The rediscovery of Jesus

Preface

THE educated world of our day is keenly interested in the great leaders who have done so much to shape modern thought. Directly or indirectly, people reared in America or Europe are bound to feel the influence of Jesus of Galilee. The heavy mists of tradition are slowly rising from the form of the Carpenter-Prophet, leaving in bold relief against the familiar Palestinian background a most entrancing life. The sheer honesty of the man, his magnetic power over masses of people, his tireless interest in every human need, and his sunny faith in human goodness and human destiny mark him, beyond question, as one of the greatest factors in worldprogress. To make him better known; to restore some of the original warmth and _ passionate earnestness of this great character; and to let him speak to our times with the same eloquent directness that captured both imagination and heart in the days of old, is the plain purpose of this little book.

F. M.

Chicago, Illinois, _ Feb. 18, 1929.

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Contents

PRET ACE Ay 282i ee a ee eee AN te CHAPTER

I. THe Repiscovery oF JEsuS . ... IJ. Jesus AMONG THE PRopHETS. . . .

III. A Rare FrreNpsHIP—AND Its REsuLts IV. Propuer oF IrrEsistIBLE PowER. «lit Vi PROPHET. OF ELUMANITY Ope oe st ie VI. Proper oF Contacious Joy . ... VII. Proper or ApsoLuTe SINCERITY Mele VIII. Frrenp of tHE FriENDLESS . . .. IX. Hours of Birrer LoNeLInEss . ...

Appendix

Tue Porrrair IN THE Earwiest GosPEL SOURCES pa OuTLINE oF Synoptic Passaces, Reflecting— I. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF JESUS’ LIFE . | II. JESUS’ OWN RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS .

III. EDITORIAL APPRECIATIONS AND COR- RECTIONS OF LATER YEARS

214 229 bast

DRAMATIC SCENES IN THE LIFE OF JESUS

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Chapter I The Rediscovery Of Jesus

Jesus or NazareTH has been one of the most misunderstood men of history. The very differences of judgment on the part of the many who have attempted to understand and evaluate this exceptional personality are, in a very true sense, one of the highest tributes which could possibly be laid at the feet of any human being. True greatness always defies analysis. It cannot possibly follow the paths of tradition and uniformity; otherwise it would not be worthy of being called great. Its genius is found in its ability to strike out new and permanent paths for the race. Such a character as that of Jesus, therefore, never should be thought of as static or final. Rather is it in startling, paradoxical, ever-changing flux. Not alone in the great crises of life, but in the common affairs of every day as well. In fact, there are kaleidoscopic changes in the daily life of Jesus little short of miraculous. It must ever be so with one who thinks independently, sia who understands and suffers with others, who learns to love truth and fellowmen passionately. To understand the Nazarene, therefore, one must necessarily regard him as humanly subject to all the heightened circumstances and moods of life which an awakening Poet and Lover might be expected to experience in a suppressed and forlorn little province like Palestine.

After all these generations of bibliolatry and commentary, labored and vivisectional as they have been, what can we say that we really know about Jesus’ personality and career? We have no revealing autobiography from his versatile mind —even as much as we have in the case of Paul of Tarsus. Nor did he ever enjoy the freedom or the leisure to train, with any thoroughness, a steady group of disciples in the moral and religious convictions which were so rapidly taking form deep within his own mind. The few men and women who followed him hither and yon over the highways of Palestine gathered from his public and private talks only the most meagre and disconnected impressions of his real thought. Even his closest companions really did not know him well. His experience and modes of thought were too far beyond their comprehension. A

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superior prophet was coming to birth out of the dry and forbidding soil of their conventional life. Until he interpreted their own hearts and longings to them, and until time and a tragic passing indelibly impressed upon their unimaginative minds the rare quality of his devotion and his heroism, how could they be expected to appreciate this child of their age-long passion?

To make the whole subject still more bafiling, and all but hopelessly confusing, we find that we have as the sole written remains of that early time documents which, while they undoubtedly represent earnest and painstaking attempts to record the most salient teachings and deeds of Jesus, are after all chiefly the cherished reminiscences of a long-idealized past, as seen by the various editors of the gospel accounts.’ Or, at best, they are the reiterated sentences of gold and the unforgettable acts of grace which were stamped ineffaceably upon the memories of his most intimate friends.

The modern world must never again expect to catch this great life in static pose. Yet, while we must frankly acknowledge the tenuous and impressionistic nature of our sources for a real life of

1 Consult the gospel documents at the end of the book.

Jesus, we have at least this consolation in our endeavor to trace back the tremendous tides of world-activity and idealism which owe their being to his deep grasp of truth and to his devotion to “the highest will of God,” that his early friends rose to their task of interpretation with a spirit of terrible earnestness and warmth of love for him and for their contemporaries. Even allowing for all of the elements of change that must ever creep into such attempts, their writings reveal the fact of his burning reality in their lives and the transforming influence of his ideals in their daily conduct. Hence we recognize in these realistic pictures a heritage of vital worth, destined to make an even deeper impression upon the generations to come than has ever before been true.

In a day like our own, which attempts to base all of its knowledge upon factual history, is there not grave danger that we underestimate the less historical but still very valuable documents of early times whose pictures were confessedly drawn in the heavy colors of oriental imagery, of miracle and tradition, of simple adoration and warm adolescent devotion? For, when all is said, the warm human emotions have a right to be heard in court as well as the more mature and scientific evidence of the historically trained witnesses of our more advanced day.

All too long have passing generations looked upon the Christian gospels as the work of careful historians whose every word could be depended upon literally. It was easy to overlook the fact that the constituent gospel documents were not subjected to historical tests, and that the so-called eye-witness testimony was too often the effusion of untrained imaginations or the naive borrowing of traditional folk-stories.

When embarrassing questions and challenging statements were voiced in circles hostile to the Christian assumptions of finality, the fathers of the faith found it easy to dispose of the opposition by resorting to innuendo, and then justifying themselves by making even more strenuous claims for the dogmatic finality of their convictions. The prophetic forecasting of events, dependence upon especially revealed “scripture,” the attestation of miraculous intervention from heaven, or even the unblinking assertion of traditional views, seemed to these defenders of the word to be fully justified in view of their ultimate purpose of making known “the truth of God.”

But it requires something more than naive

Behe credulity, indignant denunciation, and stormy assertions to establish the faith of men in divine goodness and human perfectibility. Even those within the Christian brotherhood could not always remain satisfied with such unsound measures of building up the faith; and the hand of the opposition received added strength, especially when the non-Christian inquisitors so often were represented by Greek, Roman, and Jew of culture and of high analytical ability. Not infrequently, these critics had a much broader vision of human history and need than had their Christian opponents.

If only the church fathers could have remained satisfied with the directness and simplicity of Jesus, and could have kept the plain principles which he taught reasonably free from the theological quibbles and metaphysical elaborations of later times! For, in the light of the golden character of the earlier writings, the petty accretions of later and more anxious times seem as so much dross. Scholars have rightly urged the prime necessity of working back toward the original documents, and of restoring the native environment of that day, in the hope that the vision of the real character of Jesus might again help the lagging forces of society to attain to those higher ethical levels where alone peace of soul and social progress are to be obtained.

After nineteen centuries of commanding influence in the lives of untold millions of Christian and Jewish people, not to mention many other groups in both Orient and Occident, the personality of Jesus is still an enigma to most people. ’ The one man to whom modern times are most indebted for a clarification of the basal principles of religion is still a stranger in that world of undiscovered brotherhood for which he spent the very last ounce of his devoted strength. And he spent it—this is the pathetic side of it all—in faith that in no distant future all this sacrifice would somehow bear fruitage for the welfare of the whole world. Yet this gracious character, so sorely needed as an inspirational and steadying factor in the life of our modern youth, is almost hopelessly hidden by the confusing mists of tradition —like some great mountain peak, which the wanderer in unfamiliar heights desperately needs to point the way home, but which is concealed by lingering clouds as if to mock at the hopes of the lost pilgrim and wish him some untimely fate.

Rich as is the history of both East and West in leaders who have attained great heights in the fields of statesmanship, scholarship, art, science and invention, there is sadly enough a great dearth of commanding characters in the realm of ethics and religion. Furthermore, when one sees how acquaintance with the historical character of the simple and kindly Jesus grips the imagination of certain limited groups of the modern youth of all countries, and what new breadth and power his example lends to the perplexed situation, how can one help wondering at the lethargy and blindness of the religious forces which seem chiefly responsible for this sad condition to-day?

The patient and constructive scholarship of the past century and a half has brought to light such startling and inspiring discoveries about the life and character of Jesus that one wonders all the more that these results should be so persistently withheld from our young people. First of all, it is evident that we are dealing here with one whose training and outlook upon life are necessarily those of the Near East. It was an area which, for centuries, had been under the domination of stronger foreign powers. Jesus was a member of a subject race which persisted in feeding its forlorn hopes upon dreams of future domination of the world. Meanwhile their resources were openly exploited by their masters, and their clannish traditionalism made it all but impossible for them to satisfy the demands of their overlords. It grew more and more evident that they never could find full and free expression for their intense ambitions until either they merged their powers completely with some of the more mighty and friendly nations, or otherwise won the right to set up, in some favored corner of earth, a commonwealth of their own through which the urgent soul within them should find complete racial and religious outlet.

Jesus can never be understood except as a Jew among Jews. The pathetic and very unfair attempts to Christianize, to westernize, or even to universalize him, in order to induce people of all nationalities to forget his humble origin, are unworthy of a day which prides itself upon playing true to the facts. Either let us give up our pretense to scientific and historical accuracy, or let us accept Jesus in his own native environment and honor him for what he became. Let us also honor his people for furnishing such a commanding figure to represent their ideals before the world.

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If Christian and Jewish historians could forego their unfortunate traditionalism and prejudice, combining their best judgments in presenting the historic Jesus to the world, great would be the gain. Few and blessed are. the pioneers in this field. Because their findings are likely to shatter the cherished traditions of both Jewish and Christian literalists, they must find their consolation in having followed the truth as they see it, and in hastening a day of better understanding both of peoples and of documents.

On the other hand, educated moderns have grown used to the broader sweep of history. They begin to catch glimpses of cosmic relationships. They think in terms of light-years and eternal ages. They conceive it to be the great human task to remain at the world’s work until life is made wonderfully fair and inspiring for all peoples of every land on the globe. They can no longer imagine tiny heavens above a static Lilliputian earth. How then can they think of the autocratic ruler of that microscopic upper realm as intervening to accomplish ends which are so clearly the inherited obligations of the whole race of Earth’s men and women who from generation to generation make this little planet their home?

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Long since have the better educated of all nations come to think in international terms rather than in those of a single group. And long since have the broader Greco-Roman and Western ideals so dominated the thinking of this educated world that the restricted vision and hopes of the provincial Palestine of past years seem very foreign indeed to their present ways of thinking.

One reason why it is so difficult to get at the obviously simple life and thought of Jesus is that the oral accounts of what he said and did were themselves current in many variant forms. Then these were taken up in numerous Aramaic and Greek written records. It is evident that, when these earliest records were combined and adapted to meet the needs of Christian communities in Asia and Europe over a period of more than a whole century, the original lines of the story would bit by bit be obliterated and the imaginary hero and folk-pictures of the times be substituted. So we need not be at all surprised to find a distinct overlay of western miracle and superstition covering, with more or less evident purpose, the straightforward narrative of Jesus’ own generation.

Probably these first documents written by Jesus’

THE REDISCOWERY MOF JESUS

Aramaic-speaking friends were simple compilations of his more pointed sayings issued to aid in training the growing groups of disciples in his principal ideals and way of living. Adapted chiefly for people who still thought in terms of Jewish environment and need, they were necessarily simple and doubtless reflected with considerable reliability the main lines of their Teacher’s convictions. Perhaps the years 50 to 60 A.D. are the earliest dates at which these native-tongue documents could have been composed. They reflect the primitive experiences of the early Christian community before the problems incident to expansion, persecutions, and rivalry with other and older faiths had arisen.

The Greek translations of these brief and very occasional Aramaic works, upon which we are mainly dependent for our knowledge of these teachings, were probably given form in the critical years just preceding and following the destruction of the city of Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman armies, 70 A.D. Of course, the necessities of translation into a foreign tongue, and the very different background and needs of the Greek-speaking Christians, as well as the changed times and types of disciples, would all make it difficult to keep Jesus’ original views absolutely intact. When several different translations of the same words and incidents are found in the gospels it becomes somewhat easier to work back to the simpler Palestinian teachings which Jesus quite certainly presented to his Jewish followers of the years 29-30 A.D., the years to which his public work may with reason be confined.

A still greater hindrance to our understanding of Jesus arises from the fact that these simple Greek versions of Jesus’ deeds and sayings were, from time to time during the years 70-150 A.D., expanded to yield more definite and detailed teaching material for the rapidly growing Christian communities springing up around the Mediterranean and Black seas, and even from the Euphrates river on the East to Rome and the Spanish borders on the far West.

These enlarged and carefully edited books were called “gospels,” signifying the fact that they contained the happy messages of Jesus for mankind. They argued that these messages and the accompanying explanations were fully worthy of acceptance at the hands of all sincere people. They called, indeed, for quick response to this royal summons to discipleship. ‘These books were specifically designed for the teaching purposes of the church: to train the young in the best ways of living, and to persuade interested non-Christians to throw in their lot with the socially discredited but growing sect called “Christian.”

In books thus composed of many documents and representing the editorial hands of many church leaders, one would not expect to find conformity of views. They varied greatly, reflecting the community life and thought of groups as far apart both geographically and doctrinally as the Christian circles of Alexandria, Antioch of Syria, Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, Constantinople, and Rome. Those of a practical or ritualistic turn of mind were represented side by side with those of more mystic and philosophical tendencies.

These were trying days when very stern and dogmatic teaching had to be inculcated in order to keep immature or wavering Christians in the fold lest they fall back into the allurements of the older and less exacting faiths. For we must remember that scores of these faiths were also appealing for a following; and that many of them had been in the field for centuries past with convincing scriptures, mighty Saviors, and final doctrines of salvation, heaven, hell, and immortality.

Surely no effort could be spared by the determined Christian forces so to adapt Jesus’ vital thought to the problems of the time as to make his major demands for pure living highly effective in these sacred lives.

It would have been strange indeed if the Christian writers had not woven around Jesus’ plain and unpretentious life many mythical fancies with which they had been acquainted in other faiths of the time, or if they had failed to add some of the current “advanced” interpretations of thought, many of which most certainly would never have commanded the Master’s own approval. Not infrequently, it seems, were views put forward in the name of Jesus which are directly contradicted by the plain teaching repeatedly referred to him in our earliest and most reliable sources. In some cases these contradictions seem not to have been noticed by the gospel editors. In other cases harmonistic efforts are in evidence; some rather far-fetched and drastic, others rather clever, and all well-meant and probably justified by the need of the hour. As will be seen in our later studies, we must ever be on the alert to distinguish these earlier and later strands © in the gospels; for one leads us quite clearly into

THE REDISCOVERY iOF JESUS the inner thought of the historic Jesus, while the other takes us far afield, and leads into a thousand vagaries such as the church has found to be so disastrous for steady ethical progress.

On first thought, the inexperienced student is inclined to ejaculate, “Then we can never know Jesus as he was, if such a heavy cloud of tradition, myth, and dogma exists on the pages of the gospels.” And not a few cry out in despair, “Better leave us to our comfortable delusions than destroy our firm faith with uncertainty and perplexity.” So strong has been the emphasis upon conformity to traditional belief rather than upon truth, and truth alone, as Jesus insisted.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty of all, then, and one that makes it almost impossible for the average young person to get a “near” view of Jesus, is the fact that practically all of the home, church, and school training in religious matters up to recent times has been along the line of literal acceptance of the gospel story without any discrimination whatever between earlier and later sources; between evident fact and easily demonstrable fiction. Such unscientific laxity would be utterly unforgivable in any other field of modern thought. Certainly here, in the field

Lhe RE DIS COVERY OR PESUS of religion, which above all others should seek after truth and which boasts of discipleship to one of the most honest men who has yet lived, we should find bed-rock honesty.

The fact should be recalled, of course, that human nature everywhere and at all times has been _ likewise conservative with regard to its great traditional leaders. Jesus’ case is only one of many known to history. And the study of all of these parallel cases throws a veritable flood of light upon the popular nature of the gospels. It renders one much more cautious in the acceptance of the wonder stories, which are really the loving tributes of devoted but untutored folk whose religion calls for high emotional coloring, rather than careful adherence to fact.

By dint of much scholarly effort, the world is slowly recovering, not alone its ancient Egypt and Palestine and Babylonia, its Greece and Rome, its India and China, but also its leading exponents of religion. These worthies are being brought back to life again as if they truly belonged to our times. The very dust of centuries which has tended to conceal their true greatness must now be removed with a patience equal to the devotion of their disciples, who found it diff- [19]

THEVREDIS COME RY MOI TE Sic cult to express their admiration and gratitude in other terms than those of wonder-story and heroworship. In a day which is priding itself more and more upon its absolute accuracy, and its refusal to be led away by any lure whatever from the strict path of historical fact and the carefully tested proofs of scientific study, one might well hesitate to build the delicate fabric of his religious faith upon traditions which the best scholarship of several generations has now laid aside as unverified and quite unnecessary to the highest expression of practical, ethical living.

Possessing so much better historic perspective, as we do to-day, and having learned the value of scientific patience, we need not be surprised if gradually there is opening to the vision of our times a knowledge of Jesus such as no previous generation has yet known. And while it is true that the wonder-picture which the warm child-imagination of the earlier followers felt obliged to conjure up has forever passed from the pages of history, there has come, in place of it, a picture of earnest human character from which the intelligent moral forces of our times would part with a great deal more reluctance because of its intrinsic worth for the education of our youth.

Chapter II Jesus Among The Prophets

Ir would be difficult to find, in all the sweep of history, such a succession of morally earnest and practical teachers of lofty ideals as may be discovered in the prophetic line reaching from Amos of Tekoa to John of Judea, popularly styled “the Baptist.” These were men who, over a troublous period of some eight centuries, succeeded in spurring the consciences of a saving minority of the fathers of Israel to superhuman sacrificial effort. They also kept alive, against tremendous odds, that love of truth and eagerness to do the will of the Highest which have proved to be among the richest portions of the religious heritage of all succeeding times.

Into this rare company, and with all of their prestige and inspiration back of him, came Jesus of Nazareth. Whether he took this step of deliberate personal choice, or through the wise guidance of his father, Joseph, or of some far-seeing scribe who appreciated the unusual youthful in- . [21]

terest of the carpenter’s son, we may never know. Some as yet unknown experience seems to have aroused in the boy a determination to do the utmost will of God, and perhaps a yearning to be a prophet-preacher to his beloved Jewish people.

If anyone is in doubt as to the influence which such a group of leaders might exert upon the impressionable mind of a hungry-hearted, smalltown lad, let him set the writings and heroic deeds of these great prophetic preachers before an average sroup of similar youth in any of our American villages to-day, and then watch the electric transformation in the more earnest minds of the group. Properly presented, the highly dramatic story of these wonderful men is bound to capture the imagination of such as have had a reasonable ethical-social training in home, school, and church.

That Jesus was completely won by the story of daring, idealism, and endurance told in the prophetic books is evident on every page of the synoptic gospels. His mind was fairly saturated with their pungent sayings. His speech again and again breaks out into the rhythm of their balanced poetry, especially in moments when his mind was

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swayed by deep indignation or love. Commenting at times upon some of the great passages from their powerful pens, he too rose to similar poetic heights. We may well believe that, if his life had been spared for the decades which the careers of most of the prophets covered, he too would have been counted among the lofty poets of Israel. Jesus’ life was set against a fairly dull background of mediocrity, as far as contemporary leadership of a lively moral type was concerned. All the more striking was the contrast of his impassioned life: Because he lived in a day when the conventional scribal teaching was practically law to scholar and peasant alike, it was not deemed good form to take issue with their decisions, too often received as the final will of God. But Jesus had fed his soul upon the fiery earnestness of the unconventional and intensely honest prophets of his race, at least in the later years of his youth. He had found in his intimate experiences with the common laboring people, as did the Amoses and Micahs before him, how lacking in ethical results was the teaching of the complacent spiritual guides of the times. As a result, he found his heart burning with the same [ 23 ]

indignant protests against ecclesiastical tyranny, formality, and heartlessness as those his teachers had felt.

Thoroughly believing that God had spoken in the prophets and in the passions of his own soul, he could not, as a lover of his people and of truth as well, refuse to throw himself into the struggle for a loftier ethics and the full human rights which he believed the designated leaders were wrongfully withholding from the less cultured common people of Palestine. Bitter indeed was his revolt against traditionalism. Having himself been pressed through the mould of conventional thought in his more tender years, and now seeing how far short of complete expression the standardized methods of the Jewish hierarchy left the masses of the people, he chose as his slogan: “The will of God, and the deliverance of the people,” and plunged into the battle to the death. And full well did he know that there could be no quarter given or expected till the bitter end.

Such a complete break with the recognized scribal leadership of the Jewish people, and the painful necessity of having to take a public stand upon all matters at issue, must have caused Jesus many hours of agony. Was there a single man in the whole land who could possibly understand and sympathize with him in these strange revolutionary emotions? Would he not be condemned on every hand for daring to differ from the priests and scribes? Could he hope for any reasonable backing from any portion of the people? Blind and unthinking as the masses seemed to be, could he expect there to find even an hour’s hearing for his new-found hopes? Of course there were radical groups always standing ready to utilize such leadership as he might offer, but their methods led inevitably to useless bloodshed; and was that worth while? Could he—would God—stand for that? Would his family, his relatives, and his town friends countenance such a departure from the accepted interpretation of religion?

Over and over again must he have weighed many such questions, passing through the torments of uncertainty; now leaning one way, in his desire to be true to the faith of his fathers, and again flushing hot with indignation at himself to think that he could, even for a moment, turn his face from that higher will of Truth and God. In his best moments, his heart told him where his plain duty lay.

It was in such hours of turbulence that Jesus

THE REDISCOVERY GFE JESUS learned the value of prayer. His suffering heart worked out for him a new language with which to address God. Out of burning need he pressed into the presence of One who theretofore had been known merely by the hearing of the ear. New depths of need brought also new fountains of satisfaction. Was his soul lifted to heaven? Or was God coming down from the skies to give solace to one who yearned, as never before man yearned, to know the will divine? Certainly, in the desperate days when scribe and business associate, mother and brothers and sisters, and even his closest friends, failed to appreciate the depths of his feelings, he found but one refuge sufficient for his weary mind, and that he called the quiet place of communion with God and his own heart.