CHAPTER X

Summary of the Life of Jesus [253] Postscript [274]

THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

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AN INTRODUCTION BY THE TRANSLATOR

1. An Account of Schweitzer’s Work and Its Reception.

THE work which is here translated was published in 1901 as the _second_ part of a treatise entitled _Das Abendmahl._ The full title reads: _The Lord’s Supper in connection with the Life of Jesus and the History of Early Christianity._ This second part was issued separately and bore also the following sub-title: _Das Messianitäts und Leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu._

It implies no disparagement of Schweitzer’s novel and important study of the Lord’s Supper that this second part is here separated from the first and published by itself in English. This part is really independent. It has moreover a much broader scope and appeals to a far wider interest than does the treatise as a whole. There is reason to fear that, appearing as a part of a study of the Lord’s Supper and under that title, it might be ignored by many of the persons who most would desire to read it. The scant [pg 018] attention accorded at first to Schweitzer’s work in Germany may be ascribed in part to that very cause, and there appears to be no other reason to account for the fact that the “Sketch” has not yet been publicly noticed in England or America, so far as the translator is aware.

It will not be denied, even by those who are least inclined to agree with the views of the Author, that this first work of the young Strassburg student did not deserve the oblivion which seemed to threaten it for some years after its appearance. It is manifest now that Schweitzer’s theory, to say the least of it, must be _reckoned_ with by every one who would seriously study the Gospels or the Life of Jesus. Obviously it was not the weakness of the book, but rather its strong originality, and in particular the trenchant way in which it demolished the “liberal life of Jesus,” which accounts for the passive hostility with which it was greeted. In fact it contained more than could be readily digested at once either by a liberal or a conservative mind. Most of the New Testament students in Germany had collaborated in the fabrication of the “liberal life of Jesus” and they could not patiently endure to see their work destroyed. Those among us who fancy that German [pg 019] professors are bloodless beings who live in an atmosphere purified of passion and prejudice, need to be informed that on the contrary they are human, all too human. The animosities of party and school and the jealousies of the cathedra have been proverbial for generations. The reception accorded to Schweitzer’s work does not seem creditable. It was met by something like a conspiracy of silence.

Schweitzer, however, _compelled_ attention by the publication in 1906 of a much larger work entitled, _“Von Reimarus zu Wrede,”_ which is a history of the study of the life of Jesus during the last century. A work like this, practically the only one of its sort, supplied a felt need and could not be passed by without notice. Schweitzer’s own view, however, though it was presented clearly in this volume, was still not taken due account of in Germany. Jülicher’s supercilious criticism in _“Neue Linien”_ (190—) is characteristic of the treatment it received. The translator knows of no prominent scholar in Germany who has cordially welcomed Schweitzer’s view, nor of any that has thoroughly and ably opposed it. They have been occupied there rather with Wrede’s_(_1_)_acute criticism of the messianic element in the Gospels [pg 020] and with the denial by Drews_(_2_)_and others of the historical existence of Jesus. To destructive criticism of this sort Schweitzer’s own work is the best answer. The only work which seriously reckons with this new point of view is a brief but magisterial book by H. J. Holtzmann: _Das messianische Bewusstsein Jesu,_ 1907.

Very different was the reception of Schweitzer’s latter work in England. The interest there centred at once upon Schweitzer’s own view. In 1907, the year after its publication, Professor Sanday delivered a course of lectures at Oxford and Cambridge in which he enthusiastically accepted Schweitzer’s position with hardly a reservation._(_3_)_In 1910 this second work of Schweitzer’s was translated into English and published under the title: _The Quest of the Historical Jesus,_ with a preface by Professor Burkitt. By this time the interest in Schweitzer and his theory had become a furore among the younger men in Oxford and Cambridge. But just then there came an emissary from Germany, Professor Ernst von Dobschütz, who essayed to disprove Schweitzer’s theory in a course of lectures delivered at [pg 021] Oxford in 1909._(_4_)_Whereupon Professor Sanday, in a pathetic article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for October, 1911, retracted his support of Schweitzer’s position. He felt that he had been over hasty in adopting it. And so indeed it seems he was, for it appears that in preparing his lectures he had not taken the pains to read the “Sketch,” that is to say, Schweitzer’s first and fundamental and most carefully reasoned argument for his view. By the same token Canon Sanday seems to have been over hasty in making his retraction, for he had not _yet_ read the “Sketch,”—and von Dobschütz’ criticism after all is not very impressive.

In America the whole question has been simply ignored. It generally takes, in fact, about a decade for an important foreign work to reach us,—except in the case of a very few scholars who have already gained our ear. According to this reckoning it is time the “Sketch” were translated. In view both of the acceptance which Schweitzer’s theory has met with in England and of the opposition made to it there, it is high time that his most cogent and careful statement of his position be made known. For although Schweitzer’s position is restated in his latter work already [pg 022] translated into English, and is there also illuminated from various sides, particularly in its relation to Wrede’s work—which appeared in the same year as the “Sketch” and is so strikingly like it so far as its criticism goes and so different in its result,—yet it cannot be adequately appreciated without a study of the earlier work.

It is known that Albert Schweitzer has for some time been preparing to go as medical missionary to the Congo. But in spite of his medical studies he has recently found time to publish a brilliant “History of Pauline Study since the Reformation.”_(_5_)_This is in a way a continuation of the history of the study of the life of Jesus. Here again Schweitzer has a view of his own: in all the complexity of Paul’s thought he perceives a unity which is due to the pervading eschatological outlook. Fortunately, this view of his own, instead of being appended to the historical study, as in the former book, is to be published separately under the title: _Die Mystic des Apostles Paulus._ This practical measure will insure that it shall not be overlooked. It is to be hoped too that it will not have to wait long for an English translation.

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Professor Schweitzer found time also to prepare a new and much enlarged edition of his _Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung_ (History of the Study of the Life of Jesus), which is the title by which he now more aptly describes his well known work. He has brought this history down to date, and in the short concluding chapter he suggests a number of pregnant reflections which will later be referred to in this introduction with the aim of conciliating this archæological world of Jesus’ thought with our religious estimate of his person. It must be recognised from the outset that _time_ is necessary for such an adjustment. The perception of the eschatological character of the Gospels is a sudden emergency: we have not yet had time to assimilate it.

At this writing Professor Schweitzer is already at work as medical missionary in Africa. It is of interest to know that his plan is to return after three years to Europe, and again after an equal period; to Africa. On account of the radical character of his critical works he was not accepted as a fellow-worker in any of the German missions and is labouring in conjunction with (though independently and at his own expense) the station of the Paris Evangelical [pg 024] Missionary Society at Lambarene in French Equatorial Africa—the country which used to be called the French Congo. “Schweitzer as Missionary” is the title of an article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for July 1914 based upon the printed circular letters which he sends to his friends and supporters. In a letter to the translator he speaks of his efforts to mitigate the scourge of leprosy and the sleeping sickness as an example of “practical eschatology.”

2. The Significance of Schweitzer’s Work.

The opportuneness of Schweitzer’s eschatological interpretation of the life of Jesus appears the more manifest the more one knows of the recent history of Gospel study. To bring that out clearly is the special purpose of the Author in his _Quest of the Historical Jesus,_ particularly in chapters I, XIX, and XX. It could not be done better. At all events such a task is obviously beyond the scope of this introduction. Here it need only be pointed out that Schweitzer’s theory, striking as it is, did not spring into being without roots in a soil prepared for it. The eschatological question itself had been sharply brought to the fore. Contention for and against the recognition of it as an important [pg 025] element in the Gospels was the order of the day. All that tended to concentrate attention upon the problem of the personal consciousness of Jesus (as, in particular, Baldensperger’s work),_(_6_)_was a direct preparation for Schweitzer. Johannes Weiss had already stood out as the foremost champion of eschatology in the Gospel._(_7_)_His recognition of eschatology was confined, however, to the _teaching of Jesus._ Hence he did not avail himself of it for the solution of the historical problems. For this reason he cannot be regarded as an exponent—to use Schweitzer’s phrase—of “thoroughgoing eschatology” (konsequente Eschatologie). But the solution Schweitzer proposed was already “in the air,” as he said himself in his preface. That presentiment was strikingly fulfilled in the fact that in the selfsame year Wrede published a book with a title almost identical, which envisaged the same problems in the same way, only that it sought to solve them by eliminating eschatology as an intrusion in the historical narrative, thus resulting in “thoroughgoing scepticism.” Schweitzer is justified in insisting that his work and [pg 026] Wrede’s cannot be played off against each other, but constitute a combined attack, so far as concerns the criticism of the common, liberal life of Jesus.

There is nothing audacious in Schweitzer’s proclamation of the collapse of the liberal life of Jesus. He does not claim to have destroyed it, he merely attests the fact of its collapse. “The Jesus of Nazareth who appeared as the Messiah, proclaimed the morality of the kingdom of God, established the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and died in order to consecrate his work,—this Jesus never existed. It is a figure sketched by Rationalism, enlivened by Liberalism, and dressed up by Modern Theology in the clothes of historical science.”_(_8_)_This fabric did not fall by reason of the strength of any attack from without, but collapsed through its inherent weakness, “shattered and cloven by the actual historical problems which one after another emerged and would not down in spite of all the cunning, art, artifice, and force” which was expended upon this picture of Jesus during the last hundred years. In spite of the protestation that this picture still stands undemolished, no one can be found any more to write a liberal life of Jesus. On [pg 027] the other hand sceptical works have multiplied so rapidly that it would be difficult to enumerate them here. After Kalthoff_(_9_)_ and Drews_(_10_)_the designation of “thoroughgoing scepticism” can hardly be applied to Wrede’s theory. All the books of this class owe what appearance of strength they have, not to their inherent worth, but to the weakness of the theory which opposes them—the current liberal life of Jesus. Solely with a view to maintaining the integrity of this picture it has been found necessary from time to time to sacrifice so much of the documentary evidence—the Synoptic Gospels or their sources—upon which the history of Jesus reposes, that in the end it seems not very unreasonable for Drews and others to assume, from the admissions of their opponents, that there is no convincing historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and that the real task of the scholar is to show how such a figure was invented.

“It is extraordinary,” says Schweitzer in the last chapter of the new edition of his History of the Life of Jesus Study, “how it has fared with the study of the life of Jesus. It set out to find the historical [pg 028] Jesus, and fancied that when he was found he could be set, just as he is, in the midst of our age as Teacher and Saviour. It loosed the bands which fettered him to the rock of ecclesiastical dogma, and rejoiced when life and movement returned to the figure and the historical man Jesus was seen approaching. He did not stay, however, but passed our age by and returned again to his own. That is what astonished and alarmed the theology of the last decades,—that by no violence of misinterpretation could they succeed in keeping him in our age, but had to let him go. He returned to his own age with the same necessity that the freed pendulum swings back to its original position.

“The historical foundation of Christianity, as rationalism, liberalism, and modern theology count it, exists no longer,—which, however, is not to say that Christianity has therefore lost its historical foundation. The work which historical theology believed it must carry out, and which it sees falling to pieces at the very moment when the completion was near, is only the terra cotta veneer of the true, indestructible, historical foundation, which is independent of any historical [pg 029] knowledge and proof—simply because it is there, it exists.

“Jesus is something to our world because a mighty stream of spiritual influence has gone forth from him and has penetrated our age also. This fact will be neither shaken nor confirmed by an historical knowledge.

“One fancied he could be more to our time by the fact that he entered it vitally as a man of our humanity. That, however, is not possible. For one reason, because this Jesus never so existed. Also, because historical knowledge, though it can clarify spiritual life already existing, can never awaken life. It is able to reconcile the present with the past; to a certain degree it can transport the present into the past; but to construct the present is not within its power.

“One cannot estimate highly enough what the study of the life of Jesus has accomplished. It is a great and unique demonstration of veracity and love of the truth,—one of the most significant occurrences in the whole spiritual life of mankind. What the modern-liberal and the popularising investigation has done, in spite of all its errors, for the present and for the coming state of religion can only be measured when one takes [pg 030] into comparison the Roman Catholic—or more broadly the Latin—culture and literature which has been touched little or not at all by the influence of these spirits.

“And yet the disillusion had to come. We modern theologians are too proud of our historical learning, too proud of our historical Jesus, too confident in our faith in what our historical theology can spiritually contribute to the world. The notion that by historical knowledge we can construct a new and vigorous Christianity and let loose spiritual forces in the world dominates us like a fixed idea and does not permit us to perceive that all we have done thereby is to assail, not the great religious problem itself, but one of the problems of general culture which is entrenched in front of it, and which we would solve as well as we can. We thought that we had to lead our age as it were through a by-path, through the historical Jesus, in order that it might come to Jesus who is present spiritual power. The by-path is now barred by real history.

“We were in danger of putting ourselves between men and the Gospels and not leaving the individual any longer alone with the sayings of Jesus.

“We were in danger, too, of presenting to [pg 031] them a Jesus that was too little, because we had forced him into man’s measure and into the mould of average human psychology. Read through the ‘lives of Jesus’ since the sixties and behold what they have made of the imperial words of our Lord, what a weak and ambiguous sense they have put upon his peremptory, other-worldly requisitions, in order that he might not clash with our ideals of civilisation and his other-worldliness might be brought to terms with our this-worldliness. Many of his greatest words one finds lying in a corner, a heap of discharged spring-bolts. We make Jesus speak with our time another language than that which passed his lips.

“Thereby we ourselves became impotent and deprived our own thoughts of their proper energy by transposing them into history and making them speak to us out of antiquity. It is nothing less than a tragedy for modern theology that it confounds with history everything it attempts to expound, and is actually proud of the virtuosity with which it contrives to discover its own thoughts in the past.

“Therefore there is hopeful significance in the fact that modern theology with its study of the life of Jesus, however long it may resist [pg 032] by the invention of fresh shifts and expedients, must in the end find itself deluded in its manufactured history, overcome by real history and by the facts—which according to Wrede’s fine saying are often more radical than theories.

“What is the historical Jesus to us when we keep him clear of any admixture of the present with the past? We have the immediate impression that his person, in spite of all that is strange and enigmatical, has something great to say to all ages, as long as the world endures, may views and knowledge change never so much, and that it means therefore to our religion also a far-reaching enrichment. It behooves us to bring this elementary feeling to a clear expression, so that it may not soar away in dogmatic assertions and phrases and beguile historical science ever anew into the hopeless undertaking of modernising Jesus by diluting or explaining away what is historically conditioned in his preaching, as though he would become more to us thereby.

“The whole study of the life of Jesus has in fine only the one aim, of establishing the natural and unbiased conception of the earliest accounts. In order to know Jesus and to apprehend him there is need of no preparatory [pg 033] erudition. It is also not requisite that a man comprehend the details of Jesus’ public ministry and be able to construct with them a ‘life of Jesus.’ His nature, and that which he is and wills, appears in certain lapidary expressions of his and forces itself upon us. One _knows_ him without knowing much about him, and apprehends the eschatological note even if he attain no clear conception of the details. For this is the characteristic thing about Jesus, that he looks beyond the perfection and blessedness of the individual to the perfection and blessedness of the world and of an elect humanity. His will and his hope is fixed upon the Kingdom of God.”

It is much to be wondered at that conservative scholars have not generally recognised the strong constructive consequences of Schweitzer’s theory, in particular the proof it incidentally affords of the historical worth of the Synoptic Gospels. Schweitzer rehabilitates the credit of S. Mark’s Gospel simply by showing that no important parts of it need be discarded on the ground that they are inconsistent with the sketch which he draws of the history of Jesus. When it is objected to him that he bases his view upon “the weakest passages,” it is time we make clear to [pg 034] ourselves that “strong” and “weak” in this connection mean no more than _consistent_ or _inconsistent_ with the _assumptions_ of the modern “liberal life of Jesus.” It is only a roundabout way of begging the question. Generally speaking, such a document as Mark, antecedent to any theory we may attempt to apply, must be presumed to be of pretty equal value throughout. That theory which, without artifice or violence, best accords with the greatest number of facts recorded, and so best preserves the credit of the documents upon which it seeks to found itself, is presumably the right theory. Schweitzer’s view, as he himself says in the Preface, greatly simplifies and clarifies the Synoptic problem. It is no longer necessary to attribute so much to “the editor’s hand.” The Sermon on the Mount, the Charge to the Twelve, and the Eulogy over the Baptist are not collections of scattered sayings, but were in the main delivered as they have come down to us. Especially important is the recognition that even for constructing the history of Jesus Mark by itself does not suffice: the discourses in Matthew are invaluable indications.

Nor is this the only positive and comforting element in Schweitzer’s view. In the Postscript he has himself laid stress upon the [pg 035] aim of his work: “to impress upon the modern age and upon modern theology the figure of Jesus in its overwhelming heroic greatness.” And this he has accomplished in unexpected ways. The figure of Jesus which we have striven so hard to bring into nearness and sympathy through our psychological analysis has eluded our grasp, and under the hands of the historian and archæologist it has receded inexorably into the remote past and into a corner of Galilee. It looks to us strange and even petty in its remote Galilean surroundings. Now that figure, by the force of an elemental energy, is seen to break the shackles which would bind it to a particular time and place and become—not modern, indeed, but—universal.

One may easily be so much absorbed with the difficulties in the way of accepting Schweitzer’s construction as to ignore the light which it sheds upon some of the major difficulties of the traditional view with which we have long wrestled in vain. One may mention at least eight obscure points which are illuminated for the first time by the eschatological view of the Gospel history. 1. Jesus’ use of the title “Son of Man,”—commonly in the third person and with a futuristic sense, as denoting a dignity and [pg 036] power which were _not yet_ his. Jesus was the Messiah designate. 2. The position of John the Baptist: it was Jesus alone that discovered in him the character of Elijah “the Coming One” (cf. Jn 1:21 ). 3. The conception of the Kingdom of God as a _gift,_ to be received passively as by a little child—and yet as a thing that “violent men” must wrest to themselves “by force.” 4. The relation of Jesus’ messianic expectation to that which was current among the people. Jesus moralised the popular eschatological ideal by combining it with the preaching of the Prophets. That Jesus opposed a purely moral ideal to a popular political agitation is doubly a fiction. 5. The significance of the Mission of the Twelve and its connection with the popular excitement which drew five thousand men into the desert by the seashore. 6. The significance of the Transfiguration, coming _before_ the Confession of Peter, and explaining how the knowledge of Jesus’ Messiahship was given by divine revelation. 7. The character of the secret which Judas possessed and was in a position to betray. Our notion that during the last days in Jerusalem every one knew of Jesus’ claim to be the Christ is plainly contrary to the record. The famous disputes [pg 037] of those days would have taken a very different form if the question which agitated all minds was, Is he the Christ? or is he not? 8. Jesus’ notion of the _necessity_ of his death, his resolution to die at Jerusalem, and his conception that he was giving his life as “a ransom for _many.”_

Unquestionably it is no easy matter to assimilate so novel and striking a view as that of Schweitzer. To bring it into relation with the presuppositions of our religious view in general involves demolition and reconstruction—a labor heavy and grievous to the soul. The mind instinctively recoils from such a labour and is fain to protect itself by a general repudiation and denial. Moreover the Author has presented his view with a naked simplicity which, while it renders it easier to understand and more difficult to confute, makes it also, one must confess, more difficult to accept. We are not inclined to accept opinions in the face of a display of force, and as it were at the muzzle of a gun—even when the gun is loaded with logic. Practically we must first contrive to see how the opinions may be made acceptable. This task the Author has not unreasonably left to us,—although a careful study of his work will reveal many suggestions helpful to this end. [pg 038] The translator has read this little book not once but many times and through a course of years, with ever increasing appreciation of its worth—not only in view of its logical force but of its _acceptability._ On the other hand, many of us have felt that the liberal life of Jesus was becoming increasingly more _unacceptable._

Canon Sanday confesses_(_11_)_that he recoils from Schweitzer’s view chiefly on account of his “tendency to push things to extremes at the dictates of logical consistency.” It is _too_ “thoroughgoing.” It seems indeed as though the Author were inclined to press this word to an extreme, proposing to explain _all_ the words and acts of Jesus with reference to his eschatological outlook. But that is only a threat. What he _has_ done falls very far short of it, and it is upon _that_ we have to pass judgment. _That,_ in fact, is “thoroughgoing” enough to justify the term even if it went no further. The principle of “thorough” might very well apply to the construction of the history as a whole without implying that every trait of Jesus’ life and teaching was coloured by it and that he himself was so obsessed by a single idea that he was unable to see things as they are. [pg 039] This is precisely what the Gospels do not permit us to believe. It is manifest that Jesus had a peculiarly acute sensibility to his surroundings, whether it were nature or human society, and responded feelingly, spontaneously. His sense of right and wrong was so clearly intuitive that he could deal sovereignly with the Law. Schweitzer himself furnishes suggestions which tend to render even the word “Interimsethik” acceptable. Jesus’ moral teaching was oriented towards the coming Kingdom. It was “penance” in preparation for the Kingdom of God. But it was not for all this an arbitrary penance: like the ethics of the Prophets it was the prescription of righteousness. In one sense at least, it was not of merely transitory importance. From the expectation of the approaching Kingdom it received a sharpness of emphasis which it could not otherwise have had,—but it was a _true_ emphasis. It described the conduct appropriate to man in this present world _so long as this world shall last_—a conduct which is justified here by the expectation of a better world to come, “beyond good and evil” if you will.

“Thoroughgoing eschatology” is surely not incompatible with the recognition of a deeper [pg 040] intuition in Jesus which is necessary to explain the intensity of this very eschatology itself. It would be a rigorous extreme indeed which would exclude the recognition of Jesus’ God-consciousness—his consciousness of God as Father—as the primary and all-controlling fact of his religious experience. Nothing is more obvious than that out of that consciousness he acted and spoke _immediately._ And when his acts were influenced and his speech coloured by the eschatological outlook, what was that ultimately but the consciousness of God’s _nearness?_ How could the expectation of a divine world be so constant and so vivid without the feeling that it is in a sense locally near, imminent, impending, ready to break in, indeed actually intruding upon this present world, as it were “the finger of God” touching us here? Intuitional feeling, presentiment, insight, does not readily distinguish between nearness in time and in space. Jesus’ eschatology was an expression of his God-consciousness—the most eminent expression of it.

Eschatology in the strict sense, with all its apocalyptic features, has long ago passed out of our view of the world. Schweitzer shows us with what justification the Church discarded it. But the feeling that was behind [pg 041] it remains, and still constitutes the fundamental experience of religion. It is the feeling of a divine environment, close to us, unspeakably close, imminent, intruding even upon the every-day world.

“This is the finger of God, The flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, That made them, and lo! they are.”

Intuitional feeling is not especially inclined to express the sense of God in terms of time. Space is the category more familiar to it. Wordsworth finds terms to express what is so intangible.

“Those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realised High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.”

Apocalyptic eschatology no one could even wish to revive. But this does not mean that Biblical eschatology—the expectation of the great Event—must be dissolved in the modern hope of the gradual amelioration of the world in the course of historical evolution. We cannot but feel how great a breach that would constitute between our thought and the [pg 042] mind of Jesus. Schweitzer remarks upon the heavy dose of “resignation” which such a view implies. Strange that we do not more often realise this! Does our optimism blind us to the fact that we shall not partake in “the far off divine event”—except our spirit survive the bodily death? _There_—in the hope of life beyond death—is the expectation which we substitute for apocalyptic eschatology,—a substitution so natural that it came about without observation. S. Paul lived in the expectation of the coming of the Lord, but he evidently felt no sense of incongruity when he expressed the feeling that “to depart and be with Christ is very far better”—he was referring to the natural death of the body and the hope of life immediately beyond it. This is the hope which has ever since characterised the Christian Church. To dwell upon that hope, to set our “affections upon things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God”—that is “heavenly mindedness.” With respect to the feeling at the base of it, it is not so very different from apocalyptical eschatology. In this view Christian ethics still remains “conditional”—you may call it _Interimsethik_ if you like. The conduct it requires of us is conditioned by the hope of a future [pg 043] life and is absurd under any other supposition. “The practice of the presence of God” is the most fundamentally important religious exercise. But if we succeed in persuading ourselves that here and now we have the only kingdom of God we shall ever know; if all our interest and effort is absorbed in realising a kingdom of God upon earth; then not only have we need of “resignation,” but we cannot avoid feeling the breach between our thought and activity and that of Jesus. We are puzzled to distinguish between worldly and heavenly mindedness because even our religious interest is focussed upon this earth, as the sphere not only of our moral duty but of our ultimate hope—the gradual evolution of a perfect human society. That is what we have made of the Kingdom of God, interpreting it uneschatologically. Is not this after all a more credulous hope than that which expects a divine intervention, a “regeneration” of heaven and earth, which shall prepare the fit abode for the perfect society? And does it not strike at the very roots of the religious sentiment when we distract the mind from its natural interest and curiosity about the Beyond? Our personal fate is not so much involved in the far off amelioration of human society as in something [pg 044] much nearer, very near and imminent, the estate just beyond death. It is not altogether without reason that in Christian dogmatics the name of eschatology has been applied to this topic. The earlier type of eschatology Jesus himself has rendered forevermore impossible. It is likely that the first objection _we_ feel to apocalyptic eschatology lies in the fact that it was expressed in terms of an erroneous cosmology and is therefore incompatible with our modern view of the world. But as a matter of fact apocalyptic eschatology vanished from the vital creed of the Church long before the cosmology upon which it was founded was proved to be false. It was Jesus who brought it to an end. Another sort of eschatology promptly took its place—another heavenly hope, which was substantially not apocalyptic. Yet this doctrine too—the early Christian notion of the soul and of heaven—was necessarily founded upon the opinions of ancient science. The doctrine of the soul and the doctrine of heaven, being less directly affected by the findings of modern science, have been more slow to change in conformity with our changed view of the world than has, for example, the doctrine of creation. But in their old form they are none the less incompatible [pg 045] with our modern thought; and for this reason we feel forced to put _every_ sort of eschatology aside, we are no longer able to place the heavenly hope, and the heavenly mindedness which it prompts, in the central position which belongs to them. That is to say, we urgently need to express the Christian doctrine of the soul in terms of the highest modern psychology and to express our heavenly hope in terms of a modern cosmology. We need a new cosmology! That may seem to express an unpractical and fantastic desire. But it will not so seem to any one who knows what his theory of the soul and his grandiose cosmology meant practically and religiously to Gustav Theodor Fechner,_(_12_)_ or who has experienced what this may mean for the orientation of his own personal religion. The old view of the world has passed away: we have been too slothful and cowardly to take full possession of the new. There is really nothing in the modern view of the world which effectually precludes us from directing our hope and orienting our life towards the Beyond, as did Jesus in his way, and as the early Church did in its way. From the moment that Jesus passed into the invisible and was there felt and recognised as the correspondent [pg 046] of our religious faculty we find that spatial terms better express the substance of our heavenly mindedness than do temporal. We “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.” To recognise that our “citizenship is in heaven” is not to render ourselves inept for the performance of our duty upon earth. Rather it needs to be reflected whether, without the detachment, without the superiority to earthly circumstance, happy or untoward, which comes from setting our “mind on the things that are above,” we possess any fulcrum for doing a real work upon the world.

The eschatological interpretation of the Gospels does not thrust Jesus so far from us as we are prone to think: rather calls us to approach nearer to him, to share again more closely “the mind which was in Christ Jesus” and which in one form or another has been at all times the chief inspiration of the Church.

In his “Concluding Reflections” Schweitzer says: “Every full view of life, cosmic philosophy, _Weltanschauung_ (the German word it is impossible to translate) contains side by side elements which are conditioned by the age as well as others which are unconditioned, for it consists in the very fact that a penetrating _will_ has pervaded and [pg 047] constituted the conceptual material furnished it by history. This latter is subjected to change. Hence there is no _Weltanschauung,_ however great and profound it may be, which does not contain perishable material. But the will itself is timeless. It reveals the unsearchable and primary nature of a person and determines also the final and fundamental definition of his _Weltanschauung._ May the conceptual material alter never so much, with consequent diversity between the new _Weltanschauung_ and the old, yet these in reality only lie just so far apart as the wills which constitute them diverge in direction. The differences which are determined by the alteration of the conceptual material are in the last analysis merely secondary in importance, however emphatically they may make themselves felt; for the same will, however different be the conceptual material in which it manifests itself, always creates _Weltanschauungen_ which in their nature correspond with one another and coincide.

“Since the time when man attained the conditions precedent to such an apprehension and judgment of things as we might call in our sense a _Weltanschauung_—that is, since the individual learned to take into consideration the totality of being, the world as a [pg 048] whole, and to reflect as a knowing and willing subject upon the reciprocal relations of a passive and active sort which subsist between himself and the All—no far-reaching development has really occurred in the spiritual life of humanity. The problems of the Greeks turn up again in the most modern philosophy. The scepticism of to-day is essentially the same as that which came to expression in ancient thought.

“The primitive, late-Jewish metaphysic in which Jesus expressed his _Weltanschauung_ aggravates exceedingly the difficulty of translating his ideas into the formulas of our time. The task is quite impossible so long as one tries to accomplish it by distinguishing in detail between the permanent and the transitory. And what results as the consequence of this procedure is so lacking in force and conclusiveness that the enrichment it contributes to our religion is rather apparent than real.

“In truth there can be no question of making distinction between transitory and permanent, but only of transposing the original constitutive thought of that _Weltanschauung_ into terms familiar to us. How would the Will of Jesus—apprehended in its immediateness, in its definiteness and in its whole [pg 049] compass—how would it vitalise our thought material and construct from it a _Weltanschauung_ of so moral and so mighty a sort that it could be counted the modern equivalent of that which he created in terms of the late-Jewish metaphysics and eschatology?

“If one tries, as has been done hitherto almost invariably, to reconcile Jesus’ _Weltanschauung_ with ours any way it will go—which can be accomplished only by paring away all that is characteristic—this procedure strikes also at the will which is manifested in these conceptions.

“It loses its originality and is no longer able to exert an elemental influence upon us. Hence it is that the Jesus of modern theology is so extraordinarily lifeless. Left in his eschatological world he is greater and, for all the strangeness, he affects us more elementally, more mightily than the modern Jesus.

“Jesus’ deed consists in the fact that his original and profound moral nature took possession of the late-Jewish eschatology and so gives expression, in the thought material of the age, to the hope and the will which are intent upon the ethical consummation of the world. All attempts to avert one’s vision from this _Weltanschauung_ as a whole and to make Jesus’ significance for us to consist in [pg 050] his revelation of the “fatherhood of God,” the “brotherhood of man,” and so forth, must therefore of necessity lead to a narrow and peculiarly insipid conception of his religion. In reality he is an authority for us, not in the sphere of knowledge, but only in the matter of the will. His destined rôle can only consist in this, that he as a mighty spirit quickens the motives of willing and hoping which we and our fellowmen bear within us and brings them to such a height of intensity and clarity as we could not have attained if we were left to ourselves and did not stand under the impression of his personality, and that he thus conforms our _Weltanschauung_ to his own in its very nature, in spite of all the diversity of thought material, and awakens in it the energies which are active in his.

“The last and deepest knowledge of things comes from the will. Hence the movement of thought which strives to frame the final synthesis of observations and knowledge in order to construct a _Weltanschauung_ is determined in its direction by the will, which constitutes the primary and the inexplicable ultimate essence of the persons and ages in question.

“If our age and our religion have not apprehended the greatness of Jesus and have [pg 051] been frightened back by the eschatological colour of his thought, this was due only in part to the fact that they could not accommodate themselves to the strangeness of it all. The decisive reason was another. They lacked the strong and clear stamp of a will and a hope directed towards the moral consummation of the world, which are decisive for Jesus and for his _Weltanschauung._ They were devoid of eschatology,—using the word here in its broadest and most general sense. They found in themselves no equivalents for the thoughts of Jesus, and were therefore not in a position to transpose his _Weltanschauung_ from the late-Jewish terms of thought into their own.

“There was no answering chord of sympathy. Hence the historical Jesus had to remain strange to them to a very great extent, and that not only with respect to his thought material but also with respect to his very nature. His ethical enthusiasm and the immediateness and might which characterised his thought seems to them excessive because they know nothing that corresponds to it in their own thought and experience. So they were constantly intent upon making out of the “enthusiast” a modern man and theologian duly observant of metes and bounds [pg 052] in all his doings. Conservative theology, like the older orthodoxy to which it is akin, was not able to do anything with the historical Jesus, because it likewise makes far too little of the great moral ideas which in his eschatology were struggling for life and practical expression.

“It was therefore the lack of an inward tuning to the same pitch of will and hope and desire which made it impossible to attain a real knowledge of the historical Jesus and a comprehensive religious relationship with him. Between him and a generation which was lacking in all immediateness and in all enthusiasm directed towards the final aims of humanity and of being, there could be no lively and far-reaching fellowship. For all its progress in historical perception it really remained more estranged from him than was the rationalism of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, which was brought closer to him by its enthusiastic faith in the possibility of rapid progress towards the moral perfection of humanity.”

I marvel that Schweitzer in his “Concluding Reflections” can dwell so insistently upon one side of Jesus’ eschatology and ignore so completely the other. Jesus’ [pg 053] eschatology, the white light of his conception of the Kingdom of God, has come to us through the medium of history refracted in two rays of different colour and of different direction. One represents more specifically the other-worldly side of Jesus’ preaching, the hope of eternal blessedness beyond death,—which the dogmatic theologians are pleased to call “eschatology,” as though our modern idea really reflected Jesus’ conception in its totality. Commonly this is what we understand by the “Kingdom of Heaven.” To denominate the other ray, Schweitzer has appropriated (with as questionable a right) the “Kingdom of God.” He means to indicate by this simply the moral development of humanity, here and under present terrestrial conditions. We readily understand what he means, because that is what _we_ mean commonly by “the kingdom of God upon earth.” We are convinced that the progress of mankind in true worldly culture and civilisation constitutes a high moral aim which we dare not relinquish; but we have all experienced the difficulty of reconciling this secular enthusiasm with the other-worldliness of Jesus. Schweitzer helps us in a measure to surmount this difficulty. He also makes it in a measure clear to us _how_ (for the fact itself was [pg 054] patent) this enthusiasm for the progress of humanity has been reinforced by Jesus’ preaching. But it is a mistake to expect of this one coloured ray that it can ever give back to us the whole white light of Jesus’ inspiration. We can not return again to Jesus’ conception. History stands in the way—real history, not written narrative. Nor shall we ever be able to combine again in one white light the “broken lights” which have come to us from his teaching. But we have the two rays, and in their separateness they are both familiar to us. Our eyes bear better the coloured light. Celestial blue denotes the heavenly hope; red will do for this earth and our passionate hopes for its betterment. But why behave as if we had only one colour and all of Jesus’ light must be forced into that? Schweitzer ignores the heavenly hope (the thought of life beyond death) as though it were no longer open to the modern man. One may get a notion of what it still may mean to the modern scientific mind from Gustav Theodor Fechner’s _Büchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode,_ or more largely from his _Zend-Avesta,_ or his _Tagesansicht._ Though to be sure it can mean nothing to one who is bound by a materialistic philosophy. At all events it is certain that Jesus’ will and aspiration can be [pg 055] much more readily and fully expressed in these terms than in the terms of ethical and social progress here below. To translate his thought into these terms requires no elaborate effort. The first generation of his disciples did it without knowing what they did. Schweitzer himself observes in another place that our modern faith in the final but slow perfection of the world “requires a larger dose of resignation” than most people are aware. And how can any perfection upon this earth be final, since none can be eternal?

We are all of us feeling after a solution of our modern difficulties. Schweitzer’s effort after a tolerable accommodation is poignantly personal like ours—and like ours it is tentative. It is too early to hope for complete satisfaction. Yet his efforts obviously tend in the same direction as ours. Schweitzer perceives that “in the last resort our relation with Jesus is a mystical one.” For the sake of this acknowledgment, as well as for other reasons which will be evident, I am fain to conclude this Introduction with Schweitzer’s own words—the words with which he concludes his latest book:

“In the last resort our relationship to Jesus is of a mystical sort. No personality of the past can be installed in the present [pg 056] by historical reflection or by affirmations about his authoritative significance. We get into relation with him only when we are brought together in the recognition of a common will, experience a clarification, enrichment, and quickening of our will by his, and find ourselves again in him. In this sense every deeper relationship between men is of a mystical sort. Our religion, therefore, so far as it proves itself specifically Christian, is not so much ‘Jesus-cult’ as Jesus-mystic.

“It is only thus that Jesus creates fellowship among us. It is not as a symbol that he does it, nor anything of the sort. In so far as we with one another and with him are of one will, to place the Kingdom of God above all, and to serve in behalf of this faith and hope, so far is there fellowship between him and us and the men of all generations who lived and live in the same thought.

“From this it will be manifest also in what way the free and the confined movements of religion which now go side by side will come together in unity. False compromises are of no avail. All concessions by which the free conception seeks to approach the confined can only result in ambiguity and inconsequence. The differences lie in the thought [pg 057] material which is presupposed on either side. All efforts after an agreement in this sphere are hopeless. These differences appear so prominent because there is a lack of elementary and vital religiousness. Two threads of water wind along side by side through the boulders and gravel of a great stream bed. It is of no avail that one seeks here and there to clear out of the way the masses that are piled up between them, in order that they may flow on in one bed. But when the water rises and overflows the boulders they find themselves together as a matter of course. So will the confined and the free spirit of religion come together when will and hope are directed again towards the Kingdom of God, and the fellowship with the spirit of Jesus becomes in them something elemental and mighty, and they are thereby brought so near together in the essence of their _Weltanschauung_ and religion that the differences of thought material still exist indeed, but sink beneath the surface, as the boulders are covered by the rising flood and in the end barely glimmer out of the depths.

“The names by which Jesus was called in the thought material of late Judaism—Messiah, Son of Man, and Son of God—have [pg 058] become to us historical parables. Even when he applied these titles to himself, this was an historically conditioned expression of his apprehension of himself as a commander and ruler. We find no designation that might express his nature for us.

“Unknown and nameless he comes to us, as he approached those men on the seashore that knew not who he was. He says the same word: But do thou follow me! and he sets before us the tasks which we in our generation must accomplish. He commands. And to those that obey him, wise and unwise, he will reveal himself in what may be given them to experience in his fellowship of peace and activity, conflict and suffering, and as an unutterable secret they shall come to know who he is. ...”

FOOTNOTES

1 _Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien,_ 1901.

2 _Christusmythe._

3 _The Life of Christ in Recent Research,_ 1907.

4 _Eschatology of the Gospels,_ 1910.

5 _Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung,_ 1911.

6 _Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu,_ 1st ed., 1888.

7 _Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes,_ 2d ed., 1900; also _Das älteste Evangelium,_ 1903.

8 _Quest of the Historical Jesus,_ cap. XX.

9 _Das Christus-Problem,_ 1902.

10 _Op. cit._

11 _Hibbert Journal,_ Oct., 1911, p. 84.

12 _Vide The Living Word_ by Elwood Worcester, 1908.

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