Jesus' career upon earth closed nearly nineteen hundred years ago. Subsequently the disciples who had personally associated with him carried on, for a few years, a propaganda in his name. Then another generation took up the movement, which had already begun to spread beyond the narrow confines of its original home in Palestine, and ultimately "Christianity" became the recognized religion of the western world. In this course of development many strong leaders championed its cause, new forces from time to time entered into the making of the new faith, and the ordinary transformations incident to a healthful and normal growth were duly manifest. After nearly nineteen centuries of this history we turn back to the shadowy form of Christianity's traditional founder and ask what significance he has for religion today. Remembering the long lapse of time, the comparative incompleteness of our knowledge of Jesus' earthly career, and the changed conditions of the modern age,
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it is not surprising that some persons should feel our question to be an idle one.
Furthermore, in the course of Christian thinking as a whole, reflection about Jesus has usually taken its departure from some prevailing type of speculation rather than from historical data. To begin with, the peculiar world-view of the primitive believers, who thought in terms of Jewish messianism and who looked for the end of the world in the near future, was employed for this purpose. But for Greek Christians neither of these ideas seemed supremely valuable. The latter was soon denied by history, and the former was too particularistic to be retained in its original form. Jesus' chief significance was now sought in the realm of metaphysical speculation, which, though varying somewhat in form at different times, has been the usual method of indicating his superior worth. In all this the historical Jesus was almost wholly ignored. Not that there was any conscious deviation from the traditional records of his career, but interpreters easily discovered there the particular type of person needed as the counterpart of their christological speculations. Hence the picture of Jesus which has been chiefly before
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the minds of believers from time to time has been a product of interpretation rather than a plain portrait of the individual who lived in Syria centuries ago.
This result was quite unavoidable. If Jesus was to have supreme value for successive generations of Christians he had to be reinterpreted in terms of the ideas which came to hold first place in each new age. It was impossible for believers of the second century to maintain, with those of the first generation, that Jesus' worth could be adequately measured by the expectation of his return upon the clouds during the lifetime of some who had been personally associated with him while on earth. Each new phase in the history of Christian thinking has been confronted by a similar problem with respect to the Christology of the past. Should Jesus be newly evaluated in terms of the newer thought? At the outset perhaps only a few theologians answered this question affirmatively, but ultimately their opinions prevailed just in proportion as the new intellectual outlook gained currency. If interpreters had left Jesus inextricably bound up with past modes of thinking then they must have abandoned him outright, or have allowed the needs of their
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age to pass unheeded. If he was to be saved for developing Christianity it was necessary that he be reinterpreted.
It is perfectly natural, therefore, that moderns should ask how they are to estimate Jesus' significance. An evaluation of him in terms of modern thought would seem to be inevitable. Many persons may be satisfied with some form of traditional Christology, but there are others who feel compelled to adopt, in their treatment of religious problems, the methods of critical inquiry which they recognize to be valid in other fields of study and a world-view which harmonizes with the data of modern knowledge. If Jesus is to have any vital significance for their religion, interpretation of him must be phrased in the language of present-day thinking.
The motive of this effort to understand Jesus anew should not be misunderstood. An expression of doubt regarding the validity of former views is sometimes looked upon as an attempt to disparage Jesus. On the contrary, its real aim is to obtain a more adequate means of appreciating his worth. One may question whether the first interpreters' speculations about him can lay any stronger claim to finality than can their cosmology, but the
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world has not lost its meaning because it has been newly interpretedin fact it has taken on a much larger meaning. If it is assumed that Jesus' chief significance lies in the speculative garments in which his earlier followers draped him, then there is danger that he lose prestige; but if he is discovered to have essential worth quite apart from their theology, the attempt to estimate his significance from the standpoint of modern thinking is scarcely to be feared.
Yet the modern situation raises a more fundamental issue than that formerly presented at critical periods in the history of christological development. Heretofore interpreters have quite uniformly centered attention upon the so-called Christ of faith. It has been the Christ-idea, the idea of a Savior-God perhaps we may say, that has held first place in Christian thinking. How slight, for example, was Paul's interest in the earthly Jesus apart from the saving significance which Paul attached to Jesus' death! Similarly, subsequent interpreters made it their chief task to expound Jesus' worth as the mediator of a God-assured salvation for mankind, the form of the dogma varying to suit current ideas about the world
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and man in relation to the deity. In all this it is the divine, heavenly Christ rather than the human, historical Jesus which stands in the foreground of interpretation. On the other hand there is now a strong demand that christological speculation definitely relate itself to the actual Jesus of history, and the serious question is whether this can be done without detriment to our estimate of Jesus' worth for religion.
Three ways of meeting this problem have been proposed, (1) Some interpreters assert that the main content of traditional Christology finds historical substantiation in Jesus' earthly career. (2) Others do not think the history supports the traditional views, and accordingly they would construct a new Christology from the material brought to light by their critical study of Jesus' life and teaching. (3) Yet others find the connection between his historical personality and the religion of men today so unimportant that they eschew all christological speculation and treat him as merely one of the phenomenamore or less significantin the history of our religion. These three main types of opinion need to be examined more closely in order to bring out the distinctive issues of our present problem.
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Those who hold the first of these opinions would make the worship of the heavenly Christ the distinguishing mark of modern as well as of primitive Christianity. Hence the Jesus of history is not to be differentiated from the Christ of faith, since it was in the latter capacity that Jesus actually presented himself to men, even during his earthly career. That is, he claimed to be an anthropomorphized deity, and was so recognized by his believing followers.[1] To this fundamental tenet of traditional Christology "liberals" raise two general objections. They maintain that (1) critical inquiry upon the life and teaching of Jesus does not allow this reading of the history, and (2) a modern world-view cannot adopt this type of metaphysical speculation.
[1] Cf., among the more recent discussions, Garvie, Studies in the Inner Life of Jesus (New York, 1907); Grützmacher, Ist das liberale Jesusbild modern? (Gr. Lichterfelde, 1907); Nolloth, The Person of Our Lord and Recent Thought (London, 1908); Denney, Jesus and the Gospel (New York, 1909); Jordan, Jesus im Kampfe der Parteien der Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1907), and Jesus und die modernen Jesusbilder (Gr. Lichterfelde, 1909); Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (Boston, 1909); Dunkmann, Der historische Jesus, der mythologische Christus und Jesus der Christ (Leipzig, 1910); Warfield, The Lord of Glory (New York, 1907), and "The Two 'Natures' and Recent Christological Speculation" in the American Journal of Theology, XV (1911), 337-61, 546-68; also several contributors to the Hibbert Journal Supplement, 'Jesus or Christ?" (London, 1909).
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It is unnecessary here to re-examine in detail the content of primitive interpretation.[1] The results of historical criticism are now well known, and for those who accept these results it is evident that the Christ of faith was thought of at first as an individual soon to come in glory. Jesus upon earth may have inspired messianic hopes in some of his immediate associates, but these hopes were not identical with those which followed the resurrection faith, and which resulted in giving the risen Christ a position in the reverence and worship of his followers nearly identical with that of God. Only by degrees did interpreters come to find qualities in the earthly Jesus which enabled them to portray his life in terms of their thinking about the heavenly Christ. This was accomplished by explaining away such seemingly contradictory features as his death, and by making the blindness of the disciples responsible for their generally admitted failure to perceive in him, while with them on earth, the characteristics which they later ascribed to the heavenly
[1] See above, chap. v. Cf. also J. Weiss, Jesus im Glauben des Urchristentums (Tübingen, 1909) and Christus: Die Anfänge des Dogmas (Tübingen, 1909); Granbery, Outline of New Testament Christology (Chicago, 1909); Bacon, Jesus the Son of God (New Haven, 1911).
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Christ. Thus thought passed from the Messiah to come, and centered itself upon the Messiah who had come.
Then arose the question how he had become such. While the future was looked to for the manifestationor for the chief manifestationof his messiahship, the question of "how" was answered in the language of apocalypticism, but as emphasis upon the messianic quality of his earthly career grew stronger new answers had to be found. These needs are met by recalling his spiritual endowment at baptism, his virgin birth, and the incarnation of the logos in him. At first faith was directed toward an angelic figure whose uniqueness was yet to be revealed; then thought was fixed more firmly upon an earthly individual especially endowed with divine favor, and from this it went on to regard Jesus as actual deity anthropomorphically manifest. If we consider historical criticism alone, it does not follow that this last stage of interpretation may not be the most accurate and valuable explanation of the significance of Jesus' personality; but to carry this back into Jesus' own teaching and to make it the most primitive and the only type of early Christian thinking is what causes offense in the eyes of "liberal" historical critics.
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The second main objection urged against the traditional Christology is the extent and character of its emphasis upon the supernatural. Many now feel that this way of picturing God's relation to human life and history is too mechanical to give a religiously adequate estimate of Jesus. According to the newer world-view, unprecedented and seemingly extraordinary events in history need not be assigned to other-world causes in order to give them significance. This world is now far richer in reality than it was for the ancients. Then it was barren and narrow and could be enriched only from without, while for moderns the enrichment has come increasingly from within. In proportion as the conquest of the normal has enlarged, confidence in it has increased, and the need for the abnormal has gradually grown less. This is no impoverishment of the spiritual possibilities of the universe, but it does mean the elimination of externalism, freakishness, and arbitrary intervention in the normal world-order. So it follows that in interpreting Jesus the category of supernaturalism is felt by many to be an inadequate way of picturing his worth, and this is not because he has lost significance but because the category has done so. This
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situation is seen more definitely, for example, in the use which has been made of certain terms to indicate the idea of his deity, terms which no longer fitly answer to the conception of deity even when they are used of God himself. To be sure, it was inevitable that primitive thought upon this subject should move in the realm of physical relations, employing such ideas as defiance of the course of Nature, unlimited exercise of the powers of sense, and the like; but today it is believed that more comprehensive and spiritual terms are needed to express the idea of God and his relation to men. Accordingly a more liberal type of interpretation proposes a different way of ascertaining Jesus' significance for modern times. In contrast with the foregoing procedure, it would use a minimum of metaphysical theory and a maximum of history in its evaluation of Jesus. To some extent this is a concession to the reaction against supernaturalism begun by the rationalists a century or more ago, but the rationalists are not always followed all the way. The crasser forms of belief in the supernatural are eliminated, but in treating Jesus he is commonly felt to be historically so unusual, and to answer so ideally the spiritual cravings of the
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soul, as to be a unique agency for bringing God and man together.
The antecedents of this mode of interpretation may be traced back even to Herder, whose reason would have led him to ally himself with the rationalists but whose poetic sensitiveness of spirit enabled him to find religious worth in miracle narratives. Schleiermacher's contribution in this direction was more significant. He too did not give first place to miracles, but he emphasized the immediacy of religious feeling and so found God revealed in the personal life of Jesus, particularly as described in the Fourth Gospel.[1] Similarly Ritschl saw a revelation of the cosmic purpose in the historical Jesus, who, being the unique embodiment of the religious ideal which faith craves, has the value of God for us. Thus he is the supreme revelation of God in history.
The more recent exponents of this general method still further reduce the amount of supernaturalism allowed. Relatively minor stress is placed upon specific deeds and words of Jesus, while emphasis rests mainly upon his
[1] We should remember that Schleiermacher came before the days of scientific literary criticism of the gospels, and he found the absence from John of the more abundant miracle display of the Synoptics rather gratifying.
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historical personality. His consciousness of a peculiar relation to God, the unique vitality of his own religion, the height of his religious ideals, and the like, are made the chief basis for an estimate of his significance. Accordingly the essence of Christianity does not consist in holding any given set of beliefs about Jesus, but in the reproduction of his type of life.
But in order to measure more exactly Jesus' significance for modern thinking, how do the "liberals" define his uniqueness? The traditional explanation, which modern liberalism rejects, is very simple andgranting its premisesvery satisfactory: Jesus is unique in that he comes into the world from without. He is not a product of the present world-order; he is rather a new contribution to its life. Liberal interpretation of the more usual type prefers a less strongly dualistic world-view, but it does not always content itself with defining Jesus' uniqueness in a strictly naturalistic manner. He is held to be a normal product of evolutionary laws and is purely human, yet in some vague and undefined or indefinable way he stands aparta gleam of light out of the eternal world. So Warschauer,[1] who in general does not appeal to the
[1] Jesus: Seven Questions (London, 1908).
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supernatural for evidence of Jesus' worth, speaks of Jesus as the one "sent in the fulness of time," the "crowning instance" of the divine immanence. Harnack puts stress upon the idea that God is truly manifest only in personal life, and that Jesus reveals his uniqueness both in his own unparalleled God-consciousness and in his ability to awaken in believers an assurance of divine sonship.[1] Similarly Wernle recognizes a supernatural self-consciousness in Jesus which differentiates him from the rest of humanity;[2] and Schmiedel notes that Jesus "had something to offer which appeals to every human heart in the universe and is to that
[1] Cf. Christianity and History (London, 1896, pp. 36 f.), Das Wesen des Christentums (Leipzig, 1900, pp. 81 f.; English tr., What Is Christianity? New York, 1901, pp. 127 ff.). The Twofold Gospel in the New Testament (Berlin-Schöneberg, 1911, pp. 10 f.; translated from the report of the Fünfter Wellkongress für freies Christentum und religiösen Fortschritt, Berlin, 1910, pp. 151 ff.).
[2] Die Anfänge unserer Religion (Tübingen, 1904, p. 28): "Das Wunderbare bei Jesus ist das Zusammensein des übermensch-lichen Selbstbewusstseins mit der tiefsten Demut vor Gott. Der-selbe Mensch, der ruft: Alles ist mir vom Vater übergeben worden, und niemand kennt den Vater als der Sohn, antwortet dem Reichen: Was nennst du mich gut? Niemand ist gut, als der Eine Gott. Ohne das Erste ein Mensch, wie wir, ohne das Zweite ein Schwarmer. Jesus selbst hat sich als Mittler empfun-den. Der Mittler ist durchaus Mensch, ohne Abzug, aber er hat von Gott einen besonderen Beruf und Auftrag an die Menschen bekommen, und dadurch iiberragt er sie." Cf. English tr., Beginnings of Christianity (New York, 1904, I, 40).
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extent eternally true. Above all he possessed a religious nature of such strength and purity as have never to our knowledge been combined in any other person."[1] Bousset hints at a distinction between "transient" and "eternal" in the personality of Jesus, who is the symbol of the divine idea and the supreme example of a God-directed human life.[2] Thus Jesus, according to this school of interpretation, has significance in two directions: (1) Most conspicuously is he a model human being, a uniquely successful seeker after God, and so an abiding example and inspiration to his fellowmen
[1] Jesus in Modern Criticism (London, 1907, pp. 88 f.).
[2] The Significance of the Person of Jesus for Belief (Berlin-Schöneberg, 1911; translated from the report of the Fünfter Weltkongress für freies Christentum und religiösen Fortschritt, pp. 291-305). Cf. Troeltsch, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben (Tübingen, 1911, p. 50): "'Gott in Christo' kann für uns nur heissen, dass wir in Jesus die höchste uns zugängliche Gottesoffenbarung verehren und dass wir das Bild Jesu zum Sammelpunkt aller in unserem Lebenskreise sich findenden Selbstbezeugungen Gottes machen." Weinel says: "Aber wer in ihm das Ideal auch seines Lebens erfasst, der erlebt an ihm auch Gott" (Ist das "liberale" Jesusbild wider-legt?, p. 84). Whether Bousset is to be reckoned among the representatives of this second type of interpretation seems to some of his readers doubtful. They would assign him to the third group. Thus Wobbermin (Geschichte und Historie in der Religionswissenschaft, Tübingen, 1911, pp. 47-72) thinks Bousset's treatment of Jesus as the "symbol" of the divine no longer allows him any significance as a source of our religion.
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who are engaged in a similar search. (2) He is yet more. Though not himself God, yet as an illustration of God's self-revelation in a human personality he transcends all others who have gone before or who have come after him. Thus he virtually becomes a bearer of something from God to man in the mystical realm of spiritual life. His chief significance lies in helping humanity God-ward, but in some less distinct yet real manner he brings God man-ward.
Advocates of the third main attitude mentioned above take exception to the foregoing interpretation. They object to the retention of the smallest remnant of philosophical dualism in one's thought about Jesus, however skilfully such dualism may be veneered by admiration for Jesus on grounds alleged to be strictly historical. They refuse to entertain any world-view which is not absolutely monistic. God and the world are one in the most rigid sense, and his activity is not to be differentiated at any point from the totality of the cosmic flux. There are, to be sure, variations in matters of detail among exponents of this monistic faith. Some put stress upon mysticism, and so find the fundamental unity by absorption into an emotionless Nirvanaa view which Schopenhauer
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and Richard Wagner, for example, employed in thinking of Jesus. A kindred line of thought emphasizes the identification of God with the universe, as illustrated more recently in the pantheistic interpretation of Christianity by E. von Hartmann[1] and A. Drews.[2] Perhaps their metaphysical theory might be termed a monism of divine will, the will of God being identified with the world-process. Others subordinate the thought of God to that of matter, thus producing a distinctly materialistic monism like that of Haeckel, according to which Christianity and Jesus are purely naturalistic cultural products and have no further significance. Others advocate an idealistic monism in which mind is the unifying conceptan inheritance from Kant and Hegel with the last vestiges of dualism eliminated. Here the final test of all religious values is determined by the dictates of reason.
It follows that emphasis upon the supreme
[1] Die Krisis des Christentums (Leipzig, 1888), Das Christentum des neuen Testaments (Sachsa, 1905), et al. Cf. also von Schnehen, Der moderne Jesuskultus (Frankfurt, 1906); Anderson, "The Collapse of Liberal Christianity" in the Hibbert Journal, VIII (1910), 301-20, and "Whitherward?a Question for the Higher Criticism," ibid., IX (1911), 345-64.
[2] Die Religion als Selbst-Bewusstsein Gottes, Die Christusmythe, et al.
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value of history for religious thinking does not appeal to the monist. For him the essential in Christianity is not belief in a sensuous yet supernatural revelation of God in Jesus Christ, nor is it a reproduction of the religion of Jesus. It is rather the embodiment of ideas and ideals resulting from the modern man's reaction upon the whole realm of realitypast and presentavailable for him. The personal religion of Jesus, the religion of his disciples, religious life in all ages, even among adherents of non-Christian faiths, are valuable for modern reflection, but, according to this view, Christianity at heart is a matter of spiritual immediacy in each new age and is fundamentally neither a historically nor a miraculously mediated product. It is primarily an attainment, not an inheritance. The present indeed has a rich inheritance from the past, particularly in Christian history, but present-day Christianity, on this understanding of its character, is the total embodiment of the actual religious attainments of modern men in a modern environment.[1]
[1] This point has recently received new emphasis in the Jatho-Harnack controversy. For example, Wernle asks whether Protestantism is essentially a definite historical quantity, or whether it is something which every man may formulate to his own liking. Wernle adheres to the former notion and finds his historical Grösse in Jesus, who, though strictly human, exhibited so unique a spiritual life "dass wir uns in dem Menschen Jesus von Gott berührt wissen." Jatho, on the other hand, admits the desirability of drawing upon the past for all possible help in the cultivation of spiritual life, but declines to regard Jesus so authoritatively. He is inspirational but in no sense normative: "Was je von Wert und Bedeutung über Gott gesagt worden ist, trägt sein Mass in sich selbst, d.h. in der Persönlichkeit, welche es sagte. Nur für diese ist es massgebend, für keine andere." See Die Christliche Welt, XXV (1911), 878 f., 916-19, 946-51.
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This idea, that religion to be vital must be cut loose from historical moorings, is not altogether "modern." It arose with the conception that ideas rather than events are the most significant items in religion, and reason rather than history is the proper tribunal for judging the validity of religious truth.[1] The application of these principles to modern liberalism results in its condemnation on the ground of its "sickly" metaphysics. Its claim that a historical phenomenon can be set up as an ideal of absolute worth is held to be a contradiction in terms. For if the ideal has once been actually realized then it becomes something static, may be transcended, and so is no longer the highest ideal. Hence, from this standpoint, to set up the historical Jesus as in
[1] Cf. Lessing's dictum: "Zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten können der Beweis von notwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten nie werden."
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any real sense a culminating revelation of God, or to treat him and his teaching as normative for later generations, is condemned on principle. And to overlook speculative considerations is felt to be a neglect of the only criterion available for the adequate estimation of religious values. Nothing can be of permanent religious worth except ideas which have eternal and cosmic significance. Even Strauss said: "Our age demands to be led in Christology to the idea in the fact, to the race in the individual; a theology which, in its doctrines on the Christ, stops short at him as an individual, is not properly a theology, but a homily."
It is also urged that not only is anything in the nature of a historical absolute intrinsically impossible, but Jesus is not so ideal as liberal theology supposes. As a matter of historical fact, it is said, the modern picture of him cannot be established with certainty. Wellhausen remarks that we cannot go back to him even if we would,[1] while others think we know
[1] And further: "Dadurch, dass man den historischen Jesus zum religiosen Dogma macht, wird man schliesslich gezwungen, wie die alten Rationalisten 'die historische Bedingheit' von ihm abzustreifen (Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, Berlin, 1905, p. 115). Cf. Strauss: "Der Jesus der Geschichte, der Wissenschaft, ist lediglich ein Problem, ein Problem aber kann nicht Gegenstand des Glaubens, nicht Vorbild des Lebens sein."
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him too well as a man of his own age to admit of the "liberal" idealization. So Schweitzer affirms: "It is nothing less than a misfortune for modern theology that it mixes history with everything and ends by being proud of the skill with which it finds its own thoughtseven to its beggarly pseudo-metaphysic with which it has banished genuine speculative metaphysic from the sphere of religionin Jesus, and represents him as expressing them." This representation of him is thought to be a pure fiction, "a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb."[1] Thus exception is taken, on grounds alleged to be purely historical, to the general claim of ideality which the "liberals" usually make for Jesus. His ethical principles are declared to be antiquated, if indeed they are not to be pronounced more seriously defective when judged by modern standards. And his attitude of indifference toward the ordinary relations of life, his other-worldliness, makes his example and teaching, so it is said, relatively worthless for modern needs. The liberals are charged
[1] The Quest for the Historical Jesus (London, 1910, pp. 396 ff.; German, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, Tübingen, 1906). Cf. Pfleiderer, Early Christian Conception of Christ (London, 1905, p. 12).
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with absurdity in surrendering Jesus' world-viewphrased as it is in terms of the Ptolemaic astronomy and Jewish apocalypticismwhile they yet hold to the validity of Jesus' view of life. It is urged that this too should be set aside, for his is the ideal of an age "which knew nothing of the demands of modern life, or of a further and further development of humanity here upon this planet." Upon the most burning problems of our day he had nothing to say; "the state and the family, the laborer and the employer, these fundamentals of our existence have for him no worth."[1]
How shall moderns find their way through this maze of opinion about Jesus? Shall they apply the metaphysical test for determining his worth? If so they have a long road to travel, and must spend much time and energy discussing the relative merits of different types of speculation. For many today the category of supernaturalism, at least in its traditional form, seems to be discredited, while others still think it fully valid. Looking at Jesus from the speculative point of view, those whose world-view is such that special value attaches to alleged happenings lying outside the course of
[1] F. Lipsius in Berliner Religionsgespräch, p. 80.
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natural law will be able to retain the terminology of the ancient faith; others may resort to the speculative notions of later times, perhaps adopting the Hegelian postulate of the divine idea, thus removing the miracle from the physical sphere into the realm of ideas; still others will wish to level the thought of Jesus down to the ordinary plane of human experience; and in no instance will the results of one set of interpreters seem at all adequate to those who view him from a different standpoint. After all it is not Jesus and his worth, but it is a world-view which is at stake here.
Can a more satisfactory outcome be attained by applying the historical test? The answer to the question would seem to depend largely upon what one is seeking in the history. Sometimes historical criticism has been asked to state what it has fixed upon as the pure facts about Jesus. Can it tell us whether he was miraculously born, whether he was really God, whether his physical body was raised from the tomb, and give other information of a similar character? To answer candidly, the historian cannot give a final reply to inquiries of this sort. He can observe the place of these items in the early faith, the probable date of their appearance
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in the literature, and the special theological interests which they originally served, but he cannot produce a mathematical demonstration either for or against their validity. There are two main reasons why he cannot do this. In the first place his earliest sources of information were not given literary form until a generation or more after the events, and so the narratives are liable to be colored by the pious fancy of the primitive interpreter; and in the second place these problems are primarily speculative rather than historical. The question of the quality of the phenomena is involved, and it cannot be answered apart from some metaphysical theory. Nor is a type of historical study which is content with determining the content of primitive belief wholly adequate for modern needs. Much of the phraseology and many of the thought-forms of primitive Christianity do not correspond to modern men's ideas of what constitutes the highest values in their world of thought. This is not strange when we remember that modern scientific ideas, the evolutionary interpretation of the world, the comparative study of religions, and the present complex conditions of society must of necessity enter into the making of any vital
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type of modern religious thinking. One who goes to history to discover an infallible christological dogma to be made normative for all men in modern times must expect to be disappointed in his search.
Is it desirable therefore to surrender the notion that Jesus has any essential worth for one who accepts the results of recent historical research, and whose world-view is of the so-called modern scientific type? Since Jesus cannot be "proved" to be an anthropomorphized deity, and history cannot be thought to contain infallible dicta for modern religion, why not break the "entangling alliance" between religion and history and permit the present, in its thinking about the significance of Jesus, to be absolutely a law unto itself? This need not mean that he is to be wholly ignored, but his worth would be merely incidental and would be discovered in the contribution which thought of him has made to the history of religion rather than in his actual historical career.[1]
[1] On the relation of history to modern religion one may note Harnack, Chistianity and History; Troeltsch, Die Absolutheit des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte (Tübingen and Leipzig, 1902), and "Glaube und Geschichte" in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, II (Tübingen, 1910, cols. 1447-56); Lovejoy, "The Entangling Alliance of Religion and History" in the Hibbert Journal, V (1906-7), 258-76; Eck, Religion und Geschichte (Tübingen, 1907); Wobbermin, op. cit.
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The rigid application of this method is also unsatisfactory. In the first place it lends itself too readily to subjectivism. Merely from the standpoint of scientific method, must it not be said that moderns are already exercising too freely the liberty of making what they please out of Jesus? One has only to recall the present situation to realize the danger in this direction.[1] Some are saying that he was not a historical person, or, if he lived at all, comparatively nothing about him can now be known. For others he is a historical character, but one of a very different sort from that portrayed in the gospels. Sometimes his Semitic ancestry is doubted, and he is even made the exponent of Buddhistic doctrine, teaching a self-redemption to be attained by a complete suppression of all desire. Others see in him an ideal teacher of pantheism. For others he appears in the likeness of the Old Testament prophets speaking for the righteous God of Israel; or, again, he is more like a contemporary rabbi, or one of the Old Testament sages. Many represent him to have been a neurotic visionary who faced death in the
[1] Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus; Weinel, Jesus im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 1907); Pfannmüller, Jesus im Urteil der Jahrhunderte (Leipzig und Berlin, 1908), may be consulted for a survey of types of interpretation.
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confidence that he would soon return upon the clouds to vindicate his supernatural claims. Still others find in him an ideal social reformer, and even the exponent of anarchistic principles. Again, he is sometimes thought not to have been a religious enthusiast but a typical ethical theorist. For others he stands forth as an ideal modern theologian who took special pains in his teaching to furnish future generations with doctrinal proof-texts. Nor has the history failed to yield for still others specific proof of Jesus' supernatural personality.
This situation makes imperative the exercise of a discriminating historical research, even if one has no further end in view than the interests of scientific scholarship. But it is also fundamental for interpretation of Jesus. If one chooses to think of him at all, intelligent reflection must proceed from the most objective facts which can possibly be obtained. And to estimate the significance of historical personalities, one always desires to look upon the individuals, in so far as this is possible, as they actually appear in the ordinary relations of daily life. Their deeds and words then take on a new vitality. Modern evaluation of Jesus cannot break with history, but it must, if anything,
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be more strictly historical than past interpretations have been.
Yet it is not to be imagined that an accurate acquaintance with history is of itself a guaranty of piety, or that the discovery of the actual historical Jesus will supply any ready-made, normative christological dogma. Piety is primarily a personal attainment, with respect to which the historical Jesus can have significance only as a stimulus and an inspiration. And Christology is, in its last analysis, an estimate of Jesus' worth for the individual interpreter. Nor can history claim to supply the ultimate realities of personal religion. The essential item of religion for the individual is, admittedly, a spiritually enlightened religious consciousness, and to know what Jesus said or did, or how he lived, may be less valuable than is the religious heritage of historical Christianity handed down from age to age in his name. It is sometimes said, and not without a degree of truth, that life's religious values would not be essentially affected even if it should be discovered that Jesus was no such ideal personage as history representsif indeed belief in his existence should have to be surrenderedsince it is primarily the ideal and not the person that is significant
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for moderns. Whether Jesus made this ideal, or whether someone else was its author is, therefore, thought to be of minor importance.[1] On the other hand it will be generally admitted that meditation upon the life and work of Jesus has been eminently valuable in stimulating religious living among believers in all ages. Various ideas about him were sometimes surrendered to meet new thought-demands, but to have given up entirely the notion of his existence, and so to lose the inspiration of his pious personality, would have been disastrous for Christian faith throughout the greater part of Christendom. The contemplation of the objective, notwithstanding the serious perversion to which it is always liable, has usually been, and not improbably will continue to be, an important means of cultivating religious life. Some masterful spirits may be able to reach the heights of religious attainment otherwise, but the majority seem destined to climb by the more laborious path
[1] In the Hat Jesus gelebt? controversy it is granted by some "liberals," though they stoutly defend Jesus' existence on historical grounds, that Christianity would not collapse if belief in Jesus' historicity had to be surrendered. Cf. also D. C. Macintosh, "Is Belief in the Historicity of Jesus Indispensable to Christian Faith?" in the American Journal of Theology, XV (1911), 362-72.
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where they lean hard upon the past for support and encouragement. And not infrequently, too, they, with their narrower vision it may be, will regard those who have come up some other way as thieves and robbers. Moreover, there are many Christians with whom the intellectual aspects of life hold an important place, and they are particularly desirous that their ideas about Jesus shall be compatible with historic fact. Under these circumstances it is not a question of dispensing with history but of enlightening its pages and making it furnish the utmost possible aid for the practical religious needs of modern times.
Historical study, it would seem, can render a more valuable service in the present situation by disclosing the grounds of the primitive Christians' faith, than by attempting to supply a definite christological dogma. The first believers certainly had their doctrines, yet they had something else more fundamental. We have already seen that the Jesus who founded Christianity was not a mere dogma. He was a religious individual with whom the disciples had intimate personal association, and from whom emanated an influence sufficiently powerful to support their strong, bold type of interpretation and to inspire the
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loyal quality of life which they exemplified. The force of Jesus' personality, expressed and perpetuated in the work of the disciples, is amply attested in the success of the new movement. Judas of Gamala, Barcochba, and even John the Baptist, seem to have had quite as many adherents to preserve their memory as did Jesus, and the circumstances which attended them were hardly more adverse than those through which he passed. Yet their cause failed while his succeededa significant testimony to the vital impress his personality left upon his disciples. The exceptional manner in which he awakened the deeper elements of religious faith gave the new religion a stimulus by which it conquered even so stubborn a foe as Saul of Tarsus.
Unquestionably there were many contributing factors in the genesis of the primitive faith. The resurrection appearances, antecedent messianic notions, possible personal claims of Jesus to messiahship, all exerted their influence; yet it is perfectly clear, as we have earlier remarked, that these things were not uppermost in the disciples' minds when they first recalled their life of association with Jesus. The earliest gospel tradition is explicit in stating that the
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predictions of his resurrection fell upon unresponsive soil; while belief in his messiahship did not take shape until near the close of his ministry, and even then it was a faltering hope which quickly vanished under the shadow of the cross. We are not to imagine that memory of the historical Jesus was in any large measure at first linked with these interpretative ideas. That this fact can be seen in the present form of the tradition is all the more significant in view of the special needs for the framers of the tradition to show that the later faith in the risen and exalted Messiah was consonant with the disciples' actual recollection of Jesus. We may believe that the features in his life which made the most abiding impression at the time were not any claims of his to high official dignity, either for the present or for the future, but the strength of his own forceful personality. Indeed it may be that we shall not go far astray if we think of this as a very essential factor in the genesis of the resurrection faith, as well as in stimulating the first Christians' messianic belief. It is not strange that Jesus' early followers should ultimately have made him the object of their worship, or that men today should be similarly moved; but we must not lose sight of
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the fact that his personal religion rather than the religion about him was of fundamental importance. He lived religiously and thus inspired believers to live similarly.
From this standpoint his worth for moderns lies primarily in the content of his life, as history discloses his superior personal efficiency in the spiritual sphere. He has for men today the same essential value that he had for the primitive disciples, in so far as history permits acquaintance with him, and he answers modern needs. He has usually been, and one may venture to think he always will be, esteemed according to the degree in which he aids men in their struggle for salvation. But since for many persons today it is no longer possible to make the external element central in the thought of salvation, some forms in which his worth was formerly phrased may have to be set aside. Nevertheless the power of his person and his message continues to be a mighty inspiration prompting modern men to the worthiest spiritual attainments and encouraging them to realize in their own lives a genuine experience of God. In this respect he is now, as he always has been, the great Savior. The maintenance of harmonious relations with
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the divine, and the emulation of the Godlike life in one's own life, is still a great religious ideal. Moderns may wish to phrase it in more secular language and call it the establishment of right relations with the universe, or it may be stated in the warmer, richer phraseology of Jesus and called the demand for the realization of spiritual sonship to God. But struggle as we may with terms, the ideal remains, and not the least important feature in Jesus' significance for many moderns will be the fact that his religious life reveals the secret of transforming the ideal into the real.
The general spirit of his life has been felt continually and broadly wherever the memory has been preserved. The high standards of righteousness maintained by Christians today, their emphasis upon brotherly love, the control of noble ideals in their lives, are a heritage from him. The theoretical question of whether these things would have been realized without him, however answered, does not alter the fact that thousands have found the inspiration which comes from him their mainstay in the struggles of life. Many persons today are repeating the experiences of the past in this respect, and even the twentieth century, with all its inventive
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skill, can scarcely hope to furnish a better agency for the propagation of righteousness and personal piety. True, Jesus was not the first to admire virtue nor the first to preach righteousness. Before his day the marble statue of goodness had been unveiled and its graceful proportions admired; but he succeeded as other artists had not in putting a throbbing heart within that marble breast, thus infusing it with the warmth of real life. He gave a personal demonstration of the possibilities of noble attainment by showing that trustful fellowship with the Father enabled one to live the life of personal purity, to maintain the optimistic spirit, to cherish the attitude of brotherly kindness and social service. If we could peer into the secrets of Christian life in past ages we might find that much of the credit interpreters have taken to themselves for presenting Jesus effectively to men has been quite secondary in comparison with the winning force of his life. The power of Christianity is in its life, the lives of believers lived in likeness to and under the inspiration of the life of Jesus. By thus seeking the basal element for present thought in a study of the real content of Jesus' life, one may escape the perplexities of ecclesiastical
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dogma without sacrificing the essential thing which inspired the creeds and yet sometimes eluded them. Failure to recognize that the personal religious life of Jesus lay at the basis of all genuine interpretation seems to have been a weakness of theologians from the beginning. Even the first disciples, who were deeply impressed by their life of association with Jesus, preferred to set in the foreground their own inferences about the meaning of his career. And eventually the efforts of later believers to account for the original force of his personality became entangled in grave logical difficulties regarding such problems as how he could be both truly God and truly man, or how he could be God by the side of God himself, and yet Christians hold to belief in only one God. The creed makers' efforts to fix the content of belief by much definition of phrases answered the needs of their day, but modern interpretation must go behind the dogmas which have gathered about Jesus and make his historical personality its corner-stone. And it would not be surprising if this should ultimately mean a more significant appreciation of Jesus' worth for religious thought than would be possible on the basis of any amount of
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metaphysical dualism which the oriental imagination or the ancient Greek philosophy was capable of inventing.
Yet we may at first be disposed to exclaim: "They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him." As the women at the tomb were vainly yet anxiously seeking the living among the dead, so it frequently happens that seekers after truth experience a shock when they find their former ideas transformed into new shapes at first hardly recognizable. But if the new conserve the values of the old the transformation may ultimately prove a blessing, notwithstanding the inconvenience of a temporary disturbance of thought. The first disciples passed through dark hours of agonizing experience before their new faith in the living Lord emerged, but it proved to be a new power in their lives enabling them to retain the estimate of Jesus which their personal contact with him had inspired. Indeed, when the limitations imposed by the earthly relationship were removed the disciples were able to paint their picture of his worth with far bolder strokes than had formerly been possible. The changes in christological doctrine which have come about from time to time in
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the history of Christianity have sometimes cost believers pain, yet changes were necessary if Christian thought of Jesus was to maintain its vitality.
Newer types of interpretation seem to have proved adequate just in so far as they preserved the vital content of the older views, and at the same time answered the thought-demands of their own day. Today the older metaphysics, in terms of which Jesus has usually been interpreted, is unsatisfactory to many persons. To meet this situation efforts are now being made to go behind all former christological theories to the historical Jesus, and with a knowledge of his life as a basis to estimate his significance in the light of spiritual rather than external relations. It will doubtless be generally conceded that this method is in harmony with certain phases of modern thought, but still it may be asked, Does it conserve those elements which made the older Christology valuable and effective?
At the basis of all past interpretation of Jesus lie two ideas to which chief worth has been attached: men have found in him their ideal for human life, and they have regarded him as the concrete embodiment of their highest
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thought of God. These values have been formally expressed in the doctrine of his perfect humanity on the one hand and his absolute deity on the other. All christological speculation may be said to have described its orbit about these two foci.
No one is likely to doubt that the former of these underlying values is preserved by the modern historical method of interpretation. Surely nothing could bring out more emphatically Jesus' worth as an ideal for life than the effort to fix renewed attention upon his earthly career. In fact modern demands are not satisfied with a merely objective contemplation of his career, or a parrot-like imitation of his action; the present calls for men who not only have seen Jesus standing in a niche of the past, but who see him today beckoning them on to the realization of the noblest attainments in the modern world of action. For them Jesus is more than a pattern to be copied, he is a demonstration of spiritual power to be felt today by those who have received the unction of his spirit.
Is the second of these main values also conserved? As already indicated, the doctrinal form by which it has usually been expressed
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presupposes a metaphysical theory now become for many modern minds obsolete and unworkable. According to its presentation God impinged upon the universe from without, he projected himself into human history, he expressed his love for men by a semi-legal transaction making salvation possible; in short, the more external features of Jesus' career were coupled with current notions about the deity to form a concrete setting for these notions. Without question, this phase of Jesus' value for the religious experience of that age had to be estimated in this currency if estimated at all; and just in so far as men today find greatest satisfaction in thinking of God in terms of externalism will they still need to picture Jesus in this way if he is to have important religious significance.
But the converse is also true. Those who feel that the most vital experience of the unseen can be adequately pictured only in spiritual terms will probably derive greater religious satisfaction from meditating upon the spiritual content of Jesus' life. Under these circumstances it will seem more important to seek in Jesus help for worthy living and enlightenment for one's thought of God than to try to frame
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an interpretation of Jesus in the language of any predetermined metaphysical theory. The problem, then, is not to decide upon the kind of Jesus which is demanded by one's ideas of God, but to attain the vision of God which a knowledge of Jesus makes possible. Ancients and moderns alike feel that God who is "unknown" is less immediate than Jesus who has visibly appeared upon the stage of human history, hence Jesus becomes immediately helpful in clarifying and enriching human experience of the divine. In his loyal service for humanity is found the manifestation of divine love; in his religious life the reality and power of spiritual communion with the unseen are vividly expressed; his teaching and his conduct inspire loyalty to the divine will; in brief, when human life is brought into close touch with Jesus' life, he so clarifies one's sense of moral obligations and one's consciousness of spiritual realities that he becomes a most valuable aid to a better vision of the Father. He who pictures the unseen Father in spiritual likeness to Jesus of Nazareth will find a new meaning in the words: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
Go to The Historicity of Jesus by S.J. Case table of contents.