CHAPTER II
THE “DEVELOPMENT” OF JESUS
1. The Kingdom of God as an Ethical and as an Eschatological Fact.
THE concurrence in Jesus of an ethical with an eschatological line of thought has always constituted one of the most difficult problems of New Testament study. How can two such different views of the world, in part diametrically opposed to one another, be united in _one_ process of thought?
The attempt has been made to evade the problem, with the just feeling that the two views cannot be united. Critical spirits like T. Colani _(Jesus-Christ et les croyance messianique de son temps._ 1864, pp. 94 ff., 169 ff.) and G. Volkmar _(Die Evangelien._ 1870, pp. 530 ff.) went to the length of eliminating altogether eschatology from the field of Jesus’ thought. All expressions of that sort were accordingly to be charged to the account of the eschatological expectation of a later time. This procedure is frustrated by the stubbornness of the texts: the eschatological sayings belong precisely to the best attested passages. [pg 085] The excision of them is an act of violence.
No more successful has been the attempt to evade the problem by _sublimating_ the eschatology, as though Jesus had translated the realistic conceptions of his time into spiritual terms by using them in a figurative sense. The work of Eric Haupt _(Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien,_ 1895) is based upon this thought. But there is nothing to justify us in assuming that Jesus attached to his words a non-natural sense, whereas his hearers, in accordance with the prevailing view, must have understood them realistically. Not only are we at a loss for a rational explanation of such a method on Jesus’ part, but he himself gives not the slightest hint of it.
So the problem remains as urgent as ever, how the juxtaposition of two discordant views of the world is to be explained. The sole solution seems to lie in the assumption of a gradual development. Jesus may have entertained at first a purely ethical view, looking for the realisation of the Kingdom of God through the spread and perfection of the moral-religious society which he was undertaking to establish. When, however, the opposition of the world put the organic completion of the Kingdom in doubt, the eschatological [pg 086] conception forced itself upon him. By the course of events he was brought to the pass where the fulfilment of the religious-ethical ideal, which hitherto he had regarded as the terminus of a continuous moral development, could be expected only as the result of a cosmic catastrophe in which God’s omnipotence should bring to its conclusion the work which he had undertaken.
Thus a complete revolution is supposed to have occurred in Jesus’ thought. But the problem is veiled rather than solved by disposing the terms of the contrast in chronological sequence. The acceptance of the eschatological notion, if it is to be rendered intelligible in this fashion, signifies nothing less than a total breach with the past, a break at which all development ceases. For the eschatological thought, if it be taken seriously, abrogates the ethical train of thought. It accepts no subordinate place. To such a position of impotence it was brought for the first time in Christian theology as the result of historical experience. Jesus, however, must have thought either eschatologically or uneschatologically, but not both together—nor in such a wise that the eschatological was superadded to supplement the uneschatological.
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It has been proved that in the thought of the Passion it is only the eschatological idea of the Kingdom of God which is in view. It has been shown likewise that the assumption of a period of ill[ ]success after the mission of the Twelve is without historical justification. This, however, constitutes the indispensable presumption for every such development as has been assumed on the part of Jesus. Therefore the eschatological notion cannot have been forced upon Jesus by outward experiences, but it must from the beginning, even in the first Galilean period, have lain at the base of his preaching!
2. The Eschatological Character of the Charge to the Twelve.
“The Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mt 10:7)—this word which Jesus commissions his Disciples to proclaim is a summary expression of all his previous preaching. They are to carry it now throughout the cities of Israel. The charge of Jesus to the Twelve furnishes no means of determining in what sense this proclamation is meant.
If the common conception is right about the significance of this mission of the Twelve, the words with which he dismisses them present an extraordinary riddle. Full of hope [pg 088] and with the joy of productive effort he goes about to extend the scope of his activity for the founding of the Kingdom of God. The commission to the Twelve ought therefore to contain instruction about the missionary propaganda they were to carry out in this sense. One must hence expect that he would direct them how they should preach about the new relation to God and the new morality of the Kingdom.
The commission, however, is anything but a summary of the “teaching of Jesus.” It does not in the least contemplate instruction of a thoroughgoing kind, rather what is in question is a flying proclamation throughout Israel. The one errand of the Apostles as teachers is to cry out everywhere the warning of the nearness of the Kingdom of God—to the intent that all may be warned and given opportunity to repent. In this, however, no time is to be lost; therefore they are not to linger in a town where men are unsusceptible to their message, but to hasten on in order that they may pass through all the cities of Israel before the appearing of the Son of Man takes place. But “the coming of the Son of Man” signifies—_the dawning of the Kingdom of God with power._
When they persecute you in this city flee [pg 089] unto another, for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come (Mt 10:23). If one so understands the com[m]ission to the Twelve as to suppose that Jesus would say through his Disciples that the time is now come for the realisation of the Kingdom by a new moral behaviour, that eschatological saying lies like an erratic boulder in the midst of a flowery meadow. If, however, one conceives of the embassage eschatologically, the saying acquires a great context: it is a rock in the midst of a wild mountain landscape. One cannot affirm of this saying that it has been interpolated here by a later age; rather with compelling force it fixes the presence of eschatological conceptions in the days of the mission of the Twelve.
The one and only article of instruction that is required is the call to repentance. Whosoever believes in the nearness of the Kingdom, repents. Hence Jesus gives the Disciples authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal the sick (Mt 10:1). By these signs they are to perceive that the power of ungodliness is coming to an end and the morning-glow of the Kingdom of God already dawns. That belongs to their errand as teachers, for whosoever fails to believe their [pg 090] signs, and thereupon brings forth no works of repentance unto the Kingdom of God,—that man is damned. Thus have C[h]orazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum come into condemnation. Faith and repentance were made easy for them by the signs and wonders with which they were favoured beyond others—and yet they did not come to themselves, as even pagan cities like Tyre and Sidon would have done (Mt 11:20-24). This saying addressed to the people shows what significance Jesus ascribed to the signs in view of the eschatological embassage.
Thus the Disciples were to preach _the Kingdom, Repentance, and the Judgment._ Inasmuch, however, as the event they proclaimed was so near that it might at any moment surprise them, they must be prepared for what precedes it, namely, for the final insurrection of the power of this world. How they are to comport themselves in the face of this emergency so as not to be confounded—here is the point upon which Jesus’ parting words of instruction bear! In the general tumult of spirits all ties will be dissolved. Faction will divide even the family (Mt 10:34-36). Whosoever would be loyal to the Kingdom of God must be ready to tear from out his heart those who were dearest [pg 091] to him, to endure reproach, and to bear the cross (Mt 10:37, 38). The secular authority will bring upon them severe persecution (Mt 10:17-31). Men will call them to account and subject them to torture in order to move them to denial of their cause. Brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children shall rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. Only he who remains steadfast in the midst of this general tumult, and confesses Jesus before men, shall be saved in the Day of Judgment, when he intervenes with God in their behalf (Mt 10:32, 33).
In the commission to the Twelve Jesus imparts instruction about the woes of the approaching Kingdom. In the descriptive portions of it there may be much perhaps that betrays the colouring of a later time. By this concession, however, the character of the speech as a whole is not prejudiced. The question at issue is not about a course of conduct which they are to maintain _after his death._ For such instruction not a single historical word can be adduced. The woes precede the dawning of the Kingdom. Therefore the victorious proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom must accommodate itself to the woes. Hence this juxtaposition of optimism [pg 092] and pessimism which the current interpretation finds so unaccountable. It is the sign manual of every eschatological _Weltanschauung._
3. The New View.
The idea of Passion is dominated _only_ by the eschatological conception of the Kingdom. In the charge to the Twelve the question is _only_ about the eschatological—not about the ethical-nearness of the Kingdom. From this it follows, for one thing, that Jesus’ ministry counted _only_ upon the eschatological realisation of the Kingdom. Then, however, it is evident that the relation of his ethical thoughts to the eschatological view can have suffered no alteration by reason of outward events but must have been the same from beginning to end.
In what relation, however, did his ethics and his eschatology stand to each other? So long as one starts with the ethics and seeks to comprehend the eschatology as something adventitious, there appears to be no organic connection between the two, since the ethics of Jesus, as we are accustomed to conceive it, is not in the least accommodated to the eschatology but stands upon a much [pg 093] higher level. One must therefore take the opposite course and see if the ethical proclamation in essence is not conditioned by the eschatological view of the world.
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