Chapter X…

Chapter X

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.

§ 105.

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS CONSIDERED AS A MIRACULOUS EXTERNAL EVENT.

The history of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain could not be ranged with the narratives of miracles which we have hitherto examined; not only because it relates to a miracle which took place in Jesus instead of a miracle performed by him; but also because it has the character of an epoch in the life of Jesus, which on the score of resemblance could only be associated with the baptism and resurrection. Hence Herder has correctly designated these three events as the three luminous points in the life of Jesus, which attest his heavenly mission. [1531]

According to the impression produced by the first glance at the synoptical narrative (Matt. xvii. 1 ff.; Mark ix. 2 ff.; Luke ix. 28 ff.)—for the history is not found in the fourth gospel—we have here a real, external, and miraculous event. Jesus, six or eight days after the first announcement of his passion, ascends a mountain with his three most confidential disciples, who are there witnesses how all at once his countenance, and even his clothes, are illuminated with supernatural splendour; how two venerable forms from the realm of spirits, Moses and Elias, appear talking with him; and lastly, how a heavenly voice, out of the bright cloud, declares Jesus to be the Son of God, to whom they are to give ear.

These few points in the history give rise to a multitude of questions, by the collection of which Gabler has done a meritorious service. [1532] In relation to each of the three phases of the event—the light, the apparition of the dead, and the voice—both its possibility, and the adequacy of its object, may be the subject of question. First, whence came the extraordinary light with which Jesus was invested? Let it be remembered that a metamorphosis of Jesus is spoken of (μεταμορφώθη ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν): now this would appear to imply, not a mere illumination from without, but an irradiation from within, a transient effulgence, so to speak, of the beams of the divine glory through the veil of humanity. Thus Olshausen regards this event as an important crisis in the process of purification and glorification, through which he supposes the corporeality of Jesus to have passed, during his whole life up to the time of his ascension. [1533] But without here dilating further on our previous arguments, that either Jesus was no real man, or the purification which he underwent during his life, must have consisted in something else than the illumination and subtilization of his body; it is in no case to be conceived how his clothes, as well as his body, could participate in such a process of transfiguration. If, on this account, it be rather preferred to suppose an illumination from without, this would not be a metamorphosis, which however is the term used by the Evangelists: so that no consistent conception can be formed of this scene, unless indeed we choose, with Olshausen, to include both modes, and think of Jesus as both radiating, and irradiated. But even supposing this illumination possible, there still remains the question, what purpose could it serve? The answer which most immediately suggests itself is: to glorify Jesus; but compared with the spiritual glory which Jesus created for himself by word and deed, this physical glorification, consisting in the investing of his body with a brilliant light, must appear very insignificant, nay, almost childish. If it be said that, nevertheless, such a mode of glorifying Jesus was necessary for the maintenance of weak faith: we reply that in that case, it must have been effected in the presence of the multitude, or at least before the entire circle of the disciples, not surely before just the select three who were spiritually the strongest; still less would these few eye-witnesses have been prohibited from communicating the event precisely during the most critical period, namely, until after the resurrection.—These two questions apply with enhanced force to the second feature in our history, the apparition of the two dead men. Can departed souls become visible to the living? and if, as it appears, the two men of God presented themselves in their former bodies, only transfigured, whence had they these—according to biblical ideas—before the universal resurrection? Certainly in relation to Elijah, who went up to heaven without laying aside his body, this difficulty is not so great; Moses, however, died, and his corpse was buried. But further, to what end are we to suppose that these two illustrious dead appeared? The evangelical narrative, by representing the forms as talking with Jesus, συλλαλοῦντες τῶ Ἰ., seems to place the object of their appearance in Jesus; and if Luke be correct, it had reference more immediately to the approaching sufferings and death of Jesus. But they could not have made the first announcement of these events to him, for, according to the unanimous testimony of the synoptists, he had himself predicted them a week before (Matt. xvi. 21 parall.). Hence it is conjectured, that Moses and Elias only informed Jesus more minutely concerning the particular circumstances and conditions of his death: [1534] but, on the one hand, it is not accordant with the position which the gospels assign to Jesus in relation to the ancient prophets, that he should have needed instruction from them; and on the other hand, Jesus had already foretold his passion so circumstantially, that the more special revelations from the world of spirits could only have referred to the particulars of his being delivered to the Gentiles, and the spitting in his face, of which he does not speak till a subsequent occasion (Matt. xx. 19; Mark x. 34). If, however, it be suggested, that the communication to be made to Jesus consisted not so much in information, as in the conferring of strength for his approaching sufferings: we submit that at this period there is not yet any trace of a state of mind in Jesus, which might seem to demand assistance of this kind; while for his later sufferings this early strengthening did not suffice, as is evident from the fact, that in Gethsemane a new impartation is necessary. Thus we are driven, though already in opposition to the text, to try whether we cannot give the appearance a relation to the disciples; but first, the object of strengthening faith is too general to be the motive of so special a dispensation; secondly, Jesus, in the parable of the rich man, must on this supposition have falsely expounded the principle of the divine government in this respect, for he there says that he who will not hear the writings of Moses and the prophets,—and how much more he who will not hear the present Christ?—would not be brought to believe, though one should return to him from the dead: whence it must be inferred that such an apparition, at least to that end, is not permitted by God. The more special object, of convincing the disciples that the doctrine and fate of Jesus were in accordance with Moses and the prophets, had been already partly attained; and it was not completely attained until after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Spirit: the transfiguration not having formed any epoch in their enlightenment on this subject.—Lastly, the voice out of the bright cloud (without doubt the Shechinah) is, like that at the baptism, a divine voice: but what an anthropomorphic conception of the Divine Being must that be, which admits the possibility of real, audible speech on his part! Or if it be said, that a communication of God to the spiritual ear, is alone spoken of here, [1535] the scene of the transfiguration is reduced to a vision, and we are suddenly transported to a totally different point of view.

§ 106.

THE NATURAL EXPLANATION OF THE NARRATIVE IN VARIOUS FORMS.

It has been sought to escape from the difficulties of the opinion which regards the transfiguration of Jesus as not only a miraculous, but also an external event, by confining the entire incident to the internal experience of the parties concerned. In adopting this position, the miraculous is not at once relinquished; it is only transferred to the internal workings of the human mind, as being thus more simple and conceivable. Accordingly it is supposed, that by divine influence the spiritual nature of the three apostles, and probably also of Jesus himself, was exalted to a state of ecstasy, in which they either actually entered into intercourse with the higher world, or were able to shadow forth its forms to themselves in the most vivid manner; that is, the event is regarded as a vision. [1536] But the chief support of this interpretation, namely, that Matthew himself, by the expression ὅραμα, vision (v. 9), describes the event as merely subjective and visionary, gives way so soon as it is remembered, that neither is there anything in the signification of the word ὅραμα which determines it to refer to what is merely mental, nor is it exclusively so applied even in the phraseology of the New Testament, for we also find it, as in Acts vii. 31, used to denote something perceived externally. [1537] As regards the fact itself, it is improbable, and at least without scriptural precedent, that several persons, as, here, three or four, should have had the same very complex vision; [1538] to which it may be added, that on this view of the subject also, the whole difficult question recurs concerning the utility of such a miraculous dispensation.

To avoid the above difficulty, others, still confining the event to the internal experience of the parties, regard it as the product of a natural activity of soul, and thus explain the whole as a dream. [1539] During or after a prayer offered by Jesus, or by themselves, in which mention was made of Moses and Elias, and their advent as messianic forerunners desired, the three disciples, according to this interpretation, slept, and (the two names mentioned by Jesus yet sounding in their ears) dreamed that Moses and Elias were present, and that Jesus conversed with them: an illusion which continued during the first confused moments after their awaking. As the former explanation rests on the ὅραμα of Matthew, so it is alleged in support of this, that Luke describes the disciples as heavy with sleep, βεβαρημένοι ὕπνῳ, and only towards the end of the scene as fully awake, διαγρηγορήσαντες (v. 32). The hold which the third Evangelist here presents to the natural explanation, has been made a reason for assigning to his narrative an important superiority over that of the two other Evangelists; recent critics pronouncing that by this and other particulars, which bring the event nearer to natural possibility, the account in Luke evinces itself to be the original, while that of Matthew, by its omission of those particulars, is proved to be the traditionary one, since with the eagerness for the miraculous which characterized that age, no one would fabricate particulars calculated to diminish the miracle, as is the case with the sleepiness of the disciples. [1540] This mode of conclusion we also should be obliged to adopt, if in reality the above features could only be understood in the spirit of the natural interpretation. But we have only to recollect how in another scene, wherein the sufferings, which according to Luke were announced at the transfiguration, began to be accomplished, and wherein, according to the same Evangelist, Jesus likewise held communication with a heavenly apparition, namely, in Gethsemane, the disciples, in all the synoptical gospels, again appear asleep, καθεύδοντες (Matt. xxvi. 40 parall.). If it be admitted, that the merely external, formal resemblance of the two scenes, might cause a narrator to convey the trait of the slumber into the history of the transfiguration, there is a yet stronger probability that the internal import of the trait might appear to him appropriate to this occasion also, for the sleeping of the disciples at the very moment when their master was going through his most critical experience, exhibits their infinite distance from him, their inability to attain his exalted level; the prophet, the recipient of a revelation, is among ordinary men like a watcher among the sleeping: hence it followed, of course, that as in the deepest suffering, so here also in the highest glorification of Jesus, the disciples should be represented as heavy with sleep. Thus this particular, so far from furnishing aid to the natural explanation, is rather intended by a contrast to heighten the miracle which took place in Jesus. We are, therefore, no longer warranted in regarding the narrative in Luke as the original one, and in building an explanation of the event on his statement; on the contrary, we consider that addition, in connexion with the one already mentioned (v. 31), a sign that his account is a traditionary and embellished one, [1541] and must rather adhere to that of the two other Evangelists.

Not only, however, does the interpretation which sees in the transfiguration only a natural dream of the apostles, fail as to its main support, but it has besides a multitude of internal difficulties. It presupposes only the three disciples to have been dreaming, leaving Jesus awake, and thus not included in the illusion. But the whole tenor of the evangelical narrative implies that Jesus as well as the disciples saw the appearance; and what is still more decisive, had the whole been a mere dream of the disciples, he could not afterwards have said to them: Tell the vision to no man, since by these words he must have confirmed in them the belief that they had witnessed something special and miraculous. Supposing however that Jesus had no share in the dream, it still remains altogether unexampled, that three persons should in a natural manner have had the same dream at the same time. This the friends of the above interpretation have perceived, and hence have supposed that the ardent Peter, who indeed is the only speaker, alone had the dream, but that the narrators, by a synecdoche attributed to all the disciples what in fact happened only to one. But from the circumstance that Peter here, as well as elsewhere, is the spokesman, it does not follow that he alone had the vision, and the contrary can by no figure of speech be removed from the clear words of the Evangelists. But the explanation in question still more plainly betrays its inadequacy. Not only does it require, as already noticed, that the audible utterance of the name of Moses and Elias on the part of Jesus, should be blended with the dream of the disciples; but it also calls in the aid of a storm, which by its flashes of lightning is supposed to have given rise in them to the idea of supernatural splendour, by its peals of thunder, to that of conversation and heavenly voices, and to have held them in this delusion even for some time after they awaked. But, according to Luke, it was on the waking of the disciples (διαγρηγορήσαντες δὲ εἶδον κ.τ.λ.) that they saw the two men standing by Jesus: this does not look like a mere illusion protracted from a dream into waking moments; hence Kuinöl introduces the further supposition, that, while the disciples slept, there came to Jesus two unknown men, whom they, in awaking, connected with their dream, and mistook for Moses and Elias. By giving this turn to the circumstances, all those occurrences which on the interpretation based on the supposition of a dream, should be regarded as mere mental conceptions, are again made external realities: for the idea of supernatural brilliancy is supposed to have been produced by a flash of lightning, the idea of voices, by thunder, and lastly, the idea of two persons in company with Jesus, by the actual presence of two unknown individuals. All this the disciples could properly perceive only when they were awake; and hence the supposition of a dream falls to the ground as superfluous.

Therefore, since this interpretation, by still retaining a thread of connexion between the alleged character of the event and a mental condition, has the peculiar difficulty of making three partake in the same dream, it is better entirely to break this thread, and restore all to the external world: so that we now have a natural external occurrence before us, as in the first instance we had a supernatural one. Something objective presented itself to the disciples; thus it is explained how it could be perceived by several at once: they deceived themselves when awake as to what they saw; this was natural, because they were all born within the same circle of ideas, were in the same frame of mind, and in the same situation. According to this opinion, the essential fact in the scene on the mountain, is a secret interview which Jesus had preconcerted, and with a view to which he took with him the three most confidential of his disciples. Who the two men were with whom Jesus held this interview, Paulus does not venture to determine; Kuinöl conjectures that they were secret adherents of the same kind as Nicodemus; according to Venturini, they were Essenes, secret allies of Jesus. Before these were arrived, Jesus prayed, and the disciples, not being invited to join, slept; for the sleep noticed by Luke, though it were dreamless, is gladly retained in this interpretation, since a delusion appears more probable in the case of persons just awaking. On hearing strange voices talking with Jesus, they awake, see Jesus, who probably stood on a higher point of the mountain than they, enveloped in unwonted brilliancy, proceeding from the first rays of morning, which, perhaps reflected from a sheet of snow, fell on Jesus, but were mistaken by them in the surprise of the moment for a supernatural illumination; they perceive the two men, whom, for some unknown reasons, the drowsy Peter, and after him the rest, take for Moses and Elias; their astonishment increases when they see the two unknown individuals disappear in a bright morning cloud, which descends as they are in the act of departing, and hear one of them pronounce out of the cloud the words: οὗτος ἐστιν κ.τ.λ., which they under these circumstances unavoidably regard as a voice from heaven. [1542] This explanation, which even Schleiermacher is inclined to favour, [1543] is supposed, like the former, to find a special support in Luke, because in this Evangelist the assertion that the two men are Moses and Elias, is much less confidently expressed than in Matthew and Mark, and more as a mere notion of the drowsy Peter. For while the two first Evangelists directly say: ὤφθησαν αὐτοῖς Μωσῆς καὶ Ἐλίας (there appeared unto them Moses and Elias), Luke more warily, as it seems, speaks of ἄνδρες δύο, οἵτινες ἦσαν Μωσῆς καὶ Ἐλίας (two men, who were Moses and Elias), the first designation being held to contain the objective fact, the second its subjective interpretation. But this interpretation is obviously approved by the narrator, from his choice of the word οἵτινες ἦσαν, instead of ἔδοξαν εἶναι; that he first speaks of two men, and afterwards gives them their names, cannot have been to leave another interpretation open to the reader, but only to imitate the mysteriousness of the extraordinary scene, by the indefiniteness of his first expression. While this explanation has thus as little support in the evangelical narratives as those previously considered, it has at the same time no fewer difficulties in itself. The disciples must have been so far acquainted with the appearance of the morning beams on the mountains of their native land, as to be able to distinguish them from a heavenly glory; how they came to have the idea that the two unknown individuals were Moses and Elias, is not easy to explain on any of the former views, but least of all on this;—why Jesus, when Peter, by his proposal about the building of the three tabernacles, gave him to understand the delusion of the disciples, did not remove it, is incomprehensible, and this difficulty has induced Paulus to resort to the supposition, that Jesus did not hear the address of Peter;—the whole conjecture about secret allies of Jesus has justly lost all repute; and lastly, the one of those allies who spoke the words to the disciples out of the cloud, must have permitted himself to use an unworthy mystification.

§ 107.

THE HISTORY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION CONSIDERED AS A MYTHUS.

Thus here, as in every former instance, after having run through the circle of natural explanations, we are led back to the supernatural; in which, however, we are precluded from resting by difficulties equally decisive. Since then the text forbids a natural interpretation, while it is impossible to maintain as historical the supernatural interpretation which it sanctions, we must apply ourselves to a critical examination of its statements. These are indeed said to be especially trustworthy in the narrative before us, the fact being narrated by three Evangelists, who strikingly agree even in the precise determination of the time, and being moreover attested by the Apostle Peter (2 Pet. i. 17). [1544] The agreement as to the time (the eight days ἡμέραι ὀκτὼ of Luke meaning, according to the usual reckoning, the same as the six days ἡμέραι ἓξ of the other Evangelists) is certainly striking; and besides this, all the three narrators concur in placing immediately after the transfiguration the cure of the demoniacal boy, which the disciples had failed to effect. But both these points of agreement may be accounted for, by the origin of the synoptical gospels from a fixed fund of evangelical tradition, in relation to which, we need not be more surprised that it has grouped together many anecdotes in a particular manner without any objective reason, than that it has often preserved expressions in which it might have varied, through all the three editions. [1545] The attestation of the history by the three synoptists is, however, very much weakened, at least on the ordinary view of the relation which the four gospels bear to each other, by the silence of John; since it does not appear why this Evangelist should not have included in his history an event which was so important, and which moreover accorded so well with his system, nay, exactly realized the declaration in his prologue (v. 14): We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. The worn-out reason, that he might suppose the event to be sufficiently known through his predecessors, is, over and above its general invalidity, particularly unavailable here, because no one of the synoptists was in this instance an eye-witness, and consequently there must be many things in their narratives which one who, like John, had participated in the scene, might rectify and explain. Hence another reason has been sought for this and similar omissions in the fourth gospel; and such an one has been supposed to be found in the anti-gnostic, or, more strictly, the anti-docetic tendency which has been ascribed to the gospel, in common with the epistles, bearing the name of John. It is, accordingly, maintained that in the history of the transfiguration, the splendour which illuminated Jesus, the transformation of his appearance into something more than earthly, might give countenance to the opinion that his human form was nothing but an unsubstantial veil, through which at times his true, superhuman nature shone forth; that his converse with the spirits of ancient prophets might lead to the conjecture, that he was himself perhaps only a like spirit of some Old Testament saint revisiting the earth; and that, rather than give nourishment to such erroneous notions, which began early to be formed among gnosticising Christians, John chose to suppress this and similar histories. [1546] But besides that it does not correspond with the apostolic plainness of speech (παῤῥησία) to suppress important facts in the evangelical history, on account of their possible abuse by individuals. John, if he were guided by the above consideration must at least have proceeded with some consistency, and have excluded from the circle of his accounts all narratives which, in an equal degree with the one in question, were susceptible of a docetic misinterpretation. Now, here, every one must at once be reminded of the history of the walking of Jesus on the sea, which is at least equally calculated with the history of the transfiguration, to produce the idea that the body of Jesus was a mere phantom, but which John nevertheless records. It is true that the relative importance of events might introduce a distinction; so that of two narratives with an equally strong docetic aspect, John might include the one on account of its superior weight, while he omitted the less important. But no one will contend that the walking of Jesus on the sea surpasses, or even equals, in importance the history of the transfiguration. John, if he were intent on avoiding what wore a docetic appearance, must on every consideration have suppressed the first history before all others. As he has not done so, the above principle cannot have influenced him, and consequently can never be advanced as a reason for the designed omission of a history in the fourth gospel; rather it may be concluded, and particularly in relation to the event in question, that the author knew nothing, or at least nothing precise, of that history. [1547] It is true that this conclusion can form an objection to the historical character of the narrative of the transfiguration, to those only who suppose the fourth gospel to be the work of an apostle; so that from this silence we cannot argue against the truth of the narrative. On the other hand, the agreement of the synoptists proves nothing in its favour, since we have already been obliged to pronounce unhistorical more than one narrative in which three, nay, all four gospels agree. Lastly, as regards the alleged testimony of Peter, from the more than doubtful genuineness of the second Epistle of Peter, the passage which certainly refers to our history of the transfiguration is renounced as a proof of its historical truth even by orthodox theologians. [1548]

On the other hand besides the difficulties previously enumerated, lying in the miraculous contents of the narrative, we have still a further ground for doubt in relation to the historical validity of the transfiguration: namely, the conversation which, according to the two first Evangelists, the disciples held with Jesus immediately after. In descending from the mountain, the disciples ask Jesus: τί οὖν οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγουσιν, ὅτι Ἐλίαν δεῖ ἐλθεῖν πρωτον; Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? (Matt. v. 10). This sounds just as if something had happened, from which they necessarily inferred that Elias would not appear; and not in the least as if they were coming directly from a scene in which he had actually appeared; for in the latter case they would not have asked a question, as if unsatisfied, but must rather have indicated their satisfaction by the remark, εἰκότως οὖν οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγουσιν κ.τ.λ. Truly then do the scribes say, etc. [1549] Hence, expositors interpret the question of the disciples to refer, not to the absence of an appearance of Elias in general, but to the absence of a certain concomitant in the scene which they had just witnessed. The doctrine of the scribes, namely, had taught them to anticipate that Elias on his second appearance would exert a reforming influence on the life of the nation; whereas in the appearance which they had just beheld he had presently vanished again without further activity. [1550] This explanation would be admissible if the words ἀποκαταστήσει πάντα (will restore all things) stood in the question of the disciples; instead of this, however, it stands in both narratives (Matt. v. 11; Mark v. 12) only in the answer of Jesus: so that the disciples, according to this supposition, must, in the most contradictory manner, have been silent as to what they really missed, the restoration of all things, and only have mentioned that which after the foregoing appearance they could not have missed, namely, the coming of Elias. As, however, the question of the disciples presupposes no previous appearance of Elias, but, on the contrary, expresses the feeling that such an appearance was wanting, so the answer which Jesus gives them has the same purport. For when he replies: the scribes are right in saying that Elias must come before the Messiah; but this is no argument against my Messiahship, since an Elias has already preceded me in the person of the Baptist,—when he thus seeks to guard his disciples against the doubt which might arise from the expectation of the scribes, by pointing out to them the figurative Elias who had preceded him,—it is impossible that an appearance of the actual Elias can have previously taken place; otherwise Jesus must in the first place have referred to this appearance, and only in the second place to the Baptist. [1551] Thus the immediate connexion of this conversation with that appearance cannot be historical, but is rather owing solely to this point of similarity;—that in both mention is made of Elias. [1552] But not even at an interval, and after the lapse of intermediate events, can such a conversation have been preceded by an appearance of Elias; for however long afterwards, both Jesus and the three eye-witnesses among his disciples must have remembered it, and could never have spoken as if such an appearance had not taken place. Still further, an appearance of the real Elias cannot have happened even after such a conversation, in accordance with the orthodox idea of Jesus. For he, too, explicitly declares his opinion that the literal Elias was not to be expected, and that the Baptist was the promised Elias; if therefore, nevertheless, an appearance of the real Elias did subsequently take place, Jesus must have been mistaken; a consequence which precisely those who are most concerned for the historical reality of the transfiguration, are the least in a position to admit. If then the appearance and the conversation directly exclude each other, the question is, which of the two passages can better be renounced? Now the purport of the conversation is so confirmed by Matt. xi. 14, comp. Luke i. 17, while the transfiguration is rendered so improbable by all kinds of difficulties, that there cannot be much doubt as to the decision. According to this, it appears here as in some former cases, that two narratives proceeding from quite different presuppositions, and having arisen also in different times, have been awkwardly enough combined: the passage containing the conversation proceeding from the probably earlier opinion, that the prophecy concerning Elias had its fulfilment in John; whereas the narrative of the transfiguration doubtless originated at a later period, when it was not held sufficient that in the messianic time of Jesus, Elias should only have appeared figuratively, in the person of the Baptist,—when it was thought fitting that he should also have shown himself personally and literally, if in no more than a transient appearance before a few witnesses (a public and more influential one being well known not to have taken place). [1553]

In order next to understand how such a narrative could arise in a legendary manner, the first feature to be considered, on the examination of which that of all the rest will most easily follow, is the sun-like splendour of the countenance of Jesus, and the bright lustre of his clothes. To the oriental, and more particularly to the Hebrew imagination, the beautiful, the majestic, is the luminous; the poet of the Song of Songs compares his beloved to the hues of morning, to the moon, to the sun (vi. 9); the holy man supported by the blessing of God, is compared to the sun going forth in his might (Judg. v. 31); and above all the future lot of the righteous is likened to the splendour of the sun and the stars (Dan. xii. 3; Matt. xiii. 43). [1554] Hence, not only does God appear clothed in light, and angels with resplendent countenances and shining garments (Ps. l. 2, 3; Dan. vii. 9 f., x. 5, 6; Luke xxiv. 4; Rev. i. 13 ff.), but also the pious of Hebrew antiquity, as Adam before the fall, and among subsequent instances, more particularly Moses and Joshua, are represented as being distinguished by such a splendour; [1555] and the later Jewish tradition ascribes celestial splendour even to eminent rabbins in exalted moments. [1556] But the most celebrated example of this kind is the luminous countenance of Moses, which is mentioned, Exod. xxxiv. 29 ff., and as in other points, so in this, a conclusion was drawn from him in relation to the Messiah, a minori ad majus. Such a mode of arguing is indicated by the Apostle Paul, 2 Cor. iii. 7 ff., though he opposes to Moses, the minister of the letter, διακόνος τοῦ γράμματος, not Jesus, but, in accordance with the occasion of his epistle, the apostles and Christian teachers, ministers of the spirit, διακόνος τοῦ πνεύματος, and the glory, δόξα, of the latter, which surpassed the glory of Moses, is an object of hope, ἐλπίς, to be attained only in the future life. But especially in the Messiah himself, it was expected that there would be a splendour which would correspond to that of Moses, nay, outshine it; and a Jewish writing which takes no notice of our history of the transfiguration, argues quite in the spirit of the Jews of the first Christian period, when it urges that Jesus cannot have been the Messiah, because his countenance had not the splendour of the countenance of Moses, to say nothing of a higher splendour. [1557] Such objections, doubtless heard by the early Christians from the Jews, and partly suggested by their own minds, could not but generate in the early church a tendency to introduce into the life of Jesus an imitation of that trait in the life of Moses, nay, in one respect to surpass it, and instead of a shining countenance that might be covered with a veil, to ascribe to him a radiance, though but transitory, which was diffused even over his garments.

That the illumination of the countenance of Moses served as a type for the transfiguration of Jesus, is besides proved by a series of particular features. Moses obtained his splendour on Mount Sinai: of the transfiguration of Jesus also the scene is a mountain; Moses, on an earlier ascent of the mountain, which might easily be confounded with the later one, after which his countenance became luminous, had taken with him, besides the seventy elders, three confidential friends, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, to participate in the vision of Jehovah (Exod. xxiv. 1, 9–11); so Jesus takes with him his three most confidential disciples, that, so far as their powers were adequate, they might be witnesses of the sublime spectacle, and their immediate object was, according to Luke v. 28, to pray, προσεύξασθαι: just as Jehovah calls Moses with the three companions and the elders, to come on the mountain, that they might worship at a distance. As afterwards, when Moses ascended Sinai with Joshua, the glory of the Lord, δόξα Κυρίου, covered the mountain as a cloud, νεφέλη (v. 15 f. LXX.); as Jehovah called to Moses out of the cloud, until at length the latter entered into the cloud (v. 16–18): so we have in our narrative a bright cloud, νεφέλη φωτὸς, which overshadows Jesus and the heavenly forms, a voice out of the cloud, φωνὴ ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης, and in Luke an entering, εἰσελθεῖν, of the three into the cloud. The first part of the address pronounced by the voice out of the cloud, consists of the messianic declaration, composed out of Ps. ii. 7, and Isa. xlii. 1, which had already sounded from heaven at the baptism of Jesus; the second part is taken from the words with which Moses, in the passage of Deuteronomy quoted earlier (xviii. 15), according to the usual interpretation, announces to the people the future Messiah, and admonishes them to obedience towards him. [1558]

By the transfiguration on the mount Jesus was brought into contact with his type Moses, and as it had entered into the anticipation of the Jews that the messianic time, according to Isa. lii. 6 ff., would have not merely one, but several forerunners, [1559] and that among others the ancient lawgiver especially would appear in the time of the Messiah: [1560] so no moment was more appropriate for his appearance than that in which the Messiah was being glorified on a mountain, as he had himself once been. With him was then naturally associated the prophet, who, on the strength of Mal. iii. 23, was the most decidedly expected to be a messianic forerunner, and, indeed, according to the rabbins, to appear contemporaneously with Moses. If these two men appeared to the Messiah, it followed as a matter of course that they conversed with him; and if it were asked what was the tenor of their conversation, nothing would suggest itself so soon as the approaching sufferings and death of Jesus, which had been announced in the foregoing passage, and which besides, as constituting emphatically the messianic mystery of the New Testament, were best adapted for the subject of such a conversation with beings of another world: whence one cannot but wonder how Olshausen can maintain that the mythus would never have fallen upon this theme of conversation. According to this, we have here a mythus, [1561] the tendency of which is twofold: first, to exhibit in the life of Jesus an enhanced repetition of the glorification of Moses; and secondly, to bring Jesus as the Messiah into contact with his two forerunners,—by this appearance of the lawgiver and the prophet, of the founder and the reformer of the theocracy, to represent Jesus as the perfecter of the kingdom of God, and the fulfilment of the law and the prophets; and besides this, to show a confirmation of his messianic dignity by a heavenly voice. [1562]

Before we part with our subject, this example may serve to show us with peculiar clearness, how the natural system of interpretation, while it seeks to preserve the historical certainty of the narratives, loses their ideal truth—sacrifices the essence to the form: whereas the mythical interpretation, by renouncing the historical body of such narratives, rescues and preserves the idea which resides in them, and which alone constitutes their vitality and spirit. Thus if, as the natural explanation would have it, the splendour around Jesus was an accidental, optical phenomenon, and the two appearances either images of a dream or unknown men, where is the significance of the incident? where the motive for preserving in the memory of the church an anecdote so void of ideas, and so barren of inference, resting on a common delusion and superstition? On the contrary, while according to the mythical interpretation, I do not, it is true, see in the evangelical narrative any real event,—I yet retain a sense, a purpose in the narrative, know to what sentiments and thoughts of the first Christian community it owes its origin, and why the authors of the gospels included so important a passage in their memoirs. [1563]

§ 108.

DIVERGING ACCOUNTS CONCERNING THE LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM.

Shortly after the transfiguration on the mountain, the Evangelists make Jesus enter on the fatal journey which conducted him to his death. With respect to the place from whence he set out on this journey, and the route which he took, the evangelical accounts differ. The synoptists agree as to the point of departure, for they all represent Jesus as setting out from Galilee (Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1; Luke ix. 51; in this last passage, Galilee is not indeed expressly named, but we necessarily infer it to be the supposed locality from what precedes, in which only Galilee and districts in Galilee are spoken of, as well as from the journey through Samaria, mentioned in the succeeding passage): [1564] but concerning the route which Jesus chose from thence to Judæa, they appear to be at variance. It is true that the statements of two of them on this point are so obscure, that they might appear to lend some aid to the harmonizing exegesis. Mark says in the clearest and most definite manner that Jesus took his course through Peræa; but his statement, He came into the coasts of Judæa on the further side of Jordan, ἔρχεται εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῦς Ἰουδαίας διὰ τοῦ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, is scarcely anything more than the mode in which he judged it right to explain the hardly intelligible expression of Matthew, whom he follows in this chapter. What it precisely is which the latter intends by the words, He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judæa beyond Jordan, μετῆρεν ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῆς Ἰουδαίας πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, is in fact not at all evident. For if the explanation: he came into that part of Judæa which lies on the opposite side of the Jordan, [1565] clashes alike with geography and grammar, so the interpretation to which the comparison of Mark inclines the majority of commentators, namely, that Jesus came into Judæa through the country on the farther side of the Jordan, [1566] is, even as modified by Fritzsche, not free from grammatical difficulty. In any case, however, thus much remains: that Matthew, as well as Mark, makes Jesus take the most circuitous course through Peræa, while Luke, on the other hand, appears to lead him the more direct way through Samaria. It is true that his expression, xvii. 11, where he says that Jesus, on his journey to Jerusalem, passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, διήρχετο διὰ μέσου Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας is scarcely clearer than the one just cited from Matthew. According to the customary meaning of words, he seems to state that Jesus first crossed Samaria, and then Galilee, in order to arrive at Jerusalem. But this is an inversion of the true order; for if he set out from a place in Galilee, he must first traverse the rest of Galilee, and not until then could he enter Samaria. Hence the words διέρχεσθαι διὰ μέσου κ.τ.λ. have been interpreted to mean a progress along the boundary between Galilee and Samaria, [1567] and Luke has been reconciled with the two first Evangelists by the supposition, that Jesus journeyed along the Galilean-Samarian frontier, until he reached the Jordan, that he then crossed this river, and so proceeded through Peræa towards Judæa and Jerusalem. But this latter supposition does not agree with Luke ix. 51 ff.; for we learn from this passage that Jesus, after his departure from Galilee, went directly to a Samaritan village, and here made an unfavourable impression, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem, ὅτι τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἦν πορευόμενον εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ. Now this seems clearly to indicate that Jesus took his way directly from Galilee, through Samaria, to Judæa. We shall therefore be on the side of probability, if we judge this statement to be an artificial arrangement of words, to which the writer was led by his desire to introduce the narrative of the ten lepers, one of whom was a Samaritan; [1568] and consequently admit that there is here a divergency between the synoptical gospels. [1569] Towards the end of the journey of Jesus, they are once more in unison, for according to their unanimous statement, Jesus arrived at Jerusalem from Jericho (Matt. xx. 29, parall.); a place which, we may observe, lay more in the direct road for a Galilean coming through Peræa, than for one coming through Samaria.

Thus there is indeed a difference between the synoptists with regard to the way taken by Jesus; but still they agree as to the first point of departure, and the last stage of the road; the account of John, however, diverges from them in both respects. According to him, it is not Galilee from whence Jesus sets out to attend the last passover, for so early as before the feast of tabernacles of the previous year, he had left that province, apparently for the last time (vii. 1, 10); that between this feast and that of the dedication (x. 22) he had returned thither, is at least not stated; after the latter feast, however, he betook himself to Peræa, and remained there (x. 40) until the illness and death of Lazarus recalled him into Judæa, and into the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem, namely, to Bethany (xi. 8 ff.). On account of the machinations of his enemies, he quickly withdrew from thence again, but, because he intended to be present at the coming Passover, he retired no further than to the little city of Ephraim, near to the wilderness (xi. 54); and from this place, no mention being made of a residence in Jericho (which, besides, did not lie in the way from Ephraim, according to the situation usually assigned to the latter city), he proceeded to Jerusalem to the feast.

So total a divergency necessarily gave unwonted occupation to the harmonists. According to them, the departure from Galilee mentioned by the synoptists, is not the departure to the last Passover, but to the feast of dedication; [1570] though Luke, when he says, when the time came that he should be received up, ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ἀναλήψεως αὐτοῦ (ix. 51), incontrovertibly marks it as the departure to that feast on which the sufferings and death of Jesus awaited him, and though all the synoptists make the journey then begun end in that triumphal entry into Jerusalem which, according to the fourth gospel also, took place immediately before the last passover. [1571] If, according to this, the departure from Galilee narrated by the synoptists is regarded as that to the feast of dedication, and the entrance into Jerusalem which they mention as that to the subsequent passover; they must have entirely passed over all which, on this supposition, lay between these two points, namely, the arrival and residence of Jesus in Jerusalem during the feast of dedication, his journey from thence into Peræa, from Peræa to Bethany, and from Bethany to Ephraim. If from this it should appear to follow that the synoptists were ignorant of all these particulars: our harmonists urge, on the contrary, that Luke makes Jesus soon after his journey out of Galilee, encounter scribes, who try to put him to the proof (x. 25 ff.); then shows him in Bethany in the vicinity of Jerusalem (x. 38 ff.); hereupon, removes him to the frontiers of Samaria and Galilee (xvii. 11); and not until then, makes him proceed to the passover in Jerusalem (xix. 29 ff.): all which plainly enough indicates, that between that departure out of Galilee, and the final entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus made another journey to Judæa and Jerusalem, and from thence back again. [1572] But, in the first place, the presence of the scribes proves absolutely nothing; and in the second, Luke makes no mention of Bethany, but only of a visit to Mary and Martha, whom the fourth Evangelist places in that village: from which, however, it does not follow that the third also supposed them to dwell there, and consequently imagined Jesus when at their home, to be in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Again, from the fact that so very long after his departure (ix. 51–xvii. 11), Jesus first appears on the frontier between Galilee and Samaria, it only follows that we have before us no orderly progressive narrative. But, according to this harmonizing view, even Matthew was aware of those intermediate events, and has indicated them for the more attentive reader: the one member of his sentence, he departed from Galilee, μετηρεν ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας, intimates the journey of Jesus to the feast of dedication, and thus forms a separate whole; the other, and came into the coasts of Judæa beyond Jordan, καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῆς Ἰουδαίας πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, refers to the departure of Jesus from Jerusalem into Peræa (John x. 40), and opens a new period. In adopting this expedient, however, it is honourably confessed that without the data gathered from John, no one would have thought of such a dismemberment of the passage in Matthew. [1573] In opposition to such artifices, no way is open to those who presuppose the accuracy of John’s narrative, but that adopted by the most recent criticism; namely, to renounce the supposition that Matthew, who treats of the journey very briefly, was an eye-witness; and to suppose of Luke, whose account of it is very full, that either he or one of the collectors of whose labours he availed himself, mingled together two separate narratives, of which one referred to the earlier journey of Jesus to the feast of dedication, the other to his last journey to the passover, without suspecting that between the departure of Jesus out of Galilee, and his entrance into Jerusalem, there fell yet an earlier residence in Jerusalem, together with other journeys and adventures. [1574]

We may now observe how in the course of the narrative concerning the last journey or journeys to Jerusalem, the relation between the synoptical gospels and that of John is in a singular manner reversed. As in the first instance, we discovered a great blank on the side of the former, in their omission of a mass of intermediate events which John notices; so now, towards the end of the account of the journey, there appears on the side of the latter, a similar, though smaller blank, for he gives no intimation of Jesus having come through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem. It may indeed be said, that John might overlook this passage through Jericho, although, according to the synoptists, it was distinguished by a cure of the blind, and the visit to Zacchæus; but, it is to be asked, is there in his narrative room for a passage through Jericho? This city does not lie on the way from Ephraim to Jerusalem, but considerably to the eastward; hence help is sought in the supposition that Jesus made all kinds of minor excursions, in one of which he came to Jericho, and from hence went forward to Jerusalem. [1575]

In any case a remarkable want of unity prevails in the evangelical accounts of the last journey of Jesus; for according to the common, synoptical tradition, he journeyed out of Galilee by Jericho (and, as Matthew and Mark say, through Peræa, as Luke says, through Samaria); while according to the fourth gospel, he must have come hither from Ephraim: statements which it is impossible to reconcile.

§ 109.

DIVERGENCIES OF THE GOSPELS, IN RELATION TO THE POINT FROM WHICH JESUS MADE HIS ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM.

Even concerning the close of the journey of Jesus—concerning the last station before he reached Jerusalem, the Evangelists are not entirely in unison. While from the synoptical gospels it appears, that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the same day on which he left Jericho, and consequently without halting long at any intervening place (Matt. xx. 34, xxi. 1 ff. parall.): the fourth gospel makes him go from Ephraim only so far as Bethany, spend the night there, and enter Jerusalem only on the following day (xii. 1, 12 ff.). In order to reconcile the two accounts it is said: we need not wonder that the synoptists, in their summary narrative, do not expressly touch upon the spending of the night in Bethany, and we are not to infer from this that they intended to deny it; there exists, therefore, no contradiction between them and John, but what they present in a compact form, he exhibits in detail. [1576] But while Matthew does not even name Bethany, the two other synoptists mention this place in a way which decidedly precludes the supposition that Jesus spent the night there. They narrate that when Jesus came near to Bethphage and Bethany, ὡς ἤγγισεν εἰς Βηθφαγῆ καὶ Βηθανίαν, he caused an ass to be fetched from the next village, and forthwith rode on this into the city. Between events so connected it is impossible to imagine a night interposed; on the contrary, the narrative fully conveys the impression that immediately on the message of Jesus, the ass was surrendered by its owner, and that immediately after the arrival of the ass, Jesus prepared to enter the city. Moreover, if Jesus intended to remain in Bethany for the night, it is impossible to discover his motive in sending for the ass. For if we are to suppose the village to which he sent to be Bethany, and if the animal on which he purposed to ride would not be required until the following morning, there was no need for him to send forward the disciples, and he might conveniently have waited until he arrived with them in Bethany; the other alternative, that before he had reached Bethany, and ascertained whether the animal he required might not be found there, he should have sent beyond this nearest village to Bethphage, in order there to procure an ass for the following morning, is altogether destitute of probability; and yet Matthew, at least, says decidedly that the ass was procured in Bethphage. To this it may be added, that according to the representation of Mark, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the evening ὀψία, had already commenced (xi. 11), and consequently it was only possible for him to take a cursory survey of the city and the temple, after which he again returned to Bethany. It is not, certainly, to be proved that the fourth gospel lays the entrance in the morning; but it must be asked, why did not Jesus, when he only came from so near a place as Bethany, set out earlier from thence, that he might have time to do something worth speaking of in Jerusalem? The late arrival of Jesus in the city, as stated by Mark, is evidently to be explained only by the longer distance from Jericho thither; if he came from Bethany merely, he would scarcely set out so late, as that after he had only looked round him in the city, he must again return to Bethany, in order on the following day to set out earlier, which nothing had hindered him from doing on this day. It is true that, in deferring the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem until late in the evening, Mark is not supported by the two other synoptists, for these represent Jesus as undertaking the purification of the temple on the day of his arrival, and Matthew even makes him perform cures, and give answers to the high priests and scribes (Matt. xxi. 12 ff.): but even without this statement as to the hour of entrance, the arrival of Jesus near to the above villages, the sending of the disciples, the bringing of the ass, and the riding into the city, are too closely consecutive, to allow of our inserting in the narrative of the synoptists a night’s residence in Bethany.

If then it remains, that the three first Evangelists make Jesus proceed directly from Jericho, without any stay in Bethany, while the fourth makes him come to Jerusalem from Bethany only, they must, if they are mutually correct, speak of two separate entrances; and this has been recently maintained by several critics. [1577] According to them, Jesus first (as the synoptists relate) proceeded directly to Jerusalem with the caravan going to the feast, and on this occasion there happened, when he made himself conspicuous by mounting the animal, an unpremeditated demonstration of homage on the part of his fellow-travellers, which converted the entrance into a triumphal progress. Having retired to Bethany in the evening, on the following morning (as John relates) a great multitude went out to meet him, in order to convey him into the city, and as he met with them on the way from Bethany, there was a repetition on an enlarged scale of the scene on the foregoing day,—this time preconcerted by his adherents. This distinction of an earlier entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem before his approach was known in the city, and a later, after it was learned that he was in Bethany, is favoured by the difference, that according to the synoptical narrative, the people who render homage to him are only going before προάγοντες, and following ἀκολουθοῦντες (Matt. v. 9), while according to that of John, they are meeting him ὑπαντήσαντες (v. 13, 18). If however it be asked: why then among all our narrators, does each give only one entrance, and not one of them show any trace of a second? The answer in relation to John is, that this Evangelist is silent as to the first entrance, probably because he was not present on the occasion, having possibly been sent to Bethany to announce the arrival of Jesus. [1578] As, however, according to our principles, if it be assumed of the author of the fourth gospel, that he is the apostle named in the superscription, the same assumption must also be made respecting the author of the first: we ask in vain, whither are we then to suppose that Matthew was sent on the second entrance, that he knew nothing to relate concerning it? since with the repeated departure from Bethany to Jerusalem, there is no conceivable cause for such an errand. In relation to John indeed it is a pure invention; not to insist, that even if the two Evangelists were not personally present, they must yet have learned enough of an event so much talked of in the circle of the disciples, to be able to furnish an account of it. Above all, as the narrative of the synoptists does not indicate that a second entrance had taken place after the one described by them: so that of John is of such a kind, that before the entrance which it describes, it is impossible to conceive another. For according to this narrative, the day before the entrance which it details (consequently, according to the given supposition, on the day of the synoptical entrance), many Jews went from Jerusalem to Bethany, because they had heard of the arrival of Jesus, and now wished to see him and Lazarus whom he had restored to life (v. 9, comp. 12). But how could they learn on the day of the synoptical entrance, that Jesus was at Bethany? On that day Jesus did indeed pass either by or through Bethany, but he proceeded directly to Jerusalem, whence, according to all the narratives, he could have returned to Bethany only at so late an hour in the evening, that Jews who now first went from Jerusalem, could no longer hope to be able to see him. [1579] But why should they take the trouble to seek Jesus in Bethany, when they had on that very day seen him in Jerusalem itself? Surely in this case it must have been said—not merely, that they came not for Jesus’ sake ONLY, but that they might see Lazarus also, οὐ διὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον ἀλλ’ ἵνα καὶ τὸν Λάζαρον ἴδωσι,—but rather that they had indeed seen Jesus himself in Jerusalem, but as they wished to see Lazarus also, they came therefore to Bethany: whereas the Evangelist represents these people as coming from Jerusalem partly to see Jesus; he cannot therefore have supposed that Jesus might have been seen in Jerusalem on that very day. Further, when it is said in John, that on the following day it was heard in Jerusalem that Jesus was coming (v. 12), this does not at all seem to imply that Jesus had already been there the day before, but rather that the news had come from Bethany, of his intention to enter on this day. So also the reception which is immediately prepared for him, alone has its proper significance when it is regarded as the glorification of his first entrance into the metropolis; it could only have been appropriate on his second entrance, if Jesus had the day before entered unobserved and unhonoured, and it had been wished to repair this omission on the following day—not if the first entrance had already been so brilliant. Moreover, on the second entrance every feature of the first must have been repeated, which, whether we refer it to a preconceived arrangement on the part of Jesus, or to an accidental coincidence of circumstances, still remains improbable. With respect to Jesus, it is not easy to understand how he could arrange the repetition of a spectacle which, in the first instance significant, if acted a second time would be flat and unmeaning; [1580] on the other hand, circumstances must have coincided in an unprecedented manner, if on both occasions there happened the same demonstrations of homage on the part of the people, with the same expressions of envy on the part of his opponents; if, on both occasions, too, there stood at the command of Jesus an ass, by riding which he brought to mind the prophecy of Zechariah. We might therefore call to our aid Sieffert’s hypothesis of assimilation, and suppose that the two entrances, originally more different, became thus similar by traditional intermixture: were not the supposition that two distinct events lie at the foundation of the evangelical narratives, rendered improbable by another circumstance.

On the first glance, indeed, the supposition of two entrances seems to find support in the fact, that John makes his entrance take place the day after the meal in Bethany, at which Jesus was anointed under memorable circumstances; whereas the two first synoptists (for Luke knows nothing of a meal at Bethany in this period of the life of Jesus) make their entrance precede this meal: and thus, quite in accordance with the above supposition, the synoptical entrance would appear the earlier, that of John the later. This would be very well, if John had not placed his entrance so early, and the synoptists their meal at Bethany so late, that the former cannot possibly have been subsequent to the latter. According to John, Jesus comes six days before the passover to Bethany, and on the following day enters Jerusalem (xiii. 1, 12); on the other hand, the meal at Bethany, mentioned by the synoptists (Matt. xxvi. 6 ff. parall.), can have been at the most but two days before the passover (v. 2); so that if we are to suppose the synoptical entrance prior to the meal and the entrance in John, there must then have been after all this, according to the synoptists, a second meal in Bethany. But between the two meals thus presupposed, as between the two entrances, there would have been the most striking resemblance even to the minutest points; and against the interweaving of two such double incidents, there is so strong a presumption, that it will scarcely be said there were two entrances and two meals, which were originally far more dissimilar, but, from the transference of features out of the one incident into the other by tradition, they have become as similar to each other as we now see them: on the contrary, here if anywhere, it is easier, when once the authenticity of the accounts is given up, to imagine that tradition has varied one incident, than that it has assimilated two. [1581]

§ 110.

MORE PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ENTRANCE. ITS OBJECT AND HISTORICAL REALITY.

While the fourth gospel first makes the multitude that streamed forth to meet Jesus render him their homage, and then briefly states that Jesus mounted a young ass which he had obtained; the synoptists commence their description of the entrance with a minute account of the manner in which Jesus came by the ass. When, namely, he had arrived in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, towards Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples into the village lying before them, telling them that when they came there they would find—Matthew says, an ass tied, and a colt with her; the two others, a colt whereon never man sat—which they were to loose and bring to him, silencing any objections of the owner by the observation, the Lord hath need of him (or them). This having been done, the disciples spread their clothes, and placed Jesus—on both the animals, according to Matthew; according to the two other synoptists, on the single animal.

The most striking part of this account is obviously the statement of Matthew, that Jesus not only required two asses, though he alone intended to ride, but that he also actually sat on them both. It is true that, as is natural, there are not wanting attempts to explain the former particular, and to do away with the latter. Jesus, it is said, caused the mother animal to be brought with the colt, on which alone he intended to ride, in order that the young and still sucking animal might by this means be made to go more easily; [1582] or else the mother, accustomed to her young one, followed of her own accord: [1583] but a young animal, yet unweaned, would scarcely be given up by its owner to be ridden. A sufficient motive on the part of Jesus in sending for the two animals, could only be that he intended to ride both, which Matthew appears plainly enough to say; for his words imply, not only that the clothes were spread, but also that Jesus was placed on the two animals (ἐπάνω αὐτων). But how are we to represent this to ourselves? As an alternate mounting of the one and the other, Fritzsche thinks: [1584] but this, for so short a distance would have been a superfluous inconvenience. Hence commentators have sought to rid themselves of the singular statement. Some, after very weak authorities, and in opposition to all critical principles, read in the words relative to the spreading of the clothes, ἐπ’ αὐτὸν (τὸν πωλον), upon it (the colt), instead of ἐπάνω αὐτων, upon them; and then in the mentioning that Jesus placed himself thereon, refer the ἐπάνω αυτων to the clothes which were spread on one of the animals. [1585] Others, thinking to escape the difficulty without an alteration of the reading, characterize Matthew’s statement as an enallage numeri, [1586] by which, according to Winer’s explanation, it is meant that the Evangelist, using an inaccurate mode of expression, certainly speaks of both the animals, but only in the sense in which we say of him who springs from one of two horses harnessed together, that he springs from the horses. [1587] Admitting this expedient to be sufficient, it again becomes incomprehensible why Jesus, who according to this only meant to use one animal, should have sent for two. The whole statement becomes the more suspicious, when we consider that it is given by the first Evangelist alone; for in order to reconcile the others with him it will not suffice to say, as we ordinarily read, that they name only the foal as being that on which Jesus rode, and that while omitting the ass as an accessory fact, they do not exclude it.

But how was Matthew led into this singular statement? Its true source has been pointed out, though in a curious manner, by those who conjecture, that Jesus in his instructions to the two disciples, and Matthew in his original writing, following the passage of Zechariah (ix. 9), made use of several expressions for the one idea of the ass, which expressions were by the Greek translator of the first gospel misconstrued to mean more than one animal. [1588] Undoubtedly it was the accumulated designations of the ass in the above passage: ‏הֲמוֹר וְעַיִר בֶּן־אֲתֹנות‎, ὑποζύγιον καὶ πωλον νέον, LXX. which occasioned the duplication of it in the first gospel; for the and which in the Hebrew was intended in an explanatory sense, was erroneously understood to denote an addition, and hence instead of: an ass, that is, an ass’s foal, was substituted: an ass together with an ass’s foal. [1589] But this mistake cannot have originated with the Greek translator, who, if he had found throughout Matthew’s narrative but one ass, would scarcely have doubled it purely on the strength of the prophetic passage, and as often as his original spoke of one ass, have added a second, or introduced the plural number instead of the singular; it must rather have been made by one whose only written source was the prophetic passage, out of which, with the aid of oral tradition, he spun his entire narrative, i.e. the author of the first gospel; who hereby, as recent criticism correctly maintains, irrecoverably forfeits the reputation of an eye-witness? [1590]

If the first gospel stands alone in this mistake, so, on the other hand, the two intermediate Evangelists have a feature peculiar to themselves, which it is to the advantage of the first to have avoided. We shall merely point out in passing the prolixity with which Mark and Luke (though they, as well as Matthew, make Jesus describe to the two disciples, how they would find the ass, and wherewith they were to satisfy the owner), yet do not spare themselves or the reader the trouble of almost verbally repeating every particular as having occurred (Mark v. 4 ff.; Luke v. 32 ff.); whereas Matthew, with more judgment, contents himself with the observation, and the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. This, as affecting merely the form of the narrative, we shall not dwell on further. But it concerns the substance, that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus desired an animal whereon yet never man sat, ἐφ’ ὃ οὐδεὶς πώποτε ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισε: a particular of which Matthew knows nothing. One does not understand how Jesus could designedly increase the difficulty of his progress, by the choice of a hitherto unridden animal, which, unless he kept it in order by divine omnipotence (for the most consummate human skill would not suffice for this on the first riding), must inevitably have occasioned much disturbance to the triumphal procession, especially as we are not to suppose that it was preceded by its mother, this circumstance having entered into the representation of the first Evangelist only. To such an inconvenience Jesus would assuredly not have exposed himself without a cogent reason: such a reason however appears to lie sufficiently near in the opinion of antiquity, according to which, to use Wetstein’s expression, animalia, usibus humanis nondum mancipata, sacra habebantur; so that thus Jesus, for his consecrated person, and the high occasion of his messianic entrance, may have chosen to use only a sacred animal. But regarded more closely, this reason will appear frivolous, and absurd also; for the spectators had no means of knowing that the ass had never been ridden before, except by the unruliness with which he may have disturbed the peaceful progress of the triumphal train. [1591] If we are thus unable to comprehend how Jesus could seek an honour for himself in mounting an animal which had never yet been ridden; we shall, on the contrary, find it easy to comprehend how the primitive Christian community might early believe it due to his honour that he should ride only on such an animal, as subsequently that he should lie only in an unused grave. The authors of the intermediate gospels did not hesitate to receive this trait into their memoirs, because they indeed, in writing, would not experience the same inconvenience from the undisciplined animal, which it must have caused to Jesus in riding.

The two difficulties already considered belong respectively to the first Evangelist, and the two intermediate ones: another is common to them all, namely, that which lies in the circumstance that Jesus so confidently sends two disciples for an ass which they would find in the next village, in such and such a situation, and that the issue corresponds so closely to his prediction. It might here appear the most natural, to suppose that he had previously bespoken the ass, and that consequently it stood ready for him at the hour and place appointed; [1592] but how could he have thus bespoken an ass in Bethphage, seeing that he was just come from Jericho? Hence even Paulus in this instance finds something else more probable: namely, that about the time of the feasts, in the villages lying on the high road to Jerusalem, many beasts of burden stood ready to be hired by travellers; but in opposition to this it is to be observed, that Jesus does not at all seem to speak of the first animal that may happen to present itself, but of a particular animal. Hence we cannot but be surprised that Olshausen describes it as only the probable idea of the narrator, that to the Messiah making his entrance into Jerusalem, the providence of God presented everything just as he needed it; as also that the same expositor, in order to explain the ready compliance of the owners of the animal, finds it necessary to suppose that they were friends of Jesus; since this trait rather serves to exhibit the as it were magical power which resided in the name of the Lord, at the mention of which the owner of the ass unresistingly placed it at his disposal, as subsequently the inhabitant of the room gave it up at a word from the Master (Matt. xxvi. 18 parall.). To this divine providence in favour of the Messiah, and the irresistible power of his name, is united the superior knowledge by means of which Jesus here clearly discerns a distant fact which might be available for the supply of his wants.

Now admitting this to be the meaning and design of the Evangelists, such a prediction of an accidental circumstance might certainly be conceived as the effect of a magnetic clairvoyance. [1593] But, on the one hand, we know full well the tendency of the primitive Christian legend to create such proofs of the superior nature of her Messiah (witness the calling of the two pairs of brethren; but the instance most analogous has been just alluded to, and is hereafter to be more closely examined, namely, the manner in which Jesus causes the room to be bespoken for his last supper with the twelve); on the other hand, the dogmatic reasons drawn from prophecy, for displaying the far-seeing of Jesus here as precisely the knowledge of an ass being tied at a certain place, are clearly obvious; so that we cannot abstain from the conjecture, that we have here nothing more than a product of the tendency which characterized the Christian legend, and of the effort to base Christian belief on ancient prophecy. In considering, namely, the passage quoted in the first and fourth gospels from Zechariah, where it is merely said that the meek and lowly king will come riding on an ass, in general; it is usual to overlook another prophetic passage, which contains more precisely the tied ass of the Messiah. This passage is Gen. xlix. 11, where the dying Jacob says to Judah concerning the Shiloh, ‏שׁילח‎, Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine, δεσμεύων πρὸς ἄμπελον τὸν πῶλον αὐτοῦ καὶ τῇ ἕλικι τὸν πῶλον τῆς ὄνου αὐτοῦ. Justin Martyr understands this passage also, as well as the one from Zechariah, as a prediction relative to the entrance of Jesus, and hence directly asserts that the foal which Jesus caused to be fetched was bound to a vine. [1594] In like manner the Jews not only held the general interpretation that the Shiloh was the Messiah, as may be shown already in the Targum, [1595] but also combined the passage relative to the binding of the ass with that on the riding of it into Jerusalem. [1596] That the above prophecy of Jacob is not cited by any one of our Evangelists, only proves, at the utmost, that it was not verbally present to their minds when they were writing the narrative before us: it can by no means prove that the passage was not an element in the conceptions of the circle in which the anecdote was first formed. The transmission of the narrative through the hands of many who were not aware of its original relation to the passage in Genesis, may certainly be argued from the fact that it no longer perfectly corresponds to the prophecy. For a perfect agreement to exist, Jesus, after he had, according to Zechariah, ridden into the city on the ass, must on dismounting, have bound it to a vine, instead of causing it to be unbound in the next village (according to Mark, from a door by the way-side) as he actually does. By this means, however, there was obtained, together with the fulfilment of those two prophecies, a proof of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus, and the magical power of his name; and in relation to the former point, it might be remembered in particular, that Samuel also had once proved his gifts as a seer by the prediction, that as Saul was returning homeward, two men would meet him with the information that the asses of Kis his father were found (1 Sam. x. 2). The narrative in the fourth gospel, having no connection with the Mosaic passage, says nothing of the ass being tied, or of its being fetched by the disciples, and merely states with reference to the passage of Zechariah alone: Jesus, having found a young ass, sat thereon (v. 14). [1597]

The next feature that presents itself for our consideration, is the homage which is rendered to Jesus by the populace. According to all the narrators except Luke, this consisted in cutting down the branches of trees, which, according to the synoptists, were strewed in the way, according to John (who with more particularity mentions palm branches), were carried by the multitude that met Jesus; further, according to all except John, in the spreading of clothes in the way. To this were added joyous acclamations, of which all have, with unimportant modifications, the words εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου, Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord; all except Luke the ὡσαννὰ, Hosanna; and all, the greeting as King, or Son of David. The first, from Ps. cxviii. 26, ‏בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יְהוָֹה‎, was, it is true, a customary form of salutation to persons visiting the feasts, and even the second, ‏חושִׁיעָה נָּא‎, taken from the preceding verse of the same psalm, was a usual cry at the feast of tabernacles and the passover; [1598] but the addition τῷ υἱῷ Δαυὶδ, to the Son of David, and ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ, the King of Israel, shows that the people here applied these general forms to Jesus especially as the Messiah, bid him welcome in a pre-eminent sense, and wished success to his undertaking. In relation to the parties who present the homage, Luke’s account is the most circumscribed, for he so connects the spreading of the clothes in the way (v. 36) with the immediately preceding context, that he appears to ascribe it, as well as the laying of the clothes on the ass, solely to the disciples, and he expressly attributes the acclamations to the whole multitude of the disciples only (ἅπαν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν); whereas Matthew and Mark make the homage proceed from the accompanying mass of people. This difference, however, can be easily reconciled; for when Luke speaks of the multitude of the disciples, πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν, this means the wider circle of the adherents of Jesus, and, on the other hand, the very great multitude πλεῖστος ὄχλος in Matthew, only means all those who were favourable to him among the multitude. But while the synoptists remain within the limits of the company who were proceeding to the feast, and who were thus the fellow-travellers of Jesus, John, as above noticed, makes the whole solemnity proceed from those who go out of Jerusalem to meet Jesus (v. 13), while he represents the multitude who are approaching with Jesus as testifying to the former the resurrection of Lazarus, on account of which, according to John, the solemn escort of Jesus into Jerusalem was prepared (v. 17 f.). This cause we cannot admit as authentic, inasmuch as we have found critical reasons for doubting the resurrection of Lazarus: but with the alleged cause, the fact itself of the escort is shaken; especially if we reflect, that the dignity of Jesus might appear to demand that the inhabitants of the city of David should have gone forth to bring him in with all solemnity, and that it fully harmonizes with the prevailing characteristics of the representation of the fourth gospel, to describe, before the arrival of Jesus at the feast, how intently the expectations of the people were fixed upon him (vii. 11 ff., xi. 56).

The last trait in the picture before us, is the displeasure of the enemies of Jesus at the strong attachment to him, exhibited by the people on this occasion. According to John (v. 19), the Pharisees said to each other: we see from this that the (lenient) proceedings which we have hitherto adopted are of no avail; all the world is following him (we must interpose, with forcible measures). According to Luke (v. 39 f.), some Pharisees addressed Jesus as if they expected him to impose silence on his disciples; on which he answers, that if these were silent, the stones would cry out. While in Luke and John this happens during the progress, in Matthew it is only after Jesus has arrived with the procession in the temple, and when the children, even here, continue to cry, Hosanna to the Son of David, that the high priests and scribes direct the attention of Jesus to the impropriety, as it appears to them, whereupon he repulses them with a sentence out of Ps. viii. 3. (Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise) (v. 15 f.); a sentence which in the original obviously relates to Jehovah, but which Jesus thus applies to himself. The lamentation of Jesus over Jerusalem, connected by Luke with the entrance, will come under our consideration further on.

John, and more particularly Matthew by his phrase τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν, ἵνα πληρωθῇ κ.τ.λ., All this was done that it might be fulfilled, etc. (v. 4), unequivocally express the idea that the design, first of God, inasmuch as he ordained this scene, and next of the Messiah, as the participant in the Divine counsels, was, by giving this character to the entrance, to fulfil an ancient prophecy. If Jesus saw in the passage of Zechariah (ix. 9), [1599] a prophecy concerning himself as the Messiah, this cannot have been a knowledge resulting from the higher principle within him; for, even if this prophetic passage ought not to be referred to an historical prince, as Uzziah, [1600] or John Hyrcanus, [1601] but to a messianic individual, [1602] still the latter, though a pacific, must yet be understood as a temporal prince, and moreover as in peaceful possession of Jerusalem—thus as one altogether different from Jesus. But it appears quite possible for Jesus to have come to such an interpretation in a natural way, since at least the rabbins with decided unanimity interpret the passage of Zechariah of the Messiah. [1603] Above all, we know that the contradiction which appeared to exist between the insignificant advent here predicted of the Messiah, and the brilliant one which Daniel had foretold, was at a later period commonly reconciled by the doctrine, that according as the Jewish people showed themselves worthy or the contrary, their Messiah would appear in a majestic or a lowly form. [1604] Now even if this distinction did not exist in the time of Jesus, but only in general a reference of the passage Zech. ix. 9 to the Messiah: still Jesus might imagine that now, on his first appearance, the prophecy of Zechariah must be fulfilled in him, but hereafter, on his second appearance, the prophecy of Daniel. But there is a third possibility; namely, that either an accidental riding into Jerusalem on an ass by Jesus was subsequently interpreted by the Christians in this manner, or that, lest any messianic attribute should be wanting to him, the whole narrative of the entrance was freely composed after the two prophecies and the dogmatic presupposition of a superhuman knowledge on the part of Jesus.

THIRD PART.

HISTORY OF THE PASSION, DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

Chapter I

RELATION OF JESUS TO THE IDEA OF A SUFFERING AND DYING MESSIAH; HIS DISCOURSES ON HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND SECOND ADVENT.

§ 111.

DID JESUS IN PRECISE TERMS PREDICT HIS PASSION AND DEATH?

According to the gospels, Jesus more than once, and while the result was yet distant, [1605] predicted to his disciples that sufferings and a violent death awaited him. Moreover, if we trust the synoptical accounts, he did not predict his fate merely in general terms, but specified beforehand the place of his passion, namely, Jerusalem; the time, namely, the approaching passover; the persons from whom he would have to suffer, namely, the chief priests, scribes and Gentiles; the essential form of his passion, namely, crucifixion, in consequence of a judicial sentence; and even its accessory circumstances, namely, scourging, reviling, and spitting (Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 12, 22 f., xx. 17 ff., xxvi. 12 with the parall., Luke xiii. 33). Between the synoptists and the author of the fourth gospel, there exists a threefold difference in relation to this subject. Firstly and chiefly, in the latter the predictions of Jesus do not appear so clear and intelligible, but are for the most part presented in obscure figurative discourses, concerning which the narrator himself confesses that the disciples understood them not until after the issue (ii. 22). In addition to a decided declaration that he will voluntarily lay down his life (x. 15 ff.), Jesus in this gospel is particularly fond of alluding to his approaching death under the expressions ὑψοῦν, ὑψοῦσθαι, to lift up, to be lifted up, in the application of which he seems to vacillate between his exaltation on the cross, and his exaltation to glory (iii. 14, viii. 28, xii. 32); he compares his approaching exaltation with that of the brazen serpent in the wilderness (iii. 14), as, in Matthew, he compares his fate with that of Jonah (xii. 40); on another occasion, he speaks of going away whither no man can follow him (vii. 33 ff., viii. 21 f.), as, in the synoptists, of a taking away of a bridegroom, which will plunge his friends into mourning (Matt. ix. 15 parall.), and of a cup, which he must drink, and which his disciples will find it hard to partake of with him (Matt. xx. 22 parall.). The two other differences are less marked, but are still observable. One of them is, that while in John the allusions to the violent death of Jesus run in an equal degree through the whole gospel; in the synoptists, the repeated and definite announcements of his death are found only towards the end, partly immediately before, partly during, the last journey; in earlier chapters there occurs, with the exception of the obscure discourse on the sign of Jonah (which we shall soon see to be no prediction of death), only the intimation of a removal (doubtless violent) of the bridegroom. The last difference is, that while according to the three first Evangelists, Jesus imparts those predictions (again with the single exception of the above intimation, Matt. ix. 15) only to the confidential circle of his disciples; in John, he utters them in the presence of the people, and even of his enemies.

In the critical investigation of these evangelical accounts, we shall proceed from the special to the general, in the following manner. First we shall ask: Is it credible that Jesus had a foreknowledge of so many particular features of the fate which awaited him? and next: Is even a general foreknowledge and prediction of his sufferings, on the part of Jesus, probable? in which inquiry, the difference between the representation of John and that of the synoptists, will necessarily come under our consideration.

There are two modes of explaining how Jesus could so precisely foreknow the particular circumstances of his passion and death; the one resting on a supernatural, the other on a natural basis. The former appears adequate to solve the problem by the simple position, that before the prophetic spirit, which dwelt in Jesus in the richest plenitude, his destiny must have lain unfolded from the beginning. As, however, Jesus himself, in his announcements of his sufferings, expressly appealed to the Old Testament, the prophecies of which concerning him must be fulfilled in all points (Luke xviii. 31, comp. xxii. 37, xxiv. 25 ff.; Matt. xxvi. 54): so the orthodox view ought not to despise this help, but must give to its explanation the modification, that Jesus continually occupied with the prophecies of the Old Testament, may have drawn those particularities out of them, by the aid of the spirit that dwelt within him. [1606] According to this, while the knowledge of the time of his passion remains consigned to his prophetic presentiment, unless he be supposed to have calculated this out of Daniel, or some similar source; Jesus must have come to regard Jerusalem as the scene of his suffering and death, by contemplating the fate of earlier prophets as a type of his own, the Spirit telling him, that where so many prophets had suffered death, there, à fortiori, must the Messiah also suffer (Luke xiii. 33); that his death would be the sequel of a formal sentence, he must have gathered from Isa. liii. 8, where a judgment ‏מִשְׁפִּט‎ is spoken of as impending over the servant of God, and from v. 12, where it is said that he was numbered with the transgressors, ἐν τοῖς ἀνόμοις ἐλογίσθη (comp. Luke xxii. 37); that his sentence would proceed from the rulers of his own people, he might perhaps have concluded from Ps. cxviii. 22, where the builders, αἰκοδομοῦντες who reject the corner-stone, are, according to apostolic interpretation (Acts iv. 11), the Jewish rulers; that he would be delivered to the Gentiles, he might infer from the fact, that in several plaintive psalms, which are susceptible of a messianic interpretation, the persecuting parties are represented as ‏רְשָׁעִים‎, i.e. heathens; that the precise manner of his death would be crucifixion, he might have deduced, partly from the type of the brazen serpent which was suspended on a pole, Num. xxi. 8 f. (comp. John iii. 14), partly from the piercing of the hands and feet, Ps. xxii. 17, LXX.; lastly, that he would be the object of scorn and personal maltreatment, he might have concluded from passages such as v. 7 ff. in the Psalm above quoted, Isa. l. 6, etc. Now if the spirit which dwelt in Jesus, and which, according to the orthodox opinion, revealed to him the reference of these prophecies and types to his ultimate destiny, was a spirit of truth: this reference to Jesus must admit of being proved to be the true and original sense of those Old Testament passages. But, to confine ourselves to the principal passages only, a profound grammatical and historical exposition has convincingly shown, for all who are in a condition to liberate themselves from dogmatic presuppositions, that in none of these is there any allusion to the sufferings of Christ. Instead of this, Isa. l. 6, speaks of the ill usage which the prophets had to experience; [1607] Isa. liii. of the calamities of the prophetic order, or more probably of the Israelitish people; [1608] Ps. cxviii. of the unexpected deliverance and exaltation of that people, or of one of their princes; [1609] while Ps. xxii. is the complaint of an oppressed exile. [1610] As to the 17th verse of this Psalm, which has been interpreted as having reference to the crucifixion of Christ, even presupposing the most improbable interpretation of ‏כארי‎ by perfoderunt, this must in no case be understood literally, but only figuratively, and the image would be derived, not from a crucifixion, but from a chase, or a combat with wild beasts; [1611] hence the application of this passage to Christ is now only maintained by those with whom it would be lost labour to contend. According to the orthodox view, however, Jesus, in a supernatural manner, by means of his higher nature, discovered in these passages a pre-intimation of the particular features of his passion; but, in that case, since such is not the true sense of these passages, the spirit that dwelt in Jesus cannot have been the spirit of truth, but a lying spirit. Thus the orthodox expositor, so far as he does not exclude himself from the light dispensed by an unprejudiced interpretation of the Old Testament, is driven, for the sake of his own interest, to adopt the natural opinion; namely, that Jesus was led to such an interpretation of Old Testament passages, not by divine inspiration, but by a combination of his own.

According to this opinion, [1612] there was no difficulty in foreseeing that it would be the ruling sacerdotal party to which Jesus must succumb, since, on the one hand, it was pre-eminently embittered against Jesus, on the other, it was in possession of the necessary power; and equally obvious was it that they would make Jerusalem the theatre of his judgment and execution, since this was the centre of their strength; that after being sentenced by the rulers of his people, he would be delivered to the Romans for execution, followed from the limitation of the Jewish judicial power at that period; that crucifixion was the death to which he would be sentenced, might be conjectured from the fact that with the Romans this species of death was a customary infliction, especially on rebels; lastly, that scourging and reviling would not be wanting, might likewise be inferred from Roman custom, and the barbarity of judicial proceedings in that age.—But viewing the subject more nearly, how could Jesus so certainly know that Herod, who had directed a threatening attention to his movements (Luke xiii. 31), would not forestall the sacerdotal party, and add to the murder of the Baptist, that of his more important follower? And even if he felt himself warranted in believing that real danger threatened him from the side of the hierarchy only (Luke xiii. 33); what was his guarantee that one of their tumultuary attempts to murder him would not at last succeed (comp. John viii. 39, x. 31), and that he would not, as Stephen did at a later period, without any further formalities, and without a previous delivery to the Romans, find his death in quite another manner than by the Roman punishment of crucifixion? Lastly, how could he so confidently assert that the very next plot of his enemies, after so many failures, would be successful, and that the very next journey to the passover would be his last?—But the natural explanation also can call to its aid the Old Testament passages, and say: Jesus, whether by the application of a mode of interpretation then current among his countrymen, or under the guidance of his own individual views, gathered from the passages already quoted, a precise idea of the circumstances attendant on the violent end which awaited him as the Messiah. [1613] But if in the first place it would be difficult to prove, that already in the lifetime of Jesus all these various passages were referred to the Messiah; and if it be equally difficult to conceive that Jesus could independently, prior to the issue, discover such a reference; so it would be a case undistinguishable from a miracle, if the result had actually corresponded to so false an interpretation; moreover, the Old Testament oracles and types will not suffice to explain all the particular features in the predictions of Jesus, especially the precise determination of time.

If then Jesus cannot have had so precise a foreknowledge of the circumstances of his passion and death, either in a supernatural or a natural way: he cannot have had such a foreknowledge at all: and the minute predictions which the Evangelists put into his mouth must be regarded as a vaticinium post eventum. [1614] Commentators who have arrived at this conclusion, have not failed to extol the account of John, in opposition to that of the synoptists, on the ground that precisely those traits in the predictions of Jesus which, from their special character, he cannot have uttered, are only found in the synoptists, while John attributes to Jesus no more than indefinite intimations, and distinguishes these from his own interpretation, made after the issue; a plain proof that in his gospel alone we have the discourses of Jesus unfalsified, and in their original form. [1615] But, regarded more nearly, the case does not stand so that the fourth Evangelist can only be taxed with putting an erroneous interpretation on the otherwise unfalsified declarations of Jesus: for in one passage, at least, he has put into his mouth an expression which, obscurely, it is true, but still unmistakably, determines the manner of his death as crucifixion; and consequently, he has here altered the words of Jesus to correspond with the result. We refer to the expression ὑψωθῆναι, to be lifted up: in those passages of the fourth gospel where Jesus speaks in a passive sense of the Son of Man being lifted up, this expression might possibly mean his exaltation to glory, although in iii. 14, from the comparison with the serpent in the wilderness, which was well known to have been elevated on a pole, even this becomes a difficulty; but when, as in viii. 28, he represents the exaltation of the Son of Man as the act of his enemies (ὅταν ὑψώσητε τὸν υἱὸν τ. ἀ.), it is obvious that these could not lift him up immediately to glory, but only to the cross; consequently, if the result above stated be admitted as valid, John must himself have framed this expression, or at least have distorted the Aramæan words of Jesus, and hence he essentially falls under the same category with the synoptical writers. That the fourth Evangelist, though the passion and death of Jesus were to him past events, and therefore clearly present to his mind, nevertheless makes Jesus predict them in obscure expressions,—this has its foundation in the entire manner of this writer, whose fondness for the enigmatical and mysterious here happily met the requirement, to give an unintelligible form to prophecies which were not understood.

There were sufficient inducements for the Christian legend thus to put into the mouth of Jesus, after the event, a prediction of the particular features of his passion, especially of the ignominious crucifixion. The more the Christ crucified became to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor. i. 23), the more need was there to remove this offence by every possible means; and as, among subsequent events, the resurrection especially served as a retrospective cancelling of that shameful death; so it must have been earnestly desired to take the sting from that offensive catastrophe beforehand also, and this could not be done more effectually than by such a minute prediction. For as the most unimportant fact, when prophetically announced, gains importance, by thus being made a link in the chain of a higher knowledge: so the most ignominious fate, when it is predicted as part of a divine plan of salvation, ceases to be ignominious; above all, when the very person over whom such a fate impends, also possesses the prophetic spirit, which enables him to foresee and foretell it, and thus not only suffers, but participates in the divine prescience of his sufferings, he manifests himself as the ideal power over those suffering. But the fourth Evangelist has gone still farther on this track; he believes it due to the honour of Jesus to represent him as also the real power over his sufferings, as not having his life taken away by the violence of others, but as resigning it voluntarily (x. 17 f.): a representation which indeed already finds some countenance in Matt. xxvi. 53, where Jesus asserts the possibility of praying to the Father for legions of angels, in order to avert his sufferings.

§ 112.

THE PREDICTIONS OF JESUS CONCERNING HIS DEATH IN GENERAL; THEIR RELATION TO THE JEWISH IDEA OF THE MESSIAH: DECLARATIONS OF JESUS CONCERNING THE OBJECT AND EFFECTS OF HIS DEATH.

If in this manner we subtract from the declarations of Jesus concerning his approaching fate, attributed to him in the gospels, all which regards the particular circumstances of this catastrophe; there still remains on the part of Jesus the general announcement, that suffering and death awaited him, and also that this part of his career was a fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies relative to the Messiah. As, however, the principal passages cited from the Old Testament, which treat of suffering and death, are only by mistake referred to the Messiah, while others, as Dan. ix. 26; Zech. xii. 10, have not this signification: [1616] the orthodox, above all, must again beware of attributing so false an interpretation of these prophecies, to the supernatural principle in Jesus. That instead of this, Jesus might possibly, by a purely natural combination, have educed the general result, that since he had made the hierarchy of his nation his implacable enemies, he had, in so far as he was resolved not to swerve from the path of his destination, the worst to fear from their revenge and authority (John x. 11 ff.); that from the fate of former prophets (Matt. v. 12, xxi. 33 ff.; Luke xiii. 33 f.), and isolated passages bearing such an interpretation, he might prognosticate a similar end to his own career, and accordingly predict to his followers that earlier or later a violent death awaited him—this it would be a needless overstraining of the supranaturalistic view any longer to deny, and the rational mode of considering the subject should be admitted. [1617]

It may appear surprising if, after this admission, we still put the question, whether, according to the New Testament representation, it be probable that Jesus actually uttered such a prediction? since, certainly, a general announcement of his violent death is the least which the evangelical accounts appear to contain, but our meaning in the question is this: is the sequel, especially the conduct of the disciples, so described in the gospels, as to be reconcilable with a prior disclosure of Jesus relative to the sufferings which awaited him? Now the express statements of the Evangelists do not merely tend to show that the disciples did not understand the discourses of Jesus on his coming death, in the sense that they did not know how to adjust these facts in their own minds, or to make them tally with their preconceived ideas concerning the Messiah,—a difficulty which drew from Peter the first time that Jesus announced his death, the exclamation: Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee;—for we find the words of Mark (ix. 32), But they understood not that saying, οἱ δὲ ἠγνόουν τὸ ρῆμα, thus amplified in Luke: and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not, καί ἠν παρακεκαλυμμένον ἀπ’ αὐτῶν ἵνα μὴ αἴσθωνται αὐτό (ix. 45); and the latter Evangelist on another occasion says: and they understood none of these things, and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things that were spoken, καὶ αὐτοὶ οὐδὲν τούτων συνῆκαν, καὶ ἠν τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο κεκρυμμένον ἀπ’ αὐτων, καὶ οὐκ ἐγίνωσκον τὰ λεγόμενα (xviii. 34): expressions which appear to imply that the disciples absolutely did not understand what the words of Jesus meant. In accordance with this, the condemnation and execution of Jesus fall upon them as a blow for which they are entirely unprepared, and consequently annihilate all the hopes which they had fixed on him as the Messiah (Luke xxiv. 20 f., The chief priests and our rulers have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel). But had Jesus spoken of his death to the disciples with such perfect openness (παῤῥησίᾳ, Mark viii. 32), they must necessarily have understood his clear words and detailed discourses, and had he besides shown them that his death was foreshadowed in the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, and was consequently a part of the Messiah’s destination (Luke xviii. 31, xxii. 37), they could not, when his death actually ensued, have so entirely lost all belief in his messiahship. It is true that the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist is wrong in his attempt to show in the conduct of Jesus, as described by the Evangelists, indications that his death was unexpected even to himself; but, looking merely at the conduct of the disciples, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion which that writer draws, namely, that to judge by that conduct, Jesus cannot have made any antecedent disclosure to his disciples concerning his death; on the contrary, they appear to the very last moment to have held the common opinion on this matter, and only to have adopted the characteristics of suffering and death into their conception of the Messiah, after the death of Jesus had unexpectedly come upon them. [1618] At all events we have before us the following dilemma: either the statements of the Evangelists as to the inability of the disciples to understand the predictions of Jesus, and their surprise at his death, are unhistorically exaggerated; or the decided declarations of Jesus concerning the death which awaited him, were composed ex eventu, nay, it becomes doubtful whether he even in general predicted his death as a part of his messianic destiny. On both sides, the legend might be led into unhistorical representations. For the fabrication of a prediction of his death in general, there were the same reasons which we have above shown to be an adequate motive for attributing to him a prognostication of the particular features of his passion: to the fiction of so total a want of comprehension in the disciples, an inducement might be found, on the one hand, in the desire to exhibit the profoundness of the mystery of a suffering Messiah revealed by Jesus, through the inability of the disciples to understand it; on the other, in the fact that in the evangelical tradition the disciples were likened to unconverted Jews and heathens, to whom anything was more intelligible than the death of the Messiah.

In order to decide between these alternatives, we must first examine whether, prior to the death of Jesus, and independently of that event, the messianic ideas of the age included the characteristics of suffering and death. If already in the lifetime of Jesus it was the Jewish opinion that the Messiah must die a violent death, then it is highly probable that Jesus imbibed this idea as a part of his convictions, and communicated it to his disciples; who, in that case, could so much the less have remained uninstructed on this point, and overwhelmed by the actual result, in the degree alleged by the Evangelists. If, on the contrary, that idea was not diffused among his countrymen before the death of Jesus, it still remains possible that Jesus might arrive at that idea by his private reflection; but it is a prior possibility that the disciples were the first to adopt the characteristics of suffering and death into their conception of the Messiah, after they had been taught by the issue.

The question whether the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah was already diffused among the Jews in the time of Jesus, is one of the most difficult points of discussion among theologians, and one concerning which they are the least agreed. And the difficulty of the question does not lie in the interests of party, so that it might be hoped that with the rise of impartial investigation, the subject would cease to be perplexed; for, as Stäudlin has aptly shown, [1619] both the orthodox and the rationalistic interest may alternately tend in each direction, and we in fact find theologians of both parties on both sides. [1620] The difficulty lies in the deficiency of information, and in the uncertainty of that which we do possess. If the Old Testament contained the doctrine of a suffering and dying Messiah, it might certainly thence be inferred with more than mere probability, that this doctrine existed among the Jews in the time of Jesus: as, however, according to the most recent researches, the Old Testament, while it does indeed contain the doctrine of an expiation of the sins of the people to take place at the messianic era (Ezek. xxxvi. 25, xxxvii. 23; Zech. xiii. 1; Dan. ix. 24), has no trace of this expiation being effected by the suffering and death of the Messiah [1621]: there is no decision of the question before us to be expected from this quarter. The apocryphal books of the Old Testament lie nearer to the time of Jesus; but as these are altogether silent concerning the Messiah in general, [1622] there can be no discussion as to their containing that special feature. Again, if we turn to Philo and Josephus, the two authors who wrote soonest after the period in question, we find the latter silent as to the messianic hopes of his nation; [1623] and though the former does indeed speak of messianic times, and a messiah-like hero, he says nothing of sufferings on his part. [1624] Thus there remain, as sources of information on this point, only the New Testament and the later Jewish writings.

In the New Testament, almost everything is calculated to give the impression, that a suffering and dying Messiah was unthought-of among the Jews who were contemporary with Jesus. To the majority of the Jews, we are told, the doctrine of a crucified Messiah was a σκανδαλὸν, and the disciples were at a loss to understand Jesus in his repeated and explicit announcements of his death. This does not look as if the doctrine of a suffering Messiah had been current among the Jews of that period; on the contrary, these circumstances accord fully with the declaration which the fourth Evangelist puts into the mouth of the Jewish multitude, ὄχλος (xii. 34), namely, that they had heard in the law (νόμος) that Christ abideth for ever, ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. [1625] Indeed, for a general acceptation of the idea of a suffering Messiah among the Jews of that period, even those theologians who take the affirmative side in this argument do not contend; but, admitting that the hope of a worldly Messiah whose reign was to endure for ever, was the prevalent one, they only maintain (and herein the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist agrees with them) [1626], that a less numerous party,—according to Stäudlin, the Essenes; according to Hengstenberg, the better and more enlightened part of the people in general—held the belief that the Messiah would appear in a humble guise, and only enter into glory through suffering and death. In support of this they appeal especially to two passages; one out of the third, and one out of the fourth gospel. When Jesus is presented as an infant in the temple at Jerusalem, the aged Simeon, among other prophecies, particularly concerning the opposition which her son would have to encounter, says to Mary: Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also (Luke ii. 35); words which seem to describe her maternal sorrow at the death of her son, and consequently to represent the opinion, that a violent death awaited the Messiah, as one already current before Christ. Still more plainly is the idea of a suffering Messiah contained in the words which the fourth gospel makes the Baptist utter on seeing Jesus: Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (i. 29)! This, viewed in its relation to Isa. liii., would in the mouth of the Baptist likewise tend to prove, that the idea of expiatory suffering on the part of the Messiah was in existence before the time of Jesus. But both these passages have been above shown to be unhistorical, and from the fact that the primitive Christian legend was led, a considerable time after the issue, to attribute to persons whom it held divinely inspired, a foreknowledge of the divine decree with respect to the death of Jesus, it can by no means be concluded, that this insight really existed prior to the death of Jesus. In conclusion, it is urged, that at least the Evangelists and apostles refer to the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah in the Old Testament; whence it is thought warrantable to conclude, that this interpretation of the Old Testament passages connected with our present subject, was not unprecedented among the Jews. Certainly Peter (Acts iii. 18 f.; 1 Pet. i. 11 f.) and Paul (Acts xxvi. 22 f.; 1 Cor. xv. 3) appeal to Moses and the prophets as annunciators of the death of Jesus, and Philip, in his interview with the Ethiopian eunuch, interprets a passage in Isa. liii. of the sufferings of the Messiah: but as those teachers of the church spoke and wrote all this after the event, we have no assurance that they did not assign to certain Old Testament passages a relation to the sufferings of the Messiah, solely in consequence of that event, and not by adopting a mode of interpretation previously current among their Jewish cotemporaries. [1627]

If, according to this, the opinion that the idea in question already existed among the countrymen of Jesus during his lifetime, has no solid foundation in the New Testament; we must proceed to inquire whether that idea may not be found in the later Jewish writings. Among the earliest writings of this class now extant, are the Chaldee paraphrases of Onkelos and Jonathan; and the Targum of the latter, who, according to rabbinical tradition, was a pupil of Hillel the elder, [1628] is commonly cited as presenting the idea of a suffering Messiah, because it refers the passage, Isa. lii. 13-liii. 12, to the Messiah. But with respect to the interpretation of this passage in the Targum of Jonathan, it is the singular fact, that while the prophecies which it contains are in general interpreted messianically, yet so often as suffering and death are spoken of, either these ideas are avoided with marked design, and for the most part by some extremely forced expedient, or are transferred to a different subject, namely, the people of Israel: a significant proof that to the author, suffering and violent death appeared irreconcilable with the idea of the Messiah. [1629] But this, we are told, is the commencement of that aberration from the true sense of the sacred text, into which the later Jews were seduced by their carnal disposition, and their hostility to Christianity: the more ancient interpreters, it is said, discovered in this passage of Isaiah a suffering and dying Messiah. It is true that Abenezra, Abarbanel and others, testify that many ancient teachers referred Isa. liii. to the Messiah: [1630] but some of their statements leave it by no means clear that those more ancient interpretations are not as partial as that of Jonathan; and in relation to all of them it remains uncertain, whether the interpreters of whom they speak reach as far back as the age of Jonathan, which is highly improbable with respect to those parts of the book Sohar, wherein the passage in question is referred to a suffering Messiah. [1631] The writing which, together with that of Jonathan, may be regarded as the nearest to the time of Jesus, namely, the apocryphal fourth book of Esdras, drawn up, according to the most probable computation, shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus, [1632] does indeed mention the death of the Messiah: not however as a painful one, but only as a death which, after the long duration of the messianic kingdom, was to precede the general resurrection. [1633] The idea of great calamities, the birth-throes, as it were, of the Messiah (‏חבלי המשח‎, comp. ἀρχὴ ὠδίνων, Matt. xxiv. 8), which would usher in the messianic times, was undoubtedly disseminated before Christ; [1634] and equally early there appears to have been placed in the front of these ills, which were to press upon the people of Israel in particular, the Antichrist, ἀντίχριστος, whom the Christ, Χριστὸς would have to oppose (2 Thess. ii. 3 ff.): [1635] but since he was to annihilate this adversary in a supernatural manner, with the spirit of his mouth, τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὑτοῦ, this involved no suffering for the Messiah. Nevertheless, there are to be found passages in which a suffering of the Messiah is spoken of, and in which this suffering is even represented as vicarious, on behalf of the people: [1636] but first, this is only a suffering, and no death of the Messiah; secondly, it befals him either before his descent into earthly life, in his pre-existence, [1637] or during the concealment in which he keeps himself from his birth until his appearance as Messiah: [1638] lastly, the antiquity of these ideas is doubtful, and according to certain indications, they could only be dated after the destruction of the Jewish state by Titus. [1639] Meanwhile, Jewish writings are by no means destitute of passages, in which it is directly asserted that a Messiah would perish in a violent manner: but these passages relate, not to the proper Messiah, the offspring of David, but to another, from among the posterity of Joseph and Ephraim, who was appointed to hold a subordinate position in relation to the former. This Messiah ben Joseph was to precede the Messiah ben David, to unite the ten tribes of the former kingdom of Israel with the two tribes of the kingdom of Judah, but after this to perish by the sword in the battle with Gog and Magog: a catastrophe to which Zech. xii. 10 was referred. [1640] But of this second, dying Messiah, any certain traces are wanting before the Babylonian Gemara, which was compiled in the fifth and sixth centuries after Christ, and the book Sohar, the age of which is extremely doubtful. [1641]

Although, according to this, it cannot be proved, and is even not probable, that the idea of a suffering Messiah already existed among the Jews in the time of Jesus: it is still possible that, even without such a precedent, Jesus himself, by an observation of circumstances, and a comparison of them with Old Testament narratives and prophecies, might come to entertain the belief that suffering and death were a part of the office and destination of the Messiah; and if so, it would be more natural that he should embrace this conviction gradually in the course of his public ministry, and that he should chiefly have confined his communications on the subject to his intimate friends, than that he should have had this conviction from the beginning, and have expressed it before indifferent persons, nay enemies. The latter is the representation of John; the former, of the synoptists.

In relation also to the declarations of Jesus concerning the object and effects of his death, we can, as above in relation to the announcement of the death itself, distinguish a more natural, from a more supranatural point of view. When Jesus in the fourth gospel likens himself to the true shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep (x. 11, 15): this may have the perfectly natural sense, that he is determined not to swerve from his office of shepherd and teacher, even though, in the prosecution of it, death should threaten him (the moral necessity of his death); [1642] the foreboding expression in the same gospel (xii. 24), that except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit, admits of an equally rational explanation, as a figurative representation of the victorious power which martyrdom gives to an idea and conviction (the moral efficacy of his death); [1643] lastly, that which is so often repeated in the Gospel of John,—namely, that it is good for the disciples that Jesus should go away, for without his departure the comforter, παράκλητος will not come to them, who will glorify him in them,—may be supposed to express the perfectly natural consideration of Jesus, that without the removal of his sensible presence, the hitherto so material ideas of his disciples would not be spiritualized (the psychological efficacy of his death). [1644] The words of Jesus at the institution of the sacramental supper, belong more to the supranaturalistic mode of view. For if that which the intermediate Evangelists make him say on this occasion—that the cup presented is the blood of the new testament, τὸ αἷμα τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης (Mark xiv. 24), and the new testament in his blood, ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ (Luke xxii. 20),—might appear to signify no more than that, as by the bloody sacrifice at Sinai was sealed the covenant of this ancient people with God, so by his (the Messiah’s) blood would be sealed in a higher sense the community of the new covenant, gathering round him: in the account of Matthew, on the contrary, when he makes Jesus add, that his blood will be shed for many for the remission of sins, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, the idea of the covenant sacrifice is blended with that of expiatory sacrifice: and also in the two other Evangelists by the addition: which is shed for many, or for you, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐκχυνόμενον, the transition is made from the covenant sacrifice to the expiatory sacrifice. Further, when in the first gospel (xx. 28) Jesus says, he must give his life a ransom for many, δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὑτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, this is doubtless to be referred to Isa. liii., where, according to a notion current among the Hebrews (Isa. xliii. 3; Prov. xxi. 18), the death of the servant of God is supposed to have a propitiatory relation to the rest of mankind.

Thus Jesus might by psychological reflection come to the conviction that such a catastrophe would be favourable to the spiritual development of his disciples, and that it was indispensable for the spiritualizing of their messianic ideas, nay, in accordance with national conceptions, and by a consideration of Old Testament passages, even to the idea that his messianic death would have an expiatory efficacy. Still, what the synoptists make Jesus say of his death, as a sin offering, might especially appear to belong rather to the system which was developed after the death of Jesus; and what the fourth Evangelist puts into his mouth concerning the Paraclete, to have been conceived ex eventu: so that, again, in these expressions of Jesus concerning the object of his death, there must be a separation of the general from the special.

§ 113.

PRECISE DECLARATIONS OF JESUS CONCERNING HIS FUTURE RESURRECTION.

According to the evangelical accounts, Jesus predicted his resurrection in words not less clear than those in which he announced his death, and also fixed the time of its occurrence with singular precision. As often as he said to his disciples, the Son of Man will be crucified, he added: And the third day he shall rise again, καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστήσεται, or ἐγερθήσεται (Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19 parall. comp. xvii. 9, xxvi. 32 parall.).

But of this announcement also it is said, that the disciples understood it not; so little, that they even debated among themselves what the rising from the dead should mean, τί ἐστι τὸ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι (Mark ix. 10); and in consistency with this want of comprehension, they, after the death of Jesus, exhibit no trace of a recollection that his resurrection had been foretold to them, no spark of hope that this prediction would be fulfilled. When the friends of Jesus had taken down his body from the cross, and laid it in the grave, they undertook (John xix. 40)—or the women reserved to themselves (Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiii. 56)—the task of embalming him, which is only performed in the case of those who are regarded as the prey of corruption; when, on the morning which, according to the mode of reckoning in the New Testament, opened the day which had been predetermined as that of the resurrection, the women went to the grave, they were so far from thinking of a predicted resurrection, that they were anxious about the probable difficulty of rolling away the stone from the grave (Mark xvi. 3); when Mary Magdalene, and afterwards Peter, found the grave empty, their first thought, had the resurrection been predicted, must have been, that it had now actually taken place: instead of this, the former conjectures that the body may have been stolen (John xx. 2), while Peter merely wonders, without coming to any definite conjecture (Luke xxiv. 12); when the women told the disciples of the angelic apparition which they had witnessed, and discharged the commission given them by the angel, the disciples partly regarded their words as idle tales, λῆρος (Luke xxiv. 11), and were partly moved to fear and astonishment (ἐξέστησαν ἡμᾶς, Luke xxiv. 22 ff.); when Mary Magdalene, and subsequently the disciples going to Emmaus, assured the eleven, that they had themselves seen the risen one, they met with no credence (Mark xvi. 11, 13), and Thomas still later did not believe even the assurance of his fellow-apostles (John xx. 25); lastly, when Jesus himself appeared to the disciples in Galilee, all of them did not even then cast off doubt (οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, Mark xxviii. 17). All this we must, with the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, [1645] find incomprehensible, if Jesus had so clearly and decidedly predicted his resurrection.

It is true, that as the conduct of the disciples, after the death of Jesus, speaks against such a prediction on the part of Jesus, so the conduct of his enemies appears to speak for it. For when, according to Matt. xxvii. 62 ff., the chief priests and Pharisees entreat Pilate to set a watch at the grave of Jesus, they allege as a reason for their request, that Jesus while yet alive had said: After three days I will rise again, μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐγείπομαι. But this narrative of the first gospel, which we can only estimate at a future point in our investigation, at present decides nothing, but only falls to one side of the dilemma, so that we must now say: if the disciples really so acted after the death of Jesus, then neither can he have decidedly foretold his resurrection, nor can the Jews in consideration of such a prediction have placed a watch at his grave; or, if the two latter statements be true, the disciples cannot have so acted.

It has been attempted to blunt the edge of this dilemma, by attributing to the above predictions, not the literal sense, that the deceased Jesus would return out of the grave, but only the figurative sense that his doctrine and cause, after having been apparently crushed, would again expand and flourish. [1646] As the Old Testament prophets, it was said, represent the restoration of the Israelitish people to renewed prosperity, under the image of a resurrection from the dead (Isa. xxvi. 19; Ezek. xxxvii.); as they mark the short interval within which, under certain conditions, this turn of things was to be expected, by the expression: in two or three days will Jehovah revive the smitten one, and raise the dead (Hos. vi. 2), [1647] a statement of time which Jesus also uses indefinitely for a short interval (Luke xiii. 32): so by the declaration that he will rise on the third day after his death, τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι, he intends to say no more than that even though he may succumb to the power of his enemies and be put to death, still the work which he has begun will not come to an end, but will in a short time go forward with a fresh impetus. These merely figurative modes of speaking adopted by Jesus, the apostles, after Jesus had actually risen in the body, understood literally, and regarded them as prophecies of his personal resurrection. Now that in the prophetic passages adduced, the expressions ‏קוּם חָיָה‎ and ‏הֵקִיץ‎ have only the alleged figurative sense, is true; but these are passages the whole tenor of which is figurative, and in which, in particular, the depression and death which precede the revivification are themselves to be understood only in a figurative sense. Here, on the contrary, all the foregoing expressions: παραδίδοσθαι, κατακρίνεσθαι, σταυροῦσθαι, ἀποκτείνεσθαι κ.τ.λ. (to be delivered, condemned, crucified, killed, etc.) are to be understood literally; hence all at once, with the words ἐγερθῆναι and ἀναστῆναι, to enter on a figurative meaning, would be an unprecedented abruptness of transition; not to mention that passages such as Matt. xxvi. 32, where Jesus says: After I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee, μετὰ τὸ ἐγερθηναί με προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν, can have no meaning at all unless ἐγείρεσθαι be understood literally. In this closely consecutive series of expressions, which must be taken in a purely literal sense, there is then no warrant, and even no inducement, to understand the statement of time which is connected with them, otherwise than also literally, and in its strictly etymological meaning. Thus if Jesus really used these words, and in the same connexion in which they are given by the Evangelists, he cannot have meant to announce by them merely the speedy victory of his cause; his meaning must have been, that he himself would return to life in three days after his violent death. [1648]

As however Jesus, judging from the conduct of his disciples after his death, cannot have announced his resurrection in plain words: other commentators have resigned themselves to the admission, that the Evangelists, after the issue, gave to the discourses of Jesus a definiteness which, as uttered by him, they did not possess; that they have not merely understood literally, what Jesus intended figuratively, of the revival of his cause after his death, but in accordance with their erroneous interpretation, have so modified his words that, as we now read them, we must certainly understand them in a literal sense; [1649] yet that not all the discourses of Jesus are altered in this manner; here and there his original expressions still remain.

§ 114.

FIGURATIVE DISCOURSES, IN WHICH JESUS IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ANNOUNCED HIS RESURRECTION.

According to the fourth gospel, Jesus, at the very commencement of his ministry, in figurative language, referred his enemies, the Jews, to his future resurrection (ii. 19 ff.). On his first messianic visit to Jerusalem, and when, after the abuse of the market in the temple had provoked him to that exhibition of holy zeal of which we have formerly spoken, the Jews require a sign from him, by which he should legitimatize his claim to be considered a messenger of God, who had authority to adopt such violent measures, Jesus gives them this answer, Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up, λύσατε τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον, καὶ ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις ἐγερῶ αὐτόν. The Jews took these words in the sense, which, since they were spoken in the temple, was the most natural, and urged, in reply to Jesus, that as it had taken forty years to build this temple, he would scarcely be able, if it were destroyed, to rebuild it in three days; but the Evangelist informs us, that this was not the meaning of Jesus, and that he here spoke (though indeed the disciples were not aware of this until after his resurrection), of the temple of his body, ναὸς τοῦ στόματος αυτοῦ: i.e. under the destruction and rebuilding of the temple, he alluded to his death and resurrection. Even if we admit, what however the most moderate expositors deny, [1650] that Jesus could properly (as he is also represented to have done in Matthew xii. 39 ff.) when the Jews asked him for a visible and immediate sign, refer them to his resurrection as the greatest, and for his enemies the most overwhelming miracle in his history: still he must have done this in terms which it was possible for them to understand (as in the above passage of Matthew, where he expresses himself quite plainly). But the expressions of Jesus, as here given, could not possibly be understood in this sense. For when one who is in the temple, speaks of the destruction of this temple, every one will refer his words to the building itself. Hence Jesus, when he uttered the words, this temple, τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον, must have pointed to his body with his finger; as, indeed, is generally presupposed by the friends of this interpretation. [1651] But, in the first place, the Evangelist says nothing of such a gesture, notwithstanding that it lay in his interest to notice this, as a support of his interpretation. In the second place, Gabler has with justice remarked, how ill-judged and ineffective it would have been, by the addition of a mere gesture to give a totally new meaning to a speech, which verbally, and therefore logically, referred to the temple. If, however, Jesus used this expedient, the motion of his finger could not have been unobserved; the Jews must rather have demanded from him how he could be so arrogant as to call his body the temple, ναὸς; or even if not so, still, presupposing that action, the disciples could not have remained in the dark concerning the meaning of his words, until after the resurrection. [1652]

By these difficulties modern exegetists have felt constrained to renounce John’s explanation of the words of Jesus, as erroneous and made ex eventu, and to attempt to penetrate, independently of the Evangelist’s explanation, into the sense of the enigmatical saying which he attributes to Jesus. [1653] The construction put upon it by the Jews, who refer the words of Jesus to a real destruction and rebuilding of the national sanctuary, cannot be approved without imputing to Jesus an extravagant example of vain-glorious boasting, at variance with the character which he elsewhere exhibits. If on this account search be made for some figurative meaning which may possibly be assigned to the declaration, there presents itself first a passage in the same gospel (iv. 21 ff.) where Jesus announces to the woman of Samaria, that the time is immediately coming, in which the Father will no longer be worshipped exclusively in Jerusalem (ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις), but will, as a Spirit, receive spiritual worship. Now in the present passage also, the destruction of the temple might, it is said, have signified the abolition of the temple-service at Jerusalem, supposed to be the only valid mode of worship. This interpretation is confirmed by a narrative in the Acts (vi. 14). Stephen, who, as it appears, had adopted the above expressions of Jesus, was taxed by his accusers with declaring, that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος οὖτος καταλύσει τὸν τόπον τοῦτον, καὶ ἀλλάξει τὰ ἔθη, ἃ παρέδωκε Μωϋσῆς: in which words a change of the Mosaic religious institutions, without doubt a spiritualization of them, is described as a sequel to the destruction of the temple. To this may be added a passage in the synoptical gospels. Nearly the same words which in John are uttered by Jesus himself, appear in the two first gospels (Matt. xxvi. 60 f.; Mark xiv. 57 f.) as the accusation of false witnesses against him; and here Mark, in addition, designates the temple which is to be destroyed, as one made with hands, χειροποίητος, and the new one which is to be built, as another, made without hands, ἄλλος, ἀχειροποίητος, whereby he appears to indicate the same contrast between a ceremonial and a spiritual religious system. By the aid of these passages, it is thought, the declaration in John may be explained thus: the sign of my authority to purify the temple, is my ability in a short time to introduce in the place of the Jewish ceremonial worship, a spiritual service of God; i.e. I am authorized to reform the old system, in so far as I am qualified to found a new one. It is certainly a trivial objection to this explanation, that in John the object is not changed, as in Mark, where the temple which is to be built is spoken of as another (ἄλλος), but instead of this, is indicated by the word αὐτὸς, as the same with the one destroyed; [1654] since, indeed, the Christian system of religion in relation to the Jewish, may, just as the risen body of Jesus in relation to the dead one, be conceived as at once identical and different, inasmuch as in both cases the substance is the same, while the transitory accidents only are supposed to be removed. But it is a more formidable objection which attaches itself to the determination of time, ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις. That this expression is also used indefinitely and proverbially, in the sense of a short interval of time in general, is not adequately proved by the two passages which are usually appealed to with this view; for in them the third day, by being placed in connexion with the second and first (Hos. vi. 2: ‏מִיֹמָיִם בַּיוֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁי‎; Luke xiii. 32: σήμερον καὶ αὔριον καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ) is announced as a merely relative and proximate statement, whereas in our passage it stands alone, and thus presents itself as an absolute and precise determination of time. [1655]

Thus alike invited and repelled by both explanations, [1656] theologians take refuge in a double sense, which holds the middle place either between the interpretation of John and the symbolical one last stated, [1657] or between the interpretation of John and that of the Jews; [1658] so that Jesus either spoke at once of his body which was to be killed and again restored to life, and of the modification of the Jewish religion which was to be effected, chiefly by means of that death and resurrection; or, in order to repel the Jews, he challenged them to destroy their real temple, and on this condition, never to be fulfilled, promised to build another, still, however, combining with this ostensible sense for the multitude, an esoteric sense, which was only understood by the disciples after the resurrection, and according to which ναὸς denoted his body. But such a challenge addressed to the Jews, together with the engagement appended to it, would have been an unbecoming manifestation of petulance, and the latent intimation to the disciples, a useless play on words; besides that, in general, a double meaning either of the one or the other kind is unheard of in the discourse of a judicious man. [1659] As, in this manner, the possibility of explaining the passage in John might be entirely despaired of, the author of the Probabilia appeals to the fact that the synoptists call the witnesses, who allege before the judgment seat that Jesus had uttered that declaration, ψευδομάρτυρας, false witnesses; whence he concludes, that Jesus never said what John here attributes to him, and thus gains an exemption from the explanation of the passage, since he regards it as a figment of the fourth Evangelist, whose object was both to explain the calumniations of the accusers, and also to nullify them by a mystical interpretation of his words. [1660] But, on the one hand, it does not follow, from the fact that the synoptists call the witnesses false, that, in the opinion of the Evangelists, Jesus had never said anything whatever of that whereof they accused him; for he might only have said it somewhat differently (λύσατε, not λύσω), or have intended it in a different sense (figuratively instead of literally): on the other hand, if he said nothing at all of this kind, it is difficult to explain how the false witnesses should come to choose that declaration, and especially the remarkable phrase, ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις.

If, according to this, on every interpretation of the expression, except the inadmissible one relative to the body of Jesus, the words ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις form a difficulty: a resource might be found in the narrative of the Acts, as being free from that determination of time. For here Stephen is only accused of saying, ὅτι Ἰ. ὁ Ναζ. οὗτος καταλύσει τὸν τόπον τοῦτον (τὸν ἅγιον), καὶ ἀλλάξει τὰ ἔθη ἃ παρέδωκε Μωϋσῇς. What is false in this allegation (for the witnesses against Stephen also are described as μάρτυρες ψευδεῖς), might be the second proposition, which speaks in literal terms of a changing of the institutes of Moses, and instead of this, Stephen, and before him Jesus, may very probably have said in the figurative signification above developed, καὶ πάλιν οἰκοδομήσει (—σω) αὐτὸν, or καὶ ἄλλον (ἀχειροποίητον) οἰκοδομήσει (—σω).

Meanwhile, this expedient is not at all needful, so far as any insurmountable difficulty in the words ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις, is concerned. As the number 3 is used proverbially, not only in connexion with 2 or 4 (Prov. xxx. 15, 18, 21, 29; Wis. xxiii. 21, xxvi. 25), but also by itself (Wis. xxv. 1, 3); so the expression, in three days, if it were once, in combination with the second and first day, become common as an indefinite statement of time, might probably at length be applied in the same sense when standing alone. Whether the expression should signify a long or a short period would then depend on the connexion: here, in opposition to the construction of a great and elaborate building, to the real, natural erection of which, as the Jews directly remark, a long series of years was required, the expression can only be understood as denoting the shortest time. [1661] A prediction, or even a mere intimation of the resurrection, is therefore not contained in these words.

As, here, Jesus is said to have intimated his resurrection beforehand, by the image of the destroying and rebuilding of the temple, so, on another occasion, he is supposed to have quoted the type of the prophet Jonah with the same intention (Matt. xii. 39 ff., comp. xvi. 4; Luke xi. 29 ff.). When the scribes and Pharisees desired to see a sign from him, Jesus is said to have repulsed their demand by the reply, that to so evil a generation γενεὰ no sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonah, τὸ σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ τοῦ προφήτου, which, in the first passage of Matthew, Jesus himself explains thus: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους, so also the Son of man will pass three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς. In the second passage, in which Matthew attributes this declaration to Jesus, he does not repeat the above interpretation; while Luke, in the parallel passage, explains it simply thus: For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. Now against the possibility of Jesus having himself given the interpretation of the sign of Jonah which Matthew puts into his mouth, v. 40, a variety of objections may be urged. It is indeed scarcely a tenable argument, that Jesus cannot have spoken of three days and three nights, which he would pass in the heart of the earth, because he only lay in the grave one day and two nights: [1662] since the phraseology of the New Testament decidedly has the peculiarity of designating the abode of Jesus in the grave as of three days’ duration, because it touched upon the evening of the day before the Sabbath, and the morning of the day after it; and if this one day, together with two nights, were once taken for three whole days, it would only be a round way of expressing this completeness, to add to the days the nights also, which, besides, would naturally follow in the comparison with the three days and three nights of Jonah. [1663] But if Jesus gave the explanation of the sign of Jonah which Matthew attributes to him, this would have been so clear a prediction of his resurrection, that for the same reasons which, according to the above observations, are opposed to the literal predictions of that event, we must conclude that Jesus cannot have given this explanation. At all events it must have led the disciples who, according to v. 49, were present, to question Jesus, and in that case it is not to be understood why he did not make the subject perfectly clear, and thus announce his resurrection in plain words. But if he cannot have done this, because then the disciples could not have acted after his death as they are said to have done in the evangelical accounts: neither can he, by that comparison of the fate which awaited him with that of Jonah, have called forth from his disciples a question, which, if proposed to him, he must have answered; but which, judging from the sequel, he cannot have answered.

On these grounds, modern critics have pronounced the explanation of the σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ in Matthew to be an interpretation made post eventum by the Evangelist, and by him falsely attributed to Jesus. [1664] According to them, Jesus indeed directed the attention of the Pharisees to the sign of Jonah, but only in the sense in which Luke makes him explain it: namely, that as Jonah himself, by his mere appearance and preaching of repentance, without miracles, had sufficed as a sign from God to the Ninevites; so his own cotemporaries, instead of craving for miracles, should be satisfied with his person and preaching. This interpretation is the only one which accords with the tenor of the discourse of Jesus—even in Matthew, and more particularly with the parallel between the relation of the Ninevites to Jonah, and that of the queen of the south to Solomon. As it was the wisdom of Solomon, σοφία Σολομῶνος, by which the latter felt herself attracted from the ends of the earth: so, in Jonah, even according to the expression of Matthew, it was solely his preaching, κήρυγμα, which brought the Ninevites to repentance. It might be supposed that the future tense in Luke: οὕτως ἔσται καὶ ὁ υἱὸς τ. ἀ. τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ (σημεῖον), So shall also the Son of Man be to this generation (a sign), cannot be referred to Jesus and his preaching as manifested at that moment, but only to something future, as his resurrection: but this in reality points either to the future judgment κρίσις, in which it will be made manifest, that as Jonah was reckoned a sign to the Ninevites, so was the Son of Man to the Jews then living; or to the fact that when Jesus spoke these words, his appearance had not yet attained its consummation, and many of its stages lay yet in futurity. Nevertheless, it must have been at an early period, as we see from the first gospel, that the fate of Jonah was placed in a typical relation to the death and resurrection of Jesus, since the primitive church anxiously searched through the Old Testament for types and prophecies of the offensive catastrophe which befel their Messiah.

There are still some expressions of Jesus in the fourth gospel, which have been understood as latent prophecies of the resurrection. The discourse on the corn of wheat, xii. 24, it is true, too obviously relates to the work of Jesus as likely to be furthered by his death, to be here taken into further consideration. But in the farewell discourses in John there are some declarations, which many are still inclined to refer to the resurrection. When Jesus says: I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you; yet a little time, and the world sees me no more, but ye see me; a little while, and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me, etc. (xiv. 18 ff., xvi. 16 ff.); many believe that these expressions—with the relation between μικρὸν καὶ πάλιν μικρὸν, a little while, and again a little while; the opposition between ἐμφανίζειν ἡμῖν (τοῖς μαθηταῖς) καὶ οὐχὶ τῷ κόσμῳ, manifest to you (the disciples) and not to the world; the words πάλιν ὄψομαι and ὄψεσθε, I shall see you again, and ye shall see, which appear to indicate a strictly personal interview—can be referred to nothing else than the resurrection, which was precisely such a reappearance after a short removal, and moreover a personal reappearance granted to the friends of Jesus alone. [1665] But this promised reappearance is at the same time described by Jesus in a manner which will not suit the days of the resurrection. If the words because I live, ὅτι ἐγὼ ζῶ (xiv. 19), denote his resurrection, we are at a loss to know what can be meant by the succeeding clause, ye shall live also, καὶ ὑμεῖς ζήσεσθε. Again, Jesus says that on that reappearance his disciples will know his relation to the Father, and will no more need to ask anything of him (xiv. 20, xvi. 23): yet even on the very last day of their intercourse with him after the resurrection, they ask a question of him (Acts i. 6), and one which from the point of view of the fourth gospel is altogether senseless. Lastly, when he promises that to him who loves him, he and the Father will come, and make their abode with him, it is perfectly clear that Jesus here speaks not of a corporeal return, but of his spiritual return, through the παράκλητος. [1666] Nevertheless, even this explanation has its difficulties, since, on the other hand, the expressions ye shall see me, ὄψεσθέ με, and I shall see you, ὄψομαι ὑμᾶς, will not entirely suit that purely spiritual return: hence we must defer the solution of this apparent contradiction until we can give a more complete elucidation of the discourses in which these expressions occur. In the meantime we merely observe, that the farewell discourses in John, being admitted, even by the friends of the fourth gospel, to contain an intermixture of the Evangelist’s own thoughts, are the last source from which to obtain a proof on this subject.

After all, there might seem to be a resource in the supposition, that though Jesus did not indeed speak of his future resurrection, it was not the less foreknown by him. Now if he had a foreknowledge of his resurrection, either he obtained it in a supernatural manner, by means of the prophetic spirit, the higher principle that dwelt within him—by means of his divine nature, if that be preferred: or he knew it in a natural manner, by the exercise of his human reason. But a supernatural foreknowledge of that event, as well as of his death, is inconceivable, owing to the relation in which Jesus places it to the Old Testament. Not merely in passages such as Luke xviii. 31 (which, as prophecies, can no longer have an historical value for us after the result of our last inquiry), does Jesus represent his resurrection, together with his passion and death, as a fulfilment of all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man, πάντων τῶν γεγραμμένων διὰ τῶν προφητῶν τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; but even after the issue, he admonishes his disciples that they ought to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ἐπὶ πᾶσιν οἷς ἐλάλησαν οἱ προφῆται, namely, that Christ ought to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory, ταῦτα ἔδει παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν, καὶ εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν δόξαν αὑτοῦ (Luke xxiv. 25 f.). According to the sequel of the narrative, Jesus forthwith expounded to these disciples (going to Emmaus) all the passages of scripture relating to himself, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ Μωσέως καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν προφητῶν, to which farther on (v. 44) the psalms are added; but no single passage is given us as having been interpreted by Jesus of his resurrection, except that it would follow from Matt. xii. 39 f., that he regarded the fate of the prophet Jonah as a type of his own; and regarding the subsequent apostolic interpretation as an echo of that of Jesus, it might be concluded, that he, as afterwards the apostles, found such prophecies chiefly in Ps. xvi. 8 ff. (Acts ii. 25 ff., xiii. 35); Isa. liii. (Acts viii. 32 ff.); Isa. lv. 3 (Acts xiii. 34), and possibly also in Hos. vi. 2. But the fate of Jonah has not even an external similarity to that of Jesus; and the book which narrates his history carries its object so completely in itself, that whoever may ascribe to it or to one of its particulars, a typical relation to events in futurity, assuredly mistakes its true sense and the design of its author. Isa. lv. 3 is so obviously irrelevant that one can scarcely conceive how the passage could be brought into special connexion with the resurrection of Jesus. Isa. liii. refers decidedly to a collective subject perpetually restored to life in new members. Hosea vi. has a figurative reference, not to be mistaken, to the people and state of Israel. Lastly, the principal passage, Ps. xvi. can only be interpreted of a pious man, who by the help of Jehovah hopes to escape from the danger of death, not in the sense that he, like Jesus, would rise again from the grave, but that he would not be laid there—that is, obviously, not for the present, and with the understanding, that when his time should come, he must pay the tribute of nature: [1667] which, again, will not apply to Jesus. Thus if a supernatural principle in Jesus—a prophetic spirit—caused him to discover a pre-intimation of his resurrection in these Old Testament histories and passages; then, as no one of them really contained such a pre-intimation, the spirit in him cannot have been the spirit of truth, but must have been a lying spirit, the supernatural principle in him, not a divine, but a demoniacal principle. If, in order to avoid this consequence, supranaturalists who are accessible to a rational interpretation of the Old Testament, resort to their only remaining expedient, of regarding the foreknowledge of Jesus concerning his resurrection as purely natural and human: we must reply, that the resurrection, conceived as a miracle, was a secret of the divine counsels, to penetrate into which, prior to the issue, was an impossibility to a human intelligence; while viewed as a natural result, it was a chance the last to be calculated upon, apart from the supposition of an apparent death planned by Jesus and his colleagues.

Thus the foreknowledge, as well as the prediction of the resurrection, was attributed to Jesus only after the issue; and in fact, it was an easy matter, with the groundless arbitrariness of Jewish exegesis, for the disciples and the authors of the New Testament to discover in the Old, types and prophecies of the resurrection. Not that they did this with crafty design, according to the accusation of the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, and others of his class: but as he who has looked at the sun, long sees its image wherever he may turn his gaze; so they, blinded by their enthusiasm for the new Messiah, saw him on every page of the only book they read, the Old Testament, and in the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, founded in the genuine feeling that he had satisfied their deepest need—a conviction and a feeling which we also still honour—they laid hold on supports which have long been broken, and which can no longer be made tenable by the most zealous efforts of an exegesis which is behind the age.

§ 115.

THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS ON HIS SECOND ADVENT. CRITICISM OF THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS.

Not only did Jesus, according to the evangelical accounts, predict that he should return to life three days after his death; but also that at a later period, in the midst of the calamities which would issue in the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, he should come in the clouds of heaven, to close the present period of the world, and by a general judgment, open the future age (Matt. xxiv. and xxv.; Mark. xiii.; Luke xvii. 22–37, xxi. 5–36).

As Jesus for the last time went out of the temple (Luke has not this circumstance), and his disciples (Luke says indefinitely, some) admiringly drew his attention to the magnificent building, he assured them that all which they then looked on, would be destroyed from its foundations (Matt. xxiv. 1, 2, parall.). On the question of the disciples, when this would happen, and what would be the sign of the Messiah’s coming, which in their idea was associated with such a crisis (v. 3), Jesus warns them not to be deceived by persons falsely giving themselves out to be the Messiah, and by the notion that the expected catastrophe must follow immediately on the first prognostics; for wars and rumours of war, risings of nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom, famine, pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places, would be only the beginning of the sorrows which were to precede the advent of the Messiah (v. 4–8). They themselves, his adherents, must first suffer hatred, persecution, and the sword; perfidy, treachery, deception by false prophets, lukewarmness and general corruption of morals, would prevail among men; but at the same time the news of the Messiah’s kingdom must be promulgated through the whole world. Only after all this, could the end of the present period of the world arrive, until when, he who would partake of the blessedness of the future must endure with constancy (v. 9–14). A nearer presage of this catastrophe would be the fulfilment of the oracle of Daniel (ix. 27), the standing of the abomination of desolation in the holy place (according to Luke xxi. 20, the encompassing of Jerusalem with armies). When this should take place, it would be high time for the most precipitate flight (according to Luke, because the devastation of Jerusalem would be at hand, an event which he more nearly particularizes in the address of Jesus to the city, xix. 43 f.: thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another). At this juncture, all who should have hindrances to rapid departure would be deserving of compassion, and it would be in the highest degree desirable that the recommended flight should not fall in an unfavourable season; for then would commence unexampled tribulation (according to Luke, v. 24, consisting chiefly in many of the people of Israel perishing by the sword, in others being carried away captive, and in Jerusalem being trodden down of the Gentiles for a predetermined period): a tribulation which only the merciful abridgment of its duration by God, for the sake of the elect, could render supportable (v. 15–22). At this time would arise false prophets and Messiahs, seeking to delude by miracles and signs, and promising to show the Messiah in this or that place: whereas a Messiah who was concealed anywhere, and must be sought out, could not be the true one; for his advent would be like the lightning, a sudden and universal revelation, of which the central point would be Jerusalem, the object of punishment on account of its sin (v. 23–28). Immediately after this time of tribulation, the darkening of the sun and moon, the falling of the stars, and the shaking of all the powers of heaven would usher in the appearance of the Messiah, who, to the dismay of the dwellers on the earth, would come with great glory in the clouds of heaven, and immediately send forth his angels to gather together his elect from all the corners of the earth (v. 29–31). By the fore-named signs the approach of the described catastrophe would be as certainly discernible as the approach of summer by the budding of the fig-tree; the existing generation would, by all that was true, live to witness it, though its more precise period was known to God only (v. 32–36). But, after the usual manner of mankind (what follows, Mark and Luke partly have not at all, partly not in this connexion), they would allow the advent of the Messiah, as formerly the deluge, to overtake them in thoughtless security (v. 37–39): and yet it would be an extremely critical period, in which those who stood in the closest relation to each other, would be delivered over to entirely opposite destinies (v. 40, 41). Hence watchfulness would be requisite, as in all cases where the period of a decisive issue is uncertain: an admonition which is then illustrated by the image of the master of the house and the thief (v. 43, 44); of the servant to whom his lord, when about to travel, entrusted the rule of his house (v. 45–51); of the wise and foolish virgins (xxv. 1–13): and lastly, of the talents (v. 14–30). Hereupon follows a description of the solemn judgment, which the Messiah would hold over all nations, and in which, according as the duties of humanity were observed or neglected, he would award blessedness or misery (v. 31–46). [1668]

Thus in these discourses Jesus announces that shortly (εὐθέως, xxiv. 29), after that calamity, which (especially according to the representation in Luke’s gospel) we must identify with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and within the term of the cotemporary generation (ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη, v. 34), he would visibly make his second advent in the clouds, and terminate the existing dispensation. Now as it will soon be eighteen centuries since the destruction of Jerusalem, and an equally long period since the generation cotemporary with Jesus disappeared from the earth, while his visible return and the end of the world which he associated with it, have not taken place: the announcement of Jesus appears so far to have been erroneous. Already in the first age of Christianity, when the return of Christ was delayed longer than had been anticipated, there arose, according to 2 Peter iii. 3 f., scoffers, asking: where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. In modern times, the inference which may apparently be drawn from the above consideration, to the disadvantage of Jesus and the apostles, has been by no one more pointedly expressed than by the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist. No promise throughout the whole scriptures, he thinks, is on the one hand more definitely expressed, and on the other, has turned out more flagrantly false, than this, which yet forms one of the main pillars of Christianity. And he does not see in this a mere error, but a premeditated deception on the part of the apostles (to whom, and not to Jesus himself, he attributes that promise, and the discourses in which it is contained); a deception induced by the necessity of alluring the people on whose contributions they wished to subsist, by the promise of a speedy reward: and discernible by the boldness of their attempts to evade the doubts springing from the protracted delay of the return of Christ: Paul, for example, in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, sheltering himself in obscure phrases; and Peter, in his second epistle, resorting to the preposterous expedient of appealing to the divine mode of reckoning time, in which a thousand years are equal to one day. [1669]

Such inferences from the discourse before us would inflict a fatal wound on Christianity; hence it is natural that exegetists should endeavour by all means to obviate them. And as the whole difficulty consists in Jesus having apparently placed an event now long past, in immediate chronological connexion with one still future, three expedients are possible: either to deny that Jesus in part spoke of something now past, and to allege that he spoke solely of what is still future; or to deny that a part of his discourse relates to something still future, and thus to refer the entire prediction to what is already lying in the past; or lastly, to admit that the discourse of Jesus does indeed partly refer to something which is still future to us, but either to deny that he places the two series of events in immediate chronological succession, or to maintain that he has also noticed what is intermediate.

Some of the Fathers of the Church, as Irenæus and Hilary—yet living in the primitive expectation of the return of Christ, and at the same time not so practised in regular exegesis, as to be incapable of overlooking certain difficulties attendant on a desirable interpretation—referred the entire prediction, from its commencement in Matt. xxiv. to its end in Matt. xxv., to the still future return of Christ to judgment. [1670] But as this interpretation admits that Jesus in the commencement of his discourse uses the destruction of Jerusalem as a type of the final catastrophe, it virtually nullifies itself. For what does that admission signify, but that the discourse of Jesus, in the first instance, produces the impression that he spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, i.e. of something now past, and that only more extended reflection and combination can give it a relation to something still lying in futurity?

To modern rationalism, based as it was on naturalistic principles, the hope of the second advent of Christ was in every form annihilated. Hence, not scrupling at any exegetical violence for the sake of removing from scripture what was discordant with its preconceived system, it threw itself on the opposite side, and hazarded the attempt to refer the discourses in question, in their entire tenor, solely to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the events which immediately preceded and followed it. [1671] According to this interpretation, the end spoken of is only the cessation of the Judeo-Gentile economy of the world; what is said of the advent of Christ in the clouds, is only a figurative description of the promulgation and triumph of his doctrine; the assembling of the nations to judgment, and the sending of some into blessedness, and others into condemnation, is an image of the happy consequences which would result from embracing the doctrine and cause of Jesus, and the evil consequences attendant on indifference or hostility to them. But in this explanation there is a want of similarity between the symbols and the ideas represented, which is not only unprecedented in itself, but particularly inconceivable in this case; since Jesus is here addressing minds of Jewish culture, and must therefore be aware that what he said of the Messiah’s advent in the clouds, of the judgment, and the end of the existing period of the world, would be understood in the most literal sense.

It thus appears that the discourse of Jesus will not as a whole, admit of being referred either to the destruction of the Jewish state, or to the events at the end of the world; it would therefore be necessarily referred to something distinct from both, if this twofold impossibility adhered alike to all its parts. But the case is not so; for while, on the one hand, what is said Matt. xxiv. 2, 3, 15 ff. of the devastation of the temple, cannot be referred to the end of the world: on the other hand, what is predicted xxv. 31 ff. of the judgment to be held by the Son of Man, will not suit the destruction of Jerusalem. As, according to this, in the earlier part of the discourse of Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem is the predominant subject, but in the subsequent part, the end of all things: it is possible to make a division, so as to refer the former to the more proximate event, the latter to the more remote one. This is the middle path which has been taken by the majority of modern exegetists, and here the only question is: where is the partition to be made? As it must present a space of time within which the whole period from the destruction of Jerusalem to the last day may be supposed to fall, and which therefore would include many centuries, it must, one would think, be plainly indicated, so as to be easily and unanimously found. It is no good augury for the plan, that this unanimity does not exist,—that, on the contrary, the required division is made in widely different parts of the discourse of Jesus.

Thus much on the one hand appeared to be decided: that at least the close of the 25th chapter, from v. 31, with its description of the solemn tribunal which the Messiah, surrounded by his angels, would hold over all nations, cannot be referred to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence many theologians believed that they could fix the boundary here, retaining the relation to the end of the Jewish state until xxv. 30, and at this point making the transition to the end of the world. [1672] On the very first glance at this explanation, it must appear strange that the great chasm which it supposes to exist between v. 30 and 31, is marked simply by a δὲ. Moreover, not only are the darkening of the sun and moon, earthquakes, and falling of the stars, understood as a mere image of the subversion of the Jewish state and worship; but when xxiv. 31, it is said of the Messiah, that he will come in the clouds, this is supposed to mean, invisibly; with power—only observable by the effects he produces; with great glory—with such as consists in the conclusions which may be drawn from those effects; while the angels who gather together the nations by the sound of the trumpet, are supposed to represent the apostles preaching the gospel. [1673] Quite erroneously, appeal is made, in support of this merely figurative meaning, to the prophetic pictures of the divine day of judgment, Isa. xiii. 9 ff., xxiv. 18 ff.; Jer. iv. 23 f.; Ezek. xxxii. 7 ff.; Joel iii. 3 ff.; Amos viii. 9; farther, to descriptions [1674] such as Judges v. 20; Acts ii., xvii. ff. In those prophetic passages, real eclipses of the sun and moon, earthquakes, and the like, are intended, and are described as prodigies which will accompany the predicted catastrophe; the song of Deborah, again, celebrates a real participation of heaven in the battle against Sisera, a participation which in the narrative, iv. 15, is ascribed to God himself, in the song, to his heavenly hosts; lastly, Peter expects, that the outpouring of the spirit will be succeeded by the appearances in the heavens, promised among the signs of the great day of the Lord.

The attempt to effect a division near the end of the discourse, at xxv. 30, failing, from its rendering much that goes before incapable of explanation; the next expedient is to retreat as far towards the commencement as possible, by considering how far it is inevitable to recognise a relation to the immediate future. The first resting place is after xxiv. 28; for what is said, up to this point, of war and other calamities, of the abomination in the temple, of the necessity for speedy flight, in order to escape unprecedented misery, cannot be divested of a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem without the greatest violence: while what follows concerning the appearance of the Son of Man in the clouds, etc., just as imperatively demands an application to the last day. [1675] But in the first place, it appears incomprehensible how the enormous interval, which on this explanation also is supposed to fall between the one portion of the discourse and the other, can be introduced between two verses, of all others, which Matthew connects by an adverb expressive of the shortest possible time (εὐθέως). It has been sought to remove this inconvenience by the assertion that εὐθέως does not here signify the quick succession of the one incident on the other, but only the unexpected occurrence of an event, and that consequently, what is here said amounts merely to this: suddenly, at some period (how distant is undetermined) after the calamities attendant on the destruction of Jerusalem, the Messiah will visibly appear. Such an interpretation of εὐθέως is, as Olshausen correctly perceives, merely a desperate resource: but even were it otherwise, it would afford no real aid, since not only does Mark in his parallel passage, v. 24, by the words, in those days, after that tribulation, ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις μετὰ τὴν θλίψιν ἐκείνην, place the events which he proceeds to mention in uninterrupted chronological succession with those which he had before detailed; but also, shortly after this point in each of the narratives (Matt. v. 34 parall.), we find the assurance that all this will be witnessed by the existing generation. As thus the opinion, that from v. 29, everything relates to the return of Christ to judge the world, was threatened with annihilation by v. 34; the word γενεὰ, as the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist [1676] complains, was put to the torture, that it might cease to bear witness against this mode of division. At one time it is made to signify the Jewish nation; [1677] at another the adherents of Jesus; [1678] and of both the one and the other Jesus is supposed to say that it will (how many generations hence being left uncertain) be still in existence on the arrival of that catastrophe. So to explain the verse in question, that it may not contain a determination of time, is even maintained to be necessary on a consideration of the context, v. 35: for as in this Jesus declares it impossible to determine the period of that catastrophe, he cannot immediately before have given such a determination, in the assurance that his cotemporaries would yet live to see all of which he had been speaking. But this alleged necessity so to interpret the word γενεὰ, has long been dissipated by the distinction between an inexact indication of the space of time, beyond which the event will not be deferred (γενεὰ), and the precise determination of the epoch (ἡμέρα καὶ ὥρα) at which it will occur; the former Jesus gives, the latter he declares himself unable to give. [1679] But the very possibility of interpreting γενεὰ in the above manner vanishes, when it is considered, that in connexion with a verb of time, and without anything to imply a special application, γενεὰ cannot have any other than its original sense: i.e. generation, age; that in a passage aiming to determine the signs of the Messiah’s advent, it would be very unsuitable to introduce a declaration which, instead of giving any information concerning the arrival of that catastrophe, should rather treat of the duration of the Jewish nation, or of the Christian community, of which nothing had previously been said; that, moreover, already at v. 33, in the words ὑμεῖς ὅταν ἴδητε πάντα ταῦτα, γινώσκετε κ.τ.λ., Ye, when ye shall SEE all these things, know, etc., it is presupposed that the parties addressed would witness the approach of the event in question; and lastly, that in another passage (Matt. xvi. 28 parall.) the certainty of living to see the coming of the Son of man is asserted not simply of this generation, γενεὰ αὕτη, but of some standing here, τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστηκότων, whereby it is shown in the most decisive manner, that in the present passage also, Jesus intended by the above expression the race of his cotemporaries, who were not to have become extinct before that catastrophe should occur. [1680] Unable to deny this, and yet anxious to separate as widely as possible the end of the world here announced, and the age of Jesus, others would find in the declaration before us nothing more than this: the events hitherto described will begin to be fulfilled in the present age, though their complete fulfilment may yet be deferred many centuries. [1681] But when already at v. 8 the subject is said to be the beginning of the tribulation, while from v. 14 we have a description of the end of the present period of the world, which that tribulation would introduce, and it is here (v. 34) said, the existing generation shall not pass away, ἕως ἂν πάντα ταῦτα γένηται, until all these things be fulfilled: we must inevitably understand by πάντα ταῦτα, all these things, not merely the beginning, but also the last-mentioned events at the end of the world.

Thus there is still at v. 34 something which must be referred to an event very near to the time of Jesus: hence the discourse of Jesus cannot from so early a point as v. 29, refer to the end of the world, an epoch so far distant; and the division must be made somewhat farther on, after v. 35 or 42. [1682] But on this plan, expressions are thrown into the first part of the discourse, which resist the assigned application to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem;—the glorious advent of Christ in the clouds, and the assembling of all nations by angels (v. 30 f.) must be regarded as the same extravagant figures, which formerly forbade our acceptance of another mode of division.

Thus the declaration v. 34 which, together with the preceding symbolical discourse on the fig tree (v. 32 f.), and the appended asseveration (v. 35), must refer to a very near event, has, both before and after it, expressions which can only relate to the more distant catastrophe: hence it has appeared to some as a sort of oasis in the discourse, having a sense isolated from the immediate context. Schott, for instance, supposes that, up to v. 26, Jesus had been speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem; that at v. 27 he does indeed make a transition to the events at the end of the present period of the world; but that at v. 32, he reverts to the original subject, the destruction of Jerusalem; and only at v. 36 proceeds again to speak of the end of the world. [1683] But this is to hew the text in pieces, out of desperation. Jesus cannot possibly have spoken with so little order and coherence; still less can he have so linked his sentences together as to give no intimation of such abrupt transitions.

Nor is this imputed to him by the most recent critics. According to them, it is the Evangelist who has joined together, not in the best order, distinct and heterogeneous declarations of Jesus. Matthew, indeed, admits Schulz, imagined that these discourses were spoken without intermission, and only arbitrariness and violence can in this respect sever them from each other; but hardly did Jesus himself deliver them in this consecutive manner, and with this imprint of unity. [1684] The various phases of his coming, thinks Sieffert, his figurative appearance at the destruction of Jerusalem, and his literal appearance at the last day, though they may not have been expressly discriminated, were certainly not positively connected by Jesus; but subjects which he spoke of in succession were, from their obscurity, confused together by the Evangelist. [1685] And as in this instance there recurs the difference between Matthew and Luke, that what Matthew represents as being spoken on a single occasion, Luke distributes into separate discourses; to which it is also to be added, that much of what Matthew gives, Luke either has not, or has it in a different form: therefore Schleiermacher [1686] believed himself warranted to rectify the composition of Matthew by that of Luke, and to maintain that while in Luke the two separate discourses, xvii. 22 ff. and xxi. 5 ff., have each their appropriate connexion and their indubitable application, in Matthew (chap. xxiv. and xxv.), by the blending of those two discourses, and the introduction of portions of other discourses, the connexion is destroyed, and the application obscured. According to this, the discourse, Luke xxi., taken alone, contains nothing which outsteps the reference to the capture of Jerusalem and the accompanying events. Yet here also (v. 27) we find the declaration, Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, τότε ὄψονται τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν νεφέλη; and when Schleiermacher explains this as a mere image representing the revelation of the religious significance of the political and natural events before described, he falls into a violence of interpretation which overturns his entire opinion as to the mutual relation of these accounts. If, then, in the connexion of the end of all things with the destruction of Jerusalem, Matthew by no means stands alone, but is countenanced by Luke—to say nothing of Mark, whose account in this instance is an extract from Matthew: we may, it is true, conclude, that as in other discourses of Jesus, so perhaps in this also, many things which were uttered at different times are associated; but there is nothing to warrant the supposition, that precisely what relates to the two events, which in our idea are so remote from each other, is the foreign matter, especially since we see, from the unanimous representation of the remaining New Testament writings, that the primitive church expected, as a speedy issue, the return of Christ, together with the end of the present period of the world (1 Cor. x. 11, xv. 51; Phil. iv. 5; 1 Thess. iv. 15 ff.; James v. 8; 1 Pet. iv. 7; 1 John ii. 18; Rev. i. 1, 3, iii. 11, xxii. 7, 10, 12, 20).

Thus it is impossible to evade the acknowledgment, that in this discourse, if we do not mutilate it to suit our own views, Jesus at first speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem, and farther on and until the close, of his return at the end of all things, and that he places the two events in immediate connexion. There remains, therefore, but one expedient for vindicating the correctness of his announcement, namely, on the one hand, to assign the coming of which he speaks to the future, but, on the other hand, to bring it at the same time into the present—instead of a merely future, to make it a perpetual coming. The whole history of the world, it is said, since the first appearance of Christ, is an invisible return on his part, a spiritual judgment which he holds over mankind. Of this, the destruction of Jerusalem (in our passage until v. 28) is only the first act; in immediate succession (εὐθέως, v. 29 ff.) comes the revolution effected among mankind by the publication of the gospel; a revolution which is to be carried on in a series of acts and epochs, until the end of all things, when the judgment gradually effected in the history of the world, will be made known by an all-comprehending, final revelation. [1687] But the famous utterance of the poet, [1688] spoken from the inmost depth of modern conviction, is ill-adapted to become the key of a discourse, which more than any other has its root in the point of view proper to the ancient world. To regard the judgment of the world, the coming of Christ, as something successive, is a mode of conception in the most direct opposition to that of the New Testament. The very expressions by which it designates that catastrophe, as that day or the last day, ἐκείνη or ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα, show that it is to be thought of as momentary; the συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος, end of the age (v. 3), concerning the signs of which the apostles inquire, and which Jesus elsewhere (Matt. xiii. 39) represents under the image of the harvest, can only be the final close of the course of the world, not something which is gradually effected during this course; when Jesus compares his coming to lightning (xxiv. 27), and to the entrance of the thief in the night (v. 43), he represents it as one sudden event, and not as a series of events. [1689] If we consider in addition to this the extravagant figures, which it is not less necessary to suppose on this interpretation, than on the above-mentioned reference of the 24th chapter to the destruction of Jerusalem, [1690] it will appear necessary to abstain from this expedient, as from all the previous ones.

Thus the last attempt to discover in the discourse before us the immense interval which, looking from our position in the present day, is fixed between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of all things, having failed; we are taught practically that that interval lies only in our own conception, which we are not justified in introducing into the text. And when we consider that we owe our idea of that interval only to the experience of many centuries, which have elapsed since the destruction of Jerusalem: it cannot be difficult to us to imagine how the author of this discourse, who had not had this experience, might entertain the belief that shortly after the fall of the Jewish sanctuary, the world itself, of which, in the Jewish idea, that sanctuary was the centre, would also come to an end, and the Messiah appear in judgment.

§ 116.

ORIGIN OF THE DISCOURSES ON THE SECOND ADVENT.

The result just obtained involves a consequence, to avoid which has been the object of all the futile attempts at explanation hitherto examined: if, namely, Jesus conceived and declared that the fall of the Jewish sanctuary would be shortly followed by his visible return and the end of the world, while it is now nearly 1800 years since the one catastrophe, and yet the other has not arrived; it follows that in this particular he was mistaken. Hence expositors, who so far yield to exegetical evidence, as to agree with us in the above conclusion concerning the meaning of the discourse before us, seek from dogmatical considerations to evade this legitimate consequence.

Hengstenberg, as is well known, has advanced, in relation to the history of the Hebrew prophets, the following theory, which has met with approval from other expositors. To the spiritual vision of these men, he says, future things presented themselves not so much through the medium of time as of space—as it were, in great pictures; and thus, as is the case in paintings or perspective views, the most distant object often appeared to them to stand immediately behind the nearest, foreground and background being intermingled with each other: and this theory of a perspective vision we are to apply to Jesus, especially in regard to the discourse in question. [1691] But we may here cite the appropriate remark of Paulus, [1692] that as one, who in a perspective externally presented, does not know how to distinguish distances, labours under an optical delusion, i.e. errs: so likewise in an internal perspective of ideas, if such there be, the disregard of distances must be pronounced an error; consequently this theory does not show that the above men did not err, but rather explains how they easily might err.

Even Olshausen considers this theory, which he elsewhere adopts, insufficient in the present case to remove all appearance of error on the part of Jesus; and he therefore seeks to derive special grounds of justification, from the particular nature of the event predicted. [1693] In the first place he regards it as indispensable to the full moral influence of the doctrine of Christ’s return, that this catastrophe should be regarded as possible, nay probable, at any moment. This consideration may indeed justify such enunciations as Matt. xxiv. 37 ff., where Jesus admonishes to watchfulness, because no one can know how soon the decisive moment may arrive; but by no means such as xxiv. 34, where he declares that within the term of the existing generation, all will be fulfilled. For one whose mind is in a healthy state, conceives the possible as possible, the probable as probable; and if he wishes to abide by the truth, he so exhibits them to others: he, on the contrary, by whom the merely possible or probable is conceived as the real, is under a mistake; and he who, without so conceiving it himself, yet for a moral or religious object, so represents it to others, permits himself to use a pious fraud. Olshausen further avails himself of a position already noticed, namely, that the opinion that the advent of Christ is at hand, is a true one, inasmuch as the entire history of the world is a coming of Christ; though not so as to exclude his final coming at the end of all things. But if it is proved that Jesus represented his literal, final coming as near at hand, while, in fact, only his figurative perpetual coming occurred in the period indicated: he has confused these two modes of his coming. The last argument which Olshausen adduces—that because the acceleration or delay of the return of Christ depends on the conduct of men, consequently on their free-will, his prophecy is only to be understood conditionally—stands or falls with the first; for to represent something conditional as unconditional is to create a false impression.

Sieffert, likewise, regards the grounds on which Olshausen seeks to free the assertions of Jesus concerning his return from the imputation of error, as inadequate; nevertheless he holds it an impossibility to the Christian consciousness, to ascribe an erroneous expectation to Jesus. [1694] In no case would this furnish a warrant, arbitrarily to sever from each other those elements in the discourse of Jesus which refer to the nearer event, from those which in our view refer to the more remote one: rather, if we had reasons for holding such an error on the part of Jesus inconceivable, we must deny in general that the discourses on the second advent, in which those two sets of materials are so inextricably interwoven, originated with him. But, looking from the orthodox point of view, the question is not: what will it satisfy the Christian consciousness of the present day to believe or not to believe concerning Christ? but, what stands written concerning Christ? and to this the above consciousness must accommodate itself as it best may. Considering the subject rationally, however, a feeling resting on presuppositions, such as the so-called Christian consciousness, has no voice in matters of science; and as often as it seeks to intermeddle with them, is to be reduced to order by the simple reprimand: mulier taceat in ecclesiâ! [1695]

But have we no other grounds for questioning that Jesus really uttered the predictions contained in Matt xxiv. and xxv. parall.? In pursuing this inquiry, we may first take our stand on the assertion of supranaturalistic theologians, that what Jesus here predicts, he could not know in the natural way of reasonable calculation, but only in a supernatural manner. [1696] Even the main fact, that the temple would be destroyed and Jerusalem laid waste, could not, according to this opinion, be so certainly foreknown. Who could conjecture, it is asked, that the Jews would carry their frantic obstinacy so far as to render such an issue inevitable? Who could calculate, that precisely such emperors, would send such procurators, as would provoke insurrection by their baseness and pusillanimity? Still more remarkable is it, that many particular incidents which Jesus foretold actually occurred. The wars, pestilence, earthquakes, famines, which he prophesied, may be shown in the history of the succeeding times; the persecution of his followers really took place; the prediction that there would be false prophets, and even such as would, by promises of miracles, allure the people into the wilderness (Matt. xxiv. 11, 24 ff. parall.), may be compared with a strikingly similar passage from Josephus, describing the last times of the Jewish state; [1697] the encompassing of Jerusalem with armies, mentioned by Luke, with the trench, χάραξ, which he elsewhere (xix. 43 f.) speaks of as being cast about the city, may be recognized in the circumstance recorded by Josephus, that Titus caused Jerusalem to be enclosed by a wall; [1698] lastly it may also excite astonishment that the declarations, there shall not be left one stone upon another, οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται λίθος ἐπὶ λίθῳ, in relation to the temple, and they shall lay thee even with the ground, ἐδαφιοῦσί σε, (Luke xix. 44), in relation to the city, were fulfilled to the letter. [1699]

When on the orthodox point of view, from the impossibility of foreseeing such particulars in a natural manner, it is concluded that Jesus had a supernatural insight into the future; this conclusion is here attended not only with the same difficulty as above, in connection with the announcement of his death and resurrection, but with another also. In the first place, according to Matthew (xxiv. 15), and Mark (xiii. 14), Jesus represented the first stage of the catastrophe as a fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel concerning an abomination of desolation, and consequently referred Dan. ix. 27 (comp. xi. 31, xii. 11) to an event at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. For what Paulus maintains,—namely, that Jesus here only borrows an expression from Daniel, without regarding that declaration of the prophet as a prophecy concerning something which in his time (the time of Jesus) was still future—is here rendered especially inconceivable by the addition: let him that readeth understand. Now it may be regarded as an established point in the modern criticism and explanation of the Old Testament, that the above passages in Daniel have reference to the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes; [1700] consequently, the interpretation of them which the Evangelists here lend to Jesus is a false one. But to proceed to the difficulty which is peculiar to the prophecy in Matt. xxiv., xxv.: only one side of it, that relating to Jerusalem, has been fulfilled; the other, that relating to the return of Jesus and the end of the world, remains unfulfilled. Such a half-true prophecy as this cannot have been drawn by Jesus from his higher nature, and he must have been left in this matter to his human faculties. But that he should be able, by means of these, to foresee a result, dependent on so many fortuities as was the destruction of Jerusalem, with its particular circumstances, appears inconceivable; and hence the conjecture arises, that these discourses, in the definiteness which they now possess, were not uttered prior to the issue, consequently not by Jesus, but that they may have been put into his mouth as prophecies after the issue. Thus Kaiser, for example, is of opinion that Jesus threatened a terrible fate to the temple and the nation by means of the Romans, conditionally, in case the nation did not accept salvation from the Messiah, and described this fate in prophetic types; but that the unconditional form and the more precise delineations were given to his discourse post eventum. Credner also infers, from the circumstances, that incidents accompanying the destruction of Jerusalem are put into the mouth of Jesus as prophecies, that the three first gospels cannot have been composed before this event. [1701] It must certainly be supposed that the prophecy, as we have it in the two first gospels, was formed immediately after or even during the issue, since here the appearance of the Messiah is predicted as an event that would immediately succeed the fall of Jerusalem, which in later years could no longer be the expectation. As this immediate chronological connexion of the two catastrophes is not so expressly made by Luke, it has been supposed that this Evangelist gives the prophecy as it was modified by experience, that the Messiah’s advent and the end of the world had in nowise followed close on the destruction of Jerusalem. [1702]

In opposition to these two opinions, that the prophecy in question had a supernatural source, and that it was only made after the issue; it is sought, in a third quarter, to show that what is here predicted, Jesus might really have known in a natural way. [1703] While, on the one hand, it is held in the highest degree astonishing that the result should have so closely corresponded with the most minute features of the prophecy of Jesus; on the other hand, there are expositors by whom this correspondence is called in question. The encompassing of Jerusalem with armies, say they, is precisely what Titus, according to Josephus, pronounces impossible to be effected; [1704] it is predicted that a trench χάραξ would be cast about the city, while Josephus informs us, that after the first attempt at forming an embankment χῶμα had been rendered useless, by an act of incendiarism on the part of the besieged, [1705] Titus desisted from his scheme; of false Messiahs, arising in the interval between the death of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem, history says nothing; the commotions among nations, and the natural phenomena, in that period, are far from being so important as they are here represented; but above all, in these prophecies, especially as they are given in Matthew and Mark, it is not the destruction of Jerusalem which is predicted, but solely that of the temple: plain divergencies of the prophecy from the result, which would not exist, if either a supernatural glance into the future, or a vaticinium post eventum were concerned.

According to these theologians, we are on the wrong track in seeking the counterpart of these prophecies forwards, in the result; since it was backwards, on types presented in the past, that the authors looked. A mass of such types was furnished by the Jewish conception of the circumstances which would precede the advent of the Messiah. False prophets and Messiahs, war, famine and pestilence, earthquakes and commotions in the heavens, prevalent corruption of manners, persecution of the faithful servants of Jehovah, were held to be the immediate harbingers of the messianic kingdom. Moreover, in the prophets there are descriptions of the tribulation which would presage and accompany the day of the coming of Jehovah (Isa. xiii. 9 ff.; Joel i. 15, ii. 1 ff., 10 ff., iii. 3 ff., iv. 15 f.; Zeph. i. 14 ff.; Hagg. ii. 7; Zech. xiv. 1 ff.; Mal. iii. 1 ff.), or which would precede the messianic kingdom of the saints (Dan. vii.–xii.), as also expressions in later Jewish writings, [1706] so analogous with our evangelical prediction, as to put it beyond question, that the description which it gives of the time of the Messiah’s advent is drawn from a circle of ideas which had long been current among the Jews.

Another question is, whether the principal feature in the picture before us, the destruction of the temple and the devastation of Jerusalem, as introductory to the coming of the Messiah, may also be shown to have made part of the popular conception in the time of Jesus. In Jewish writings we find the notion, that the birth of the Messiah would coincide with the destruction of the sanctuary: [1707] but this idea was obviously first formed after the fall of the temple, in order that a fountain of consolation might spring out of the lowest depth of misery. Josephus finds in Daniel, together with what relates to Antiochus, a prophecy of the annihilation of the Jewish state by the Romans: [1708] but as this is not the primary object in any of the visions in Daniel, Josephus might first make this interpretation after the issue, in which case it would prove nothing as to the time of Jesus. Nevertheless, it is conceivable, that already in the time of Jesus, the Jews might attribute to the prophecies of Daniel a reference to events yet future, although these prophecies in fact related to a far earlier period; and they might do so on the same grounds as those on which the Christians of the present age still look forward to the full realization of Matt. xxiv. and xxv. As immediately after the fall of the kingdom made of iron mixed with clay, and of the horn that speaks blasphemies and makes war against the saints, the coming of the Son of man in the clouds, and the commencement of the everlasting kingdom of the saints, is prophesied, while this result had not by any means succeeded the defeat of Antiochus: there was an inducement still to look to the future, not only for the heavenly kingdom, but also, since they were made immediately to precede it, for the calamities caused by the kingdom of iron and clay; among which calamities, by analogy with what was predicted of the horn, the desecration of the temple was conspicuous. But while the prophecy in Daniel includes only the desecration of the temple and the interruption of the worship, together with (the partial [1709]) destruction of the city: in the discourse before us complete destruction is predicted to the temple—and likewise to the city, not merely in Luke, where the expressions are very marked, but undoubtedly in the two other Evangelists also, as appears to be indicated by the exhortation to hasty flight from the city;—which prediction of total destruction, as it is not contained in the type, can apparently have been gathered only from the result. But in the first place, the description in Daniel with the expressions ‏שָׁמֵם‎ and ‏הִשְׁחִית‎ (ix. 26 f., xii. 11), which the LXX. translates by ἐρήμωσις, desolation, and διαφθείρω, I destroy, may easily be also understood of a total destruction; and secondly, if once, in connexion with the sins of the nation, the temple and city had been destroyed and the people carried away captive, every enthusiastic Israelite, to whom the religious and moral condition of his fellow-countrymen appeared corrupt and irremediable, might thenceforth expect and predict a repetition of that former judgment. According to this, even those particulars in which, as we have seen in the foregoing section, Luke surpasses his fellow-narrators in definiteness, are not of a kind to oblige us to suppose, either a supernatural foreknowledge, or a vaticinium post eventum: on the contrary, all may be explained by a close consideration of what is narrated concerning the first destruction of Jerusalem in 2 Kings xxv.; 2 Chron. xxxvi.; and Jer. xxxix. 52.

There is only one point which Jesus, as the author of this discourse, could not have gathered from any types, but must have drawn entirely from himself: namely, the declaration that the catastrophe which he described would arrive within the present generation. This prediction we must hesitate to derive from a supernatural knowledge, for the reason, already noticed, that it is only half fulfilled: while the other side of the fact, the striking fulfilment of at least the one half of the prophecy, might incline us to distrust the supposition of a merely natural calculation, and to regard this determination of time as a feature introduced into the discourse of Jesus after the issue. Meanwhile, it is clear from the passages cited at the conclusion of the last section, that the apostles themselves expected the return of Christ to take place within their lifetime; and it is not improbable that Jesus also believed that this event, together with the ruin of the city and temple, which according to Daniel was to precede it, was very near at hand. The more general part of the expectation, namely, the appearing at some future time in the clouds of heaven, to awake the dead, to sit in judgment, and to found an everlasting kingdom, would necessarily, from a consideration of Daniel, where such a coming is ascribed to the Son of man, be contemplated by Jesus as a part of his own destiny, so soon as he held himself to be the Messiah; while, with regard to the time, it was natural that he should not conceive a very long interval as destined to elapse between his first messianic coming in humiliation, and his second, in glory.

One objection to the genuineness of the synoptical discourses on the second advent, is yet in reserve; it has, however, less weight in our point of view than in that of the prevalent criticism of the gospels. This objection is derived from the absence of any detailed description of the second advent of Jesus in the Gospel of John. [1710] It is true that the fundamental elements of the doctrine of Christ’s return are plainly discoverable in the fourth gospel also. [1711] Jesus therein ascribes to himself the offices of the future judgment, and the awaking of the dead (John v. 21–30); which last is not indeed numbered among the concomitants of the advent of Christ in the synoptical gospels, but not seldom appears in that connexion elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Cor. xv. 23; 1 Thess. iv. 16). When Jesus, in the fourth gospel, sometimes denies that he is come into the world for judgment (iii. 17, viii. 15, xii. 47), this refers only to his first presence on earth, and is limited by opposite declarations, in which he asserts that he is come into the world for judgment (ix. 39, comp. viii. 16), to the sense that the object of his mission is not to condemn but to save, and that his judgment is not individual or partial; that it consists, not in an authoritative sentence proceeding subjectively from himself, but in an objective act proceeding from the intrinsic tendency of things, a doctrine which is significantly expressed in the declaration, that him who hears his word without believing he judges not, but the word, which he has spoken, shall judge him in the last day (ὁ λόγος, ὂν ἐλάλησα, κρινεῖ αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, xii. 48). Further, when the Jesus of John’s gospel says of the believer: οὐ κρίνεται, he is not judged, εἰς κρίσιν οὐκ ἔρχεται, he shall not come into judgment (iii. 18, v. 24), this is to be understood of a judgment with a condemnatory issue; when on the contrary, it is said of the unbeliever: ἤδη κέκριται, he is judged already (iii. 18), this only means that the assigning of the merited lot to each is not reserved until the future judgment at the end of all things, since each one in his inward disposition bears within himself the fate which is his due. This does not exclude a future solemn act of judgment, wherein that which has at present only a latent existence will be made matter of awful revelation; for in the very passage last quoted we find the consignment to condemnation, and elsewhere the awarding of future blessedness (v. 28 f., vi. 39 f., 54), associated with the last day and the resurrection. In like manner, Jesus says in Luke also, in the same connexion in which he describes his return as a still future, external catastrophe, xvii. 20 f.: The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, lo here! or, lo there! for behold the kingdom of God is within you. A certain interpretation of the words uttered by the Jesus of John’s gospel, supposes him even to intimate that his return was not far distant. The expressions already mentioned in the farewell discourses, in which Jesus promises his disciples not to leave them comfortless, but, after having gone to the Father, shortly (xvi. 16) to come again to them (xiv. 3, 18), are not seldom understood of the return of Christ at the last day; [1712] but when we hear Jesus say of this same return, that he will therein reveal himself only to his disciples, and not to the world (xiv. 19, comp. 22), it is impossible to think of it as the return to judgment, in which Jesus conceived that he should reveal himself to good and bad without distinction. There is a particularly enigmatical allusion to the coming of Christ in the appendix to the fourth gospel, chap. xxi.. On the question of Peter as to what will become of the apostle John, Jesus here replies, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? (v. 22) whence, as it is added, the Christians inferred that John would not die, since they supposed the coming (ἔρχεσθαι) here spoken of, to be the final return of Christ, in which those who witnessed it were to be changed, without tasting death (1 Cor. xv. 51 f.). But, adds the author correctively, Jesus did not say, the disciple would not die, but only, if he willed that he should tarry till he came, what was that to Peter? Hereby the Evangelist may have intended to rectify the inference in two ways. Either it appeared to him erroneous to identify the remaining until Jesus came, with not dying, i.e. to take the coming of which Jesus here spoke for the last, which would put an end to death; and in that case he must have understood by it an invisible coming of Christ, possibly in the destruction of Jerusalem: [1713] or, he held it erroneous that what Jesus had only said hypothetically—even if he willed the given case, that was no concern of Peter’s—should be understood categorically, as if such had really been the will of Jesus; in which case the ἔρχομαι would retain its customary sense. [1714]

If, according to this, all the main features of the doctrine of the second advent are put into the mouth of Jesus in the fourth gospel also, still we nowhere find anything of the detailed, graphic description of the external event, which we read in the synoptical gospels. This relation between the two representations, creates no slight difficulty on the ordinary view of the origin of the gospels, and especially that of the fourth. If Jesus really spoke of his return so fully and solemnly as the synoptists represent him to have done, and treated of the right knowledge and observation of the signs as something of the highest importance; it is inconceivable that the author of the fourth gospel could pass over all this, if he were an immediate disciple of Jesus. The usual mode of accounting for such an omission, by the supposition that he believed this part of the teaching of Jesus to be sufficiently known from the synoptical gospels, or from oral tradition, is the more inadequate here in proportion as all which bears a prophetic character, especially when relating to events at once so much longed for and dreaded, is exposed to misinterpretation; as we may see from the rectification just noticed, which the author of John xxi. found it necessary to apply to the opinion of his contemporaries concerning the promise given by Jesus to John. Thus, in the present case, an explanatory word would have been highly seasonable and useful, especially as the representation of the first gospel, which made the end of all things follow immediately on the destruction of Jerusalem, must be the more an occasion of doubt and offence the nearer the latter event came, and in a still greater degree when it was past. And who was more capable of affording such enlightenment than the favourite disciple, particularly if, according to Mark xiii. 3, he was the only Evangelist who had been present at the discourse of Jesus on this subject? Hence, here again, a special reason for his silence is sought in the alleged destination of his gospel for non-judaical, idealizing Gnostics, whose point of view those descriptions would not have suited, and were therefore omitted. [1715] But precisely in relation to such readers, it would have been a culpable compliance, a confirmation in their idealizing tendency, had John, out of deference to them, suppressed the real side of the return of Christ. The apostle must rather have withstood the propensity of these people to evaporate the external, historical part of Christianity, by giving due prominence to it; as, in his epistle, in opposition to their Docetism, he lays stress on the corporeality of Jesus: so, in opposition ta their idealism, he must have been especially assiduous to exhibit in the return of Christ the external facts by which it would be signalized. Instead of this, he himself speaks nearly like a Gnostic, and constantly aims, in relation to the return of Christ, to resolve the external and the future into the internal and the present. Hence there is not so much exaggeration, as Olshausen supposes, in the opinion of Fleck, that the representation of the doctrine of Jesus concerning his return in the synoptical gospels, and that given in the fourth, exclude each other; [1716] for if the author of the fourth gospel be an apostle, the discourses on the second advent which the three first Evangelists attribute to Jesus, cannot have been so delivered by him, and vice versâ. We, however, as we have said, cannot avail ourselves of this argument, having long renounced the pre-supposition that the fourth gospel had an apostolic origin. But, on our point of view, we can fully explain the relation which the representation of the fourth gospel bears to that of the synoptists. In Palestine, where the tradition recorded by the three first gospels was formed, the doctrine of a solemn advent of the Messiah which was there prevalent, and which Jesus embraced, was received in its whole breadth into the Christian belief: whereas in the Hellenistic-theosophic circle in which the fourth gospel arose, this idea was divested of its material envelopment, and the return of Christ became the ambiguous medium between a real and an ideal, a present and a future event, which it appears in the fourth gospel.