477; on the source of the messianic con- sciousness, pp. 140, 478, 479; on its evolution, pp. 233-23^, 252, 254, 260, 261, 479-484; on Christ's foresight of His passion, pp. 242 246, 482, 483; en Christ the Redeemer, p. 246; on Christ's prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 429; on His knowledp^e of the end of the world, pp. 423, 424, 425, j=?9, 463, 481; on the Kingdom of Gcd, pp. ^2,3, 434; on Christ's miracles, p. 4QI ; on His divinity, pp. 280-306, A17, 485-496; on ^he title "Son of God," pp. 320-330, 485-491 ; on Christ's transfiguration, p. 141 ; ALPHABETICAL INDEX 555 on His grandeur, pp. 246, 519; on the worship of Christ, PP- 319. 320, 393; on St. John the Baptist, pp. 187, 478; on the primacy of St. Peter, p. 326; on the Chris. ology of St. Paul and St, John, pp. 283, 290, 296, 496; on the meaning of the dogma of Christ's divinity, p. 498; on Loisy's method of criticism, pp. 509-512, 537, 538. Luke, the Gospel of Saint, pp. 8-10, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 42, 43. 50. Mark, the Gospel of Saint, pp. 8-10, 19, 20, 21, 24-29, 31, 47; its final chapter, p. 436. Matthew, the Gospel of Saint, pp. 8-10, 19, 20, 21, 23-29, 31, 32. Memra, or the Word of God, pp. 100-103; cf. Logos, Messiah, the; the messianic hcpe, pp. 59-72; the Jewish idea of his character and mission, pp. 72-77; his kingly des- tiny, pp. 77-87; the suffering Servant, pp. 87-89; his pre- existence, pp. 90-106; sources of early Christian belief in the Messiah, pp. 132-134; the messianic manifes'.a^ion of Jesus in His infancy, pp. 117-121; the messianic con- sciousness, pp. 128, 129, 198; Jesus' personal manifesta- tion of His messiahship, pp. 128-173, 473-475, 484, 513- 515; His reserve in this manifestation, pp. 129-131, 143- 150, 165, 167, 168, 183, 235, 236; popular messianic pre- judices, pp. 146, 147, 502; idea of the eschatclogical Mes- siah, pp. 131, 174-197, 281, 476; basis of the messianic ccnscicusness, pp. 198-215; i:s source and evolution, pp. 198-262, 469, 470, 477-485, 517-520. Ministry of Jesus, the duration of the ; cf. Chronology. Miracles : their existence denied by Rationalists, pp. 34, 35 ; miracles wrought by Christ, pp. 151, 152, 309, 491, 533; by His disciples, pp. 154, 15=;, 309, 491, 533. Mcses, the Assumpiicn of, pp. 65, 66. Ori^en : on the Gospels, p. 7. Palm Sunday, pp. 172, 173. Papias : on the Gospels, p. 12. Parable and allegory, pp. 350-353. Parables cf the Kingdom of God, pp. 433-435. Passion, Christ's foresight of the, pp. 170, 171, 202-204, 220, 221, 230-233, 234, 235, 238-244, 482, 5o8-_5i3- Paul, the Epistles of Saint, their authenticity, pp. 384-386; their Christclogy, pp. 384-410. 415, 416, 496; the'r idea of the Kingdom of God, p. 460; value of St. Paul's tes- timony concerning Christ, pp. 400-410, 522 ; difference between S\ Paul and Jesus, p. 418. Peter, Saint, his confession of faith, pp. 167, 168, 188, 189, 193, 194, 243. 322-327, 374, 375; his primacy, pp. 324-327- Philo, pp. 80, 82, 102, 104, 105. 556 ALPHABETICAL INDEX Portrait of Christ's moral character, pp. 209-212. Preaching of the Gospel, the universal, pp. 436-441, 442, 443. Predictions of Jesus, p. 421; concerning ^he fall of Jerusalem, p. 426-432, 444-460 ; concerning His Passion ; cf. Pas- sion; concerning the end of the World; cf. End of the World. Pre-existence of the Messiah : according to Jewish traditions, pp. 90-95; according to the Johannine Writings, pp. 345, 394-396; according to St. Paul's Epistles, pp. 387-394; ac- cording to the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 343-345. Privileges and powers claimed by Jesus, pp. 152-155, 168-172, 306-315, 491-494, 531.-536. _ Protestants, liberal : their opinion on the origin of the mes- sianic consciousness of Jesus, pp. 215-233; on Christ's divinity, pp. 271-279, 341, 357:363. Protestants, conservative : on Christ's divinity, pp. 279, 280. Psalms of Solomon, fhe^ pp. 6^, 64. Quatrieme Evangile, Le, p. 289. Quelques lettres, p. 497. Rationalists : on miracles, pp. 34, 35 ; on the Gospel of the Infancy, p. 107; on Christ's baplism and tempta'ion, p. 139; on Christ's messianic consciousness, pp. 128, 129; on His person, pp. 266-271, 537. Redemption, the idea of: is connection with the personal teaching of Jesus, pp. 246, 394, 398, 399. Reimarus : his system, p. 503. Renan: on miracles, p. 34; on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 19, 21, 30-32, 34, 35, 109; on the Johannine Writings, p. 406; on the source of the messianic consciousness, pp. 163, 198- 206; en the title " Son of Man," p. 163; on the Kingdom preached by Jesus, pp. 200-203, 460, 461 ; on Christ's fore- sight of His passion, p. 204; en the end of the world, pp. 425, 461 ; on Christ's humanity, pp. 266, 267 ; on the title "Son cf God," pp. 200, 201, 334; on Jesus' transcendence, pp. 163, 210, 212-214, 267, 269, 270,. 397, 398, 401, 402. Resurreclicn cf Christ: relation to His messiahship, pp. 129, 133, 176-183, 515; relation to the divine sonship, p. 386. Reuss : on Christ's transcendence, pp. 342, 343. Sabbath, Christ's authority over the, pp. 153, 308, 493, 532. Sanday: en the Gospels, pp. 50, 51, 407; on the messianic con- sciousness, p. 237; on Christ's baptism, pp. 248, 249, 250; en the title "Son of Man," p. 164; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on Christ's knowledge, p. 433; on His di- vinity, pp. 280, 335, 34S, 387. S chemoneh Esreh, pp. 67-69. Schmid% N. : on the Logos in Philo, p. 104; on Jesus' claim to messiahship, p. 130; on the title "Son of God," pp. 324, 338, 340, 355, 367; on Christ's divinity, p. 409. ALPHABETICAL INDEX 557 Schmiedel, Otto: on the source of the messianic conscious- ness, p. 203. Schmiedel, P. W. : on miracles, p. 51; on the Gospels, pp. 21, 28, 36, 407; on Christ's virginal birth, pp. 123, 124; on Christ's humanity, p. 54; on the prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 430; on the escha^ologcal discourse, p. 449. Schiirer: on the hypostatic wisdom, p. 100; on the Jewish belief in a suffering Messiah, p. 91. Servant of Jehovah, the, pp. 87, 88. S.bylline Books, the, p. 65. Sincerity of Jesus' claims, the, pp. 198, 199, Son of David, the Messiah, pp. y2, JZ', Jesus, pp. 172, 173, 345-348, 488, 524-526. Son of God, primary meaning, pp. 95-97 ; Jewish application to the Messiah, pp. 97-99; messianic import, pp. 137-139, 253-255. 281, 282, 293, 320-330, ZZZ, 336, 486, 530; divine sonship, pp. 200, 201, 217. 218, 222, 225, 226, 2ZZ, 234, 330- ZZ^, Zo7-Z^Z, 486, 530; special sense, pp. 200, 226, 27Z, 274, 336-340, 361-363, 409, 410; consubstantial union, pp. 321, 322, 346, 375, 386-392, 486-489, 521-538. Son of Man: the Messiah, pp. 93-95; Jesus, pp. 54, 130, 157- 165. Stanton: on the Gospels, pp. 22, 2y, 28, 55. Stapfer: on the messianic consciousness, pp. 216-222, 245; on Christ's humanity, pp. 271, 272; on His knowledge, p. 425; on His prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 430; on His divinity, pp. 271-273, 277-279. Stevens: on the messianic manifestation, p. 134; on the tile "Son of Man," p. 164; on Christ's knowledge, p. 432; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435 ; on the expansion of the Gospel, p. 437; on Chris.'s eschatological discourse, p. 499 ; on His divinity, pp. 280, 335, 339,^ 342, 384, 393. Strauss: on the Gospels, p. 2Z\ on the spiritual character of the Kingdom of God, p. 500; on Christ's reserve in His messianic manifestation, pp. 502, 515; on (he source of His messianic consciousness, pp. 478, 479; on His fore- sight of His passion, pp. 482, 512, 513; significance of His baptism, p. 484; on the Kingdom of God. p. 508; on Jesus' claims to divinity, pp. 486, 487, 494-496, 525, 530; on the meaning of the dogma of His divinity, p. 499. Synop'ic Gospels, the: authorship and historicity, pp. 2-56; the Synoptic problem, pp 24-29. Talmud, the, pp. 78, 83, 86, 87. 89. Targums, the, p. 69. Tatian: on the Gospels, p. 6; on the Christ God, p. 399. Teaching of Jesi^s. pp. 210-212, 308. Tem.ptation of Christ, pp. i37-i43, 220, 227-229, 236-238, 480, 481. 558 ALPHABETICAL INDEX Tertullian: on the Gospels, pp. 7, 9. Transfiguration of Christ, pp. 141, 166, 168, 185. Universality of the Gospel; cf. Preaching of the Gospel. Virginity of Mary; cf. BirLh of Christ, the virginal. Von Weizsacker : on the Gospels, p. 27. Weiss, B. : on the Gospels, pp. 21, 26, 407; on the source and evolution of the messianic consciousness, pp. 225 226, 229, 231, 232, 246, 247, 249, 250, 251, 334; on the title "Son of Man," pp. 164, 165; on Christ's knowledge, p. 432; on His prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 429; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435 ; on Christ's divinity, pp. .274, 275, 334, 339, 358, 360, 361. Weiss, J. : on the Gospels, pp. 26, 47 ; on the messianic mani- festation, p. 134; on the eschatological Messiah, p. 174; on Christ's transcendence, pp. 277, 329. Wendt: on the messianic hope, p. 106; on the messianic mani- festation, p. 148; on the source and evolution of the mes- sianic consciousness, pp. 222, 224, 228, 229, 230, 231, 246, 247, 256, 257, 334, 335; on the title " Son of Man," p. 165; on Christ's knowledge, p. 432; on His prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 429; on His eschatological dis- course, p. 449; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on the expansion of the Gospel, p. 437; on Christ's divinity, p. . 275. Wernle: on the source and evolu'.ion of the messianic con- sciousness, pp. 221, 222, 259, 260; on the Kingdom of God, p. 432; on Jesus' moral character, p. 210; on His hu- mility and extraordinary claims, p. 212; on His transcend- ence, pp. 272, 273, 276, 358, 409. Word, the; cf. Logos. Wrede: on miracles, pp. 51, 52, 417; on the messianic secret, p. 131 ; on Christ's divini y, p. 417. Zahn : on the Gospels, pp. 21, 27, 407. (\- T1l« ".V* ^ ^^-n^. .0' '^^ ** V * ^^ <-^ ^i^^^^mPk'^ -^MrS ^is^M^^^^ -^^ ci>' -bV ,Ho^ ^oK ^^-^^^ **\'^'%'e, /,.-^;4i,^°o o**.:^:'''-^ , •» ^c : .v^^^ ^.wmm;: ^v^^^ \wmw: .v^. o V 0-7^^. >^i^':^^^.* ^Hq^ :^i5^>o' iOv: 'oK ll-RAHy BINOlilO V <^ ^§m FLA. ^?1S^ • ^ Or y ^^ <^> •»