It is self-evident that the gospels, in their account of Jesus, purport to portray the career of a historical individual. It is equally clear that the primitive assembly of believers, as described in the Book of Acts, included individuals who had been personally associated with Jesus during his life upon earth. As the horizon widens to take in growing missionary activities, the opinions of those leaders who had known the earthly Jesus become, because of their connection with him, a norm for measuring Christian doctrine and practice. Throughout these writings the reality of Jesus' existence seems to be a fundamental presupposition. Are we to treat this as a genuine representation, or may it appear on closer inspection that the figure of Jesus fades out when brought into the brighter light of critical scrutiny? It should be remembered that our immediate aim is not to determine the full content of reliable information about Jesus, but only to ask whether these
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writings testify at all reliably to the bare fact of his existence.
The radicals uniformly contend that these documents are practically worthless witnesses on these questions. Or, in so far as their testimony is reliable, it even favors a denial of Jesus' historicity. Already we have remarked that this opinion is not defended by extensive argument but is affirmed almost as though it were an indisputable fact. This treatment of the subject gives no adequate idea of the actual results of modern gospel criticism. Although many perplexing questions have been raised, and much uncertainty is still felt regarding some items in the tradition, critical study has not itself reached the extreme of skepticism represented by the modern radicals. They, however, assert that the critics fail to push their results to a logical conclusion, which would mean, it is said, that the gospels and Acts would not be given any historical recognition. Not only are these works held to be tendency writings throughout, but the date of their composition is brought down so late that any connection with the actual history of a Jesus who is supposed to have lived in the first quarter of the first century A.D. becomes altogether problematic.
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The gospels themselves, it is true, do not explicitly state the date of their origin, nor do they define the situation to which they belong. Only in the case of the Fourth Gospel is any indication of authorship given, and even there it stands in the appendix.[1] In these respects the gospels are in sharp contrast with the usual style of pseudepigraphic writings. Everything indicates that they appeared as perfectly ingenuous works whose claim to a hearing rested upon the supposed truthfulness and serviceability of their contents. Not until tradition labeled them with apostolic or near-apostolic names, and invested them with a unique dignity, did the notion of an authoritative gospel literature arise. When once this happened, the soil was prepared for a crop of pseudepigraphic writings whose authors thought to win a hearing for their opinions by putting them forth in the assumed garb of apostolic tradition. It is a striking testimony to the relatively early date of our canonical gospels that they are so free from the earmarks of pseudepigraphy. Today it may seem a great misfortune that they do not bear definite self-attestation to their author and date, yet we may console ourselves with the thought that
[1] 21:24.
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this very lack shows them to have been pioneers, belonging to that formative period of Christianity when the things of which they speak were more or less common property and did not need any artificial authentication.
As to the exact dates of the several gospels, the testimony of early Christian writers is not so explicit as it is for Paul's epistles—a fact which seems to imply a later date for the rise of the gospel literature. Moreover the internal indicia, which in Paul's letters enable one to fix dates and places with comparative certainty, are almost entirely lacking in the gospels. Yet both external and internal testimony yields some substantial results regarding the time and manner of their origin. Thereby they become possible witnesses to the life and work of a historical Jesus.
In the last quarter of the second century several writers of unquestionable reliability bear united testimony to the existence of the gospels, and also to the high esteem in which they had come to be held. Irenaeus' testimony on this point is very clear,[1] and in the Muratorian
[1] It seems superfluous to cite references in detail, since these are usually given in full in works on the origin of the New Testament; e.g., Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents. Part I (New York, 1904).
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Canon the four gospels were evidently enumerated at the beginning of the list of New Testament books. About the same time Tatian incorporated them into his Diatessaron, and the Sinaitic Syriac translation is also commonly assigned to this same period. Papias' oft-quoted remarks about Matthew and Mark are of still earlier date. Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the century, makes extensive use of gospel language and speaks of "memoirs" written by apostles. He specifies memoirs of Peter, but is not more definite on the question of the gospels' origin. It may be that tradition had not yet fully fixed itself in this matter, or possibly Justin assumed that his readers would have no interest in these details. Marcion used the Third Gospel, and presumably knew the others. Certainly Ignatius and Polycarp were familiar with evangelic tradition, though they make no definite mention of an individual gospel. Clement of Rome, on two occasions, cites teachings of Jesus which resemble gospel language but which are not sufficiently exact to be taken for quotations. From this survey it is clear that the gospels were in existence before the close of the second century. They had, moreover, attained the status of canonical
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literature, and had even been given first place in the New Testament collection.
This may not seem to carry us far toward establishing their reliability as witnesses for events in the first three decades of the first century. But we are not to imagine that the above data convey any adequate idea of the actual extent to which tradition about Jesus was known and used in the first half of the second century. The external evidence now known to us pertains more particularly to the history of the gospels' rise to prominence than to the fact of their existence. Since they had not been issued under the egis of any special authority, it was only gradually that they won their way to general recognition. We remember that Ignatius encountered Christians who were unwilling to accept any written authorities except the "charters," seemingly meaning the Old Testament, yet these individuals were doubtless acquainted with all the essentials of gospel tradition as commonly repeated and interpreted in public preaching and teaching. Their demurrer is not a rejection of gospel tradition but a hesitation about placing any writing on a plane with the Old Testament as "Scripture." Thus it appears that the scantiness
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of reference to the gospels in the early second century is no fair measure of the probability or improbability of their existence at that time.
The fact seems to be that many persons in this period prized oral tradition above written records, probably because the oral teaching represented not only essentially everything contained in the gospels, but being more fluid in character it was more easily adapted to individual needs and local conditions. Papias is reported to have said that in his youth he did not think he could derive so much profit from the contents of books as from "the utterance of a living and abiding voice." In the first quarter of the second century men were still living who had been personal associates of the apostles, and as tradition probably had not yet officially stamped the gospels with apostolic authority, it was not surprising that the "living and abiding voice" in the first generation after the apostles should have been more generally popular than written records which had originally been designed for some given set of local circumstances. But as time passed the "voice" became silent and the written word was allowed to speak. Marcion, by differentiating the
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notion of authoritative Christian writings, probably gave added stimulus to this tendency, especially since Christianity was compelled to wrest its valued traditions from the hands of the heretic. At any rate, from Marcion's time on the recognition of authoritativeness for Christian writings is much more pronounced than in the previous generation. Had Marcion come a half-century earlier we might today know much more than we now do about the early existence of our New Testament books.
Early tradition does in reality connect the rise of the gospels, so far as Mark and Matthew are concerned, very closely with the age of Jesus. According to Eusebius, Papias, in his expositions of the "sayings" of the Lord, stated on the authority of the "Elder":
Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered, without however recording in order what was either said or done by Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow him; but afterward, as I said [attended], Peter who adapted his instructions to the needs [of his hearers] but had no design of giving a connected account of the Lord's "sayings." So then Mark made no mistake while he thus wrote down some things as he remembered them, for he made it
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his one care not to omit anything that he heard, or to set down any false statement therein.[1]
Other traditions connect the writing of this gospel with Rome, soon after Peter is supposed to have arrived there, or else after his death. All this testimony implies the spread of Christianity in the gentile world before the date of Mark's composition, which corresponds with certain data in this gospel indicating that the work was intended for non-Jewish readers.[2]
Papias says further, in this same connection, that "Matthew composed the sayings in the Hebrew language and each one interpreted them as he could." Matthew's collection of "sayings" seems to be identified by Eusebius with the Gospel of Matthew, of which he says: "Matthew, after preaching to Hebrews, when about to go also to others, committed to writing in his native tongue the gospel that bears his name, and so by his writing supplied to those whom he was leaving the loss of his presence."[3] Clement of Alexandria, on the authority of the "Preaching of Peter," thinks the apostles did not leave Palestine until twelve
[1] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., III, 39.
[2] E.g., explanations of Jewish terms, places, customs, etc., 3:17; 5:41; 7:2 ff.; 7:34; 10:46; 12:42; 13:3; 14:2, 32; 15:42.
[3] Hist. Eccl., III, 24.
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years after Jesus' death, which would fix the date at about 42 A.D.[1] According to these witnesses it would appear that the First Gospel was originally written in Hebrew (or Aramaic)[2] by the apostle Matthew before the year 42 A.D. Thus popular tradition placed the composition of Matthew, or at least a Matthean collection of "sayings," at an early date and in a Palestinian setting; while Mark's Gospel was thought to belong to a slightly later date, but yet to have a close connection with the primitive tradition as reported by Peter.
The more specific determination of the time and the historical connection in which the gospel materials took shape depends upon a close study of the documents themselves. This work has gone on so steadily in recent years, and its results are so generally known, that the main points in the discussion, and the present status of opinion, may be summarized very briefly.[3]
[1] Strom., VI, 5.
[2] Probably "Hebrew" is used loosely for Aramaic, the language of daily life among the Palestinian Jews in Jesus' day. The term is so used in Josephus, War, VI, ii, 1 (cf. Ant., III, x, 6); and the proper nouns in John 5:2; 19:13, 17, though called "Hebrew," show the Aramaic form in the ending.
[3] The extensive literature on this subject has been well summarized by such representative scholars as Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament (New York, 1911, pp. 177 ff.); H. Holtzmann, "Die Marcus-Kontroverse in ihrer heutigen Gestalt" in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, X (1907), 18-40, 161-200; Loisy, Les évangiles synoptiques (Paris, 1907 pp. 59-83). Burkitt's Gospel History and Its Transmission (Edinburgh, 1906) is an illuminating survey of the problem itself. Cf. the same author's The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus (Boston and New York, 1910).
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A comparative examination of the first three gospels shows that Mark furnished the outline and much of the narrative material for the other two. The older view, that Mark was a later abbreviation made on the basis of Matthew and Luke, is now all but universally abandoned. The Second Gospel is unquestionably one of the sources employed in the writing of the First and Third Gospels. Furthermore, Matthew and Luke are found to agree very closely in several passages where Mark furnishes no parallel. On the other hand, their numerous disagreements with one another make it improbable that Matthew used Luke, and vice versa. They sometimes cover the same period with entirely different narratives, as in the accounts of Jesus' infancy; they often set parallel material in very different contexts, a fact illustrated in their handling of the "Sermon on the Mount"; and they usually differ in their alterations of, or additions to, their common source Mark.[1] Evidently they availed themselves
[2] It is true that sometimes they agree against Mark, but these agreements are relatively so few that they are too frail a support, in the opinion of most scholars, for any theory of mutual interdependence between Matthew and Luke. The agreements may be in some cases accidental, they may be due to transcriptional assimilation, or the form of Mark used may have been somewhat different from our canonical version.
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of some common source of information in addition to Mark. Unfortunately this is no longer extant, and efforts to reconstruct it from Matthew and Luke have not thus far proved wholly satisfactory.[1] Yet the early existence of a non-Markan document or documents, largely dealing with Jesus' teachings, and used
[1] The so-called "two-document" hypothesis, which regards Mark and the logia as the principal sources of the Synoptic Gospels, was worked out in its essential features as early as 1838 by Weisse (Die evangelische Geschichte) and Wilke (Der Urevangelist), but it did not win any general acceptance until the appearance of H. Holtzmann's Synoptische Evangelien in 1863. With slightly varying details it was advocated by Weizsäcker in 1864 and B. Weiss in 1872. Since then it has been the dominant theory, especially in Germany. But the non-Markan source is still much discussed. It is now commonly referred to as Q (Quelle) rather than logia, in order to avoid prejudging its content, about which there is still much uncertainty. Burton (Principles of Literary Criticism and the Synoptic Problem, Chicago, 1904) assigns the material to three documents: (1) the logia of Papias, (2) an account of the Perean ministry, and (3) a Galilean source; while other minor sources supplied other material peculiar to Matthew or to Luke. Harnack (Sprüche und Reden Jesu, Leipzig, 1907) prefers the theory of a single document, brief in compass. B. Weiss (Die Quellen der synoptischen Ueberlieferung, Leipzig, 1908), as on former occasions, claims a more comprehensive content for Q. The algebraic X would seem to be a still more appropriate designation for this source material, as then we should not have to commit ourselves to Quelle as against Quellen—a point on which there is still room for differences of opinion (cf. Luke 1:2 f.).
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in common by the writers of Matthew and Luke, is now taken by most scholars to be an established fact.
These results make it evident that we cannot identify our Gospel of Matthew with the Matthean treatise referred to by Papias. Our book does not bear the earmarks of a translation. In its present form it was originally a Greek composition which in many places was copied word for word from the Greek of Mark. This dependence upon Mark also necessitates a new dating for Matthew, as compared with the date 42 A.D., suggested by early tradition. Since Papias seemed to think Mark appeared subsequently to Matthew's collection of sayings, it has commonly been assumed in recent times that Papias assigned to the apostle Matthew some such early source as we find used in Matthew and Luke, in addition to Mark.[1] However this may be, the existence of this document, or of similar collections of early Christian tradition, is an unquestionable conclusion, even if we were dependent upon Matthew and Luke alone for its substantiation.
[1] He may, however, have been thinking about our Matthew but applied to it the tradition about the other work which, even if any longer extant, may not have come under his personal observation.
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Thus the genetic units of synoptic tradition are: (1) The Gospel of Mark, mainly concerned with a narrative of Jesus' career, and (2) other tradition which did not necessarily ignore Jesus' deeds but which was especially interested in reporting his teaching. Although many details are still uncertain, it is certainly hyper-skepticism to maintain that we have not a fairly clear idea of this stage in the literary history of the gospels.
How near do these results bring us to the Jesus of history? The fact that Mark is a source for Matthew and Luke, the explicit statement in Acts 1:1 that this work is a sequel to the Third Gospel, and the belief now current that the author of the Fourth Gospel was acquainted with the Synoptics, supplies the relative chronological scheme for thinking of the rise of this literature. Since Mark stands at the beginning, and the non-Markan source of Matthew and Luke seems to be earlier than Mark,[1] the justice of gospel tradition's claim
[1] Wellhausen holds the contrary opinion, but dates Mark about 50 A.D., which still allows a relatively early date for "Q." Harnack would have us believe that "Q," and Mark, and Luke-Acts were all written before Paul's death, but the view is as yet too purely hypothetical to be used in this connection (Neue Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte und zur Abfassungszeit der synoptischen Evangelien, Leipzig, 1911; so also Koch, Die Abfassungszeit des lukanischen Geschichtswerkes, Leipzig, 1911). Many are of the opinion, however, that Mark may embody some earlier source materials. Cf. J. Weiss, Das älteste Evangelium (Göttingen, 1903); Müller, Geschichtskerne in den Evangelien (Giessen, 1905); Wendling, Urmarcus (Tübingen, 1905) and Die Entstehung des Marcus-Evangeliums (Tübingen, 1908); Bacon, The Beginnings of Gospel Story (New Haven, 1909); cf. also Loisy, op. cit., pp. 85 f.
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to be heard in testimony for Jesus' existence will depend ultimately upon whether these earliest elements in the tradition may reasonably be assigned to a time and a situation in which personal knowledge of a historical Jesus was possible.
While there are still differences of opinion about the exact dates of the several gospels, critical scholarship of today agrees on placing them within fairly well-defined limits. The last thirty-five years of the first century is the general period in which the composition of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts is commonly placed. Our immediate concern is with Mark. Irenaeus[1] says this gospel was written in Rome after the death of Peter and Paul, but whether this statement rests upon a reliable tradition, or is merely Irenaeus' interpretation of the vaguer testimony of Papias, is uncertain. Similar uncertainty attaches to the tradition that Rome
[1] Haer., III, i, 1.
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was the place of composition. More specific evidence for the dating must be sought in the gospel itself, and this is found in chap. 13. Here Jesus is credited by the author (or by his source) with predicting in emphatic terms the end of the world in Jesus' own generation (13:30 f.; cf. 9:1). Would a tradition of this sort be put into circulation for the first time after everybody who had been of Jesus' own generation was dead? A writer would not be likely to invent for Jesus a saying which history in the writer's own day had shown to be false. A later editor or transcriber might preserve such a tradition, either unconscious of its incongruity, or because he felt it could be explained by some device of interpretation, but he would not create it de novo unless he wished to disparage the individual of whom he was writing—an inconceivable thing for a Christian biographer of Jesus to do. This prophecy about the end must, therefore, represent either an original saying of Jesus, or a saying first ascribed to him while certain of his own associates were still alive. In either case it presupposes a close connection chronologically between Jesus and the framers of the tradition. Another noticeable feature of this thirteenth
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chapter of Mark is a cautioning against mistaking certain tragic happenings for the actual approach of the ultimate catastrophe, which would bring the present world-order to a close. Preliminary to the final disaster there was to be a season of great tribulation, the like of which the world had never seen before. What historic occasion corresponds to these dire events, when the people of Judea will need to flee to the mountains and when messianic pretenders will endeavor to obtain a following among Christians? Evidently the siege and fall of Jerusalem (66-70 A.D.), described while the fall is yet imminent, or soon after the event. And how closely does the end of all things follow upon these preliminary happenings? The end seemingly is not far off. The gospel is first to be preached to all the nations,[1] yet the end is coming "in those days, after that tribulation," and "this generation shall not pass away until all these things be accomplished." Thus the composition of Mark must fall near the year 70 A.D. Whether the destruction of Jerusalem is a matter of the near future or of the immediate past may be thought
[1] This need imply no lengthy period, for we recall that Paul conceived this task to have been accomplished, so far as the eastern world was concerned, before 60 A.D. (Rom. 15:19-23).
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questionable, but in either case the Markan tradition comes from an age when some personal followers of Jesus were still alive. And if this is true for Mark, it will be granted without question for the primitive non-Markan source-material incorporated in Matthew and Luke.
Furthermore, a glance at the content of the early gospel narratives shows a genuine Jewish background and a Palestinian setting for the earliest elements of the tradition.[1] Even in the Greek of our present gospels there are occasionally very clear traces of the original Aramaic speech in which the tradition first circulated. In this connection may be mentioned Paul's marana tha, abba, and amen, and the gospel terms amen (verily), talitha cumi, ephphatha, and eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani. Aramaic idioms are also discernible.[2] A conspicuous example is seen in omologein en emoi,[3] as strange to Greek as the corresponding "confess in me" is to English. A genuinely Jewish type of thought also pervades the atmosphere in which Jesus' activity is set. Mosaic ritual and rabbinic
[1] Cf. Burkitt, The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus, pp. 13-29.
[2] Cf. Wellhausen's important contribution to this subject, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, pp. 14 ff.
[3] Matt. 10:32; Luke 12:8.
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practice are crucial problems, the Jews' constant chafing under the yoke of Rome is often evident, and some of the most extended reports of Jesus' teaching pertain to the Jewish messianic hope. These are the main features of the thought which Jesus is pictured as encountering. But outside Palestine these peculiar topics had no vital interest, and we find the author of the Fourth Gospel so far yielding to the demand for a less local portrayal of Jesus' career as to omit almost entirely these items of the primitive tradition. Jülicher seems quite within the proper bounds when, in summing up the results of modern critical study, he says of primitive tradition: "The gospel was virtually completed in the home of Jesus even before his generation passed away, and believing Jews wrote it down at that time in their own language."[1]
For those who will treat evidence of this sort seriously, some substantial conclusions regarding the value of the gospels as sources for a knowledge of Jesus' existence are at once available. The Gospel of Mark, though composed somewhat later than the epistles of Paul,
[2] Neue Linien in der Kritik der evangelischen Ueberlieferung (Giessen, 1906, p. 73).
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belongs near enough to Jesus' own day to come within the lifetime of some of the original disciples; while the more extended reports of Jesus' teaching now found in Matthew and Luke seem unquestionably to have been derived from common written tradition whose composition very probably antedates that of Mark. That is, the kernel of synoptic tradition took shape in the land of Jesus' birth and among his own countrymen, and dates from the same general period as Paul's letters, when the new religious movement was being propagated under the guidance of leaders who claimed to trace, either directly or indirectly, their authority as well as their inspiration to a period of personal association with an earthly Jesus.
What is to be said of the validity of their claim to know a historical Jesus? It is clear from our previous survey of the circumstances under which the gospel literature arose that its early framers could no more have been deceived than could Paul on the question of the actual existence of Jesus. On this point they are either reliable historians or else they are mythologizers. When the primitive tradition is found to be traceable to the same generation which claims to have known Jesus, the only
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course left open to the radicals is to urge that the gospels are tendency writings, theological treatises, aiming to present an interpretation of Jesus and not scrupling to create—perhaps we should say being under the necessity of creating—"Jesus" to give concrete embodiment to doctrine.
It is true that students nowadays recognize the presence of many interpretative features in the gospel narratives, but the proposal to eliminate Jesus' historical reality from this interpretation encounters serious obstacles. In the first place, the most realistic representation of Jesus is found not in the later stages of tradition but in its earliest features. It is Mark who says that Jesus was not able to do any mighty work in Nazareth except to heal a few sick people by laying his hands on them, while in Matthew the statement is simply "he did not do many mighty works there."[1] In Mark too he refuses to be called "good," while in Matthew the conversation concerns "what good thing" the young man shall do in order to have eternal life.[2] Again in the primitive non-Markan tradition Jesus is chiefly a teacher
[1] Mark 6:5; Matt. 13:58.
[2] Mark 10:17 f.; Matt. 19:16 f.; Luke 18:18 f.
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rather than a miracle-worker. In the temptation incident he begins his career by deliberately setting aside the idea of miraculous display as a means of self-attestation. Thus this early type of interpretation still reflects the prevailingly normal character of Jesus' actions, although the ardor of later faith in his heavenly lordship made it necessary to explain why so significant an individual had not lived a more striking and outwardly brilliant career on earth. Believers could not fail to feel that Jesus had possessed unique power, hence he must have deliberately refrained from its use. But as time removed the memory of his earthly life farther into the past, more and more stress was placed upon actual demonstrations of his unique power. Thus in Mark he figures pre-eminently from the beginning of his career as a worker of miracles; yet Mark is still sufficiently under the influence of the earlier tradition to remember that this was not an open sign of Jesus' uniqueness but only a hidden one; that is, the significance of Jesus' conduct had not been understood at the time even by the disciples. Mark also records that Jesus refused to give an open sign when pressed to do so, but on turning to Matthew and Luke
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we find this refusal relieved by the modifying phrase, "except the sign of Jonah." This is naturally taken by Matthew to be a reference to Jesus' resurrection, the event which had served as the great initial and transforming sign for the faith of the first believers. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus takes pains to display a long series of signs to attest his uniqueness, the culminating event being the resurrection of Lazarus. In its earliest stages gospel tradition had by no means shaken itself free from the restraining influence of the memory of Jesus as a historical individual, and only in course of time did his normal earthly features become less distinct as they were increasingly overshadowed by the heavenly image upon which his devoted followers loved to gaze.
Especially important, as evidence for the existence of Jesus, is Mark's almost uniform representation that Jesus during his lifetime was generally misunderstood, even by his closest associates. The members of his own family thought him beside himself, and even the Twelve showed a remarkable dulness on nearly every occasion when his uniqueness might, seemingly, easily be perceived. When he was about to feed the four thousand the
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disciples were as unsuspecting of the method he was to employ as if they had not, only a short time before, witnessed his miraculous feeding of the five thousand. And after the second incident they were still without understanding, so that Jesus marveled, "Do ye not yet perceive neither understand, have ye your heart hardened?" When he cast out demons the latter spoke of his messiahship in unmistakable terms, and Jesus apparently acknowledged the accusation in the disciples' presence, yet they attained no conviction of his messiahship until near the close of his career. Even then their understanding of it was very crude, and their confidence was quickly shaken by his arrest and death. Similarly they failed to comprehend his meaning when he taught in parables; when the woman was healed by touching his garment they were so stupid as to reprove him for asking who touched him; when he predicted his arrest, death, and resurrection, though he several times repeated the statement, they failed to grasp the idea; on the Mount of Transfiguration even the most favored of his associates were completely mystified; in the Garden of Gethsemane, in view of all that Jesus had said and the situation
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that recent events had brought about, they displayed amazing stupidity; and, finally, the women at the tomb departed astonished, silent, and fearful, notwithstanding the angel's explicit announcement of Jesus' resurrection.
In all this Mark is clearly recognizing that Jesus made no such impression upon his contemporaries as his later interpreters thought he ought to have produced, and as they would have him produce on the minds of believers in their day. But by making the blindness of Jesus' associates responsible for this failure, the early theologians could still think of him as displaying unique power commensurate with their faith in him as the heavenly Lord, and at the same time they could harmonize the history with their Christology. This situation represents a time when men were still living who knew that Jesus had been regarded by his personal companions less significantly than subsequent thought of him would presuppose. A writer who was entirely free to follow his fancy will scarcely have left Jesus in this position, or have introduced his readers to a picture that reflected so unfavorably upon the disciples. Had the primitive tradition been purely the product of fancy we should have had
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at first that free idealization which is more in evidence a generation or two later when death and time had largely removed the limitations which actual recollection of Jesus imposed upon his first interpreters.
Moreover, there were elements in the early tradition that were not thought especially creditable to Jesus, yet were too generally known to be ignored. These will certainly not have been created for him by his worshipers, and we may believe they will have been overlooked by his biographers, in so far as circumstances permitted. Perhaps no incident of this class gave interpreters more difficulty than Jesus' baptism by John. When the movements inaugurated by these leaders came into competition, as they certainly did in the course of time, the founders' relation to one another inevitably became a subject of controversy. Christian tradition recognized the value of John's work, even affirming his greatness, according to a reported saying of Jesus; yet the tradition was careful to state that he who was least in the kingdom was greater than John. But it was a well-known fact that Jesus had originally been among John's followers—had indeed received baptism at John's hands.
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How, then, were Christian interpreters to save the supremacy of their master? Mark sees Jesus' superiority displayed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit received at this time—an experience after the manner of the spiritual outpouring attending the baptism of converts to the new faith. In Matthew it is explicitly stated that Jesus did not need to be baptized by John; he was already greater than John, according to the latter's own acknowledgment. While the act did not primarily benefit Jesus, it did serve two useful purposes: it gave his sanction to baptism as a church ordinance, and it gave the assembled multitude an opportunity to hear the divine testimony to Jesus' messiahship—a result which the scribe effected by changing Mark's "thou art" into "this is" my beloved son. In the Fourth Gospel the benefit of the baptism accrues to John himself, in that he thus learns who the Messiah is to whom he is to turn over his own followers. Here, as usual, Christianity triumphed by absorbing that which at first opposed it; but the very acknowledgment of these and similar difficulties shows that it was dealing with the tradition of a real person, the known facts of whose life did not always harmonize offhand with the interests of primitive Christology.
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The necessity of accepting in good faith the gospel representation of Jesus' historicity is practically forced upon us by his proximity to the community in which his life-story first took shape. As we have shown above, the early framers of the tradition bring Jesus upon the scene at a time when those who would have been his contemporaries are still living. Moreover they do this in the very land and among the very people where his activity was staged. Think of the absurdity of this procedure if his individuality were fictitious! Yet there is never an inkling that this claim of reality for him was contested or even doubted by either friend or foe. There were many features in the believer's faith that had to be defended. Jesus' resurrection, his messiahship, his authority in comparison with that of Moses, his superiority to rabbinical teachers, his place in the line of descent from David, and similar tenets of early interpretation were all topics demanding an apologetic. This was never the case with belief in Jesus' historicity. His actual existence was uniformly accepted as a matter of course, which at that time is tantamount to denying the very possibility of doubt about his existence.
Furthermore, the elements of normality
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preserved in the story of Jesus' life, while not beyond the possibility of invention, are certainly strikingly verisimilar. He comes, along with his fellow-countrymen, to hear John the Baptist; he identifies himself with the movement inaugurated by this prophet; presently he begins preaching on his own account along lines somewhat different from those of John; his activities are mainly among his fellow-Galileans; country people and fisher-folk are the chief associates of this carpenter-prophet; in time his work comes to the notice of the authorities by whom he is condemned; from this point on his popularity wanes; at the Passover feast-season he is put out of the way; the small group of followers who clung to him until the end now return disheartened to their homes. Such in outline is the realistic basis of the story of Jesus' life. As a case of pure anthropomorphizing this certainly is without parallel, to say the least. It was indeed a skilful artist who could weave this crimson thread of reality into the fanciful God-man's career. Yet here it is, and it remains intact while other parts of the fabric fade and crumble under the light of critical research. We may at all events believe the possibility of its
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genuineness to be commensurate with its naturalness and durability.
The character of the teaching ascribed to Jesus may be cited as further evidence of his existence. Not that fictitious teaching may not easily have been invented, but a fitting source for the thinking ascribed to him is nowhere found more appropriately than in an individual who occupied the place and confronted the problems assigned by tradition to him. The so-called newness of his teaching has often been pronounced a delusion. We have been told that all he is alleged to have said can be explained as a loan from Judaism, plus a contribution by the early theologians. Certainly we are not to expect that his thought would be entirely different from that of Judaism, and the early believers may indeed have made some contributions to the content of primitive Christian teaching. Still we find in the tradition some distinctive items which seem to be pre-eminently the product of Jesus' own thinking. The New Testament writings exhibit rather clearly the chief interests of primitive Christian dogma, and these are found to be mainly christological in type. We also know something of the thought-world prior to and
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contemporary with Jesus. Divine judgment was the central theme of the preaching of John the Baptist. Palestinian Judaism of the time probably was not absolutely uniform in its thinking, but one of its prevailing characteristics was the idea of God's separateness from the world. Man sought to win divine favor through legal observance, or through asceticism. Now Jesus' teaching does not put stress upon Christology—in fact the primitive phases of his teaching are remarkably lacking in this feature. His thought does not revolve about John's God of wrath who is coming in judgment. Nor do the legalism of the Pharisees, the politics either of the Sadducees or of the Zealots, the asceticism of the Essenes, we may even add the eschatology of the apocalyptists, constitute the chief item in Jesus' teaching as reported in our most primitive sources. His great theme is God's nearness and love, heart righteousness, and man's divine sonship to be realized through a godlike life. To be sure this is not emphatically un-Jewish, nor is it un-Christian. But it was not the center of interest for the aggressive thinkers of the early church—witness Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel; nor can it be called a natural product of the currents of
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Jewish thought prevailing at the beginning of our era. Yet it is a most distinctive item in primitive gospel tradition. Whence came it? Not from some fortuitous concourse of abstract ideas crystallizing of themselves above the heads of men and falling upon them as snow from the clouds. Great thoughts do not come to humanity that way. They are rather the product of some great soul, reacting upon the actual problems of his world. The source of this alleged teaching of Jesus must be an individual. The necessary character of this individual, requirements as to the time and place of his appearance, these and other demands are met best by the historical Jesus of Christian tradition.
Finally, one of the strongest arguments for Jesus' existence is the existence of the primitive community of believers. The new faith at the very beginning emphasizes its loyalty to a personal founder who soon after his death is accorded divine honors amounting practically to worship. We have been told that this reverence on the part of the disciples necessarily excludes the possibility of Jesus' historicity; it is inconceivable that men should worship one who had been actually known to them in his
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human limitations. Whether this principle was strictly binding in the ancient world may be questioned; nevertheless if Christians had rendered worship to the man Jesus as such, the above objection might be plausible. It was, however, the exalted Messiah to whom godlike homage was paid. The transition of thought from the earthly Jesus to the heavenly Christ was not a gradual process requiring centuries of growth; it was effected almost in the twinkling of an eye by the tour de force of the resurrection experiences. Believers were now confident that God had done something for Jesus which had not been done for any other man—Jesus had been miraculously raised from the dead—and those who believed this honored Jesus accordingly. Doubtless a high estimate of him while on earth has to be presupposed as the antecedent of the latter attitude, but the notion of deification, so far as the early believers were concerned, rested upon faith in his resurrection. And this faith, in turn, needed an earthly Jesus quite as much as a heavenly Christ.
Christians were doubtless conscious of some incongruity between their former attitude toward Jesus and their reverence for him after
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his resurrection. They tried to remove this discrepancy by enlarging upon their memory of his earthly career, while they explained their failure to perceive his uniqueness during his lifetime as due to dulness on their part. Their hearts were hardened and their eyes were holden. But under these circumstances must we not suppose that the earthly Jesus was troublesome to the community because of the difficulty of fitting him into their christological speculations? And if so, can we consistently make the community's existence rest fundamentally upon the existence of this Jesus? On the other hand it is quite wrong to imagine that early Christians ever wanted to rid themselves of the fact of Jesus' earthly career—not even by the Docetists was that attempted. It was only the too vivid outlines of Jesus' human limitations that his zealous interpreters sought to remove, but to eliminate his historical existence would have meant shipwreck for their faith. In fact the idea of an exalted Christ alone would hardly have sufficed even for their christological speculations, since it would have invalidated their resurrection faith. Much less could it have supplied an adequate background for the uniqueness and vitality of
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the new religion. This was from the first linked up with the memory of a historical founder. This fact we have already discovered in Paul's relations with the first Christians; it appears again in the early chapters of Acts, and it is further attested by the central place given to Jesus' words and deeds in the earliest phases of gospel tradition. The impetus for the new movement comes from this individual, he supplies the incentive for the new type of thinking, he is the object about which the new literature gathers, and he is the model and inspiration of the new community's life.
This forceful individual, who impressed his own and succeeding generations with his life of loyal service for humanity and his plain yet profoundly significant religious teaching, started Christianity on its way. To find this ideal without a historical Jesus, as to create Paul without Paul, is practically impossible. The Christ-idea alone is not equal to the task of producing Christianity, it is not sufficiently real, human, vital. The new movement was certainly influenced by ideas of various sorts with which it came into contact from time to time. It even adopted current notions and ritualistic practices in the effort to give tangible
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expression to its inner life, but the starting-point of theology and ritual, as well as of literary activity and religious impulse, was the memory of an earthly Jesus.[1] He was the great source of inspiration for Christian living. Just as Paul is found harking back to the type of life exemplified in Jesus, so must many Christians have seen in him the personal embodiment of their ideal. Thus each became, according to individual ability, a coefficient of the Jesus-life. While the new religion, "Christianity," took its name from the heavenly Christ of faith, the actual existence of an earthly Jesus was its corner-stone. Other foundation hath no man laid—successfully.
[1] Speaking of early Christianity, Clemen says: "Es ist eine gestiftete Religion, und da als dieser Stifter des Christentums immer nur Jesus bezeichnet wird, konnen wir jetzt sagen: er war eine geschichtliche Personlichkeit. . . . Wir kennen das Milieu, aus dem es hervorgegangen ist—und dieses Bild wird sich auch durch etwaige kiinf tige Entdeckungen nicht mehr vollig andern—aber aus diesem Milieu konnte es nur hervorgehen, wenn eine richtunggebende Personlichkeit an seinem Anfang steht. Das ist der durchschlagende und unwiderlegliche Beweis fur die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu."—Der geschichtliche Jesus, p, 43.
Go to The Historicity of Jesus by S.J. Case table of contents.