CHAPTER I

THE MODERN “HISTORICAL” SOLUTION

1. Summary Account of It.

THE Synoptical texts do not explain how the idea of the Passion forced itself upon Jesus and what it meant to him. The speeches of Peter and Paul viewed the Passion in the aspect of a divine necessity which was prophesied by the Scripture. The Pauline theory likewise has nothing to do with history.

Therefore the idea of the Passion as it is developed here in connection with an account of Jesus’ life is not directly furnished by the texts but is deduced from them by implication. One is left here to the unavoidable necessity of formulating a theory, the truth of which can only be judged by the measure of clearness and order which it introduces into the Synoptic accounts.

All of the theoretical constructions which have an outspoken historical interest coincide in an alleged solution which we denominate the modern-historical. What is historical about it is the interest which prompts [pg 060] the endeavour to explain history. The modern factor in it is the psychological sympathy of comprehension by the help of which one endeavours to show how, under the impression of particular experiences, the idea of the Passion forced itself upon Jesus and was given by him a religious significance. This solution is based upon the following considerations:

For Jesus there could be no question of constituting a ground for the forgiveness of sins. That he already assumed, as the petition in the Lord’s Prayer shows,—it flowed indeed quite naturally from the pardoning father-love of God. Now the thought of the ransom (Mk 10:45 ) recalls the Pauline theory of the atonement with its juridical character. This, indeed, has reference to the forgiveness of sins. It is therefore to be presumed that the juridical notion of the atonement, like the thought of the forgiveness of sins, was strange to Jesus, since it is not suggested by anything in the whole character of his teaching. Consequently the expressions about the significance of his Passion are in their traditional form influenced somehow or another by Pauline conceptions.

If one takes due account of this influence, the historical saying (Mk 10:45) contains the [pg 061] notion of serving through sacrifice. This thought is here expressed in its highest potency. We stand upon the border where the heightened conception of service leads to that of sacrifice and atonement. The value of this sacrifice for others consists in the fact that this suffering death which Jesus underwent is at the same time the inaugural act through which the new morality of the Kingdom of God receives emphatic sanction and the new condition contemplated in the idea of the Kingdom is itself realised. This deed is the efficient first factor in a chain of transformations the supernatural conclusion of which is his “coming again” in glory, where the New Covenant which he sealed with his blood is fulfilled in him.

Therewith it is also explained why the determination to encounter suffering and death could and must suggest itself. The realisation of the Kingdom of God was Jesus’ mission. This he had undertaken to effect at first within narrow limits during his Galilean ministry. Through his preaching of the new morality grounded upon faith in the divine Father, and under the influence of the power which proceeded from him, the beginnings of this Kingdom developed. It was a happy, successful period—the “Galilean spring [pg 062] time,” Keim called it. The climax of this period was reached with the mission of the Disciples. Through their preaching the glorious seed was to be strewn abroad everywhere. As they upon their return announced to him their success he broke out with the cry of exultation which accounted the victory already present (Mt 11:25-27).

Then came the time of defeat. The opposition was contrived and carried out from Jerusalem (Mk 7:1). Before this the sympathy of the people delivered him from the consequences of occasional friction with the officials. Now, however, as the opposition was systematically pursued, even his followers fell away from him. It was ominous that the discussion about ceremonial purification brought to light the contradiction in which Jesus found himself with the legal tradition (Mk 7:1-23). Before spring had again returned to the land he had been obliged to leave Galilee. Far away in the north, in quiet and solitary retirement, he collected his energies in the effort perfectly to understand himself.

For the realisation of the Kingdom there remained but one way still open to him,—namely, conflict with the power which opposed his work. He resolved to carry this conflict into the capital itself. There fate should decide. [pg 063] Perhaps the victory would fall to him. But, even if it should turn out that in the course of earthly events the fate of death awaited him inevitably, so long as he trod the path which his office prescribed, this very suffering of death must signify in God’s plan the performance by which his work was to be crowned. It was then God’s will that the moral state appropriate to the Kingdom of God should be inaugurated by the highest moral deed of the Messiah. With this thought he set out for Jerusalem—in order to remain Messiah.

2. The Four Assumptions of the Modern-Historical Solution.

1. The life of Jesus falls into two contrasted epochs. The first was fortunate, the second brought disillusion and ill success.

2. The form of the Synoptical Passion-idea in Mk 10:45 (his giving himself a ransom for many) and in the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Mk 14:24: his blood given for many) is somehow or another influenced by the Pauline theory of the atonement.

3. The conception of the Kingdom of God as a self-fulfilling ethical society in which service is the highest law dominated the idea of the Passion.

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4. If Jesus’ Passion was the inaugural act of the new morality of the Kingdom of God, the success of it depended upon the Disciples being led to understand it in this sense and to act in accordance with it. The Passion-idea was a reflection.

Are these assumptions, considered individually, justified?

3. The Two Contrasted Periods. (First Assumption.)

The period of ill success is dated from the time following the mission of the Twelve. What are the events of the supposedly fortunate period? We pass over the vexatious discussion with the Pharisees about the healing of the paralytic (Mk 2:1-12), over the question of fasting (Mk 2:18-22), and that of the observance of the Sabbath (Mk 2:23-[3:6]). Already in Mk 3:6 it has come to the point of a murderous attack. Jesus has to renounce his family because they wish to fetch him home by force as one who is mentally incompetent (Mk 3:20-22, Mk 3:31-35). At Nazareth he is rejected (Mk 6:1-6).

In the same period occurs the attack which shocked him most profoundly. The Pharisees discredited him with the people by [pg 065] charging that he was in league with the devil (Mk 3:22-30). How deeply this saying wounded him may be seen from his reference to it in the commission to the Twelve. He prepared his Disciples for a similar experience. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household” (Mt 10:25).

Such are the well known events of the “successful period”! But they are nothing in comparison with those which he hints at when he is sending out the Twelve. In general terms he has already pronounced those blessed who are reproached and persecuted for his sake (Mt 5:11, 12). Now he leads his Disciples to expect oppression and distress (Mt 10:17-25). Faithfulness to him involves the endurance of enmity (Mt 10:22), the severance of the dearest ties (Mt 10:37), and the bearing of the cross (Mt 10:38). The Galilean period is to be regarded as a _happy_ one: the commission to the Twelve is _pessimistic_ in tone. How does that agree?

The hints also which he drops at that time in the presence of the people point to bitter catastrophes. What must have occurred in Chorazin, in Capernaum, and in Bethsaida that he calls down upon them the wrath of [pg 066] the Day of Judgment, in which it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for them (Mt 11:20-24)!

Because this gloomy tone accords ill with the happy Galilean period, there is an obvious temptation to regard the Matthean speeches of the time of the Apostles’ mission as compositions which include fragments belonging to a later period. Where, however, could Jesus have spoken such words? So long as he remained in the north after the flight he made no speeches, and the utterances of the Jerusalem days have their own peculiar character, so that it is hard to know where to introduce references to Galilean occurrences and warnings to the Disciples in prospect of their journey.

Moreover, it is a fact that nothing is related about conspicuous successes in the first period. The successes first begin with the mission of the Twelve. Jesus celebrates the great moment of their return with words of enthusiasm (Mt 11:25-27). Are we to suppose now that in the sequel the Pharisees triumphed over him completely and the people deserted him? Of such a retrogression of his cause the texts, however, record nothing. The discussion about ceremonial purification (Mt 7:1-23) does not furnish what was expected [pg 067] of it. Jesus had already at an earlier time come into much hotter conflict with the theologians of the capital (Mk 3:22-30). In the question about the laws of purification it was not he that was worsted.

Jesus’ defeat has been inferred from the fact that the “flight” to the north followed this scene (Mk 7:24 ff[.]). But the accounts do not in the least represent this departure as a flight, nor do they account for this journey to the north as a result of the previous controversy; rather it is _we_ who interpolate a fictitious causal connection in the chronological sequence of the narrative. If Jesus immediately before this was supported by the popular favour and now leaves the region, we have a fact before us which stands unexplained in the texts. That it was a flight is an unprovable conjecture.

No importance need be attached to the fact that subsequently Jesus again appears on two occasions surrounded by a multitude (Mk 8:1-9: feeding of the 4000; and Mk 8:34 ff[.]: the scenes before and after the Transfiguration). This fact might perhaps be attributed to a literary reconstruction of the respective accounts,—as may be considered established, for example, in the case of the _doublette_ of the feeding of the multitude.

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Decisive, however, is the reception which the Passover caravan accorded to Jesus as he overtook it at Jericho. This ovation was not accorded to the man who had lost ground before the Pharisees in his own country and among his own people and at last had been forced to flee, but to the celebrated prophet emerging from his retirement. If this Galilean populace supported him now by their acclaim and enabled him to terrorise the magistrates in the capital for several days—for his purification of the Temple was nothing else but that—and to expose the scribes with his dry irony, is it possible that they did it for the man who a few weeks before had to yield to these theologians in his own land?

If one insists upon speaking of a successful period, it is the _second_ that must be so denominated. For wherever Jesus appears in public after the return of the Twelve he is accompanied by a devoted multitude—in Galilee, from the Jordan to Jerusalem, and in the capital itself. The surly Jewish populace is an invention of the Fourth Evangelist. Then, too, the illegality of his secret arrest and hasty conviction shows what the Council feared from the popular favour in behalf of Jesus. That was the only “ill[ ]success” of [pg 069] the second period. It was indeed a fatal one.

The first and successful Galilean period is therefore in reality a time of humiliation and ill[ ]success. There is a double reason for regarding it nevertheless as a “happy” time. In the first place there is an æsthetic element in it, which Keim in particular strongly emphasises. A series of parables drawn from nature, as well as the wonderful speech against worldly care (Mt 6:25-34), seem hardly intelligible except as the reflection of a glad and cheerful sense for the beauty of nature.

With this is associated, in the second place, an _historical postulate._ In the first period no trace is discoverable of the idea of the Passion: the second is dominated by it. Hence the first was successful, the second unsuccessful,—for otherwise there is no way of accounting, psychologically or historically, for the change.

The historical facts speak differently. In the real period of ill[ ]success the resolution to suffer did not come to light. In the successful second period, on the other hand, Jesus disclosed to his Disciples that he must be put to death by the scribes. Thus the relation was the reverse. Herewith modern-historical psychology finds itself before an enigma.

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4. The Influence of the Pauline Theory of the Atonement upon the Formulation of the Synoptical Prediction of the Passion. (Second Assumption.)

No proof can be brought to support the contention that the Passion passages in the Synoptic Gospels are influenced by Pauline conceptions. Here again we have a sort of postulate. For if the juridical character of Mk 10:45 and Mk 14:24 cannot be set down to the account of the Pauline medium, one must assume that Jesus’ own notion of the Passion contained this bold conception of atonement. The modern-historical solution, however, is not adapted to that alternative.

As a matter of fact it is demonstrable that no Pauline influence can be discerned here. According to Paul, Jesus said at the Last Supper: My body for _you_ (1 Cor. 11:24). In the same manner Luke has: My body which is given for _you;_ the blood which is shed for _you_ (Lk 22:19, 20). Both the older Synoptists invariably write instead of this: for _many._ Mk 10:45 = Mt 20:28: to give his life a ransom for _many._ Mk 14:24 = Mt 26:28: my blood of the covenant which is shed for _many_. In the one case the persons who are to benefit by the Passion are definitely determined: they [pg 071] are the Disciples. In the other case it is a question of an indefinite number.

Nothing is accomplished by the argument that it comes in the end substantially to the same thing. Why, according to the older Synoptists, did Jesus speak of the _many,_ according to Paul, of _his own?_ The sole explanation lies in the fact that Paul wrote from the standpoint of the Church after the death of Jesus. From this point of view the saving efficacy of Jesus’ death is applied to a determinate community, to those, namely, who believe on him. The Disciples represent this community of believers in the historical sayings of Jesus, because from the standpoint of the Church, founded as it was upon belief in the Messiah, one could not conceive that Jesus’ words about his Passion could have any other reference but to the believers.

The early Synoptic “for many” is uttered, however, from the _historical standpoint._ That is to say, it is appropriate to the time when Jesus did not yet require belief in his messiahship, when consequently the number of persons whom his death is to benefit is left indeterminate. Of only one thing is he certain, that it is greater than the circle of his Disciples: hence he said, “for many.” Had [pg 072] he used the expression, “for you,” which Paul thought it natural to attribute to him, the Disciples must have concluded from it that he was dying for them alone, inasmuch as they could not then have the feeling that they were representatives of a future community of believers, according to the conception which was so obvious to Paul and the Church.

Inasmuch as this _“for many”_ has held its place, in spite of the fact that Paul, writing from the churchly point of view, felt instinctively the necessity of substituting _“for you”_ (though he thereby coined an expression which is historically impossible), one is not justified in assuming any sort of Pauline influence upon the traditional form of the early Synoptic Passion-idea. The bold theory of the atonement in the Synoptists is therefore historical. Any softening of it, such as the modern-historical solution must assume, is without justification.

Hence in the interpretation of Jesus’ saying the first requisite is to do justice to the expression “for many.” Because they have not done this, all expositions of the significance of Jesus’ death—from Paul to Ritschl—are unhistorical. One has but to substitute, for the community of believers with which they deal, the indeterminate and unqualified [pg 073] “many” of the historical saying, and their interpretation become simply meaningless. That interpretation alone is historical which renders it intelligible why, according to Jesus, the atonement accomplished by his death is to redound to the benefit of a number which is intentionally left indeterminate.

5. The Kingdom of God as an Ethical Entity in the Passion Idea. (Third Assumption.)

(a). Mk 10:41-45. Service as the ethical conduct prescribed in expectation of the coming Kingdom.

The sons of Zebedee had advanced the claim to sit on either side of the Lord in his glory, i. e. when he should reign as Messiah upon his throne. The other Disciples object to this. Jesus calls them together and speaks to them about serving and ruling in connection with the Kingdom of God.

In this saying one is accustomed to find the ethical conception of the Kingdom of God. There is to be a revaluation of all values. The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is he who becomes least, like a child (Mt 18:4), and the ruler is he who serves. Self-humiliation and the meekness of service, such is the [pg 074] new morality of the Kingdom of God which comes into force through Jesus’ service unto death.

With this, however, the fact is ignored that the Kingdom in which one reigns is thought of as a future thing, whereas the serving applies to the present! In our ethical fashion of viewing the matter, serving and reigning coincide logically and chronologically. With Jesus, however, it is not at all a question of a purely ethical exchange of the notions of serving and ruling; rather it is a contrast which develops in a chronological sequence. There is a sharp distinction made between the present and the future æon. He who is one day to count among the greatest in the Kingdom of God must _now_ be as a child! He who advances a claim to a position of rule therein must _now_ serve! The more lowly the position of humble service which one _now_ assumes, in the time when the earthly rulers exercise authority by force, so much the more lofty will be his station as ruler when earthly force is done away and the Kingdom of God dawns. Hence he especially must humble himself even unto death who is to come as the Son of Man upon the clouds of heaven to judge and to rule the world. Before he mounts his throne he drinks the cup of suffering, [pg 075] which they also must taste who would reign with him!

So soon as one pays due attention to this “now and then” in Jesus’ speech, the trivial parallelism of phrase is replaced by a real and effective climax. The descending stages of service correspond to the ascending stages of rule.

1. Whosoever would become great _among you,_ shall be _your_ servant—Mk 10:43.

2. Whosoever _of you_ would be first, shall be bondservant of _all_ (others)—Mk 10:44.

3. Therefore the Son of Man expected the post of highest rule because he was not come to be served but to serve, in giving his life a ransom for _many_—Mk 10:45.

The climax is a double one. The service of the Disciples extended only to _their_ circle: the service of Jesus to an unlimited number, namely, to all such as were to benefit by his suffering and death. In the case of the Disciples it was merely a question of unselfish _subjection:_ in the case of Jesus it meant the bitter _suffering of death._ Both count as serving, inasmuch as they establish a claim to a position of rule in the Kingdom.

The ordinary explanation does not satisfy the early Synoptic text but only that of Lk 22:24-27. This text has torn the narrative from [pg 076] its proper connection, so that it appears as a dispute among the Disciples “which of them is accounted to be the greatest.”

With this, the “now and then” is eliminated from the situation, and it is only a question of a purely ethical inversion of the ideas of ruling and serving. Accordingly, Jesus’ speech, too, runs on in a lifeless parallelism. He that is greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve (Lk 22:26). Instead of exemplifying by his own sacrifice of himself unto death for the great generality of men the conduct required of those who would reign with him, he speaks only of his serviceable character as displayed towards the Disciples: But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth (Lk 22:27). By this he means a serving that is at the same time ruling. In the case of the two older Synoptists, however, it is not at all a question of the proclamation of the new morality of the Kingdom of God, where serving is ruling; rather it is a question of the significance of humility and service in _expectation of the Kingdom of God._ Service is the fundamental law of _interim-ethics._

This thought is much deeper and more vital than the modern play upon words which we attribute to the Lord. Only through lowliness [pg 077] and childlikeness in this æon is one worthily prepared to reign in the Kingdom of God. Only he who is here morally purified and ennobled through suffering can be great there. Hence suffering is for Jesus the moral means of acquiring and confirming the messianic authority to which he is designated.

Earthly rule, because it depends upon force, is an emanation of the power of ungodliness. Authority in the Kingdom of God, where the power of this world is destroyed, signifies emanation from the divine power. Only he can be the bearer of such authority who has kept himself free from the contamination of earthly rule. To allot it to such as have prepared themselves through suffering is God’s affair and his alone (Mk 10:39, 40).

But if service does not represent the morality of the Kingdom of God, Jesus’ conception of the Passion does not deal with the corresponding notion of the Kingdom as a self-developing ethical society, but rather with a super-moral entity, namely, the Kingdom of God in its eschatological aspect.

(b). The idea of the Passion and the Eschatological Expectation.

The investigation of the accounts of the Lord’s Supper [in the first part of this work] revealed a close connection between the eschatological [pg 078] conclusion (Mk 14:25) and the expression about the blood shed for many (Mk 14:24). The other passages about the Passion suggest a similar connection.

After Jesus with his “Yes” had himself pronounced the verdict of death he speaks of his “coming again” upon the clouds of heaven. Hereby, according to Mark’s text, he associates the two events in a single thought. Mk 14:62: I am, and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of Heaven. This logical connection is already weakened by Matthew, as in the case of the word about the cup. He substitutes for the “and” an expression which denotes a temporal sequence merely. Mt 26:64: Thou hast said: _nevertheless_ I say unto you, _henceforth_ shall ye, etc. The eschatological reference is lacking in Luke: he has omitted it also from the word about the cup.

A close connection between the thought of the Passion and eschatology is implied also in Jesus’ saying about the path of suffering which his followers must tread (Mk 8:34- 9:1). Whosoever shall be ashamed of Jesus when he suffers reproach and persecution in this adulterous and sinful world, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory [pg 079] of his Father with the holy angels. For this generation shall not sink into the grave until they see the Kingdom of God come with power!

This connection must have appeared extremely prominent to the hearers. After the departure from Cæsarea Philippi, under the impression of the secret of the Passion, which filled them with a sense of sadness and fear (Mk 9:30-32),—the Disciples dispute which of them shall receive the highest place in the Kingdom. In the house at Capernaum Jesus had to rebuke them (Mk 9:33-37). That was after he had spoken for the second time about his Passion.

On the way to Jerusalem the same scene was reenacted in closest conjunction with the third prediction of the Passion. (Mk 10:32-41). The sons of Zebedee advance their claim to the seats upon the throne. This is not in the least a case of childish misunderstanding on the part of his followers, for Jesus in fact treats their suggestion with perfect seriousness. The eschatological expectation must accordingly have been thrown into such strong relief for the Disciples by Jesus’ prediction of his Passion that they necessarily reasoned within themselves about the position they should occupy in the coming Kingdom.

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The modern-historical solution eliminates the eschatological conception of the Kingdom of God from the Passion, reducing it to the notion of an apotheosis, “the coming _again,”_ as it is called. This expression is entirely false. Jesus never spoke of his coming _again_ but only of his _coming_ or of the _advent_ of the Son of Man. We use the expression “coming again” because we connect death and glory by contrast, as though the new situation were conditioned merely upon a victorious transfiguration of Jesus. Our view makes him say: “I shall die, but I shall be glorified through my coming again.” As a matter of fact, however, he said: “I must suffer _and_ the Son of Man shall appear upon the clouds of heaven.” But that for his hearers meant much more than an apotheosis—for with the appearing of the Son of Man dawned the eschatological Kingdom. Jesus therefore sets his death in temporal-causal connection with the eschatological dawning of the Kingdom. The _eschatological_ notion of the Kingdom, not the _modern-ethical_ notion, dominates his idea of the Passion.

6. The Form of the Prediction of the Passion. (Fourth Assumption.)

If the modern historical solution be correct [pg 081] in its conception, Jesus must have communicated the thought of the Passion to his Disciples in the form of an ethical _reflection._ If they were to comprehend the approaching catastrophe as the inauguration of the new morality, and were to derive from it incentive to a change of conduct, then he must have familiarised them with the character of this event from the very beginning, as soon as ever he announced it.

As a matter of fact, however, he imparted to them the thought of the Passion, not in the form of an _ethical reflection,_ but as a _secret,_ without further explanation. It is dominated by a “must,” the expression for incomprehensible divine necessity. The fact that the Passion-idea was a secret stands opposed to the modern-historical solution.

7. Résumé.

1. The assumption of a fortunate Galilean period which was followed by a time of defeat is historically untenable.

2. Pauline influence cannot have conditioned the form of the early Synoptic sayings about the Passion.

3. Not the ethical but the hyper-ethical, the eschatological, notion of the Kingdom [pg 082] dominates the Passion as Jesus conceived it.

4. The utterances of the Passion-idea did not occur in the form of an ethical reflection but it was a question of an incomprehensible secret which the Disciples had not the least need to understand and in fact did not.

Such is the situation with regard to the four pillars of the modern-historical solution. With them the whole structure collapses. It is after all a lifeless thought! The feeble modernity of it is visible in the fact that it does not get beyond a sort of representative significance of Jesus’ death. Jesus effects by his offering of himself nothing absolutely new, since throughout his whole public ministry he assumes that the Kingdom of God is already present as a dispensation of the forgiveness of sin or as the morally developing society. With his very appearance upon earth it is there. The performance of atonement, however, requires a _real_ significance in Jesus’ death.

Herein lies the weakness of the modern dogmatic in contrast with the old. Paul, Anselm, and Luther know of an absolutely new situation which follows in time the death of Jesus [pg 083] and results as a consequence of it. Modern theology talks all around the subject; it has nothing specific to say, however, but involves itself in the cloud of its own assumptions. Both accounts, indeed, are unhistorical. Religiously considered, only the modern view is justifiable. The old dogmatic, however, is in this point the more historical, for it postulates at all events a real effect of the death of Jesus, as the Synoptical passages require.

In what, however, does this absolutely new thing consist which is there made to depend upon the death of Jesus? The Synoptic sayings give but one answer to this: the eschatological realisation of the Kingdom! The coming of the Kingdom of God with power is dependent upon the atonement which Jesus performs. That is substantially the secret of the Passion.

How is that to be understood? Only the history of Jesus can throw light upon it. _In place of the modern-historical solution we advance now the eschatological-historical._

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