Jesus The Nazarene. Myth or History. Maurice Goguel (1926)

JESUS
THE NAZARENE
* * MYTH OR HISTORY? *
JESUS
*
THE * MYTH & HISTORY?;*

MAURICE GOGUEL
NEW
DOCTOR OF THEOLOCr AND LITERATURE, PROFESSOR OF EXEGESIS AND TESTAMENT CRITICISM IN FACULTY OF FREE PROTESTANT
THEOLOGY (PARIS)
TRANSLATED BY
FREDERICK STEPHENS
APPLETON AND COMPANY MCMXXVI NEW YORK * *

D.
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
D.
APPLETON AND COMPANY
PREFACE
THE
is one question of the historical character of Jesus of present-day interest. It has once again been ably raised by Monsieur P. L. Couchoud in a small volume
of considerable literary value and high spiritual in1 Is it true that the theory of the origins of spiration. as anChristianity sketched out in the above work is, nounced in the programme of the collection in which
it
has appeared, "the synthesis of recent works on in Christianity," and "the focussing that all agree For he who knows, considering as indispensable"?
of research conbe permitted to doubt cerning Christian origins may Has not one of M. Couchoud's collaborators this.
even
superficially, the present state
written on the
first
volume of the
collection
"Without
seem as inexJesus, the history of Christianity would or of plicable as that of Islam without Mahomet,
intellecPythagorianism without Pythagoras"? The 2 and the M. of tual loyalty vigour Couchoud, sincerity of his thought, the loyal effort which he has made to
are penetrate into the spirit of primitive Christianity, it is a which this but full of homage respect, worthy
our seeing in his pleasure to pay him does not prevent book the dream of a poet rather than the work of an
historian.
'P. L.
Couchoud, Le Myttlre dt U*u*> Paris, 1924-
Albert Houtin, Courte kutoire du Christianisme, Parit, 1924.
vi
PREFACE
winter
During the discussions which took place last at the Union pour la Verite certain criticisms were advanced and facts were cited in contradiction to his It is no matter for surprise that these obtheses. but it is surjections should have left him unmoved, he has prising that in the volume he has just published
not attempted to answer them. The problem of the historical character of Jesus is one of fact. It is entirely in the region of fact and by
the historical
to
method that we shall attempt its solution decide whether modern criticism since the eighteenth
doing by Strauss, Baur, Renan, Albert and Jean Reville, and Auguste Sabatier, Harnack, Lagrange, Loisy
Guignebert,*
should admit its century has entered a blind alley, and and in error, cease to see in Jesus a real personage, followed enter upon a road other than that so
historical exis'Being only here concerned with the question of the tence of Jesus, we pass over the problem of the influence (according to certain authors) of the religions of India upon him and the Gospel
tradition.
Cp. R. Seydl, Das Evangehum von Jesus in semen Verhaltntssen nur Buddha-Sage und Buddha Lehre, Leipsig, 1882; Buddha und Chnstus, Breslau, 1884; Die Buddha-Leg ende und das Leben Jesu nach den Evangehen, Weimar, 1897.
CONTENTS
PAGB
PREFACE
CHAPTER
CZUPT1B
I
NONHISTORICAL THEORIES
THE THEORIES
II.
OF NONHISTORICITY UP TO THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY NONHISTORICAL THEORIES IN THE TWENTIETH
. .
CENTURY
III.
...
15
THE PROBLEM
25
CHAPTER
I
II.
II
THE NONCHRISTIAN TESTIMONY

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS THE LATIN AUTHORS
. .
....
...
III
29 38
45
III.
"ACTA PILATI" (THE ACTS OF PILATE)
CHAPTER
HYPOTHESIS OF A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
I
II.
III.
JESUS THE NAZARENE THE HYPOTHESIS OF A SECT OF PRE-CHRISTIAN NAZARENES, WORSHIPPERS OF JESUS CHRISTIANITY AND THE DISCIPLES OF JOHN THE
.
.
51
57
73
BAPTIST
CHAPTER IV
TWO PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS TO THE NONHISTORICAL THESIS
I.
THE POLEMICS
ITY
OF THE OPPONENTS OF CHRISTIAN78 S2
II.
DOCETISM
vffl
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
THE APOSTLE PAUL AND GOSPEL TRADITION
I.
THE
EPISTLES OF
PAUL
II.
PAUL, BEFORE His CONVERSION, A WITNESS TO
THE CROSS
III.
........ ..........
....
93
95
PAUL AND THE UNITY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY
...........
OF JESUS
99
IO
103 121
IV.
THE BROTHERS
APOSTLES
..........
AND THE JERUSALEM
V.
VI.
EXAMINATION OF TEXTS SUPPOSED TO CONTAIN ALLUSIONS TO A CHRIST MYTH THE GOSPEL TRADITION IN PAUL
.....
.
.
CHAPTER VI
THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL
I.
THE CHARACTER
OF PAULINE
II.
III.
GOD AND DEMONS SIN AND EVIL
IV. V. VI.
VII.
THE REDEMPTION THE CHRIST AND His WORK THE JUSTIFICATION AND REDEMPTION
.
.......... ........
.
...
THOUGHT
.
135
.136
139 144
.149
THE
-
SINNER
.....
OF
.
THE GENESIS
OF THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
*59 168
CHAPTER
THE NONPAULINE
I.
VII
EPISTLES OF
.
THE NEW TESTAMENT

173 175 182
THEIR CHARACTER
II.
III.
IV.
THE THE THE
PASTORAL EPISTLES EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
........ ........ ......
FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER, EPISTLE OF JUDE, THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER AND THE EPISTLE OF JAMES
V.
CONCLUSION
........ ...........
CHAPTER
VIII
184 186
THE CHRIST OF THE APOCALYPSE

I,
II.
THE
CHARACTER OF THE APOCALYPSE ("Revelations") VISION OF THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON
188 192
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
fc
THE THEORY OF THE PROPHETIC ORIGIN OF THE GOSPEL TRADITION

CHAPTIft
I.
*AOE
THE FUNCTION
II.
THE
1.
OF THE PROPHETIC ARGUMENT IN PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY RELATIONS OF PROPHECY AND THE GOSPEL HISTORY
.
198
203 203 205
2.
CREATIONS DUE TO PROPHETIC EXEGESIS MODIFICATIONS DUE TO PROPHETIC EXEGESIS

.
III.
IV.
INFLUENCE OF PROPHECY ON THE FACTS FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECIES DISCOVERED AFTER

.
.
212
215 219 226
THE EVENT
V. VI.
THE
CRUCIFIXION
CHRIST THE PASCHAL LAMB
CHAPTER X
THE GOSPEL TRADITION
I,
COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS
IL
III.
IV.
THE GOSPEL IDEA THE ABSENCE OF CHRONOLOGICAL THE PLAN OF THE GOSPELS
CONSIDERATIONS
229 234 239 244 264

265 267
V.
CONCERNING CERTAIN FACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GOSPEL TRADITION
....
1.
FOLKLORE
2. 3.
INSPIRATION AND VISIONS THE TRANSFERENCE OF MATERIAL BORROWED FROM THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY
....
4.
THE LITURGY
270 275
CHAPTER XI
THE ORIGIN OF THE FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION AND
FUNCTION IN PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY
I.
ITS
II.
THE RESURRECTION PROBLEM THE PAULINE CONCEPTION OF

TION
279
CHRIST'S RESURREC-
283
III.
THE CONCEPT
OF THE RETURN OF CHRIST TO TERIAL LIFE
MA289
x
CHAPTER
CONTENTS
IV. V. VI.
PRIMITIVE FORM OF THE RESURRECTION BELIEF How THE BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AROSE THE BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AND THE MESSIANIC BELIEF
.
.
290 294
3<>7
VII.
CONCLUSION
3 11
GENERAL CONCLUSION
INDEX
3*4 3*7
JESUS THE NAZARENE * * MYTH OR HISTORY?*
JESUS
THE NAZARENE MYTH OR HISTORY?

CHAPTER
I
I.
THE THEORIES
relates that
OF NONHISTORICITY UP TO THE
CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
BAYLE
one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance, Laurcntius Valla, during a banquet, said one day to Antoinc Panormita, who was as much scandalized as shocked by the remark, that he had in 1 his quiver weapons against the Messiah Himself. Did
he mean by this to throw doubt upon the manner in Or which tradition presented the Gospel history? historical the to as far so did he go reality of question
the person of Jesus?
The manner in which the conversation does not permit us to decide the point.
is
related
to the eighteenth century the authority of the Gospels was unquestioned. Each one contented him-
Up
self
by paraphrasing with more or less freedom the So long as Protestants, equally data of the accounts. with Catholics, continued to be dominated by the
of Scripture principle of the literal inspiration
it
could
not be otherwise.
*
article "Vtllt.* Btyle, Diction**ir* historigue *t critigui,
JESUS
The
sole
THE NAZARENE
problem which existed was that concernand disposition of the parallel ing the arrangement From the sixteenth up to the eighteenth records. marvelous incentury, from Osiander to Griesbach,
to coordinate these in such genuity had been displayed a manner that, according to the very words of Osiander,* no word of any record should be omitted, that nothing foreign should be added, and that the 3 order of no evangelist should be modified.
If this "reconciling" was not yet a true critical study of the life of Jesus, it at all events, owing to the
complexity and improbability of the hypotheses
it
was
compelled to construct, helped to
show
that the prob-
lem as then presented remained insoluble, and that in consequence it was necessary to transfer it to another
field.
It
was during the eighteenth century that
this trans-
This revolution, the consequences of which were only gradually revealed, took place almost simultaneously in England under the influence of the Deists, in France under that of Voltaire and the
ference took place.
Encyclopaedists, in
Germany under
that of the School
of Enlightenment (Aufklarung), which received the 4 adhesion of Reimarus and Lessing.
The
first scientific
essay on the
life
of Jesus
is
that
*See hit Harmonic, published in Basle in 1537. Concerning L'Harmonistique, see M. Goguel,
et seg. *
Introd.,
i.
pp. 49
Concerning the beginnings of the critical history of the life of Ltben Jesu-Forschung, Jesus, see Albeit Schweitzer, Geschichte der de Tubingen, 1913, pp. 13-26; also Chas. Guignebert, Le Probteme Deists and Jtsus, Paris, 1914, pp. 7-21. The part played by English
French writers, completely ignored by Schweitzer, has been well emphasized by Guignebert.
and 1778. It published by Lessing between 1774 from a voluobtained of seven consists fragments
by Hermann Samuel Reimarus ob(1694-1768). The author of this had for his showin natural religion ject the justification of base of supfeeble a but had that Christianity ing
minous manuscript
left
port.
In the opinion of Reimarus, Jesus had never thought of founding a new religion. His preaching, exclusively
eschatological and terrestrial, had solely in view manifestation as Messiah, the son of David.
His
that He Jesus perished at Jerusalem at the time Himself to proclaimed King. After get attempted His death His disciples imagined the idea of a second
coming of the Messiah and of a through His death. Reimarus has a double merit.
spiritual
redemption
first
He
from the
in the recognized the importance of eschatology natural a to discover tried and of Jesus, thought connection of cause and effect, not only in the history
of Jesus, but also in that of primitive Christianity. By the manner in which he presents the life and the
trateaching of Jesus, Reimarus claims to undermine introintention This base. the at ditional Christianity
duces a philosophical element into his research, which is as much a disturbing factor as the dogmatic prejudices
onists.
for
which
Reimarus
reproaches
his
antag-
The same may be

activity
said of the rationalists,
whose
of
the
extends
from
about
the
middle
Eliminating eighteenth century up to about 1830. at aimed portraying every supernatural element, they
whose teaching accorded Jesus as a master of virtue
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
with their own. Such is specially the character of the 6 8 works of Herder and of Paulus.
The
facts
latter
is
of miracles.
He sees in them
particularly given to the interpretation real but perfectly natural
which his contemporaries have not understood, and which they have considered as having the character
of prodigies. If, for example,
it
has been believed that Jesus mulis
tiplied the loaves, this
because, in the desert where
crowd had followed Him, He had given an exdisample of distributing the few loaves at His own of His hearers posal, an example followed by those
the
who
possessed provisions. The rationalist conception of the life of Jesus does not differ in essentials from
the supernatural conception. The former limits itself to the recitation of the facts recorded while combin-
ing more or less happily the Synoptic and the Johannine statements, but instead of having perpetual recourse to
miracle, the rationalists display an extreme ingenuity
in giving to events a natural interpretation. The work of the French rationalists
of
the
less systematic chareighteenth century possesses a the greater for that. It rests acter; its import is only
upon no profound work of

Herder,
exegesis,
and does not
Vom
Erloser der Menschen nach unsfrn drei ersten Evan-
g elicit: Vom Gottessohn der Welt Heiland nach Johannesevangeltum,

Riga, 1797. Gesch. det Paulus, Das leben Jesu al Grundlage einer reinen Urchristentums, Heidelberg, 1828. *With rationalism may be connected the works of Bahrdt (Ausfuhrung det Plans und Zwecks Jesu, 1784-92), Venturmi (Naturliche Gesck des gross fn jropketen von Nazareth, 1800-1802), which reprcent Jesus as an agent of the sect of the Essenes. Concerning these authors see Schweitzer (Gesch., pp. 38-48).
end
in
opposing a new conception of primitive Chris-
tianity to traditional opinion.
In the involved and prudent manner forced upon him, Voltaire pointed out the small documentary value of Gospels "written by persons acquainted with noththe imof contradictions and imposture" probability of the eschatological prophecies, against 1 which good sense rebelled. "Let each ask himself, he
ing, full
'
writes, "if
he sees the possibility of pushing imposture 9 and the stupidity of fanaticism farther." "The whole of Jesus only a fanatic or a stupid knave
history
it
would deny
reason."
10
should be examined in the light of
Voltaire on several occasions draws attention to the silence of non-Christian authors concerning 11 the Gospel history. Obviously, Christian tradition
does not inspire in him any confidence. However, he does not go so far as to maintain that it corresponds to
no
reality at
all.
He
is
aware that "certain followers
of Bolingbroke, more ingenious than erudite," considered themselves authorized by the obscurities and contradictions of the Gospel tradition to
deny the
exist-
ence of Jesus. In so far as he
12
concerned, he rejects this conclusion, and it appears that this is not entirely for reasons of prudence, as is sometimes the case when he
is
wishes to hint at opinions which
it
might be dangerous
Voltaire, Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke (Edition Kehl), xxxiii, pp. 44-60. Cp, Sermon des cinquant, xxxii, pp. 399'4>; Hist, de Vetabt. du christianisme, xxxv, pp. 274-93. g 68. Id., Ex. de Milord Bolingbroke, xxxiii, p.
de 272; Sermon des cinquant, xxxii, p. 401; Hist, Fitabt. du christianisme, xxxv, p. 274. **Id.f Dieu et les Hommes, xxxiii, p. 273.
ib.,
10 Id., * l ld. t
Dieu
et les
p.
Hommes,
xxxiii, p. 271.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Indeed, Voltaire in this case gives he for setting aside the negations weighty reasons of cites. He quotes precise cases of forged genealogies, stories embellished and transfigured, and as for the
to profess openly.
between the hudisproportion which appears to exist the importance of mility of the person of Jesus and the movement which He inaugurated, he relates the case of Fox, "a ignorant shoemaker, founder of
very
the sect of Quakers."
He
concludes
"It
is
necessary,
whilst awaiting faith, to limit oneself to drawing this conclusion : There did exist an obscure Jew, from the crucified as dregs of the people, named Jesus, who was it the of Tiberius, time in the a blasphemer Emperor
being impossible to determine in which year." Voltaire has not sketched any history of the origins of Christianity. His effort to place the study of the documents within the province of reason we should
is none say in modern phrase the province of history the he dealt so the less very remarkable. In doing traditional conception decisive blows. The almost entirely negative character of the criti-
18
cisms of Voltaire explains the extreme conclusions stated at the end of the eighteenth century by Volney
and Dupuis. In
his
work
called
Les Ruines ou Medi-
Empires (Paris 1798unfolded among the a vision conceives 1808) Volney ruins of Palmyra. The representatives of the various
* Voltaire, Dleu et les Hommes, xxxiii, p, 279. Further to what has been quoted it is necessary to read L'Essai sur les maeurs (especially Chap, ix); Les Homelies prononchs b Londres, 1765, xxxii; Conseils raisonnables & M. Bergier, xxxiii Questions de Zapata, xxxiii ; Epitr e
;
tations sur les Revolutions des
aux Remains,
xxxiii,
many
articles in the Dictionnaire philosophique,
zxxvii to xliii. With the ideas of Voltaire may be compared those of Holbach, Systeme de nature, Londres, 1770; under the name of Mirabeau, Le bons sens du cure Meslier, Londres, 1772.
in his turn, religions explain, each
deceived mankind the real religion, spiritual in its essence. In Volney's view, the entire Gospel tradition represented an astral
in inventing
14
priests have obscured which dogmas
how
myth.
The
Volney.
views of Dupuis
18
18
closely resemble those of
According to him, the philosophers who
have made a
of Jesus are not less seriously in error than the theologians who have made of Him a God: "Jesus is still less man than God. He is, like
all
man
men have adored, the sun ChristianWhen we shall have shown," writes ity is a solar myth. the "that pretended history of a God, who is Dupuis, born of a virgin in the winter solstice, who is resuscithe deities that
;
tated at Easter or at the Vernal equinox, after having descended into hell, who brings with Him a retinue of
twelve apostles whose chief possesses all the attributes a God, conqueror of the prince of darkness, of Janus who translates mankind into the empire of light, and
is only a solar fable, as almost it will be unnecessary to inquire whether there was a man called Christ as it is to inquire whether Provided that it be is called Hercules. some
who ...
heals the
woes of the world,
prince
under proven that the being consecrated by worship the name of Christ is the sun, and that the miraculous
14
Napoleon
was under
versation that he had with

it
was a great question (Schweitzer, Gesch , p. 445)' la religion universelle, IB Dupuis, L'Oriffine de tous Its cultes ou de tous les cultet, Paris, Paris, anno III (1794) ; Abregi de V engine anno VII (1798). These two works have been reprinted several
times.
the influence of Volney when, in a conWieland at Weimar, in 1808, he said to decide whether Jesus had existed
"It was during a conversation with Dupuis that Volney conceived the project of his book.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
element in the legend or the poem has this star for its that the Christians object, then it will appear proven are but sun worshippers, and that their priests have the same religion as those of Peru, whose throats they
have
cut."
1T
of the year 1835 was that of the publication 18 and it is a date of first Life of Jesus, by Strauss, critiprimary importance in the history of evangelical
The
Strauss attacks the problem with the absolute indifference to dogma which he owed to the philosophy of Hegel. The fundamental idea of religion in his
cism.
view
is
small import phenomena or not. It
that of the "Gottmenschlichkeit," and it is of whether this idea has been realized in
is
the idea which
is
important,
and not
history.
The
first
Gospel accounts, in Strauss's
from an historical opinion, have not been drawn up the event as these point of view. They do not relate ideas certain but express took by means of
place,
term that images and symbols, or to employ the exact Strauss makes use of, by myths. What is important in
the notion of the myth is not the idea of unreality, but that of a symbolical expression of a higher truth. The mythical explanation seems to Strauss the synthesis
which resolves the antithesis between the naturalist and the supernatural explanations of the life
'Life
it
of Jesus. The other novelty:

IT
of Jesus of Strauss contains anput forward as had never been done
criticized
been wittily Dupuis, Abregi, p. 251. The views of Dupuis have a curious by J. B. Peres, librarian of the town of Agen, in booklet in which he applied the method of Dupuis to the History of Napoleon to prove the latter had never existed.
ConcernStrauss, Das Leben Jesu, Tubingen, 1835* 1836, 1840. also A. Levy, David Fredsee Gesch., Strauss p. 69; Schweitzer, ing crick Strauss, Parii, 1910; Guigncbert, pp. xxii seq.
i
hitherto
problem of the relation between the fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. So long as one was content, as before Strauss, to
the
combine the statements of the four evangelists, Strauss considers that the two traditions are irreconcilable with
each other, and he solves the problem offered by their coexistence in a manner unfavorable to the fourth
evangelist.
that it point of Strauss's construction was was not built upon a sufficiently thorough study of the sources. This omission was filled up simultaneously by the works of F. C. Baur and his disciples and by those
The weak
of a series of
critics
who combated
the theses of the
Tubingen school, such as Weisse, Wilke, Reuss, Albert 19 Reville, H. J. Holtzmann, Bernhard Weiss. The outcome of the discussions which took place on the evangelical problem was a theory whose essential
literature points are that at the base of the evangelical are two principal sources : The Gospel of Mark, either under its present form or; one slightly different (proto-
Mark), and
a collection of discourses (the Logia),
20
the fourth evangelist being considered by the majority of critics as a secondary form of the tradition, domi-
nated by dogmatic and allegorical ideas. The life of Jesus which would be the result of
this critical
all
work has never been
written;
it
is,
so to
21
of H. J. Holtzmann. speak, involved in the work To the school of Baur belong the works of Bruno
i
Concerning these works see Maurice Goguel, Introd.,

ii,
i,
p.
67,
and
*
p. 27.
Usually referred to in England and
Germany by
the letter
(Quelle). Schweitzer, Gctch.> pp. 124-40.
"
io
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Bauer," who in 1841 supported the priority of the of the Gospel of Mark. He explained the peculiarities other records by what he termed the creative power of
the evangelists, and clearly showed the part played in the evolution of tradition by dogmatic and theological But he did not stop there, and maintained notions.
that the forces which had guided the transformation of primitive tradition explained also the genesis of Mark's record. In Bauer's view the primitive evangelist was a creator, and his work is the product of the
faith of the early Christians. Christianity was born at the beginning of the second century from the meetin ing of the different currents of thought originating of Jesus was Judea, Greece and Rome. The person fiction. Jesus is the product, not the a
merely
literary
creator, of Christianity.
Bruno Bauer remained

but
little influence.
a solitary.
His ideas had
When,
at a later period, analogous
ideas to his were expressed, either by the radical Dutch certain modern mythologists, it was not school or
by
under
after their expression that the authors of certain theories believed to be

his influence,
it
and
was only
new found out that The publication
in
Bruno Bauer they had a pioneer. of the Vie de Jesus by Renan in
of 1863 marks a no less important date than that Strauss's work on the history of criticism. This is not because) the work was particularly original. Almost its entire substance was borrowed from the German
2(2
Bruno Bauer, Knttk des Evangelischen Cesch. des Johannes, Bre-
men, 1840; Kritik der Evangclischen Gtsch. der Synopttker, Leipzig, und die 1841-42; Knttk der Evangehen, Berlin, 1850-51; Christus Bruno M. see Bauer Bruno Berlin Kcgel, Casarcn, 1877. Concerning
Batier
und
seine Thcorie uber die Entstehung des Christentums, 1908.
criticism,
11
but although the work of Strauss had been translated, that of Renan was the first French work
on the question. It attracted all the more attention in that it was addressed to the general public. It thus 28 produced an enormous effect. Possessing in reality but little originality, the Vie de Jesus of Renan is, from the literary point of view, 24 a first-class work. Renan makes of Jesus a kind of gentle dreamer who
walks through the midst of the Galilean countryside at the drama in smiling at life, and as though surprised which He takes part. When he disappears, the passion of a deluded woman gives to the world a risen God.
of Renan was followed in the last forty a large number of years of the nineteenth century by other "Lives," from Keim to Oskar Holtzmann." all aim at presenting the results of literary
The work
They
combining, as Renan had already done, the facts of the fourth evangelist with those of the Synoptics. The point of view as to miracles varies,
criticism, often while
but in almost
psychological and of the manner in which
there arc found attempts at the explanation of the Mcssiahship of Jesus

all
He
had concealed
it
from
2 3 See Schweitzer (Gcsch , pp 647-51) for a list of eighty-five booki and pamphlets published in 1863-64 concerning Kenan's work. 24 There erron in taite. are, however, in Kenan's work certain "There is no work," writes Schweitzer, "which swarms with so many and such grave errors in taste as the Vie de Jtsus. It is Christian art an art of waxen figures. The gentle in the worst sense of the word refined Galileans who make up the Jesus, the pretty Maries, the the windows retinue of the charming carpenter have been taken from of Mtrcel also See St. Place opinion the in Sulpice." of a shop Prout on the style of the work "A tort of Lovely Helen of Christianity" (Revue de Paris, Nov. 15, 1920).
Schweitzer, Gesch., pp. I93-***-
12
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The the people and revealed it to His disciples. is the explanation of the scene made effort principal
(Mark viii. 27-33). "Lives" there is an effort to dithese of many minish the importance of the eschatological element, with the preoccupation more or less conscious of
at Caesarea Philippi
In
unfamiliar discovering a Christ who shall not be too an ideal time same at the and for the modern man as is conceived representative of true religion, such
by Protestantism of the liberal school. In the neighborhood of 1890 a new period

history of the "Lives of Jesus begins. Discussion was concentrated principally
11
in the
on
the
Messianic consciousness and eschatology
two prob-
lems intimately connected.
Already had Reimarus emphasized the eschatological views of Jesus, and Strauss had accorded them a
certain importance. But in a general
way
these writers
had scarcely been followed, and the aim was to give to the eschatological declarations of Jesus an interwhich eliminated, while spiritualizing them.
pretation
Attention was brought back again to this problem by the progress of the study of religions in the world
of
antiquity
**
Jesus), in
and of contemporary Judaism (with which eschatological ideas occupy a central
position; also
by the success of the school of
Ritschl,
who assigned capital importance to the notion of the Church more or less explicitly identified with the
preached by Jesus, The of this doctrine led base examination of the Biblical
idea of the
Kingdom of God
M Sometimes these were simply declared unauthentic, particularly by Colani, Jisus Christ ft let croytnccs mesnanigufs dt ton timpi,
Strasbourg, 1864.
Johannes Weiss,
disciple
13
and son-in-law of
Ritschl, to
state conclusions of great import in a leading work of Jesus concerning the 'dealing with the preaching 27 Kingdom of God. In his view Jesus preached a Kingdom of God
plainly
and exclusively eschatological; He considered Himself as the King of this Kingdom that is to say, the Messiah. The thesis of Weiss was repeated and
its
pushed to
zer.
28
farthest consequences
by Albert Schweit-
If the exegesis of the end of the nineteenth century has thrown light on the importance of the eschato-
and Messianic element in primitive Christianity, from being complete on .agreement, however, was far noted. A whole group ,the interpretation of the facts of the Messiaha notion on doubt threw of scholars
logical
'ship of Jesus
being a primitive element of Christianity. *This conception was formulated by William Wrede in 29 In his ra very acute work upon the Gospel of Mark. a fundaview the oldest Gospel tradition suffers from
mental contradiction. It presents as Messianic a history which really was not Messianic. The contradicis concealed and resolved imperfectly it is true and imposed by observed of the secrecy theory by the Messianic that Jesus. Wrede takes pains to show
tion
must not be interpreted as a kind of pedagogic followers proceeding employed by Jesus to prevent His
secret
27
Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu
vom Reich*
Gottes, Gottingen,
1892.
28
Leipzig, 1901; Gesch.> pp. Jesu, Tubingen, 1913.

29
A. Schweitzer, Das Leidens- und Messiasoeheimniss, Tubingen, " psychiatrische Beurttilung 39O-443J
W. Wrede, Das
Messiasgeheimniss In den Evangelien* Gottingen,
1901; Paulus, Halle, 1904.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
throwing themselves into a movement of political Messianism which He would have been unable to aphave eluded Him. prove, and whose control would He sees in the Messianic secret a literary device, thanks to which the conceptions and beliefs of the Christian community have been inserted into the Gosbeen discussed in the pel history. This theory has
studies devoted at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the problem of the relations between
many
80 Paul and Jesus.
The problem
discussed
is
this:
Who
is
the real
founder of Christianity? Is it Jesus Himself, or is it not the apostle Paul, who introduced into the Church the notions of Messiahship and redemption foreign to the thought of Jesus and the faith of His first disciples ?
Him to necessary, and they reduce the part played by that of the occasional cause of the development of
Christianity.
they
did not, doubtless, go so far as to deny the historical reality of the person of Jesus end, nevertheless, in rendering it practically un-
The
theories of
Wrede
been, if birth of Christianity to the thesis of His nonhistorical are character there is but a shade of difference.
From the notion one may so put it, only
81
of a Jesus having the pretext for the
We
thus brought to examine the

80
modern forms of
the
myth
Concerning
this
literature
see
Schweitzer, Gesch. der Pauhni-
ichcn Forschunff, 1911, pp. 119-40. 81 Such appears to be the point of view reached by
M. Loisy. the influence of the sociological school, many critics in recent years insist upon the part played by the community, and specially of worship, in the development of Christianity and of the evangelical tradition. As characteristic of this tendency we cite the work of
Under
Bertram, Die Leidemgcschichte

2922.
Jew und
der Christiukult, Gottingen,
15
and Bruno concept formerly stated by Volney, Dupuis Bauer. In the last twenty years of the nineteenth century the
myth concept is only represented by an anonymous work published in London in 1887 under the title of Antiqua Mater and by some criticisms of the radical Dutch school, 82 which is, however, as a general rule, more occupied with the apostle Paul and his epistles
than with Jesus and the Gospels. Pierson, Matthes, Naber, Van Loon, and for some time Loman, have decided against the historicity of
Jesus. The reasons which are principally of the negative order.
insist
determined their conclusions
These authors
on the uncertainty of the Gospel tradition, the absence of all external testimony, and thus consider as
not only a skepticism regarding the possibility of reaching a positive conception of the life of Jesus,
justified
but also of His existence.

fact that they have failed to give from their the origins of point of view a coherent explanation of the of formation the of Gospel tradiChristianity and tion explains the slight influence that their theories have exercised.
The
II.
NONHISTORICAL THEORIES IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY
That there
theories of the
existed in the
indifference
which the
Dutch school met with something more than a conspiracy of silence is proved by the volume
81
this school, see a book, somewhat one-sided, by G. Van den van Eysinga, Die h oil and is che radikale Kritik dn Neuen Bergh
On
Testaments, Jena, 19x2.
x6
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of discussion since the opening of the twentieth century upon the historical character of Jesus. 88 According to J. M. Robertson, religions develop
who by a regular law, continually producing new gods, someold the to ones, are substituted for or added times presenting themselves as sons of the latter. Jewish
Monotheism thus gave

of Jesus
is
birth to the Messianic cult.
The adoration
Abraham,
only the reappearance of an old religion which existed in Israel at the time when
Isaac,
Moses and Joshua were
still deities.
these cults the most important was that of under Joshua, the solar-deity of Ephraim, worshiped This ram. the and lamb the symbols of the god Joshua is not unrelated to the Syrian Adonis and the Baby-
Among
lonian
Thammuz. The new
cult of
Jesus-Joshua spe-
the destruction of the Temple. cially developed after It created a whole legendary tradition, whose prina distinctly mythical character. cipal elements have It is possible, however, that in these developments have been included certain historical souvethere
may
nirs relating particularly to
John the Baptist and
to a
certain Jesus Ben-Pandera, put to death under Alex8i conander (106-79 B.C.) Albert Kalthoff
Janneus
Short Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, London, 1900, 1910; Studies in Comparative History of Christianity* 1902; Pagan Chnsts, Restatement of the Myth Theology, 1902-11; The Jesus Problem Schweitzer (Gesch.), see Robertson, Concerning Theory, 1917. resemble the astral Guignebert (p. 88). Some ideas of Robertson theories developed by Niemojewski (Gott Jesu im Lichte fremder,
etc.,
Muncben, 1910; Das wervoende Dogma vom Leben Jesu, Jena, von Chnstus, 1910) ; and by C. P. Fuhrmann (Der Astralmythus cult of Jesus-Joshua is also adof a idea The pre-Christian 1912). mitted by Holland (De Evangelische Jozua Met Evangelien), Leiden, nach Rome, Untersuchun2907-10. Cp. also W. Erbt, Von Jerusalem des Geschichte Urchristentums, nur 1912. Leipzig, gen "Kalthoff, Das Christusproblem, Grundhnien *u finer Sotial*
17
pressed
aiders Christianity to be a social phenomenon. The new religion was' born when the proletarian masses, opin the Roman world, came into contact with
of Jesus Jewish Messianic aspirations. The history the it reflects Christ is only that of the idea of the
development of the community.

-
86 concedes that there may be an historical Jensen element at the base of the Gospel tradition, but this fact is without import. Whatever the history of the man Jesus may have been, the Christ of the Faith was born of the transformation of the Babylonian myth of
Gilgamesch. Like Jesus, Gilgamesch
human, partly divine

an astral character,
86
his history, in
is
is a person partly which Jensen finds that of the quest of immor-
tality.
William Benjamin Smith,
87
mathematical teacher at
New
Orleans, sets out with a triple observation. It is inconceivable that one simple personality could have movement as inspired such an important religious In the second place, there are in the writChristianity.
Die Entstehung des Christentums, Leipzig, wissen wtr von Jesus f Berlin, 1904- Concerning Kalthoff see Schweitzer (Gesch , p. 345) and Guignebert, p. 78. P. Jensen, Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltlitteratur, Strasdes Babylontschen bourg, 1906; Moses, Jesus, Paulus, Drei Vananten Gottmenschen Gilgamesch Eine Anklage wider die Theologie ein Jesus der Appel an die Laien, Frankfurt-a-M, 1906-9; Hat der Schweitzer see On p. (Gesch., wirklich Jensen gelebtf Evangehen
theologie, Leipzig, 1902-3
;
1904;
Was
Zimmern (Zum Streit un den Christusmythe, Das Babylonische Material in semen Hauptpunkten dargestellt, 1910) admits, in addition to the influence of Gilgamesch, that of the cults of Marduk, Mithra and Thammuz. 87 W. B. Smith, Der vorchristliche Jesus (Giessen, 1906); Ecc* Deus; The pre-Christian Jesus (American Journal of Theology.
Smith are thoie of G. T. 1911). Resembling the ideas of W. B. New the London, 1921. Behind Testament, Sadler,
466) and Guignebert, p
w H.
85.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of the apostle Paul and the first Christian of apologists but few allusions to the public activity have been so could Jesus. In the third place, no man
ings
easily deified as In this mode
modern theologians suppose.

Smith
is
led to adopt the idea of a
divine pre-Christian Jesus. It is this person who was worshiped by the Naassene Gnostics, known to Hippolytus,
Nazarenes (or Nazolater Chap. Ill, renes), known to Epiphanius (see Section II). The name of this sect is not derived from
and the Jewish
sect of
the village of Nazareth, whose existence is very doubtful. In the name is found the root NSR, which exand salvation. In suppresses the idea of protection Smith cites port of his theory of a pre-Christian Jesus, a series of other proofs, such as the conjuration "by the of god of the Hebrews, Jesus," in the magic papyrus cenfourth the Paris, which, in truth, only dates from the case of Apollos tury after Jesus Christ or, again, the and the disciples of John Baptist at Ephesus (Acts xviii. 24-28 and xix. 1-7), who know the "things con;
Paul. The cerning Jesus" before their meeting with xiii. 6magician Elymas, surnamed Bar-Jesus (Acts of 12) and Simon (Acts viii. 9-13) were worshipers Hellenized name His (the this pre-Christian Jesus.
and verb Greek meaning is "to heal." The history of Jesus had been created by
form of the name of Joshua)
signifies deliverance,
also related to the root of the
the
pre-Christian Jesus; it enof the shrines the history primitive community. The theories of W. B. Smith were welcomed with 88 who, in a work of enthusiasm by Arthur Drews,
worshipers
of the
"A.
Drews, Die Christusmythe, Jena, 1909-";

19x0;
.
*>*' Pelruslegende,
prankfurt,
Das Markuwangelium
alt
Zcugnis gegin
di*
religious
19
philosophy published in
that the cult of Jesus
was a
relic
1906, maintained of fetishism from
which it was necessary to purge religion. Smith's system seemed to him adapted to bring about the religious reform he desired. He therefore adopted the theory of a pre-Christian Jesus, while combining it with an astral
system, and adding to the product certain conceptions of his own devising, in particular a conjunction unbetween the Christ as lamb expected, to say the least of God (Agnus Dei) and the Vedic lamb.
The
theories,
among which we have been sum-
marizing the most characteristic, have in Germany, during the early years of the twentieth century, been made the object of an intense propaganda. The controversy was not only carried on in scientific publications, but in a large
number of
general public, in popular 89 debates, in the presence of huge audiences. The negative theses called forth a multitude of
40
tracts designed for the lectures, sometimes as public
replies.
Geschichthchkeit Jew, Jena; Die Entstehung des Chnstentums ausdem Gnostizismus. Concerning Drews see Schweitzer (Gesch , p.
483), Guignebert (p 107). 89 See in 1910, published particularly the public debates in Berlin A. Lipby the German Monist Union and translated into French by existef a-t-il Jesus 1912). (Pans, man,
Among
vair
all this literature
we
shall only cite: Bousset,
Was
wissen
von Jesuf\ L. C Pillion, ^Existence histonque de Jesus et le ratlonalisme contemporam\ Julicher, Hat Jesus gelebt* H. von Soden, Hat Jesus gelebtf 1910; Wemel, 1st das "liberate" Jesus-bild wideroder Geschichtef legtt 1910; Joh. Weiss, Jesus von Nazareth, Mythus
der mythologische Christus, 1910; Dunkmann, Der historische Jesus, Le Problem* 1910; S. J. Case, Historicity of Jesus, 1912, Guignebert, de 3e$us t 1914 The method employed by Pe>es against Dupuis (sec Section I) has been turned against the modern mythologists by J. Die Bismarcksmythe) and by an anonymous writer to Naumann
(see
show that Martin Luther never

Luther nit
existieri hat).
existed
(Beweis dast Docktor
M.
20
JESUS
if
THE NAZARENE
one passes over certain controversialists whose work has more resemblance to an historical 41 romance than to history, the thesis of nonhistoricity has been supported, with certain reservations, by M. Salomon Reinach, and in its entirety by M. Couchoud
In France,
and
does not formally give his verdict for the negative thesis, owing to the testimony of the Pauline epistles, which he is unable to consider as unauthentic. But while admitting that Jesus lived,
M. Stahl. M. Salomon
Reinach
42
Reinach
upon three objections to the historicity of the Passion. The first is on the ground of the siinsists
lence of non-Christian authors
particularly the absence of a report of Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius upon the condemnation and execution of the Nazarene. The second argument is that the history of
fulfils
the Passion
certain prophecies, particularly that

xxii.
of verse 17 of Psa,
41
The
last
argument
is
based
The most
prolific of these authors is

le
songe Chretien, Jesus Christ n'a pas cxiste,

Ver'Ue
Arthur Hculhard (le MenPans, 1908-10, n vol la

;
Bar abbas,
Mensonge Jesus; Tu
est
Petrus I'histoire et la
his theory in the two legende, Paris, 1913-14). Heulhard sums up theses: following "i. It was the Jew known aa John the Baptist who said he was Christ and Bar Abba (son of the father), and he was certainly not
beheaded.
"2. It
was Barabbas who, condemned
to
death
for his
public
crimes such as assassination, robbery and treason was crucified at Guol Golta by Pilate. The evangelists are a mystification invented more than a century after the execution of this scoundrel. It is Barabbas that the Church worships under the name of Jesus, an imagi-
and nary personage substituted by the evangelists for the crucified, invented by them to impart the hue of innocence to the individual by whose invention they exploited lucratively the remission of sins by
baptism."
1909; Le Verset 17 du Psaume xxii; des proPropot de la cunositi de Tibere; Bossuet et Vargument Docetume. du source Une de Simon bibltque Cyrene; phetifs;
"Salomon Reinach, Orpheus,
21
which upon the Docetist heresy that is, the opinion of life human and Jesus to a reduced the historical
pure appearance.
A very interesting attempt
has been
Pauline
made by M.
Couchoud* 8 to present the
and testimony as concerned with a Christ purely ideal, so eliminate the difficulty which prevented M. Salomon Reinach formally supporting the thesis of nonhistoricity
of Jesus.
M. Couchoud
in that
differs essentially
from
the mythologists in fact, he posmythical being, but a spiritual being sesses a comprehension of the spiritual value of Christianity
he refuses to make Jesus a
which
religious influence of belief in Jesus theoretidistinguishes him radically from such
and of the
cians as
which historians, from Renan to Loisy, attempt to understand the history of Jesus and the genesis of Christianity is
in
Drews, Smith, or Robertson. In M. Couchoud's opinion, the method
liable to
two main
difficulties.
The
first is
that
it is in-
conceivable that in less than a single generation a man should be deified, and this within the territory of Jewish monotheism. The second is that historically Jesus
escapes us.
forgery.
The testimony of Josephus is an established The Talmud contains nothing about Jesus
which does not come from Christian tradition. Out of

Couchoud, L'Enigme de Jtsus (translated into English by Mrs. G. Whale) Enigma of Jesus, with introduction by Sir J. G. Fraser; Le Mysore de Jesus (Mercure de France).
;
The
first article in
the
Mercure de France by M. Couchoud was
dis-
cussed by me. Under the pretext that it was not a review of religious in which I discussed history, the Mercure refused to insert an article the second article of M. Couchoud. On the other hand, M. Couchoud has explained his views in a series of informal discussions at the The development of the la Virile (Jan -April, 1924). Unto
pour
objections made by ent Tolume.
me on
these occasions will be found in the pres-
22
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
three of the oldest pagan testimonies there is one which may refer to an unknown that of Suetonius two Jewish agitator known as Chrestos. The other establish only the existthose of Pliny and Tacitus Christian ence of a movement, but as regards its oriborrowed from the gins, they give only information
Christians themselves.
for the evangelists, M. Couchoud points out that these are not histories, but outlines of the good news in other words, they are writings of an essentially
As
mystical character.
spired writings the oldest, is the apocalypse of a man without elonot quence; it is the creation of imaginative exegesis,
They have two sources: the inand the visions. The Gospel of Mark,
an historical document; it is a free commentary made the up of Biblical texts and spiritual memoirs, on which such from ask Christian faith is fused. One must not a book humble and commonplace historical information. Beyond the evangelists it is requisite to go back
to the oldest
epistles of
form of the Christian
faith, such as the
Paul bring to our knowledge. The Christinor the cult of a anity of Paul is neither the deification
man. His Christ is but a new form of the old Israel, Yahveh, as Messiah. When, after the
God
fall
of
of
a kind of Jerusalem, the populace entered the Church, transformation took place in the Christian faith. The
mystery of Jesus became fixed
in record,
and passed
from the
epic
lyrical to the narrative

artificial
form.
legend. vention of popular preachers did its work; but this the secondary form of Christianity has but disguised
real nature of the Gospel.
of Paul became an
The ineffable The bold in-
In reality Jesus
is
not a
man
progressively deified;
He
is
23
is not a progressively humanized. He God. new a but founder of religion, In his article in 1924, after emphasizing the very character of the problem of Jesus, M. Couch-
God
special
oud applies himself to
define his theory.
"At the
origin
of Christianity there is, if I am right," he says, "not a personal biography, but a collective mystical experi*4 revealed." ence, sustaining a divine history mystically
At
the beginning Jesus

itself.
was not a man, but a
Spirit
which manifested
believed in this Spirit, because of its manifestaits existence and tions, and because it was supposed that in Isaiah and the history could be discovered and read show that it is into aims Couchoud Psalms. And M.
Men
deed to a
refers.
spiritual being that the Pauline testimony
to the origin of the tradition concerning the words of Jesus, the Pauline epistles would enable
As
one to solve this problem in reading them. It was from the 'Lord, Paul says emphatically, that he received the account he gives of the last repast of Jesus.
Exegesis of prophetic texts, visions and revelations, of projection into the past, and the attribution to Jesus the facts of apostolic history in which the activity of such are the sources the Spirit had been discerned
from which the Gospel
tradition has sprung. Jesus must, then, have been at the beginning the God of a mystery. At the time of Paul neither the
the mystery had become historical. They were to become so in the period to follow the creative when it would be no longer possible to understand
God nor
age,
the high spirituality which had inspired the primitive faith, and when the celestial drama upon which Chris-
" See
Couchoud, Le Mysore de Mtus,
p. 1x7.
24
tianity
JESUS
of the
first
THE NAZARENE
generation had lived had been trans-
by M. Couchoud in the Mercurc de France have been almost literally reproduced, under the title Le Mystere de Jesus, in the third volume of the collection, Christianity, published under
ported to earth.
The two
articles published
his direction.
review on or myself,
cussions
objections which were offered in the part of the Rev. Father de Grandmaison as well as those advanced in the public dis-
The
this
(Union de la Verite), have been completely have not persuaded ignored by M. Couchoud; they him to modify his views in the slightest degree; he has not even considered it advisable to state in what
He contented respect he thought them ill-founded. himself by adding three chapters to his previous exhe attempts to demonstrate that position. In the first
non-Pauline study of the Apocalypse and the the conclusion confirm Testament New the of epistles to which his study of the Pauline epistles had led him;
the
in the second he returns to
what he had already said the Gospel tradition; and in the last he concerning summarizes the conclusions of his research.
We
shall call attention also to an original but very
45 which has paradoxical work by Monsieur R. Stahl, the somewhat enigmatical title The Document 70. This "document 70" is the fragment of the Jewish
Apocalypse which Wellhausen has disentangled is Chap, xii of the Johannine Apocalypse. In this imheaven to Messiah a of found the idea transported
mediately after His birth.
from
While Wellhausen
<5
sees in the Apocalypse of the

70, Paris
R. Stahl, Le
Document
and Strasbourg, 1923.
On
this
book see the obierrationj of
M.
Alfaric,
Rcwt
d'htstoirt, 1904.
15
made use of by the Chrisyear 70 a Jewish fragment tian author of our Apocalypse, M. Stahl thinks he can one in it the oldest Christian document
recognize
might almost
call it the birth certificate
of Christianity.
The Apocalyptic Messiah referred to must have been first presented as an actual individual, in a symbolic
and later in a more material way in the Synoptic Gospels, which would be The letters of Paul younger than the Gospel of John.
manner,
in the fourth Gospel,
are
all
unauthentic. Paul
is
not, however, a completely
trait
porimaginary individual, but the real person, has been somewhat modified, has been preserved for us in the book of Acts. He was merely a Pharisee the Sadducees missionary who had some quarrels with M. Stahl has dead. the of resurrection the concerning of tried to sketch the development Christianity as he in the following represents it. It might be summarized
series
:
whose
Document 70
Apocalypse
Fourth Gospel
of the first manifestaSynoptics. He has no explanation tions of Christianity in Rome, and particularly of the be persecution by Nero. To get rid of this it would
on Latin necessary to overthrow the accepted ideas literature as well as those which appear the best established
upon the books of the

III.
New
Testament.
THE PROBLEM
presented to the princithe critical work pal theories, which (while utilizing of the nineteenth century) have during the last twenty
The review which we have
of the hisyears opposed the traditional acceptance occasion to make several obtoricity of Jesus, gives servations. The difficulty of the problem consists not
26
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
problem
ligion.
of its data, but only in the complexity and obscurity it is a unique sense certain a in that fact also in the without analogy in the whole history of re-
M. Couchoud
has
much
insisted
Jesus," he writes, "is torical difficulty. The case of Jesus is unique. For the ' But history, historian, unique cases are enigmas. less even in exceptional cases, is never-
"The problem of
on this fact. no ordinary his-
46
contemplating
theless not exclusively a science of the particular.
The
wish to
remove from
its
jurisdiction everything which
does not present the character of collective fact is simply to prohibit it dealing with great personalities,
and to exclude from its domain a Julius Caesar, a Mahomet, a Luther, and a Napoleon, and thus to suppress one of the most important factors on human evolution. So also, when it is claimed that the problem of Jesus is no historical problem, it is nevertheless (and here M. Couchoud is no exception) by the methods of historical criticism that
it is
attempted to solve
it.
It is important, we think, to distinguish carefully the observation of facts from their interpretation. If in this
second part of historical research there is more or less a philosophical element, it is not the same thing for
first part.
the
to carry the work out properly it is necessary oneself free to reach to an effort make impartiality,
To
preconceived ideas, and to see the texts as they and not are, to extract from them what they contain, to what one would like them say.
from
all
But is perfect objectivity possible in a question whose solution cannot fail to have a very direct bearSee Couchoud, Le
Mysthe de
Jiiut
and Mercure d* Franc*
(March
1924).
27
and religious concepts? ing upon our philosophical a is The objection grave one; it does not seem to us
consent to admit as the first premise of every religious philosophy that it is not the facts which must be adapted to our theories, but rather that it is our theories which must, if necessary, be corrected
decisive if only
we
and
rectified to
is
put them
any other that the principle proclaimed by Paul holds most truly. "We can do nothing contrary to the truth; we have no This except in the truth" (2 Cor. xiii. 8).
It
in the religious
harmony with domain more than

in
the facts.
in
strength
principle
was
also proclaimed
by one of the most emi-
nent representatives of German theology, Herrmann, at the beginning of this century, who delighted to
repeat: "Die erste Pflicht der Religion It is a question of fact which tigkeit."
ist
is
Wahrhafbefore us:
Are
there historical proofs of value for the actual shall therefore leave on one existence of Jesus?
We
side the discussion of the
more or
less
complicated
theories offered to explain (other than by the existence and activity of Jesus) the appearance and development
of Christianity. It would be easy to show how much there enters of the conjectural, of superficial resemblances, of debatable interpretation into the systems of the Drews, the Robertsons, the W. B. Smiths,
shall not linger on the Couchouds, or the Stahls. shall not discuss theories which the way to do it.
We
We
to a greater or less extent are inspired by considerations depending neither on history nor on criticism, but
47
upon
religious philosophy.
has been well noted by Guignebert (p. 23). Let us recall for example, the case which Drews has pointed out (p. 25* only, French edition). There is something similar with M. Couchoud,
"This
28
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
If there are sufficient proofs of the historical existence of Jesus, it is above all things necessary that the should actheory offered of the origin of Christianity were no there if even commodate itself to them. And of proofs, it might still happen that the explanation the genesis of Christianity as due to the work and
less teaching of the prophet of Nazareth would be the in epic conjectural than the theories which bring of Gilgamesch, the astral system, the pre-Christian
cult of Joshua-Jesus, a collective mental representation, or the "document 70."
who, pointing out how the concept formed about Jesus was transformed according to the particular epoch, foresees that this evolution will continue and that in "about 1940 Jesus in His entirety will have passed from the historical stage to that of collective mental Have we not here a theory representations" (Le Mysore de JSsus) upon the essence of religious facts? The same author supposes that if Christianity had really arisen from the deification of an historical of a low personage it would be something very mean, a religion Roman Cult, in any type, on the commonplace level of the Imperial case quite inferior to Judaism and I si ami sm, which have taken great care that neither Moses nor Mahomet should be taken for gods. For him this is an objection to the historicity of Jesus, at any rate, "because he has a vague idea that Christianity is not there" We can hardly fail to recognize in this an a priori opinion calculated to
hinder historical inquiry.
CHAPTER
II
1
THE NONCHRISTIAN TESTIMONY

I.
FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS
THE
j esus
most ancient nonChristian testimony concerning or rather would be, if it were authentic s
i
In his works, as we read them, 2 and the Jesus is mentioned twice, in the eighteenth twentieth book of Jewish Antiquities. u The first of these reads thus: At this time Jesus
that of Josephus.
For appeared a wise man, if He can be called man. He accomplished marvelous things, was the Master of those who received with joy the truth, and led away
many Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. Upon the denunciation of the leaders of our nation, Pilate condemned Him to the cross; but those who had loved Him from the first ceased not to revere Him,
for
appeared to them on the third day, raised again from the dead, as had announced the divine prophets, as well as a thousand other marvelous things concern-
He
ing
Him. There still exists to-day the sect which, " 8 Him, received the name of 'Christians.'
after
X K. Linck, De antigutssimls qua ad Jesum Natarenum spectant tistimomis, Giessen, 1913. a The best edition of Josephus' works is that of Niese (Berlin, French translation is appearing under 1885.95) in six volumes. the direction of Th. Reinach (Pans, 1900). Concerning Josephus see
Schurer (Gtsch., i, pp. 74'rf)> Wlth very complete bibliography. 8 Ant. Jud., xviii, pp. 63-64. To the bibliography given by Schurer must be added the followHarnack (Der judischt Geschickting: Burkitt (Jotfphus and Chnst), 29
30
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
This text is given by three known manuscripts, of which none, it must be admitted, goes farther back than the eleventh century. Eusebius (//., i, p. 1 1> and Dem.
ev.)
knew of
it.
But Origen seems to ignore
it,
for
upon two occasions he quotes the praise given by nevertheless Josephus to James, while remarking that
Christ (Comm. Josephus did not admit Jesus to be the in Matt. x. t c. 17, also Contra Celsius, i, 47).
the point of view of external criticism, the at least, to be passage is therefore strongly suspected,
From
an interpolation/
The arguments from

still
internal criticism appear to be

If Josephus
more
"if
if
He
convincing. can be called a
had said of Jesus, man" and "He was the Christ,"
he had spoken of resurrection, of miracles, the fulfillment of prophecies, he would have been a
Christian.
From
the sixteenth century the authenticity of this
passage has been questioned, specially by Osiander;

tchreiber Josephus und Jesus Chnstus), Smith (De Katholieck, as reLiock (op. gards authenticity), Batiffol (Orpheus et I'Evangile), K. Tacitus uber Jesus Chnstus und Messctt.)> Norden (Josephus und
tanische Prophetie), Seitz (Das Christusteugniss des Josephus Flavins), Jacoby (Jesus bet Josephus), Ed Meyer (Vrsprung und Anfange des Christentums, for authenticity), Goetz (Die Urspungliche Fassung des Stelle Ant), Corssen (Die Zeugnisse des Tacitus und Pseudo-Josephus uber Christus), Goethals (Melanges d' his to ire for chretienne), Brunt (St. u. Kr , unauthentic text, but substituted
a text in which Josephus spoke of Jesus), R. Laqueur (Josephus, passage added afterwards by Josephus himself). 4 The text of Josephus seems to have existed under another form, for in an Apocryphal dialogue concerning a religious discussion at the court of Sassanides we read: "Josephus spoke of the Christ as a of signs just and good man manifested by Divine Grace by means and miracles, and who did good to many." (Bratke, Das soaenannt* Religions getprach am Hofe der Saisaniden).
NONCHRISTIAN TESTIMONY
one
a
feels a certain difficulty in
31
such
understanding
how
5
critic as
Harnack has been

that
able to defend
it.
betrays with evidence a Christian hand, but has not the interpolator confined himself to retouching that which Josephus had
The passage
we read
hypothesis be accepted, is it text? Or is one possible to reconstruct the original of he that Jesus, which in spoke simply to maintain Schurer has itself would be a fact of importance?
written?
And
if this
observed that
origin
is
the expressions and phrases whose certainly Christian are put aside, the reif
mainder
But the interpolator very insignificant. could easily have mutilated the primitive passage at the same time as he exaggerated it. Norden remarks
is
that the account of Pilate's government in the eight-
eenth book of the Antiquities consists of a series of arose among episodes presented as troubles which
the Jews, the word 0opu(3oc (noise, clamor, disturbance) being the leit motif of the account. interrupted by paragraphs 63 and 64, which speak of Jesus. If these are removed, 62 and 65 are in perfect connection with
The
general plan
is
paragraphs
each other.
is
said to
The bond between them is broken by what this fragJesus. Norden therefore considers
But Corssen
replies
is
ment
to be quite unauthentic.
of the account against this that the general plan
Among the most recent defenders of authenticity we may cite Bole (Flavius Josephus uber Christus und die Christen in den juditchen altertumern), Kneller (Flavius Josephus uber Christus, Stimmen aus Maria Laack), Burkitt, Harnack, etc. 6 The thesis of unauthenticity is admitted, besides authors quoted, est apud by Schurer, Niese (De testimonio chnstiano quod etc. sur Reinach Mtus), of that (Josephe by interpolation Josephum) ;
32
artificial.
JESUS
The
THE NAZARENE
all, in
events related are not
the strict
sense of the word, troubles.
There
is,
for instance, in
paragraph 62 a reference to an incident which hapwere not impened in Rome and in which the Jews
plicated,
and
in
paragraph 65
It
it
is
not a question of
troubles
among
against them.
the Jews, but of measures directed might therefore be supposed, if the
had contained anything about Jesus, would equally have been presented as The reasoning which Corssen that of an agitation. uses against Norden's theory seems to us decisive, but Is it possible still it only establishes a mere possibility.
original passage that His history
to go farther? In the retouching of a passage there very often appear certain peculiarities of the primitive form. According to Corssen this is the case in the
"repassage we are concerned with. The expression is that formula a is very ceive with pleasure" Josephus fond of, and which he uses no less than seven times
Antiquities. The words, It "the chief among us" are also quite his style. u wise the would be possible to say as much of epithet it would be difficult to to as Jesus; man," applied
in the eighteenth
book of the
understand from the pen of a Christian, while it accords well with the tendency of Josephus to class
as philosophical schools such Jewish movements, essenthose of the Pharisees, Sadducecs tially religious, as
and Essenes.
The
is
idea of the Greeks allying themalso very characteristic.

It
selves with Jesus
may
be
that the Christian editor of our passage took pains to imitate the style of Josephus ; it is neverthless difficult
to suppose that he succeeded so well in it. The passage might therefore be the retouching of one written by
Josephus himself.
33
This conclusion seems confirmed
by the fact that in the passage in the twentieth book, where the death of James is referred to, the latter is
the presented as "the brother of Jesus, surnamed this that to indicate Jesus Christ," which would seem was a personage already known to the readers, of therefore Josephus must have made mention. Is it possible to reconstruct, by surmise, the original it is, passage of Josephus? Theodore Reinach thinks
whom
and, eliminating that coming from a Christian hand, u he restores the following passage: At this time there
He appeared Jesus, called Christ, an able man (for those to was a worker of miracles) who preached eager for novelties, and He led away many Jews and also
many
Albeit that Pilate upon the denunciation of the leaders among us, condemned Him to the
Greeks.
cross, those
who had loved Him from
the beginning
(or those whom He had deceived from the beginning) ceased not to be attached to Him, and to-day there still exists the sect which from Him had taken the name of
Christians."
Here
is
nothing more than a conjecture,
easy to recognize in the actual text that which comes from a Christian hand, it is not so easy to guess at what the portions suppressed by the interpolator might have contained.
for
if it is
In the twentieth book of the Antiquities (paragraph It is found 200) there is another mention of Jesus.
account of the death of James whom the high and put to death by priest Annas caused to be tried, of Festus during the period between the death
in the
stoning,
and the
arrival of his successor, Albinus.
At
this
time
Roman
authority seemed to be
somewhat lax
at Jeru-
34
salem.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
"Annas," says the text, "called the Sanhedrin before it the together, and summoned to appear brother of Jesus, surnamed Christ, and certain others under the charge of illegality, and caused them to be
stoned to death."
Eusebius
cites
this
passage (H. 9
on three occaII, xxiii, pars. 21-24), but Origen, who 7 establishes (following Josephus) a relation sions between the death of James and the destruction of the
Temple, has read the passage

Christian.
in a text
retouched by a
Schurer (Gesch., i, p. 581) concludes from this that the existing text is also to be suspected of interpolation. This conclusion goes too far. that the Admitting that this passage is among those Christians might have been tempted to exaggerate, it does not at all follow that they did it. Besides, between
the expression "Jesus, surnamed Christ," and the cateChrist" of the eightgorical declaration "He was the
eenth book there
may
it
The words a great difference. 9 8 believed has then be authentic. Mgr. Batiffol
is
an important possible to deduce from this passage conclusion. The accusation brought against James and
his associates
is
couched
in
ambiguous terms which may
of just as well refer to the violation
Roman
laws as
In order to admit that to that of the Jewish Law. the ground of the charge against James was revolt
attribute against Roman law, it would be necessary to to the high priest and the Sanhedrin a scrupulous loyalty to the Roman power which seems very far from
likely to
*
have been the
case.
On
this hypothesis
it
Origen, Comm. in Matt. 17 and Contra Cehum, This, for instance. Is the opinion of K. Linck.
Batiffol,
i,
47;
ii,
13.
Orpheus
et I'Evangile.
would be
difficult
35
to understand
why
(as Joscphus
this before the Governor says) they were accused of 10 by the Jews. Batiffol, would constitute a revolt What, asks
Mgr.
against religion if
it
were not the Christianity of the

is
accused?
This argument
in conflict with a difficulty,
for tradition presents of the "Law."
James
as a very strict observer
The
text of Josephus seems to us too concise to allow
us to maintain that there could have been no other motive of opposition between the high priest and
James other than Christianity. Even if it be recognized that the silence of Josephus not so complete concerning Jesus and Christianity is the as was formerly said, extremely brief character
of the allusions found in his
11
work (under even

none the
the
most favorable hypothesis)
is
less striking.
How explain
10
it,
seeing* that the
work of Josephus
deals
stoning to Batiffol adds that the punishment inflicted This is not presupposes a crime of a religious character. alone were stoned convincing, for it does not appear that blasphemers
Mgr.
death
to death.
11
Slavonic verson of the
De
ditions to the
Greek
text in
which Jesus
Bella Judatco contains various adis referred to. It will suffice
to establish its character of secondary importance to summarize what on is said of the death of Jesus in the first portion: Jesus remains
the
Mount
Pilate
by The latter, fomenting a conspiracy, in the presence of the Procurator. after having massacred many innocent persons, seizes Jesus, ^tnd after having obtained finding that He is no malefactor sets Him free, from Him the healing of his wife The Jews, jealous of this success, the right to give thirty pieces of silver to Pilate, and so obtain the first editor, A. how understand to difficult is It crucify Jesus. Berendts (lie Zeugnisse von Chnsto im Slwvischem De Belh Judatco
des Josephus) has been able to find in such accounts the authentic elements that Josephui made away with in translating his work from Aramaic into Greek.
of Olives and refuses to humble Himself as He is ordered and the Roman authorities. The Jews accuse Him then of
36
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
precisely with the environment
and the epoch in which and born began to develop? Is it Christianity was not surprising that an author who spoke of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Samaritans has said nothing, or has said so little, about the Christians? So complete a silence is perhaps more embarrassing for the mythologists than for their opponents. By what right, indeed, should it be permissible to conclude from it that Jesus never existed, and not permissible to deny that a Christian Palestine prior to the year 70?
movement
existed in
been
Since Josephus has not only concerning Jesus, but also concerning Christianity, how is his silence to be explained? Uniquely by his character and the object of his work.
silent
The
gain their good graces. To do this he expunged from the picture he drew everything likely to offend or excite their at all apprehension. Thus it is that he has scarcely
writer desired to flatter the
conspoken of the Messianic cult which nevertheless stituted the center of Jewish thought in the first cenThat he did so was because this cult was a tury. menace to Rome, for the Kingdom of the Messiah
Romans and
could only be built upon the ruins of the Empire. as a moral Josephus portrays John the Baptist
which preacher, and passes by unnoticed everything the one presented him as the prophet of the Messiah,
to announce the baptism of
fire
(Antiquities, xviii. pp.
is thus de116-19). The preaching of repentance its support and prived by him of everything lending The little that Josephus giving it any signification.
him to flatter basely preserves of Messianism is used by with authority in connecting the Messianic prophecies
37
12 It was not possible to speak of ChrisVespasian. tianity while amputating it from Messianism. Josephus therefore maintained silence on the subject. It might besides have been determined by another
reason.
At
the time he wrote
persecution by
Nero
and at least since the -Christianity was separated from
Judaism.
Josephus could thus consider it as outside 18 Doubtless the the history that he wished to write.
same thing was not the case as regards Palestine Chrisbut Josephus could not have spoken of it without exposing Judaism to the accusation of a compromisodious to ing solidarity with a dangerous movement, the governing class, and to which, it has been supposed, he had contributed to draw the attention of the court
tianity,
of Nero. 14
The
silence of
Josephus
is
not therefore
the silence of ignorance; it is the silence of prudence and fear a silence actuated by interest. Far from
not proving that Jesus and the Christian movement did it exist in Palestine in the first century, only proves that Josephus did not wish, by speaking of it, to com15 promise himself, and with himself the Jewish people. The reasons which explain the silence or the discretion of Josephus account also
for the fact that,
of Tiberiade according! to Photius (Codex 13), Justus (author of a chronicle and a history of the Jewish war,
written at the
i*
same time and
in
the same spirit as the
tus (History,
18
Bella Jud., vi, pp. 310-14. The same thing is found in Taciwho have probv., p. 13), and in Suetonius (Vesp., p. 4)* ably borrowed in this matter from Josephus.
Df
Ed. Meyer, Ursprung und Anf i, p 2x1. Corssen thinks (Z.N.T.JT., xv, p. 135)* who P ints out **?* of the fire, and that he was in Josephut was in Rome at the time relation with the empress Poppcea. Weiss, Jesus von Nazareth, Mythus oder Gcschichte, p. 89.
"So
"Joh.
38
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Chris-
work of Josephus) has not mentioned Jesus or

tianity either.
sometimes exof the pressed that in his works no mention is found died he that remember to it suffices shortly Gospel. But
As
regards Philo, astonishment
is
nothing to prove that this date. Christianity had reached Alexandria before 17 sources other and That the Talmud say Jewish is not the distortion of which about Jesus nothing Christian tradition is sufficiently explained by the date
after the year 4O,
16
and there
is
of these documents and the fact that those who compiled them were governed by entirely polemical Their sole object was to combat considerations. the Christians; they were not interested in writing the history of their religion. The first mention of the
Christians in this Jewish literature is the curse contained in the "Schemone Esre," the daily prayer of the (at close of the first century), "May the Naza-
Jews
renes and the
Minim
perish I"
II.
THE LATIN AUTHORS

It
is
The
is
first
Latin text to mention the name of Christ

1
from Pliny to Trajan the concerning the conduct to be observed toward

dated AJ>.
10.
the letter
iPhiIo wag one of an embassy sent to Rome by the Jews of Alexandria in A.D.4Q, and he was then very old. He speaks of himThe account of the self as an old man (Leg. ad Gaium, par. 28). embassy was written immediately after. im *7 Concerning this literature see H. Laible (Jesus Christus edition published in Cambridge (1893), with an
Thalmud),
English
additions of Dalman and Streeter (Jesus Christ in the Talmud, etc.). See also R. T. Herford (Christianity in Talmud), A. Meyer (Juui im
Talmud), H. L.
Stracfc (Jesus dit
Hdrettker, Leipzig, 1910).
Christians.
18
39
action,
He
recounts
his
methods of
punishing those for obstinacy, who, after two or three interrogations, persisted in the confession of Christianity, releasing those,
who denounced
as being Chris-
tians, denied the charge, and who in the Governor's wine and incense presence invoked the gods, offered
before the statue of the emperor, and cursed the name of Christ. The case of those who confessed they were formerly Christians, but declared they were so no
caused Pliny some embarrassment; he had with inquestioned them and compared their replies formation obtained by putting two deaconesses to the torture. He had only discovered, he declares, a coarse
longer,
and exaggerated
superstition.
concerning Christian practices
From what he states one point maybe noted:
Christians were in the habit of meeting upon a certain day and singing a hymn (carmen dicere), or, in other words, invoking Christ as a God.
The
This text does not say
evidence of the cult of Christ, but it conceived to be explicitly whether He was

is
a personage having lived on earth or a being of enThe expression "Christo quasi tirely spiritual nature.
mean, however, that for Pliny, Was not the like unto others. Christ was not a fact that He had lived on earth, that which disThe testimony of tinguished Him from others? between Tacitus in the Annales, written 115 and 117,
Deo" appears
to
God
*8
X,
p. 96.
The
It
is,
since Semler.
been challenged authenticity of this text has often admitted. See E. C. Babut however,
generally
relatives aux (Remarques sur Us deux lettres de Pline et de Trajan Chretiens de Bithyme), Linck (pp 33-60), Rcmach (Orpheus, p. 37), Couchoud (Le Mystere de Jtsus). There may be in Pliny's letter some
Christian interpolations (cp. Guignebert, Tertullien, pp. 77 et seq.),
M. Goguel (L'Eucharistie des onaens a Justin Martyr, pp. 259 of view we may neglect them. stq.). Prom our present point
ft
4o
is
JESUS
:
THE NAZARENE
more explicit "To destroy the rumor [which accused him as guilty of the burning of Rome] Nero invented some culprits, and inflicted on them the most excrufor
those who, detested ciating punishments; they were the called their infamies, were populace, Christians. by
The author of
this
name, Christ, had under the reign
of Tiberius been condemned to death by the Procurator Pontius Pilate. This execrable superstition, held in check for a time, broke out anew, not only in
also in the city Judea, the birthplace of this evil, but lfl flourish." and Jn which all atrocities congregate There are two remarks in this passage whose authen-
concerns the burning of Rome and the persecution of the Christians; the second 21 The first reflects the point of concerns the Christ.
ticity is certain.
20
The
first
contemporaries of Tacitus. It is excited by the question of the hatred and contempt Christians and the infamies with which they were relaunched proached, whilst it is precisely the accusation Nero against them which seems to have unchained
view of the
by
this hatred
and contempt. The second must originate in some documentary source, since it contains no such word as "dicunt" or "ferunt" which would authorize
us to suppose that Tacitus is only relating gossip. There is in this remark a characteristic idea namely,
**Annales, xv, 44. Sec further certain studies cited respecting et I'Evangilt, pp. Josephus, Linck, pp. 61-103; also Batiffol (Orpheus
4447).
*
chart, after discovering in this passage
S. Reinach (Orpheus). Hoan interpolation (Etudes au maintains that the sujet de la persecution des Chretiens sous Neron), entire work of Tacitus was an invention of the fifteenth century (De I'authenticity des annales et des htstoires de Tacite). Hochart'i theory has only been admitted by Drews (Die Christusmythe). ^Corssen, Z.N.T.JT., xiv, 1913, p. 135 (Zntschrift fur die Ntui-
It is
admitted without any reserve by
testamenltche fFissenschaft).
that Christianity
Christ,
41
had been crushed out by the death of
and had only reappeared about the year 64, This resurrecsimultaneously in Rome and in Judea. be tion of the execrable superstition in Judea can only
understood
sianism
if
we suppose
that Tacitus does not
any distinction between the
make two manifestations of Mes-
Christianity and Judaism.
The words "not only in Judea" would imply, then, the sudden outbreak of nationalism which caused the
revolt
22 and the Jewish war. We can here form an idea of the character of the source: it was not Christian, since it presumed an
of Christianity after the death of Jesus; neither was it Jewish, for no Jewish document would
eclipse
21
have called Jesus "Christ," nor would it have presented Judaism as solidary with Christianity.** The hypothesis which asserts that Tacitus could have consulted official documents preserved in the imto be passed by, perial archives can only be mentioned and there is were archives that these secret, seeing
nothing to authorize our supposing that any excep"Corssen, Z.N T W. xiv, 1913, p 123
t
In this argument the hypothesis of Meyer (who thinks the details made use of by Tacitus relate to a form of confession of the Christian faith) is invalidated. Meyer thinks that Tacitus was
28
obliged to occupy himself with the Christians during his government of Asia, and that he had made an inquiry into the origin of their movement. Meyer thinks he can recognize an affinity between the
adphrase of Tacitus, "per procuratorem Ponttum Pilatum supplicto Pontius fectus" and that found in Timothy, "He bore witness before Pilate" He also supposes that Tacitus became acquainted with the Christian faith by his examination of those who were persecuted. Besides what has already been said, it must be replied against Meyer's opinion that on one side it is merely a question of a condemnation pronounced by the Procurator, and on the other side the far from being profession of faith of Jesus. The two things are
equivalent. 24 These
two points have been well emphasized by BatiffoL
42
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
was made
in the historian's favor.
tion to a general rule
The dependence of Tacitus upon Josephus, as supposed by Harnack, has generally been discarded, particularly by Goetz, Norden and Corssen. The fact that in the account which he gives of the
Judaico Jewish war, Tacitus has utilized the De Bello of Josephus 2B is hardly conclusive, because if it were difficult for Tacitus to ignore so important a document as Josephus' account of the war, there is no reason at
to suppose that Tacitus, for whom Judaism was an object of the most profound contempt, had read the had sought therein Antiquities of the Jews, and that he of the burning account his any information to complete of Rome. Between the text of Tacitus and the pasall
difsages of Josephus there are, besides, appreciable death that ferences. The text of Josephus states Jesus'
was not the cause of a cessation of faith among his that disciples; Tacitus, on the contrary, supposes
death Christianity temporarily disappeared after the
of
its
founder.
is
The judgment
of Josephus
upon
Christianity
upon
the whole a favorable one; that
of Tacitus was one of supreme contempt. Finally, name as the Christ the word to Tacitus appears accept is aware of the founder of the sect, while Josephus
that this founder
was called Jesus, and that the word the Christ designates dignity to which he laid claim. 26 Goetz has surmised that Tacitus obtained his information concerning Christianity from his friend,
The two writers certainly conPliny the Younger. view template Christianity from the same point of of all characteristic fact is this but that of the police
**
History, v, 13, dependi upon De Bella Jud., vi, 310-14. Goetz, Z.N.TW., xir, 1913* P* *9S-
the Romans.
43
On
is
Tacitus there
in
an important
the other hand, between Pliny and If they are difference.
agreement
it
in only seeing in Christianity a super-
stition, the first considers it
an innocent one, the second
calls
execrable, and appears to endorse the infamous

27
accusations
brought against the Christians. Mgr. Batiffol, dwelling on the fact that Tacitus made use of the history of Pliny the Elder, has surmised that
he borrowed from
it
his notes
That
is
a supposition which in
about the Christians. its nature one is unable
to verify.
But one
fact
is
certain,
and that
is,
Tacitus
knew of
was neither Jewish nor connected which Christianity with the Christ Christian, The importance of this crucified by Pontius Pilate. observation does not require to be emphasized. In his Life of Nero (Chap, xvi) Suetonius mentions the persecution of the Christians, but he says nothing
a document, which
concerning their teachings. In the Life of Claudius to the expulsion of the (xxv, p. 4) he refers in passing Jews from Rome, to which the book of Acts also makes
allusion (xviii. 2)
:
"Judaeos, impulsore Chresto assidue
tumultuantes,
Roma
the Jews, who 28 cease to make tumult). Is one obliged to see in "Chrestos"
80
expulit" (He expelled from Rome under the impulsion of Christ did not
29
an unknown
thence conJewish agitator, as do certain critics, and the Christians? to relate not does clude that the text
Batiffol, Orpheus et VEvangile, p. 46. Here again Hochart has in a very arbitrary way suspected a This thesis is indefensible, for no Christian Christian
7
28
interpolation.
would ever have expressed himself as Suetonius does. than eighty inscriptions at Rome in 29 Linck gives a list of more which the name of Chrestos is found. this interpretation Lmck, also Reinach and Couchoud, consider
possible.
44
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Or, stressing the fact that at Rome the Christians seem to have been called "Chresitanoi" and not "Chris-
must we suppose that it is Christ who is referred to, and that it was the disputes concerning Him which stirred up the Jewry of Rome and provoked the action of Claudius? The fact that Suetonius men81
tianoi,"
tions Chrestos as a
to his
known personage without name quodam or aliquo 82 is favorable
joining to the
second interpretation, and it is also the one generally 88 The text of Suetonius tells us only that accepted. the reign of Christianity had reached Rome under
Claudius, and that it was considered to have connection with a personage of the name of Chrestos. But Suetonius could have believed that Chrestos
had come
proves
to
Rome
in the time of Claudius,
84
and
this
how
slightly the
Romans
interested themselves at the be-
which ginning of the second century in the traditions the Christians invoked. What the Roman authors say about Jesus and Chrisamounts to very little indeed. Only the testitianity
plainly incompatible with the theory of a Christ entirely ideal. The rarity of the details
mony
of Tacitus
is
furnished by the Latin authors
One
tianos
is
aware how
is, however, striking. be in handling the one must prudent
"Chrcs"Tacitus, Annalcs, v (Codex Mediceus), has the form " In the three passages only in the New Testament where the word "Christians" is found (Acts xi 26, xxvi 28; I Pet. iv, 16), the Vaticanui first copy of the Sinaiticus has Xpijarwot. The MS. (B) hat Xpaoiwoe*. Compare with Justin (I Apol. 4), Tertullian (Apol. The form "Chrestianoi" is frequent in the inscriptions. Com3).
pare with Linck.

82
Batiffol,
Orpheus
et l'Evangile> p. 43*
iii,
**PreuBchen (Chresto impuliore) supposed that some connection tradition that existed between the details given by Suetonius and the Section III.) Claudius* X, under died Chap. (See Jesus
"Meyer, Ursprung und Anf ,
4*3-
"argument from
convincing
it
45
it
silence"
(ex silentio).
To make
first
are not requires two conditions which
satisfied in the case
before us.
In the
place the
silence must be complete, which it is not, without taking conany account of what the portion not preserved of
temporary literature might contain. In the second in other place the silence must have a real signification been have obliged words, the authors considered must to mention, had they known them, the facts of which
;
they say nothing.
Now
been
satisfied either.
second condition has not Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius

this
a contemptible agree in seeing in Christianity only them just so far as it superstition. It only interested was a cause of social disturbance. They only mention it to relate the measures directed against it, not to inquire into its origin, and still of its real or supposed founder.
less to write
the history
The importance that Christianity eventually reached leads many modern minds to commit a strange error in
perspective. Because the birth of Christianity appears to them as the most pregnant fact in the whole of firstthat century history, they find it difficult to understand same the from see not did ancients the point of things
view, and only paid any attention to Christianity at the happening of certain events which had no essential
importance for
its
development.
III.
"AcTAPiLATi" (THE ACTS OF PILATE)

is
There
existed in
Rome any
no reason to suppose that there has ever official document which refers
to the condemnation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate."

"Concerning an examination of documents and archives which,
46
It
is
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
two passages in his Apology, middle of the second century) the addressed (toward to Antoninus the Pious, to Marcus Aurelius, to Lucius
true that in
Verus, to the Senate and all the Roman people, Justin Martyr invokes (to confirm the account he gives of the Passion and miracles of Jesus) the "Acts of Pontius Pilate" (I Apol., xxxv,
48).
Tertullian also in his Apologeticum, dating from a 197, mentions a report that Pontius Pilate, already
Christian in his inner conscience ("jam pro sua conscientia christianus"), had sent to Tiberius.
Chapter v of the Apologeticum, the document of which he does not appear to he refers to the "Acts speaks, while in another passage the as of Pilate'' pagans as an arm against forged by literature of Christianity. There has existed a whole
Eusebius,
cites
who
know
"Acts of Pilate," which (particularly in the form it has assumed in the Gospel of Nicodemus) enjoyed 86 Critics are in agreegreat favor in the Middle Ages. ment in considering this literature, in the form in which
we know
it,
to be of a later age,
and
in
any case not
fifth century, but it is not certain that does not go farther back, since element its primitive "Acta Pilati" Epiphanius (fourth century) knew of the
older than the
(Bar., 50-51).
narratives for which Justin and Tertullian invoke the authority of the "Acta Pilati," or of a report the Procurator to the Emperor, rest on evansent
The
by
according to
see later
S.
Reinach,
was made
at Antioch in the time of Ignatius,
(Chap IV).
PilatusakConcerning this literature consult R. A. Lipsius (Die Harnack (Gesch. des altchnsthchen Litt. bis Eusebius), Bardenhewer (Gesch. des Altkirchhchen Litt), A. Stuelken (Pilatusakten) in Hennecke (Handbuch Neutestamentischen Apokryphen).
ten),
gelical tradition,
47
tendency
and merely accentuate
its
to portray Pilate as well disposed toward Jesus and 87 The documents desigconvinced of His innocence.
nated by them would therefore be of Christian editing, but is it certain that they were acquainted with them or had done anything more than suppose their existence ?
would not have expressed himself other than he does if he had merely heard the "Acts of Pilate" spoken of or had presumed their existence. considered that these Many writers have therefore 88 "Acts" did not exist in his time, and the fact that in
Justin
another passage of the Apology
Justin tion of the Passion, but also to support the account he
2) he of Quirinquotes in the same way the census registers It has been objected that ius confirms this opinion. cited the "Acts" not only to support his narra(I,
xxiv, p.
gives of the miracles of Jesus.

it
is
thought, have
known
its
must, therefore, this document, or at any

89
He
rate
something about
contents.
But the
first
in hypothesis is excluded by the somewhat vague way which the "Acts" are cited the second is not without
;
some
difficulties.
If such an important document
existed,
how
is it
by hearsay? he supposed the "Acta Pilati" must have narrated both the trial and the career of Jesus. Certain authors, however, following H. von Schu-
It
that Justin is doubtless by mere conjecture that
had it known should only have
w Concerning
ptre la Passion.
Romam
this tendency see M. Goguel, Les Chretiens ft VEma VEpoque du N.T.; Jutfs et domains dans I'htstoire de
and also 99 This is the opinion of Lipsius, Harnack, Bardenhewer, of Mgr. Batiffol. sestuelken (Handbuch).
48
40
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
bcrt,
have thought that a trace of the primary elements of the "Acta Pilati" was to be found prior
to Justin's period. They rest their case
upon the fact that the Gospel of Peter and Justin (I ApoL, xxxv) state that, to mock Him, Jesus was made to seat Himself in a chair, and
41 invited to act as a Judge. Seeing that the hypothesis of a direct connection between the Gospel of Peter and
Justin encounters certain difficulties, it has been supposed that both were dependent upon a common source. But even if this were so, there is nothing to prove that
this source
was anything other than a mere extra-canon-
ical tradition.
that he regards Tertullian, Harnack considers in found he of what use made has simply Justin, and
As
that
work which suggested the composition Df the letter from Pilate to the Emperor which is found 42 in Chapters xl-xlii of the Acts of Peter and Paul.
it
is
his
words of this letter reveal, indeed, its polemand show that it must have been comof by Eusebius. piled to combat the pagan Acts spoken Nevertheless, Justin and Tertullian do not invoke the testimony of Pilate in reference to the same facts,
last
ical character,
The
and the document is presented by Justin as the acts, and by Tertullian as a letter of Pilate to the Emperor. Tertullian, for his part, only makes one allusion, somewhat vague, to the document, and he does not know it
*
H. von Schubert, pit ^Composition det pseudopetrinischen Evan-
feUenjragmtnts. 41 There is no trace of any
men
episode in the canonical Gospels
verb a transiunless, perhaps, in John xix. 13, if there is given to the tive sense. But even thus the scene would have quite another character than in Justin and the Gospel of Peter.
**ActaApQitolorum Apocrypha
(edition Lipsius
and Bonnet, 1891).
at first-hand.
if
49
of,
At
the most he has heard
It
spoken
he does not altogether guess at its existence. As neither Origen nor Eusebius make any allusion
48
to the "Acts of Pilate,"
it
may be
considered that
the
work
did not exist in their time.
What is the interpretation of this absence of testimony from Pilate concerning the punishment of Jesus? For M. Salomon Reinach it is decisive
:
official report, while there ought to "The conclusion which is he been have one," says. forced upon one is assuredly not favorable to the his-
"There was no
toricity of the Passion."
44
So radical a conclusion appears to us unwarranted. From the fact that spurious "Acta Pilati" have been
fabricated as well by Christians as it does not follow that an authentic
by their opponents, work never existed.
The
simply that these "Acts," if they existed, were not at the disposal of those whose interknow that the archives est it was to consult them.
conclusion
is
We
of the emperors were not accessible to the Senate. Tacitus himself, notwithstanding his relations with Neva and Trajan, seems to have been unable to obtain 45 Still less reason existed to permit access to them.
them by private persons, and Christian apoloexamination of them. If their gists could make no and authorized to opponents had been more favored remained which fruitless, they would make researches
access to
*
The
erudition.
at least
two men is important owing to their vast That of Eusebius is particularly significant. There are three passages in his Ecclesiastical History where it was
silence of these
difficult to
avoid mention of the "Acta Pilati"

5,
work. These are:
9 (concerning Pilate),
ii,
4iad he known the a (quoting Tertuliian'i
Apology),
44 S.
5-7 (quoting the pagan "Acta Pilati"), propos de la curiositt de Tibere. Reinach)
ix.
* 8 Ph. Fabia, Li* Sources
de Tacite,
p.
3**
50
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
have made a point about it in their polemic. Because an official document has not been produced, no one is authorized to conclude that it could not have existed.
were proved that no report was made by Pilate to Tiberius, what would be the significance of this fact? Justin, who had presumed the existence of a report, says M. Salomon Reinach, was in a better
But, even
if it
position than
we
are to estimate the obligations of a

in his eyes
Procurator.
But the death of Jesus was
an event of such capital importance that it was difficult for him to see that for Pilate it may only have been an incident without importance.
influenced by the tendency to make favorable to Jesus and opposed to the Jews.
Besides, Justin is of Pilate a witness
Everythe lives
thing that
we know
concerning Pilate
shows him to us
as a cruel and unscrupulous man, for
whom
of those under his jurisdiction had but

tance; he had no hesitation
in
little
impor-
whomsoever
tation.
resisted
him
sending to execution or became a pretext for agi-
Jesus was
procedure of summary justice. was for him merely an act of administrative routine. Is it to be supposed that in each particular case he considered it necessary to send a report to the Emto his enemies by peror, and in so doing furnish arms ? allowing them to accuse him of cruelty and injustice
of his certainly not the sole victim To condemn to death
complete silence of furJosephus, or the rarity and paucity of the details nished by the Latin historians, does the absence of
No
more than
the
almost
any report from Pilate to the Emperor constitute an

objection against the historical character of Jesus.
CHAPTER
III
HYPOTHESIS OF A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
I.
JESUS THE NAZARENE

the
DOES
the
name of Jesus
Nazarene
or rather do
designate Does the
the two names associated in this expression an historical person or the hero of a cult?
signify "Saviour Protector," and be considered as a divine name of similar character to Zeus Xenios, Hermes Psychopompos, or Jahveh Sabaoth? "There is every reason to think,
term
Nazarene
it
should
1 '
writes Drews, "that the name of Joshua or Jesus was that under which the expected Messiah was worshiped
in certain
Jewish sects."
Upon
examination the argu-
ments offered in support of this opinion seem somewhat 2 shallow. Robertson finds in the worship of Jesus a
new form of
divinity.
the old
Ephraim
cult of
Joshua, a solar
of this cult is to be found in a pasof the prophet Zechariah, where the sage in the book of the high priest Joshua appears before the Angel
Eternal,
A trace
who
causes
him
to take off his soiled garments
and put on
receives this promise : "If thou wilt walk in ways, and if thou wilt keep house and charge, then shalt thou also judge
festal clothing.
He
My
My
My
shalt also keep
courts" (Zech. Hi. 7). Jesus was a divine name, Jesus the Lord was God, considered in His essential character as liberator, healer, guardian,
My
Drews, Die Chnstusmythe,

Robertson,
i.
p. 23.
8.
Short History of Christianity, p. 5*
52
JESUS
Is
it
THE NAZAREKE
not said, indeed, in Matt. i. 21: Jesus, for He shall save
8
and saviour.
"Thou
It
is
shalt call
His name
His people from
their sins ?"
unnecessary to inquire
if
period, was a solar divinity; the epoch with which we are concerned, the Jews who read his history in the sixth book of the Bible saw in
it suffices
Joshua, at a certain to note that at
him a national hero, the

continuator of his work.
successor of Moses, and the
He
was one of the most
popular heroes in Israelitish history, as is proved by the number of persons named after him, and of whom there is no temptation to make a mythical being or a
divine hero.
The high
priest Joshua,
mentioned by
Zechariah, is also an historical personage; so little is he to be identified with Messiah that he receives the promise of the coming of the latter (Zech. iii. 9). Robertson and Drews also find mention of a preChristian Jesus in the magic papyrus of the BiblioU I adjure theque Nationale, where occurs the formula,
thee by the
God of the Hebrews,
Jesus." This papyrus,
may
which is not earlier than the fourth century of our era, doubtless reproduce a more ancient formula there
;
is nothing, however, to authorize us to date it so far back as the mythologists would like. The form of words must doubtless be attributed to a pagan. It
merely proves that the name of Jesus was to have great power, a thing which is explained by the in primitive Christiangreat part played by exorcism have readily formulas The magical pagan ity.* 5 That does not adopted Jewish and Christian names.
considered
*
4
"Jesus" signifies "Jahveh aids" Job. Weiss, Jesus von Nazareth, p. 19. 'Deissmann, Licht vom Often, Tubingen, 1909*
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
6
53
prove as Reitzenstein remarks, that their authors were really acquainted with and understood Judaism or This is proved, for instance, in a text Christianity. 7 cited by Dieterich, in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are taken to be names for the God of Israel.
is nothing to authorize us to consider the of name Jesus as a divine name, is the same the case with the designation "Nazarene" which accompanies Outside the New Testament, no text attests the it?
If there
Nazareth. Neither the Old Testament, nor Josephus, nor the Talmud mention it, but it is not legitimate to conclude
existence
in
Galilee
of a village
called
and as the mythas proved, that Nazareth ologists willingly suppose fiction. We know from Josephus is only a geographical that Galilee was densely populated, and that it boasted
from
this silence, as
Cheyne
does,
204
villages
and 15
fortified towns.
We
only
know
if
a small part of these

figures
219
localities,
and even
the
given by Josephus were exaggerated, many Galilean townships would not be mentioned in any 10 There is nothing astonishing in the supposition text.
that
Nazareth u a
village of very trifling importance,

12
should be
among
the number.
T s
Reitzenstein, Polmandres, Leipzig, 1904. Dieterich, Abraxas, Leipzig, 1891.
Cheyne,
article in Encyclop. Biblica, Josephus, Vila, par 235.
iii,
"Nazareth."
Meyer, Ursprung und Anf , iii. iiWellhausen has suggested that the word Nazareth designates in i Galilee in the form Gennesar (Garden of Nesar), met with Mace. ii. 67, Matt. xiv. 34, Mark vi. 53- The similarity of Matt, and Nazarene. xxvi. 69 and 71 proves the equivalence of Galilean
10
This ingenious hypothesis collides with the fact that if Galilee wai or Nazareth, it is very commonly designated by the word Nazar
strange that
12
The
it is nowhere clearly found. fact that later tradition was acquainted with
Nazareth proves
54
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The
as
fact that evangelical tradition represents Jesus
1S coming from Nazareth is far from being without According to Messianic dogma the Messignificance. siah was to be born at Bethlehem, and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke in different ways, which are mutu-
to ally irreconcilable, strive
keep to this postulate. have created the fact not would Christian tradition
it
14
destined to cause
so
much embarrassment,
15
that of
the birth of Jesus at Nazareth. The explanations of the term
Nazarene
offered
the mythologists scarcely seem probable term, which constitutes the most ancient designation of the Christians, is derived, according to W. B. Smith,
either.
by This
from the root NSR, which is found sixty-three times in the Old Testament in the sense of protector and ancient still, for the Babyguardian. It is even more lonian term Na-Sa-Ru is met with seven times in the code of Hammurabi. The Syrian form Nasaryu, in
which
fies
to be recognized the divine name Yah, signi"God is Protector." It is not a term of geographiis
cal origin,
This hypothesis could some real proofs of only be entertained if there were the existence of a pre-Christian sect of Nazarenes.
but a cultural name.
has existed, nothing. So soon as one was persuaded that the place failure to find it again was impossible. is Matt xxi. n, Mark i 9, John i. 45, Acts x 38 The comparison between Mark vi. i and Luke iv. 16 shows that Nazareth was considered to be the birthplace of Jesus 14 Matt ii. 13-23 states that the family of Jesus was originally settled at Bethlehem, and returned after the flight to Egypt to lire in Nazareth to escape the jurisdiction of Archelaus, grandson of Herod.
Luke ii. 1-7 states that Jesus was born during a journey of his parents to Jerusalem on the occasion of the census made by Quirinius. 15 The birth of Jesus in Galilee constituted one of the Jewish objections to his Messiahship.
Cp. John
yii. 41.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
The
55
indications which the mythologists invoke cannot take the place of these. There is in the Gospel of Matthew a passage which puzzles interpreters. After the death of Herod, Joseph and Mary leave Egypt to
settle in
Nazareth of
Galilee.
The
fulfilled
evangelist says that this was "that it might be which was spoken by the prophets he shall
be called a Nazarene" (Matt ii. 23). It is impossible to identify with certitude the prophecy here alluded to, and if it be desired to avoid recourse to the gratuitous hypothesis of the use of some apocryphal work which has not been preserved, it is necessary to suppose that the evangelist connects the word Nazarene
with some passage of Scripture containing a word from 16 the same root or having some assonance with it. There would be here a play on the words which we should (owing to its obscurity) be unable to understand.
of the
One cannot suppose that this is the true origin word Nazarene. Rather would it be incumbent
worked out by Matthew,
to suppose an assimilation
who
always aims at showing in the Gospel history the

contains perhaps an allusion
his disciples,
fulfillment of prophecy.
The word Nazarene

to John the Baptist and
was
certainly
in
relation
at the
Jesus beginning of His
with
whom
It is well-known that the ministry. tion represents Jesus as an apostate
Mandaean tradifrom the Baptist
16 H. and F Nicolardot (Procfdtt J Holtzmann (Die Synoptiker) de redaction des trois premiers evangelistes) think of Es. ri. i, in which the Messiah is called "Nfcser" (offspring). It is impossible the to connect the word Nazarene with the notion of the sect for Christian tradition (Matt. xi. 18, 19; Luke vii. 33, 34? Mark ii. 18has preserved a clear memory that Jesus was not an ascetic
20, etc.) like John the Baptist.
56
community.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the fact that
it
Thus would be explained
the Christians were
also called Nazarenes, while
would not be at all natural to have designated them as people of Nazareth because their master was a
native of this village. But the problem of Nazareth
17 is
still
not solved in
this way. There occur in the New Testament the two 18 W. B. Smith 19 forms, Nazarenos and Nazoraios. considers these equivalent, and supports his opinion by the coexistence of the two forms, Essenes and Es-
senians.
not conclusive, for the two forms do not only differ in their termination, but also in the If the form Nazaquantity of the second syllable.
The analogy
is
renos can be philologically derived from Nazareth, the same does not hold for Nazoraios, which must
20
have another
origin.
to Jesus, simplest explanation is that, as applied the term Nazarenos related to his native village, and that the association with the word Nazoraios, by
The
which name the

called,
disciples of
John the Baptist were
caused the Christians to be called Nazarenes.
John
There is a certain variation in the manuscripts. The 5, xxvi. 9. the testimony of the book duality of form is, however, certain, and of Acts proves that it is the form "Nazarcne" which prevailed. 19 Smith, D. vorchr. Jesut, p. 53.
xxiv.
Wetter, L'Arritrc plan hist, du Chnsttanisme primttif; R H.L.R., 1922; Wellhausen, Das Evangellum Matthan, Berlin, 1904, p 1421 8 The first is found in Mark i. 24, x. 47 *iv. 6 7 *vi. 6; Luke The second in Mark ii 23; Luke xvni. 37; ir. 34 and xxiv 19 xviii 5*7 and xix. 19; and Acts ii. 22, in. 6, iv. 10, vi. 14, xxii 8,
*T
*The correctness of the derivation (Nazarenos) if admitted by In the New Testament Meyer, who cites the opinion of Lidzbarski are to be found the farms, widely divergent, as follows: Nazara, it Nazarat, Nazaret, Nazareth, etc. In the oldest manuscript there no consistent spelling.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
In this
It
it
57
that they were was desired to emphasi the from Baptist community. only apostates
seems very
likely indeed that at first the Chris-
and and Nazarene names the that and later on "saints," Christian were given to them by their opponents.
tians called themselves "disciples" or "brothers,"
II.
THE HYPOTHESIS
OF A SECT OF PRE-CHRISTIAN NAZARENES, WORSHIPERS OF JESUS
The
explanation which
we propose of
the words
Nazarene and Nazarenian would have no import if it were possible to prove the existence of a pre-Christian
sect of
Nazarenes, worshipers of Jesus, as
is
main-
tained, in particular
by W. B. Smith, who entitles one The of his books pre-Christian Jesus. The first proof alleged in favor of the existence of 21 who this sect is based upon the hymn of the Naasseni,
date back to the most remote antiquity and attest the 22 cult of a celestial Jesus. The subject is the Soul who has quitted the Kingdom of Light and groans in suffering and tears. Lost in a 23 labyrinth, vainly escape is sought. Father! this tempted "Then Jesus said: 'Behold, being who, far from Thy influence, wanders miserably on earth. He longs to fly from bitter chaos, but he
knows not how

send
to ascend.
For his
salvation,
Me
that I
hands,
21
that I
may descend with the may traverse the aeons, that
O Father in My seals
!
2*
may open
** Smith
*8
Preserved by Hippolytus, Philosophoumena, v. and Drews.
xo. 2.
The text is Dot absolutely certain. >* It is often a question of seals with the Gnostics, particularly in
the Pistis Sophia.
58
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
1
the mysteries, that I
may reveal unto him the essence of unto him the mystery of the holy announce God, and " life which is called the gnosis. According to the mythologists, the Jesus of this
hymn had no
contact with Christianity, and was a Being to have been entirely celestial. Their conclusion seems drawn with some precipitation. Nothing authorizes
us to date the Naasseni

26
hymn before
the Christian era.
has shown that the Naassenes had made Hilgenfeld use of the epistles of Paul and of the fourth Gospel. In the form known to us, and whatever its distant
doctrine betrays the origins may be, the Naasseni 28 therefore be unIt would influence of Christianity.
able to prove the existence of a pre-Christian cult of This argument is strengthened by the conJesus. sideration that, following a very judicious remark of Bousset, it is not certain that in the hymn preserved
not proceed by Hippolytus the name of Jesus may
For a retouching of a corruption of the text. at the beginning of the hymn there is presented the "Nous" along with Chaos, and the Soul to be In these conditions the decisive argument saved.
from
that the mythologists thought they possessed disappears.
Epiphanius (H#r. } xviii) mentions among the Jewish heresies a sect of Nazarenes, and what he says
about
it
character to
does not permit him to attribute a Christian As he does not state that it was deit.
veloped only after Christianity, this would prove,

a preaccording to Smith, that the Nazarenes were doubtless which from Christian sect Christianity
Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzerfetch, des Vrchristcntums. *'Reitzcnftein, Poimandret, p. 81.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
adopted much.
27
59
And against this conclusion, accordnot be possible to urge as arguit would to him, ing students of heresy, who, being other ment the silence of
less
honest and
less
naive than Epiphanius, saw
how
dangerous to the official Church doctrine was the existence of these Nazarenes, and kept a discreet silence
concerning them.
There is a singular lack of proporthe statements of Epiphanius and the tion between conclusions which he claims to deduce from them. An
28
entire historical construction of the greatest importance, which would overthrow many facts apparently
solidly established, rests
upon one
single testimony
that of a man who does not always show himself well informed, and who frequently has not made the most
If at his disposal. judicious use of the information we of we scrutinize closely the testimony Epiphanius, find that concerning these Nazarenes he appears to
29
know nothing more than
the name; it is noteworthy that he says nothing which attributes to them a worship 80 All that there is in common between them of Jesus.
and the Christians

conclusion to be
is
name
drawn from
it
only. this fact
To
it
permit any
neces-
would be
show what would be

sary to
that
cannot be a simple coincidence, or,
still
more probable, some confusion
made
by Epiphanius or by the author of whom he makes use. Now this proof has not been furnished.
either
7
Smith,
28
moment he leaves the reinformation should be checked; it is gion of contemporary facts his temconfused and lacks precision. He had a relatively uncritical Patrologie, 1918, acuteness." Tixeront, intellectual without perament
.
D. vorchr. Jesus, pp. 56, 57. Smith, D. vorchr. Jesus, p 64. . The . "His criticism is not sound.
p. 253-
Weiss, Jesus von Nazareth; Wmdisch, Der geschichtliche
Jesus (Th. R.).
6o
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
On
the contrary, two scholars, Schmidtke and Bousset, have proposed a simple and plausible explanation of the testimony of Epiphanius. There might, perhaps, be certain reservations to make on some details of their
theories, but in their
does not appear a matter of doubt that they are well founded, and that they have consequently caused the disaphispearance of the pre-Christian Nazarenes from
main
outlines
it
tory.
In the course of his research in Judeo-Christianity 81 and the Jewish Christians, Schmidtke has proved that all the narratives found in the writings of the Fathers of the Church concerning a Judeo-Christian sect going under the name of Nazarenes and not under the usual name of Ebionites originate with Appollinarius of
Laodicea (310-90). The Nazarene sect really existed at Beroe in Syria it was strictly Judeo-Christian, and used an Aramaic gospel, some fragments of which are preserved, and which seems to have been a translation of the Gospel of Matthew slightly revised. Con;
cerning these Nazarene Christians, Epiphanius speaks in the twenty-ninth chapter, according to Appollinarius. The details he concerning them seem worthy of
gives
belief.
It is in the eighteenth
of the pre-Christian here he depends both upon Hippolytus and a list of 82 He believes that Epiphanius heretical Jewish sects. has substituted the Nazarenes for the Ebionites.
81 Schmidtke, Neue Fragment* und Untfrsuchungen chnstlichcn Evangclien, xxxvii, 1911, Leipzig.
88
chapter that he speaks Nazarenes. Schmidtke says that
He
vu dtr Juden-
**Id.,
tb., p.
199-
..
writes their name with a sigma and not with a zeta, to distinfrom the Nazarene Christians, just as he distinguishes them guish between the Eastmans and the Osseniant.
He
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
even believes that
in his
61
work, as
first
sketched out,
Epiphanius had called them Ebionites.
The
peculiarities of those
which he describes in
Chapter xxx correspond exactly, in fact, with the account given of the Nazarenes in Chapter xviii. Epiphanius was misled in taking for a Jewish sect the Nazarenes, whom the Jews in their daily prayer cursed under the name of Nozrim simultaneously with the
heretics
(Minim).
85
84
accepts the argument of Schmidtke in its generality, and who believes that he has definitely to the enigma, supposes that in the found the
Bousset,
who
key
source of which he makes use concerning the Nazarenes, Epiphanius had only found some geographical details about the place in which the sect was met with,
and that in order to write his account he had utilized, from what he knew about the Judeo-Christian groups, character. everything which had not a Christian Bousset supposes that the Nazarenes were mentioned
of Jewish heresies utilized by different The Jewish author who had furnished it Fathers. mentioned in fact Christianity as among the heresies
in
the
list
to be rejected. In these circumstances one has no choice but to endorse the conclusion reached by Bousset in these
terms: "The pre-Christian Nazarenes of Epiphanius are definitely consigned to the domain of error and
in the text s* The twelfth request of the "Schemon* Esre" is given discovered in the synagogue of Cairo and published in 1897: "May there be no hope for the apostates! Mayest Thou, in our time, anniMay the Christians (Nozrim) hilate the domination of the insolent! and the heretics (Minim) be suddenly annihilated! May they be no Praised be Jahveh, who bring! longer written in the book of life' low the insolent!" (Strack, Jesus die Htretiker, etc.)
95
Bousset, Tk. Rundschau, xir, 1911.
62
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
misunderstanding, and it is to be hoped that they will forever disappear from the arsenal of proofs invoked 8* in support of a pre-Christian cult of Jesus." But even when deprived of the hymn of the Naasseni
and the Nazarene sect the mythologists are not disarmed there remain for them the positive indications of the existence of a pre-Christian Jesus which they think they find in the New Testament itself. The first of these is the passage in the book of Acts which refers to Apollos. For Smith this text is
;
We
the most valuable of ancient Christian literature. read in Acts xviii. 24-26: "And a certain Jew
87
named
Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and being
fervent in spirit
as
he spake and taught diligently the the baptism of things concerning Jesus, knowing only in the synagogue, to he speak boldly began John. And had heard, they whom, when Aquila and Priscilla took him unto them and expounded unto him the way
of
God more
It follows
perfectly."
this text, thinks Smith, that Apollos about knew nothing Jesus, otherwise he ought to have known everything, including the doctrine of baptism. u This ignorance did not hinder his preaching that
from
which concerned Jesus."

therefore," writes Smith, "as clear as the noonwords can have no relation day sun that this form of It must mean the doctrine to the history of Jesus." a doctrine which a man who knew concerning Jesus
"It
is
Bou9sct,
7
Th Rundschau,
xiv,
19",
P- 3*i.
Smith, D. vorchr. Jew, p. 7. The text is translatable in two different ways.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
"an
63
nothing about an historical Jesus could not only proThis text is therefore for the mythfess, but preach.
ologists
(the expression
89
is
again Smith's)
ines-
timable diamond."
But,
when
perhaps have to put it more precisely, its value and significance may have a quite other character. Whatever the origin of the reference used by the editor of the Acts may be,
closely examined, the passage may not all the significance attributed to it, or,
we
are not certain
we know
its
original purport.
510
It
is possible, indeed, that the form "that which concerned of the editor, and Jesus" may be put to the account
merely expresses the belief that the religious attitude of Apollos, when he arrived at Ephesus, fitted him to become a Christian. Prisciila and Aquila
that
it
doubtless recognized in the ardent and eloquent Messianist a man who would be able to render eminent
and they succeeded in gaining him over to their cause. But we have no wish to insist on this interpretation, which to a certain extent is
service to their faith,
conjecture. a postulate which exegesis of Smith rests upon This is in contradiction with certain historical data. of Christian doctrine the baptism, postulate is that the Baptist, is an essential of that to John opposed element in the history of Jesus in that he who ignores
The
the Christian baptism must perforce ignore all the If at the opening of His ministry evangelical history.
John Jesus (as shown administered a baptism in every

in
iii.
22 and
iv.
i)
may have
it
way
identical with that
of John the Baptist,
He
seems to have relinquished

7-9.
iii,
Smith, D. vorckr. Jesus, pp. Meyer, Ursprung und Anf.,
p.
na.
64
JESUS
41
THE NAZARENE
text attributes the institution of
in the sequel.
No
when acbaptism to Jesus during His ministry, and in coverhad count is taken of the interest the Church her rites, it is ing with the Master's own authority
pass over this extremely significant alone (xxviii. 19, 20) relates that to His disciples at the moment said risen again, Jesus, he was to leave them "All power has been given to in the heavens and in earth. Go ye therefore and
impossible
silence.
to
Matthew
Me
teach" (literally "make disciples") "all nations, bapthe Son, and the tizing them in the name of the Father,
Holy
Spirit."
42 contains any equivalent Neither Luke nor John of this narrative, which thus appears as relatively recent. The passage in Matthew has for its object to
support,
upon the authority of the resurrected Christ
Christ as Spirit), the institution of baptism This reveals nothing as as practised by the Church. to the real origin of the rite, but merely shows that it 43 In has no place in the historical mission of Jesus. it was that understood is these circumstances it easily not immediately introduced in all the Christian com(that
is,
munities.
Paul (i Cor. vii. 14), without making any allusion to baptism, admits that the that is, belong to children of Christians are saints born of parents themare because they God,
fact that
The
uniquely
little belief that baptism goes back to Jesus, that Gospel after quoting a statement that Jesus had baptized, itself corrects this (John iv. 2) to the * 2 The testimony of Mark is lacking on this point, owing The nonauthentic end of Mark, mutilation of the end of his book. which appears not to be anterior to the second century, gives (xvi. the practice of 16) something equivalent, with this particularity, that
Tradition has so
the
fourth
baptism
*8
is
only supposed, but not directly attributed to institution.

iii,
Meyer, Ursprung und Anf.,
p. 245.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
selves saints
65
shows that the baptism of children was unknown in the Pauline communities, and it allows us to suppose that the rite was only practised for those who entered the Church, not for those born in it. It
not have been in use at the beginning in the Jerusalem community. Doubtless the accounts in the 44 Acts on several occasions speak of baptism, but their
may
book testimony is not conclusive, for the editor of this has naively projected into the primitive community the situation which existed in the Church of his time. The
use of baptism might have arisen, as Bousset supposes, not in the midst of the Palestine Community, but perin the Diaspora at Antioch, in analogy with the
haps
teaching which was Jewish baptism for proselytes. historical the with ministry of intimately connected this ministry, might Jesus, and based upon memoirs of the of known have baptism of John. only very easily
It exegesis of Smith evokes another objection. is in no way proved that the expression "that which must be understood in the sense of concerned
The
Jesus" "the doctrine concerning Jesus." Smith himself recog45 "the nizes that the Greek words used may signify that considers he but story told concerning someone," the three passages of the New Testament (outside of the Acts) where this form of words is found refer to
the doctrine and not to the story of Jesus, or at least to Acts xxviii. 31, they originally did so. According
in Rome, in during his two years of captivity passed his own hired house, Paul taught freely "that which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ." Paul did not tell
histories to the
Romans; he preached
the Gospel to
"Acti
*
ii.
Thi
is
l8 > * 4*38-41; viii. 12, 13, 16, 3$, 3J in Acts xxviii. 15. evidently the meaning of the phrase
66
JESUS
is
THE NAZARENE
them. But to lay
it down as a principle that the Pauline doctrine a concerning Jesus which contains Gospel no historical element is to suppose, as resolved in favor
of the mythological theories, the very question in the Romans, as dispute. In the teaching imparted to in that which had been given to the Galatians (iii. i),
the crucifixion of an historical personage was^he starting-point of the Pauline preaching. The two passages in which is found the phrase "that
which concerned Jesus" are

story of the
characteristic.
In the
woman
with the issue of blood
Mark
it: "Having heard the things concerning Jesus, in the crowd behind and touched His garcame she ment; for, said she, if I but touch His garment I shall
has
be made whole.'
the things concerning Jesus" could only mean sufferer hope story of His miracles, which made the that she also would be cured. Smith is certainly com-
"The
is indeed the meaning pelled to recognize that such of the passage, but he attempts to put aside its evidence by maintaining that it must be attributed to some
had been primarily a question of healing, he thinks, the woman would not have said "I shall be saved," but "I shall be cured." This observation takes no account of the fact that in many "to be saved" has exactly the same meaning
reviser of
If
it
Mark. 46
passages as "to be healed"
(Mark
v. 23, vi.
56; Luke
viii.
36-
50).
here no impropriety of expression, since, of the period, the according to the current conception disease was caused by the action of a demon, from
There
is
1* lttttk
D, wrchr,
Jesui.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
whom
healed.
67
the sufferer must be delivered in order to be The phrase attributed to the woman "I shall
be saved" does not therefore prove that it was origother than healing. inally a question of anything Smith also supposes that the words "having learned
that which concerned Jesus" cannot belong to the either primitive text because they have no equivalent
in
or Luke. But these two evangelists give of the passage considerably briefer than a recension that of Mark. The comparison of the three narratives leads one
Matthew
to think that
(as is fairly often the case) there is an abbreviation of the account by Matthew and Luke,
a
and not
development by Mark.
That which
is
found,
indeed, only in his narrative is too insignificant to induce us to find a reason for its addition, while the
single desire to condense
suffices to
is
a narrative
fairly lengthy
It explain the form they have adopted. subordia to attribute therefore not possible to
nate editor the phrase "that which concerned Jesus" as interpreted in the sense "that which Jesus had
done."
The passage in Luke xxiv. 19 is not less significant. The story is well known of the two disciples who the
while day after the death of Jesus reach Emmaus talking over what had just taken place. as yet, comes Jesus, whom they do not recognize asks them He road. same the takes and up to them them reof One what they have been talking about. a stranger in Jerusalem plies: "You must indeed be has of what not to be aware happened in these last few days ... the matter concerning Jesus of Nazareth.
11
68
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The matter concerning Jesus of Nazareth can only be the condemnation and execution of the prophet in whom they had placed their hopes. To understand
the phrase as referring to some doctrine about Jesus, a divine Being, would be to give it no meaning at all,
has obliged to suppose that the passage undergone a radical revision. But this is a conjecture which rests nothing, and is only put forward for
so Smith
is
upon
the exigencies of the case. The expression "that which concerns Jesus" refers, then, to the story, or certain portions of the story, of
Jesus.
no reason to give to this expression any other meaning than in Acts xviii. 25. We must not, then, see in Apollos a Jew who teaches a form of doc-
There
is
which ignores the Gospel hisof baptism. tory, but a Christian who knows nothing of in"diamond the of If Smith is thus deprived estimable value," the stones which he has attempted
trine concerning Jesus
to group around of their value.
it
to
make
a tiara lose very

47
much
We
are not, however, for that reason
excused from examining them. There is in the first place the case of Simon the
Magician.
It is
narrated in Acts
viii.
9-13 that when
he met a magician Philip came to evangelize Samaria, named Simon, enjoying great authority over the population,
considered him the "great power of God." Like other Samaritans, Simon was converted by the little further on it is narrated preaching of Philip. that when, after the arrival of Peter and John, Simon
who
learned that by the laying on of hands the apostles

47
We
pass
over for the moment the case of the

shall deal with
it
dasciples
of
Ephesus, and
further on.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
conferred the
69
Holy
Spirit,
he offered money to Peter
Peter rejected his proto receive the same power. a malediction posal with indignation, and pronounces the apostles to pray for asks then Simon him. upon him, so that his sin may be pardoned (viii. 18-24). The rapidity of the conversion of Simon and the
explained, for Smith, by the fact that similar to they were already won over to ideas very those preached by Philip. They were therefore Christians, they were strangers to the tradition
Samaritans
is
which
Jesus.
although it is claimed
is
connected with an historical
48
Smith deduces here from the text something
what it contains. The point is the conversion of Simon and the Samaritans to the gospel 9 preached by Philip,* and not the fusion of a group of Simon's followers with the Church which Philip a fusion which would have been deterrepresented mined by recognition of the fact that at bottom the
quite other than
ideas professed by each side were the same. There are in the second portion of the narrative
about Simon
many
suspicious elements.
In
it is
found
a theory concerning the apostolate and the laying on of hands which is not a primitive one, and it is possible to
discern, with
fiction
M. Meyer and M.
how
50
Alfaric,
an apologetic
which shows
the Christian
missionaries anticipated the conversion of the Simonian community and prefaced it by that of Simon him48 49
Smith, D. vorchr Jesus, p
n.
nothing to show that this conversion was more rapid than that of pagans unacquainted with any ideas analogous to those
There
is
of the Christians.
Chnstianumt Meyer, Ursprung and Anf , hi; Prosper Alfaric,

tt
Gnosttcisme (Rev. Hist., 19*4)-
70
self.
JESUS
The
first
THE NAZARENE
mission, of a pre-Christian Gnos-
another value.
the time of the
It reveals the existence in

first
portion of the narrative has quite Samaria, at
ticism which perhaps
was not without sensible influence 51 But this Christian thought. of on the development Simonian Gnosticism, so far as we can form an idea
it,
not the pre-Christian doctrine that the mythin worship paid to ologists imagine, which consisted a divine personage. All that we know concerning the
of
is
Simonian Gnosticism
is
its
idea of the incarnation in
a man, Simon, of the "great
power of God."
B2
This
shows
an extremely valuable indication that certain theorists ought not to lose sight of
and
it
is
the idea of a
ciple
human being
was not
in
in in
whom
a divine prin-
incarnated
idea in the environment
any way a strange which Christianity was
born.
Neither do we recognize an adept of pre-Christianity in the magician Elymas, or Bar-Jesus, a Jewish false in the coterie which prophet whom Paul met at Paphos xiii. Paulus 6-12). Smith surrounded Sergius (Acts of "servant sense interprets the name Bar-Jesus in the M a sense which would be or worshiper of Jesus" of name Jesus was not attested as plausible if the
one
is
in current use.
It
is
vicious circle, in postulating a priori that
only by an argument in a "Bar-Jesus"
formed from a divine name, that it is possible to find in the episode an argument to support a preChristian worship of Jesus.
Alfaric, Rev. Hist., cxlv, 19*4-
seems to us not possible to admit, as some have supposed, that Simon could have been influenced by the teaching of Jesus, as Meyer thinks, and still less that of Paulinism, as Harnack admits, 01 Smith, D. vorchr. Jesus, p. 16.
M It
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
Smith
consul,
54
71
also lays emphasis on the fact that the pronot yet initiated into the preaching of the
to hear from them "the word of God" apostles, asks that the terms of the (Acts xiii. 7). It is very evident
narrative must be put to the editor's credit. If the proconsul really expressed the wish to hear Paul and
Barnabas,
it
was not because he saw
in
them the
preachers of a doctrine already because they presented themselves as bearers of a

divine message. The case of the exorcists of
known
to him, but
13not has also the stress, on which lay mythologists 20), it. to attribute the significance they Impressed by the miracles of Paul at Ephesus, seven Jewish exorcists, sons of a priest named Skeuas, attempted to make use of the same formula used successfully by the apostle, and adjured the spirits saying: "I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches." But the spirit answered them: " but who are ye? Jesus I know, and Paul I know, And the one possessed fell upon the exorcists and
Ephesus (Acts
1'
xix.
maltreated them."
The
fact
is
without significance as
cult of Jesus. regards the existence of a pre-Christian It is merely a case of the imitation by outsiders of a formula of exorcism whose efficacy has been observed. This, at any rate, is so in the text as we read it, and
nothing authorizes us to suppose that

in the original.
it
was otherwise
tianity
According to the mythologists, Chrishad no unique source from which it was spread,
It
as Jerusalem.
*
*B
had several simultaneous sources.
Id
>
ib
p, 22.
There; arc certain incoherences in the account. Sometimes it ia a This appears to of several. question of one demoniac, sometimes arise from the fusion of two parallel accounts, and is without importance.
7a
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
this
Afterwards the memory of
fact
was
lost,
and
of Jesus. Christianity was connected with the preaching However, it may still be recognized that Cyprus and
was Cyrenaica were centers from which Christianity of Jerusalem. According spread, entirely independent to Acts xi. 20 it was the men of Cyprus and Cyrene who were the first (at Antioch) to preach the gospel 66 But we know (see Acts iv. 36) that to the pagans.
a Cypriote, destined later to play an important part at Antioch, was converted to the gospel at Jerusalem, and we learn in the book of Acts (vi. 9) that persons 87 and belonging to the synagogue of the Freedmen,
and Asia, raised viopeople from Cyrene, Alexandria lent opposition against Stephen, which proves that the gospel had been preached by him in this synagogue. There is therefore no reason to suppose that it was
anywhere other than in Jerusalem, or in the communities which grew out of that of Jerusalem, that the an active Cypriotes and the Cyrenians who played to Chrispart in the early missions were converted "a a certain to Mnason, This equally applies tianity. in his Paul Cypriote and old disciple," who received house on the latter's arrival in Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 1 6), and in whom some have tried to also see an adept of the pre-Christian cult of Jesus." Although he was a Cypriote, he lived in Jerusalem, and in stating that he was an "old disciple" (we are between the years
that 56 and 58), the editor only desired to indicate a Christian. been he had long
Smith) D. vorchr. Jesus. Certain critics think that instead of "Freedmen" the phrase should read, "the people of Lybia." In Greek the confusion between the two words is, from the paleographical point of view, very easy.
7
56
" Smith,
D. wrc/tr. Jesut.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
III.
73
CHRISTIANITY AND THE DISCIPLES OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
At
it is
the beginning of Chapter xix of the book of Acts stated that, after his arrival at Ephesus, Paul met
with a group of a dozen disciples who had never heard of the Holy Spirit. "What baptism have ye then received?" he asked. They replied: 'That of John." the baptism of "John," he answered, "baptized with was to come after* repentance in speaking of Him who
order that they should believe, that is to say, in on these disciples the bapJesus." He then conferred tism in the name of the Lord Jesus he laid his hands
in
;
upon
them; they received the
to speak in different these twelve 7) . In the view of the mythologists
and began tongues and to prophesy (xix. i-
Holy
Spirit,
men
were, like Apollos himself, pre-Christians, and the shows how closely their facility of their conversion 69 Paul himself. point of view resembled that of 60 Many critics see in them the disciples of John the 01 But the word "disciples," by which these Baptist
men
are designated, is that commonly employed in the Acts for the Christians, and it is not stated that these
Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium, 1921. As Reitzenstein shows well in the above work, no objection can be raised against the presence of disciples of John at Ephesus. The fact is that we know nothing about the conditions in which the know nothing doctrine of John was spread outside Palestine either of the conditions under which Christianity was carried to
61 60
We
can especially urge in support of the existence of the the fact that the fourth disciples of John the Baptist at Ephesus is a direct Gospel in its present form originates at Ephesus, and
Rome.
We
polemic against the disciples of John the Baptist Cp. Baldensperger, Der Prolog des vierten Evangelwms; Maurice Goguel, Introd. au
N.T. t
ii,
p. 508.
74
twelve
JESUS
men
THE NAZARENE
received instructions along with baptism. to suppose that the position of these us This leads men must have been similar to that of Apollos. But even if they were really disciples of John the Baptist,
no very important conclusions can be drawn from

story.
their
serious reasons for thinking that neither did the during the life of Jesus nor after His death remain out of contact with the of His
There are
group
disciples
The two movements Baptist community. and influenced each other reciprocally.
combated
The preaching
of Jesus Himself was very strongly
influenced at the beginning by John the Baptist. The Gospels present John as the forerunner. According
was to announce the arrival of one be to im"greater than himself," whose work would of fire (Matt. iii. part the baptism of the spirit and ll). This last word opens out already an interesting
to them, his duty
of the Baptist perspective in showing that the thought had already broken through the limits within which
has recogWellhausen the Bapof a nized one source emanating from group
it
was sought to imprison
62
it.
tist's
his disciples in the statement about
Messianic
teaching which belongs peculiarly to ii, 12) and to Luke (iii. 16, 17).
merely says,
Spirit,"
"He
shall baptize
Matthew (iii. Where Mark you with the Holy

fire.
Matthew and Luke add "and with
He
His
has His fan in His hand, and
He
shall
thoroughly
purge His
floor.
The wheat He
shall store in
granary; the chaff
He
shall
burn
in everlasting fire."
The personage
words
is
John the Baptist announces in these an Apocalyptic Messiah who pronounces judgthat
aWellhausen, Einlfitung in die drti ersten Evangchen, 1911.
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
ment, and
is
it is
75
in
view of
this
is
judgment that repentance
administered. Jesus had preached and baptism been in contact with John the Baptist. His first sermon, as it is given by Mark (i. 15) and Matthew almost word for word identical with that (iv. 17) is
of John (Matt. iii. 2). Christian tradition, so jealous to maintain the originality and the independence of have arbitrarily imagined Him as Jesus, would not it only merely reechoing the teaching of one in whom
saw
a forerunner.
even in point upon which Christian teaching, the from itself of lifetime Bapthe Jesus, separated
The
tist's
teaching is of capital importance. While for John and his followers "He who is to come" (Matt. xi. 3 the Son of man (the idea, if not and Luke vii. 19) belongs the word, is at the heart of John's thought)
to the future, for the Christians He has come, although He may not have had all the attributes of power. The fourth Gospel clearly shows this contrast in the
way
John was not the light (i. 8), and makes him declare that he was not the Christ (i. 20),
it
affirms that
while
light
it
states,
9,
iii.
not
19,
less categorically, that

viii.
xii.
Jesus
is
the
(i.
the divine
iii.
Logos
68
(i.
12, 46), and that He is 14), the Son of God (i. 18 and
34, Reitzenstein
ings
6, xx. 31, etc.), the Christ (xi. 27, xx.
31). has extracted from Mandaean writ-
an Apocalypse which appears to him slightly 65 e4 and which he believes to to the year 70, posterior
68
Reitzen8tem,
is
Das Mandaische Buck des Herrn der Gross und

that
is
der Evangelienuberheferung.
64 It
known
the
Mandaean
to
religion,
whose character
of
the
is
markedly
syncretist,
related
the
tradition
Baptist's
disciples. 65 This date should
be received with reservations. See those stated
76
originate
JESUS
from
THE NAZARENE John's disciples. A passage

:
of this
Apocalypse presents at once an analogy and a striking contrast with the reply of Jesus to the messengers
of John, who asked "Art thou He who should come, or do we look for another?" "Go," declares Jesus, "and tell unto John that which ye see and hear; the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor the In gospel is preached" (Matt. xi. 4, 5 Luke vii. 22). other words, the Messianic program of Isaiah (xxxv.
;
5)
is fulfilled.
In the Mandaean Apocalypse the same program is announced as destined to be fulfilled by the expected
Messiah
"Enoch Uthra
enters into Jerusalem clothed
with clouds; he walks in bodily form, but he has no

material clothing.
[Pilate].
comes in the years of Paltus Enoch Uthra comes into the world with the
light.
He
power of the great king of
He
heals the sick,
he causes the blind to see, he cleanses the lepers, he he causes the imstraightens those who are bowed,
to speak. With the potent to walk and the dumb the power of the great king of light he brings back dead to life. Among the Jews he wins over believers
and shows unto them there is life, and there is death, there is error and there is truth. He converts the Jews in the name of the great king of light. Three hundred and sixty prophets go out from Jerusalem; they testithe Lord of might. Enoch Uthra fy in the name of ascends on high, and places himself near unto Meshume Kushtra. All the Uthras are hid from the eyes
by M, Loisy.
From our
the
Apocalypse reflects hardly contestable.
that the present point of view, it suffices ideas of John the Baptist, which seems
A PRE-CHRISTIANITY
77
of men. Then shall Jerusalem be laid waste. The Jews shall go forth into exile, and shall be dispersed in all
cities."
thus presented this text does not appear to be homogeneous it must have been, in certain points, influenced by Christian tradition. It suffices, however, to show that the disciples of John taught as necessary
As
to be fulfilled by the Apocalyptic Messiah the program that the Christians said had been accomplished
by Jesus.
the great difference between the ideas of For the John the Baptist and those of the Christians. in the is future; first named the coming of the Messiah
Here
is
for the second

is
it
is
in the past,
and only His second
is a capital one, expected. coming movements were two if the that to and suffices prove be reduced to cannot born on the same soil the second the first, but appears with reference to it, as though it were an original creation.
The
difference
CHAPTER
IV
TWO PRELIMINARY
I.
OBJECTIONS TO THE NONHISTORICAL THESIS

POLEMICS OF THE OPPONENTS OF CHRISTIANITY
THE
FROM
of
in
was an
the earliest period of its existence Christianity on the part object of the liveliest attacks, both
Jew and pagan, in Jerusalem and Palestine, as also the Greco-Roman world through which it spread
an early date.
at
are familiar enough with the anti-Christian that polemics from the second to the fourth century; of Lucian by the witticisms of De morte Peregrini; that of Celsus (in his True Discourse, composed in the
We
makes from year 180) by the quotations which Origen * of and unknown the of that Porphyry it philosopher (233-304) by the refutation of Macarius of Mag;
nesia (about 410) that of Julian the Apostate (33163) by the refutation of Cyril of Alexandria. By means of the various apologies of the second century
;
(those of Justin Martyr, Tatien, Aristides), and by the dialogues of Justin with the Jew Tryphon, we can of the doctrines which gain a fairly accurate conception in the course of the Christians the to were opposed
second century. Just as there was an apologetic tradition, so was there a polemical one. They are always
*In
his
of Celsus and
Contra Celsum, written about 348. Concerning this work its refutation by Origen consult Neumann and De
THE NONHISTORICAL THESIS

the
79
more or less the pens from flow which of ability and penetration, of the opponents of Christianity.
same
critical ideas,
characterized with
polemic did not present a physiognomy very different from that of the Jews. One philosopher, Celsus, sought in the Jewish arsenal for weapons to 2 wield against Christianity. For everything which con-
The pagan
upon
up
cerned evangelical history the discussion had to depend Christian tradition. It was upon the ground of
the Gospels that the opponents of Christianity took their position. They called attention to the lack of
culture of the evangelists, pointed out in their narra-
and improbabilities, but they never stigmatized them as purely and simply 8 fictions. They only attempted to give to the story of from it the Jesus an interpretation which eliminated miraculous and the supernatural they did not contest
tives incoherences, contradictions,
;
its
veracity.
not possible to extend to the first the period century the conclusion which holds for it Is it. not, however, improbable that which followed the disputants of the second century would have nean efficient weapon which they found had been
Doubtless
it
is
glected
used by their predecessors? Already, from this point of view, there are strong presumptions that the nonhistorical thesis was not supported in the primitive
period.
Bauer gives a table 2 This has been well shown by W. Bauer. and pagan opponents showing the life of Jesus according to Jewish This table shows the fundamental agreement of of Christianity.
the
8
two
sides.
Bauer, Das Leben Jesu, etc. Tubingen, 1909. Cacilius *Lucian, De morte Peregnm, Celsus (in Origen's work); a man punished with with Christians worshiping the reproaches
death.
8o
JESUS
first
THE NAZARENE
if
M. Salomon Reinach thinks that

of the
century in
we have no work
which the
historical character
5 of Jesus is questioned, the reason is that if such very subversive documents had existed the Church would 6 not have permitted them to survive. It may be ad-
mitted that the Church would have eliminated them
from the canonical books and from orthodox literature, but

to that,
in a
its
more general way power was limited

the Church
and
it is
not easy to see

is
how
would
have
succeeded in completely prohibiting
them. If the
work of Lucian we know about

gists
not striking that all the polemical literature of Jews and pagans has been preserved for us by Christian apolohow would the central question of the existence ?
excepted
is it
of Jesus have been treated otherwise than for other controverted questions? Would not opponents have made capital out of this attitude, which would have
avowal? Although no polemical antiChristian document belonging to the first century has come down to us, it is possible to form an idea of
been
an
its
quality
by the
tradition.
influence
Christian
the
The
exerted upon comparative study of
which
it
four
evangelists
shows
that
solicitude
for
which most diapologetics was one of the factors which they were rectly influenced the form into
cast.
7
be otherwise, for the Gospels were not written to satisfy the curiosity of historians, but to
It could not
combated in Exception is made of opponents whom Ignatius shall return to this passage the Epistle to the Philadelphians. when treating of Docetism 6 S. Reinach, Questions sur le Docetisme. * de la primitive Eglise; Urchristlicht
We
Baldensperger, L'apologetique Apologit.

gain
81
and to strengthen the convic8 won. tions of those already
men
to the faith
therefore had to present the facts in the likely to answer the objections of opponents in advance. Now in none of the four Gospels is there to be found anything which directly or indithat the person rectly is directed against the thesis
The editors way the most
are in several Jesus had no historical reality. There accounts of apparitions, remarks to emphasize the but never reality of the body of Jesus, resurrected?
does any evangelist feel the need to affirm the reality of the body of Jesus during His ministry. This is because they were not engaged with opponents who
denied
it.
The importance of this was on the morrow of His
fact
is
considerable, for
it
birth
that Christianity was
confronted with Jewish opposition.
How is
it
possible
to suppose that the first antagonists of the Church could have been ignorant of the fact that the entire
story of Jesus,
sponded to
His teaching, and His death correno reality at all? That it might have been
but it apignored in the Diaspora may be admitted, if such a thing and at Jerusalem; pears impossible had been known, how did the opponents of Christicome to neglect the use of so terrible an arguanity
ment, or how, supposing they made use of it, does it happen that the Christians succeeded in so completely them that not a trace of the controversy has
refuting
been
preserved
by
the
disputants
of
the
second
century?
This is evident from the express declaration of Luke and John (xx. 31). Luke xxiv. 39-4*; J onn *
(i.
4)
82
JESUS
Against
this
THE NAZARENE
argument the opponents of the historical thesis may be tempted to rejoin that no decisive case can be based upon our Gospels, since under the most favorable hypothesis the oldest among them
was not compiled
than forty years after the events which they relate or are supposed to relate. In a period of intense religious ferment, forty years suffice for exact memories to disappear or undergo profound
less
begun
transformation, or for the birth of a legend ready made. But our Gospels are not the first narrations which saw the light; and before their compilation had there existed an oral tradition capable of pre-
serving the facts with remarkable fidelity. pel tradition in its essential elements goes
The Gosmuch far-
ther back than the compilation of the first written shall attempt in a later chapter to prove Gospels. that the theology of Paul implies this fact.
We
II.
DOCETISM
the opinion of those who believed that in the person of Jesus the human element was only an appearance. Such as we find this belief, for instance
Docetism
is
Hubert Pcrnot (Etudes de literature grecque moderne) has quoted a very curious case of the fidelity of oral tradition. It "In 1890," writes M. refers to a Cretan poem (La Belle Bergere) withPernot, "an inhabitant of Chio, Constantine Kaneallakis, gave, out knowing its ancient origin, a version of it, which is a guarantee
of authenticity so complete that I supposed it to be a revised copy of one of the Venetian editions, until one day this conscientious worker told me that he had picked it up at Nenita, his native
village,
iM
from an
being
all
illiterate
to hear the
The women of middle life old peasant woman in these places, the latter had only been able poem read. This is a characteristic example of the
been enfeebled
whose memory has not yet astonishing facility with which people, are capable of retaining use of the writing, by works of considerable length."

in
83
Marcion and
in
many
second-century
Gnostics,
Docetism is not an affirmation of historical order: it is an interpretation of the history on which the Chris-
was based. Among the second-century theothe first century, there are logians, and even those of found side by side these two theses Jesus is a man and He is God. Herein was presented a problem for
tian faith
:
define in the person of the Christian thought: Christ the relation between the human element and
How
diverse attempts were made in ancient Christianity to solve this problem up to the time when the orthodox doctrine was fixed. There
the divine?
The most
were attempts which sacrificed one of the terms of the a mere man problem, either in making of the Christ raised to the heavens by His resurrection, or, on the in Him to but a contrary, by reducing the humanity mere appearance. That which the Docetists of the second century denied, was not that the story narrated by the evangelists
was
but that the humanity of the person to whom the story referred was anything more than a mere apreal,
pearance or a garment worn by a divine Being. Docetism is a theological opinion; it is not an historical affirmation.
12
11
particularly the character of Marcion's systhat deep and daring thinker who in the first tem, half of the second century gave, concerning the Chris-
Such
18
is
11
Justin,
De
resurrection,
ii;
Tractatus Ongensis, Origen, Contra
Celsum, ii, 16 12 Concerning the character of Docetism, see Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichtc 18 Concerning the Doceticism of Marcion, see De Faye, Gnostiques et Gnosticisme; also Harnack, Marcion, Das Evangehum vom frem-
den Gott.
84
tianity
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
which he sought to free from every link with so fertile, Judaism, an interpretation so original and the of apostle and which Harnack compares to those
Paul and St. Augustine. In Marcion's view Christ had not been begotten He had nothing of the human about Him; He was and remains a Spirit. He appeared in human form (in hominis forma) His body was but
;
;
It is necessary to conceive Him as an appearance. like the angels who appeared to Abraham, who ate and
14
drank and performed all the actions of human life Christ of (Gen. xviii. 2-8). Harnack writes: "The Marcion is a God who appears in human form, feels, acts and suffers like a man, although the identification with a carnal body, naturally begotten, is in His case assert merely an appearance. It is incorrect, then, to not did Christ suffer, and that according to Marcion His adonly died in appearance. This is the opinion
versaries attributed to
"
He only predicated ie flesh of Christ." of the appearance to the substance Marcion was so far from denying the Gospel history
Him, but
that he accepted a Gospel (that of Luke) which he had only purged of what he considered Judaising addihis ideas, particularly in of the birth of Jesus and in narration the suppressing 'making His history begin at the baptism.
tions.
This he adapted to
Cerinthe also believed that Christ was time of baponly united with the man Jesus at the of the tism, and separated from Him at the time
The Gnostic
Passion, so that Christ Himself
had not
suffered/"
17
"Irenaeiis,
15
Tertullian,
Adv. .Ear., Hi, 16, i. Adv. Marciontm, hi,

i,
9.
"Harnack, Marcion. 17 Irenaeus, Adv. Har.>
26.

This solicitude to preserve the
full divinity
8$
of Christ
by discarding the idea of suffering gave rise to rather strange interpretations of the story of the Passion. 18 taught Irenaeus, for instance, states that Basilides
that Simon of Cyrene not only carried the cross of substituted for Jesus, but that he had been miraculously
the latter, been crucified in His stead, while Jesus, lost in the crowd, looked on, laughing at the punishment
19 In the A eta Johannis (Chap, xcvii) of his double. there may be read how at the moment of the crucifixion
and said to Jesus appeared unto John, who had fled, him: "John, for the people who are there, at Jerusalem, I am crucified; I am pierced with thrusts of
lance, I
have vinegar and honey to drink, but to thee I speak; harken to what I tell thee." All these legends do not deny the story of the Passion; they develop upon the basis of the Gospel tradition an interpretation
of the facts which eliminates the idea of the suffering and the death of a God. If such was the Docetism of the second century, it
would be surprising if there had been previously a Docetism of an entirely different character. That Docetism is met with at the beginning of the second room to doubt. century, and perhaps earlier, there is no
Jerome
attests its high antiquity

still
when he
says that the
blood of Christ was
fresh
in Judea,
and the
Clement 18 DC Faye (Gnostiques ft Gnostictsmc) thinks that if of Alexandria had known of this theory of Basilides, he would not have failed to attack it, and for this reason it should be only
attributed to later adepts of the sect. iIf one may judge by the formula of abjuration imposed upon them, the Manicheans seem to have had the same opinion (Kessler). is found, according to Photius, in the "Acts of The same
thing
John" (Leucius Charinus). that it was Judas who was
There
is
also
a legend which has
it
crucified in the place of Jesus (Liepsius).
86
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
men
could be found
a
apostles were still living when to affirm that the body of the
Lord was merely
phantom. M. Loisy has with
20
justice pointed out, as is shown in the context, that there is in the passage from St.
Jerome an oratorical exaggeration in which hyperbole and inaccuracy abound. The phrase about the blood of Christ has no more significance than the statement
concerning the apostles. As regards the latter, its sole in origin is in the fact that Docetism was combated
the Johannine Epistles (i, iv. 2 and 2, 7). The formula in the first Epistle of John about the confession of Jesus Christ having come in the flesh
(i, iv. 2)
is
to which
it
not sufficiently precise to enable the thesis This might is opposed to be reconstructed.
just as well
have been a negation of the Messianic
character of the personality of Jesus as of the reality or His body. It is doubtless in the second sense that
be intertestimony of the Johannine Epistle should more precise, preted, because of an analogous, although of in the Ignatius. The Epistles controversy found
'the
facts Bishop of Antioch insists upon the reality of the to it suffices this show To of the Gospel history. quote
a passage
from the Epistle
to the Christians of Tralles.

really been begotreally been
It refers to Jesus Christ,

ten,
"who had
who had
. .
eaten and drunk,
who had
and put to judged under Pontius Pilate, really crucified who had really been raised from the death
.
dead."
Ignatius in his next chapter formally opstated to those of the unbeposes the opinion thus He only appeared to suflievers, who maintained that
o
And
Jerome, Adv. Lvciferum, 23.

fer.
21
87
The Docetism attacked by Ignatius may have with Judaising tendencies combated in associated been 22 The evidence of Jerome on the Philadelphians ix. i.
Palestinian origin of Docetism
terpretation.
28 Docetism According to M. Salomon Reinach, far older than Ignatius already it is found attacked
;
is
favorable to this
in-
is
in
the Gospels, particularly in the episode concerning Simon of Cyrene, who at the time when Jesus was led to Calvary was forced by the soldiers to carry the
26). alone states that this Simon was the father of 24 In Reinach's view the hisAlexander and Rufus. torical character of this episode is inadmissible, in the
cross
(Mark
xv. 21
Matt,
xxvii.
32; Luke
xxiii.
Mark
of any requisiplace because there is no instance the object, and was Simon which of that tion similar to in the next place because the condemned was obliged to
first
because the carry the patibulum himself, and lastly

21
Cp Eph.
vn. 18;
is
Smyrn.
i,
2; Polycarpe, Phil., vh, p.
i.
A
it
trace of Docetism
said that Jesus,

pain.
also found in the Gospel of Peter, when crucified, kept silent, as though
where
is
He
felt
no
M. Reinach
proposed to seek the origin of this idea in the face like unto a rock." "I have made
(Source bibhque du docetisme) has with justice passage in Isa. 1. 7:
admitted, for instance, by W. Bauer (Die Brief e des Ignatius von Antioch, etc.)* 28 Reinach, Simon de Cyrene. The criticism of Reinach by Loisy should be read (Revue d'Histoire et de literature religieuses> 1913). Some authors, 24 This episode is not found in the fourth Gospel. such as Jean R6ville (Quatrieme toangile), consider that the evan22
my
This
is
gelist
has omitted
it
in the
interest
of anti-Docetism
others,
like
Holtzmann-Bauer, believe that he was influenced by the words of or by the story of Jesus on the necessity of carrying one's cross,
The for the burnt-offering. Isaac, who himself carried the wood fact that John has allowed other details of the Passion to be of the narrapassed over leads us to consider it a simplification The incito concentrate all attention upon Jesu.
tive,
designed
dent
wanting also in the Gospel of Peter. au N.T., ii.)

is
(M. Goguel, Introd.
88
JESUS
is
THE NAZARENE
None
;
whole episode
Jesus, up his cross
only the illustration of the words of "Whosoever will come after Me, let him take
and follow Me."

convincing.
of these three
arguments
is
Cyrenian was of the thousand daily annoyances the Romans did not hesitate to inflict on the Jews. It must not be explained by the compassion that Jesus would have inspired in
the soldiers, but by the physical impossibility for Him, after flagellation, to carry the cross. Lastly, it is inconceivable that the episode should have been sug-
requisition of Simon the in it one certainly not legal one must see
The
of carrygested by words in which it is a question not cross. ing Jesus' cross, but one's own There is therefore no reason to recognize in the
account the remains of a tradition analogous to the the conception of the Gnostic Docetists concerning
crucifixion of
Simon of Cyrene.
If the evangelist
really
had
substituted Jesus for Simon,

is
who
was
crucified, it
not comprehensible
why they
should not have pushed
the substitution to the end, but instead have preserved the details of the carrying of the cross by Simon. As for the names Alexander and Rufus, which are
Mark, these are generally explained by these persons must have been known in saying that the community in which the second Gospel was comfound only
in
25
posed.
Matthew and Luke
no interest for them on the contrary, considers that the names Alexander and Rufus were added afterwards in Mark because of a tradition which represented them as associates of
28 This community was probably Roman. an N.T., L)
neglected this detail, which had or their readers. M. Reinach,
(Sec
M. Goguel,
Introd.

Peter.
26
89
But
this tradition
is
only supported by a text

;
of very recent date,
"The Acts of Peter and Andrew"
Alexander and Rufus had been persons suffito make it worth while to invoke their known ciently testimony (which, moreover, is only done in Mark in a very indirect way), it would not be intelligible that their names should have been omitted in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is not legitimate, therefore, to dispute the authenticity of the incident of Simon
and
if
carrying the cross of Jesus. The system which boldly dates back to the period which preceded the composition of the Gospels a form of Docetism for which Irenaeus is the first witness
and claims to explain the origin of the episode as a reaction against it, must be considered Simon of
an arbitrary construction. The conclusion to which we are thus led is that there is no evidence for the existence of Docetism older than is to be found in the
Epistles of
John and
Ignatius.
The Docetism
tury must have Docetism. It is necesinspired the theories of Gnostic not a negation of the Gossary, therefore, to see in it,
at the beginning of the second cenarisen from the same beliefs which
which in no pel history, but an attempt to interpret it, of the degree compromises the transcendent character
Saviour by representing Him as accomplishing His work on humanity without partaking of the frailty
of
human
nature.
interpretation has been proposed by
27
A different
M.
Salomon Reinach, who to reconcile the Christian affirmations about Christ

finds in
*
Docetism an attempt
Reinach.
ST
M., Question* sur
It
docetisme (Revue Moaerniste).
9o
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
is
with a Jewish
"X" who
the negation of the whole
Gospel history.
Christians, incapable of opposing to this negation positive proofs based upon authentic documents, a Bereplied that Jesus was a kind of divine phantom, had ing ethereal and entirely spiritual, that human eyes
seen,
The
and whose voice human ears had heard, but who

this
could not be touched.

rightly objects that the to the answer Jewish negation would have been without efficacy, since the Jews denied precisely that
To
theory
M.
Couissin
28
which the Docetists affirmed, namely that Jesus had been seen and heard, either as an illusion or otherwise. M. Loisy observes that the answer of the Docetists
would have been a "masterpiece of human stupidity, and that "we are here in the domain of pure phantasy, of stark improbability, of conjecture based upon
nothing."
1'
Indeed, the question discussed by the Docetists was not whether there had lived a man in the time of who acted, suffered and died, but Pilate named
Jesus,
the problem was to determine the nature of His mani29 thinks he finds festation. Here it is that M. Reinach his of in favor theory in the a decisive
argument
to the Philadelphians. Epistle of Ignatius
80
"I have
heard certain men say," writes Ignatius, "if I do not find (a certain thing) in the archives, I do not believe And as I replied to them It is written in the
Gospel. answered: (in the Old Testament), they
28 P. L. Couissin,
:
That
de
is
the
Quelques reflexions sur la
lettre
M.
Reinach,
Revue Modernutc, reproduced by Reinach.

Reinach, St. Ignace et le Docetume. M. Reinach's translation is given. The text of the passage is not certain. For basis of discussion we accept that of M. Reinach.
29

very question.'
Christ,
91
His
the faith
It
is
But for me the archives are Jesus cross, His death, His resurrection, and which comes from Him."
generally understood that Ignatius in this passage replies to those who demanded proofs drawn from the Old Testament before they accepted the affirmations of the Christian faith.
He
declares that these
proofs exist, and he appeals to what
as his adversaries dispute their value,

is
for
him the supreme demonstra-
tion, Jesus Christ. In M. Reinach's view the archives referred to in the first part of the phrase are those of Csesarea, the capital of Palestine. Ignatius had to deal
which, demanding documents concerning the terrestrial life of Jesus, and seeking these vainly among the archives, annoyed Ignatius with These critics are also aimed at in its negations.'
with "a
critical school,
prince Ephesians (xix) where Ignatius says the of either no had of this world virginity knowledge of Mary or of the death of the Lord. If this critical school of Antioch had existed, it would be inexplicable that its arguments have not been used by later controversialists. But that is not
that the
again
all.
If the
word "archives" can be

it
to the archives of Caesarea,
rigorously applied holds none the less that
the demands of his opIgnatius thinks he replies to referred to are atfacts the that ponents in proving
tested by the
Old Testament, for the words
"It is
written" cannot, as M. Reinach recognizes, refer to His opponents anything except the Old Testament.
do not deny that the proof offered by Ignatius, if it were really furnished, would be convincing. They only doubt that it is really given. If they had insisted on documents from archives, why should they have been
92
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
with scriptural proofs?
able to content themselves
There must be some correspondence between the demand and the answer. If Ignatius were dealing with the Gospel persons requiring documentary proofs of
should he not have attempted to give them? In ignoring the question he would have given his opponents a manifest proof of feebleness. It apnot the Docepears, as M. Loisy admits, that it was tists, but the Judaising Christians who, while admitting
history,
why
in their generality the evangelical facts, disputed the
The coninterpretation that Ignatius gave of them. DoceThe : clear is therefore reach clusion we quite tists did not contest the Gospel history. They were the notion to Christian idealists, attached above all
of the divinity of Christ and the celestial character of His person, who attempted to give it an interpretation harmonizing with their ideas. So understood, Docetism was only able to develop in the soil of evangelical tradition. If the Docetists had had the slightest reason to think that Christ was no more than an ideal not have person without historical reality, they would
an interexpended such treasures of ingenuity to give off completely Him cut which His of story pretation from too intimate contact with humanity. The Docetists
thus appear as witness to Gospel tradition.
CHAPTER V
THE APOSTLE PAUL AND GOSPEL

TRADITION
I.
THE
EPISTLES OF
PAUL 1
THE
canon of Muratori, a Roman document of the second half of the second century, states that what the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians of a particular church is meant for all (omnibus dicit). This is the
conception which
Epistles,
inspired
the
canonization of the
and which has prevailed, but it was certainly not with the idea that his letters would become elements of a sacred collection that the apostle wrote
them. It is only by a kind of transposition at times not without prejudice to their true spirit that these sensitive letters, which spring spontaneously from a and enthusiasms whose indignaemotions, personality, into been tion they reveal, have encyclicals or changed of a dogmatic treatises and interpreted in the style
code.
Deissmann has maintained that
it
is
a radical mis-
consider the letters of Paul as authentic with the exception of that to the Ephesians and the Pastorals (i and 2 Tim. and This conception, generally admitted to-day, will be vinTitus). The majority of those dicated in Book IV of our Introduction. who deny the historical character of Jesus repudiate the testimony
We
of Paul's Epistles. M. Couchoud is the sole exception. The position of Drews is uncertain. Nevertheless, he takes some account of their testimony not, it is true, without dismissing (as interpolated) certain important texts, such as i Cor. xi. 33 et seq. (See Die Chris-
tutmytht,
i,
p. iai,
by Drews.)
93
94
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
take to consider the Epistles of Paul as literary works, for they were only written as substitutes for conversations which distance rendered impossible. They are
not in the technical sense of the word "Epistles" that is, works which in an epistolary form are intended for a larger public in time and space than those to
are addressed, and treat of questions which or a might just as well be the object of a dissertation book. To thoroughly understand the Epistles of Paul it is necessary to forget the halo which for eighteen centuries has surrounded them, but which, while gloridistorts them. They are writings adapted to
whom they
fying,
circumstances, improvised hastily between two jourafter a day devoted to neys, dictated in the evening manual work or to preaching, to meet some unfore-
seen circumstance, to solve some difficulty, to give instruction or warning, or to prevent a misunderstandanswers to some complex situaing. Each one of them disappeared, the main reason for which,
tion,
its
having
existence has disappeared also. Further, there apon the part of the pears no trace of any custom
churches of the apostolic age of regularly reading the were communicated to the Epistles of Paul. They
assembly when they were received perhaps they were read again as it happened, so long as the question which had dictated their composition was not settled, but afterwards they were simply preserved in the archives, and that, it appears, with but little care.
;
of these letters have disappeared, and among those preserved to us several seem to have undergone various alterations. When in Thessalonians (i, v. the Lord 27) Paul writes, "I charge you in the name of be read unto all the Brethren," he that this
Many
epistle
PAUL AND GOSPEL TRADITION
95
merely requests that all may be informed of his mesTo the sage, and in no wise thinks of a second reading. read is Colossians Paul writes: "When this letter among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the epistle
from the Laodiceans" (Col. iv. 16). The apostle is so far from the idea of a regular reading that he speaks
of the dispatch, not of a copy, but of the original itself. There is nothing more unsound than to see in the Pauline Epistles theological treatises. Therefore complete of the faith or system of thought of the
expositions
for those apostle must not be sought in them. Written stress his received had upon who teaching, they lay what these knew, and proceed very often by
allusions to
persons what he had taught and the
common
tra-
dition of Christianity.
The fundamental
doctrines are
which they
dressed
recalled.
not more systematically treated than the facts upon rest. The initiates to whom they were ad-
knew
both, and
had no need
to have
them
IL
PAUL, BEFORE His CONVERSION, A WITNESS TO THE CROSS
Through
viii.
the narratives in the
1-3,
ix. i,
book of Acts (vii. 58, narraand particularly through the 2),

Cor. xv. 9 Gal. i. 13, 23 Phil, that before his conversion Paul was a
(
tive of
iii.
Paul himself
6),
we know
bitter persecutor of the Christians. It
is
scarcely prob-
able that the future apostle ever saw Jesus Himself, in spite of the passage in which he says: "If even we
have known Christ after the
flesh,
we know Him no
"after the flesh"
more" (2 Cor.
v.
16).
The words
96
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
"we know Him no more"
as to
may
as well belong to
"Christ." It is therefore possible to understand this as "we have known Jesus during His earthly life," or "we have had a carnal and Judaic conception of the
Messiah."
tions
is
Even
if
the
to be preferred,
of these two interpretaaccount must be taken of the

first
privilege
Paul hypothetical element contained in the phrase. to a appears to allude, in order to contest its value, boasted. of which certain of his opponents
In this passage merely an hypothesis is outlined. It must be added that if Paul had known Jesus he would have been among His enemies. Why should he who
accuses himself of persecuting the disciples not have 2 said that he had fought against the Master Himself?
period which immediately followed the drama of Calvary that Paul must have come into 8 contact with Christianity. Even if it be supposed that
It
was
in the
the disciples of Jesus had only seen in Him, during His to hold ministry, a prophet or a doctor, it is impossible
that after the Passion they remained grouped together in His name without attributing to His personality a
quite peculiar value.
2
They must have been

Machen.
led to see
Among
the critics
who
believe that Paul had seen Jesus
we may
held by
name
Sabatier, Joh Weiss,
The
opposite opinion
is
Renan, Wellhausen, Feme, Prat.
Some few
writers, like Pfleiderer,
consider the question insoluble (Das Urchnstenttsm). 8 The time when Paul came into contact with Christianity cannot consider that Jesus must have be very much after the Passion died at Easter, in the year 28, and that the conversion of Paul must be placed at the end of 29 Concerning the fixing of these two dates see my works Essai sur la Chronologic Paulintenne and
We
Notes d'histoire evangehgue' Le probltme Chronologique. While I have followed, pursuing an entirely different method from that or 28 and the in of death the ends 27 Jesus by putting Meyer conversion of Paul in 28 or 29.

in
97
His death the
realization of a plan conceived
for the salvation of humanity.
We
by God do not know how
far Christology had developed before the conversion of Paul. It suffices to explain his sentiments and the attitude which they imposed upon him to know that
the Christians continued to invoke Jesus, and to con-
from God. to give him the name by which he Saul of Tarsus seems to have been known in the Jewish world was then a young Rabbi, full of fanaticism and zeal for the
sider
as one sent
Him
Law.
ciples
the attitude of
must have been profoundly scandalized by men who proclaimed themselves disof a madman whose pretensions had been con-
He
demned by the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish tribunal, and who had perished at the hands of the Roman aucharacterized by the phrase he was to employ later on: "Christ crucified, a, scandal to the Jews" ( i Cor. i. 23 ; cp. Gal. v. 1 1 ) It as a missionary to epitomizes at once his experiences the Jews and his personal feelings before he was yet a Christian. His thought was dominated by the princithorities.
The
attitude of Paul
is
ple of the
Law, which he
is
recalls in his Epistle to the
Galatians, "Cursed
everyone that hangeth on a tree" In permitting (Gal. iii. 13; cp. with Deut. xxi. 23). Him to die this infamous death, God Himself had pro-
nounced against Jesus, and declared
Him
accursed.
Those therefore who declared that this accursed one was the Son of God, the promised Messiah of Israel, were guilty of an appalling blasphemy. Wellhausen has supposed that, taught wisdom by hatred, Paul from this time recognized in Christianity a doctrine whose development would ruin Judaism. To admit this would be to misunderstand Paul's fanaticism and
98
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the depth of his faith in the destiny of Israel. It is that the still more rash to suppose, as does Pfleiderer,
things which Paul knew and heard concerning Jesus exercised upon him a secret attraction, and that he was by the spectacle of the lives of the
impressed
Christians.
That would have been

4
the spur for
him to kick
which he would have wished against, the secret anxiety to silence by persecuting the Christians. That Paul, unknown to himself, may have been influenced by ChrisJewish period of his life is, a priori, very at all conscious of it appears plausible, but that he was less likely. The testimony which he gives of himself
tianity in the
when speaking of
the persecutions directed by him not permit any doubt of against the Christians does the sincerity of his motives. The explanation of his attitude is more simple. Paul considered the Christians
and blasphemers and sacrilegious. Now blasphemy it which sins belonged sacrilege, in antiquity, were not alone to God to judge; they were crimes which exIn posed the nation to the risk of divine anger.
this
respect the judicial authorities had to take cognizance of them, and it was part of the duty of every one to aid them, and if need be to stimulate their zeal. An impor-
tant consequence flows from this fact; it is that the cross had dominated the period of Paul's antagonism to Christianity, just as later it was to dominate his
Christian thought. Paul the Christian
Paul the persecutor and not only thus appears to us as a witness to
*Acta xzvi. 14. If this detail is authentic, it is astonishing that is only met with in one of the three narratives in the Acts. Moreover, we do not believe that these narratives can be taken to be rigorously historical, although sometimes, and especially in recent times, their value has been too much depreciated.
it
99
the cross, and this also within the few months which followed the day of its erection on Calvary. Here is a decisive objection against the doctrine that
the entire Gospel history has been deduced from a theory or from a preexisting myth and, if the word is allowed, from the supernatural life of an ideal Christ of whom the experiences of Peter and the
initial manifestations. primitive Christians were the
III.
PAUL AND THE UNITY OF PRIMITIVE

CHRISTIANITY
Notwithstanding the opposition
(exaggerated by
the Tubingen school, nevertheless real) which existed between the apostle Paul and the Jerusalem Christians,
who remained more

in primitive
attached to Judaism and its traditional ritual than he was himself, there existed withChristianity a fundamental unity. Paul conscious of it when summing up the essentials
:
was
of Christian teaching. He said "Therefore whether it were I or they (the apostles at Jerusalem) so we preach and so ye believed" (i Cor. xv. n). Upon
their side the Jerusalemites
had confirmed
this unity
in offering Paul the hand of fellowship and in recogto preach the nizing that he had received the mission
gospel to the pagans (Gal.

ble to explain this
at
its
7-10). How is it possifundamental unity of Christianity if

ii.
to origin there only existed conceptions relating manifestations? His to an ideal Christ and spiritual Paul insists in the most formal way that his conversion
took place without direct contact with the Jerusalem church. He declares himself "Paul, an apostle, not
of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and
God
ioo
the Father,
JESUS
who
THE NAZARENE
him from the dead" (Gal. i. to reconcile this absolute indeis it possible i ) . of Paul pendence of Christianity and the apostleship with the unity of primitive Christianity unless by the fact that the apostle recognized in the activity of the
raised
How
celestial Christ, to
whom
he attributed the birth of his
historfaith, the continuation and consequence of the ical ministry of Jesus to which the Christianity of the
Twelve and the Jerusalem church owed
its
origin?
IV.
THE BROTHERS
OF JESUS AND THE JERUSALEM APOSTLES
Before examining the testimony that the apostle Paul renders directly to the evangelical tradition, it will be convenient to point out two facts which prove
that the Pauline Christ
is indeed a real human personthe apostle speaks incidentally occasions ality. of James and other brothers of the Lord (Gal. i. 19; In neither of these two passages is it I Cor. ix. 5).
On two
in an inadmissible possible unless the text be distorted 5 "brothers" any other inmanner, to give to the word to it in its natural terpretation than that which belongs 6 the in then were sense. There Jerusalem church (Paul knew it, and the churches of the Diaspora were not
5 There can be no reason to see in the phrase "brother of the Lord" the designation of an ecclesiastical function or title, first because it would be a conjecture resting upon no foundation, and to differentiate this secondly because it would not be possible function from the apostolate, with which, nevertheless, it could not
be identified.
6 there were given to the If, as is done by Catholic exegesis, brothers (sons of * phrase "brothers of Jesus" the meaning of half of Jesus, the force of premier marriage of Joseph) or of cousins our argument would not be seriously affected.
101
for being the brothers ignorant of it) men who passed flesh. the to of Jesus according How can this well-established fact be reconciled with the theory that the Christ preached by Paul was a 8 7 Drews, it is true, has mainpurely ideal personage? tained that the phrase "brother of the Lord" meant the simply member of the community, but to designate faithful the merely said "the brothers" or
apostle "the brethren in the Lord," and in the passages in which the brothers of Jesus are referred to Paul
names them besides other Christians, the apostles and these. In Cephas, and he does not confuse them with
i
Cor.
ix. 5, in
particular,
it is
remarkable that Paul,
in
speaking of the wife that he might have, says quite of the Lord" simply "sister," while he says "brethren 9 concerning the persons to whom he compares himself. One other fact imposes a similar conclusion. Paul assimilates his apostleship entirely to that of the
Twelve; he obtained, not without
difficulty, the recoghis of vocation the nition of by the Jerusalem validity church (Gal. ii. i-io). He connects his apostleship, like that of the Twelve, with an apparition of the risen
but he must have been obliged to fight a hard and persevering battle to establish that he was in nothcalled the ing inferior to those whom in derision he The xii. xi. and Cor. latter, n). 5 archapostles (2
Christ,
10
or at any rate their partisans, must have maintained that Paul lacked a qualification of which his rivals could
i
There
is
iii.
also
a reference to the brothers

xii.
in
8
Mark
31; Matt.
i
46, xiii. 55;
and Luke vai.
sisters
of Jesus
ii.
19;
John
i,
rii. 3-5;
Acts
14.
Drews, Die Christusmythe, 5, pp. 125-27. von Nazareth. 10 This follows by comparing z Cor. ix. z and
Joh. Weiss, Jesus
Cor. xv.
8.
102
boast. It
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
cations of Paul
iii.
was impossible to question either the qualififrom the Judaic point of view (Phil,
4-6; 2 Cor. xi. 21, 22) or his services to the cause of the Gospel and the sufferings accepted by him for 11 X 7) or * it (l Cor. xv. 10; 2 Cor. xi. 23-33; Gal the signs accomplished and visions obtained by him
-
text in the epistle to the Gala(2 Cor. xii. 1-12). the nature of the objecunderstand to tians enables us tion raised against the Pauline apostleship. Concern12 "But of ing the apostles at Jerusalem Paul said: be somewhat to these who seemed (whatsoever they
were it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no for they who seemed to be somewhat man's person) in conference added nothing to me" (Gal. ii. 6). The qualification on which the Jerusalem apostles referred to prided themselves and which Paul lacked, of boast the past. The Twelve could having been Christians and apostles before Paul, but he in no wise
attempted to hide the fact that he had formerly persecuted the church and that he was a late recruit for the 13 On the contrary, he boasted of it as someGospel. to be proud of (i Cor. xv. 8-10), because he
it
thing considered
a manifest proof of the intervention of
could this former qualification of which the than that they Jerusalem apostles boasted be, other the historical of associates and had been witnesses
marks referred to in Gal. vi. 17 are in all probability the from blows received in the service of Christ. 12 There are three designations of the Jerusalem apostles employed
It
God What
in his life.
" The
scars
in the Galatians,
tion of the
origin. 18 This
apostles of
appears that Paul alludes to a current designawhich it is no longer possible to find the
in z
explains
why
Cor. v.
16 Paul
seems
to
deny any
value in the fact of having
known
Jesus.

ministry of Jesus?
103
The
controversies between Paul
and Jerusalem apostles thus establish that the latter boasted of having been witnesses of the life of Jesus a fact which Paul did not contest.
V.
EXAMINATION OF TEXTS SUPPOSED TO CONTAIN ALLUSIONS TO A CHRIST MYTH
In the opening salutation of the Epistle to the Romans Paul speaks of "Christ Jesus, born of the
seed of David according to the flesh, as God had announced in advance by the prophets in the holy scriptures"
this passage that the human (or apwas not told, but reparently human) life of Jesus that and to vealed Paul, by prophecies. The fact that
(Rom. follows from
i.
2,
3).
In
M.
Couchoud's view
14
it
the apostle thought he recognized concordance between the history of Jesus and certain prophecies does not that the history has been deduced from the
prove
15 But this is not all. Two announcements prophecy. one is the existence are made in the phrase before us from David. descent His asserts of Jesus, the other The Davidic origin asserted by Paul on the faith of
notion of prophecies gives Jesus a human lineage. The a have to the Davidic origin of Jesus appears theological source. The Gospels record no word of Jesus which
supports
it.
It is
merely implied
in certain episodes to
16 which no great importance can be attached.
The
"Couchoud, Le Mysore de Jhus,

15
We
p. 131. shall return in a later chapter to the relations
between the
prophecy and evangelical
history.
16 put aside two genealogies, which are, besides, not concordant, found in Matt. i. 1-16 and Luke iii. 23-38. Both presume the Davidic origin of Jesus, but they are recent elements of the
We
tradition wanting in
Mark.
104
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Mark
and Luke
blind man, Bartimeus, addressed Jesus once as "J csus Son of David," and on another occasion as "Son of
David," according to
(xviii. 38,
(x.
47, 48)
both occasions 39), while Matthew has on 17 of the entry narrative In the simply "Son of David." into Jerusalem, organized to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah (ix. 9), the mention of David in the popular welcome does not occupy the same place in Mark (xi.
9) and
in
Matthew
(xxi. 9),
and
at (xix. 38), which requires us, 18 its authenticity as not certain.
lacking in Luke any rate, to consider One single idea reis
mains from study of these
and that is, considvague manner as the ering Jesus in a Messiah, He was sometimes spoken of as the Son of David. But there is nothing to show that Jesus Himself accepted it, and still less that He claimed this title. On the contrary, in a remark whose authenticity is betexts,
more or
less
19
yond
question,
of Jesus appears to oppose the notions
17 It is the same in the narrative of Matt, ix 27, which is only a variant of the story of Bartimeus. We do not attach much Canaanitish woman calls importance to Matt xv. 22, where the a comparison with Mark Jesus "Lord, Son of David," because ihows that there is only a literary development involved, nor of Matt. xii. 23, where Jesus, having cured a blind and dumb demoniac, some of the bystanders ask, "Is not this man the Son of David?" because this narrative is an editorial element which offers the starting
of possession brought point supposed by Mark of the accusation Jesus against 18 The text of Zechariah contains no allusion to a Davidic Messiah. 19 It is so because the text goes directly counter to the conception of a Davidic Messiah universally received in the Church since Paul. In the ancient Church only one exception can be found. It is in the Epistle of Barnabas (xii
10), which is directly dependent on and dominated by the idea of a supernatural birth. It should also be pointed out that the fourth Gospel appears to know of the idea of the Davidic descent, but as an objection to the Messiahship of Jesus. It does not appear that the evangelist (who holds Jesus to be a Galilean) makes a reply to the objection (vii. 42).
our
text,

:
105
the Messiahship and the Davidic origin one against the other. In the Temple Jesus asks "How is it the scribes of David? David himself, say that Christ is the Son the Holy Spirit, says, The Lord said unto inspired by
Lord, Sit Thou upon My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.' David himself calls Him his Lord how then can He be his son?" (Mark
my
xii.
35-37, Matt.
xxii.
In the context, as
we read it,
41-46, Luke xx. 41-44). this question appears to
be a subtle problem propounded by Jesus to the Scribes, and which they were not prepared to solve. It is to some extent an argument ad hominem. But it is doubtful, in spite
we
implication. true Messiahship that Jesus invoked and current notion of the Messiah,
20 that of the opinion of some exegetists, have here only a flash of wit. The text has a wider It establishes an antinomy between the
and the popular 21 Son of David.
The
idea of the Davidic origin of Jesus has therefore a secondary character. It is a theological creation made
under the influence of prophecies and popular beliefs. This tends to restrict the affirmation concerning the
if not excluprophecies in Rom. i. 2-3 principally, 1 the seed of David.' sively, to the words "born of The fact that, either by Paul or by others before
him, the notion of the Davidic origin had been introduced into Christology is not without importance. The
two Jewish Messianic conception oscillated between

*Zahn
Markus). 21 This
(Das Ev. des
Matthau*),
Wohlcnburg
(Das
Ev.
d.
is admitted (with various reservations, varying according to their opinion concerning the question of the Messianic consciousKlostermann and ness of Jesus) by Wellhausen, Wrede, Loisy. Job. Weiss think the passage only criticizes the Jewish conception
of the Messiah.
Lagrange thinks that Jesus only wishes
to
show
it*
inadequacy.
io6
:
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
and celestial Messiah poles the idea of a transcendent the execute to to come with power judgments of God, and that of a human Messiah, a king of the race of
David, for whom and by whom the national monarchy of Israel would be restored. The first conception is found specially in the books of Daniel and Enoch, the second in the Songs of Solomon. These two concep-
have sometimes been combined; they are conChurch. stantly so in the Christology of the primitive The two currents of the Messianic conception are none the less distinct. If the Jesus of the most primitive a purely Christianity and of Paul himself had been
tions
Being with no connection with humanity except an external and unreal form, why should the apostle have contradicted himself in connecting his Messiah to a human lineage? In another passage M. Couchoud thinks he also understands the inner significance of the debt of Paul
spiritual
and
celestial
to the prophecy of what is supposed to be an historical tradition. The reference is to the passage in which the apostle, summing up the essentials of Christian I delivered unto teaching, expresses himself thus : "For
how that all that which I also received the to sins our for Christ died Scriptures, according and that He was buried, and rose again the third day
you
first
of
Then according to the Scriptures" (i Cor. xv. 3, 4). of follows an enumeration apparitions (xv. 3-8). In the opinion of M. Couchoud, the words "according 11 to the Scriptures mark the source of the knowledge.
follows therefore from this passage that faith in and partly on the Jesus rests partly on the Scriptures is in faith The possible, but not the Jesus
It
apparitions.
knowledge of Jesus implied
in this faith.
The
apostle
107
draws a parallel between "I have transmitted" and "I have received." which They are facts of the same class, therefore,
lead us to suppose that the apostle presents himself as witness of a tradition. The teaching given and the be thus assimilated if on teaching received could not been had the one side there supernatural revelation or deduction, and on the other didactic teachexegetical
of the context confirms this first ing; the examination It may be admitted with reason that the
impression.
the first rudiment of passage in question is, so to speak, It is of faith. a confession unnecessary to bring in the narrative of the visions, which belongs to the affirmation of the resurrection, and which in its amplitude contrasts with the brevity of the phrase preceding.
The
account of the apparitions is added to the epitome of the faith as a confirmation of the point on which Paul makes his entire argument depend. While three
facts are
named
in the
Pauline formula, the words "ac-
cording to the Scriptures" are only found twice in it, and these are with reference to two facts the death
and the resurrection
which possess in Paul's thought a redemptive character. The words are wanting in in the respect of the burial, which has no importance
Pauline theory of salvation, and which is only incidentally touched upon in the symbol of baptism (Rom.
vi.
ii. 12). This proves that the formula the to Scriptures" has no bearing upon the "according knew facts, but upon their interpretation. What Paul
4 and Col.
from the
He
but that Scriptures was not that Christ died, he when even died for our sins. Paul, persecuted
the Christians,
knew
perfectly well that their
Master
was dead; he either did not knotf or refused to believe
io8
that
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
It was the Scriptures which, sins. of the living Christ in his certitude the once he had inner consciousness, enabled him to understand the
He
died for
meaning of
Christ's death.
Similarly, if Paul believed
in the resurrection, it was not because of the prophBeseen. ecies, but because of the apparition he had
he had read the prophecies long before he was a Christian, but he only discovered the resurrection when, in an entirely different way, the faith in the Christ still living, in spite of death, had developed
sides,
within him.
can only see a mystical, almost the in idea Gnostic, passage of the Epistle to the Galatians, in which Paul says that in the fulfillment of
M. Couchoud 22
time
iv.
"God had
4).
Taken
a very
outline
His Son, born of a woman" (Gal. In his view there is no historical reference. alone, this text would constitute, in fact, but not even the short and insufficient biography not it does But of contain, at of a life Jesus.
sent
least, the idea
of the historical
is
life
of Jesus?
And by
The
what
right besides
this affirmation isolated?
Galatians do not separate it from the teaching in which the apostle retraced the story of the crucifixion in so
vivid a
manner that they had the
feeling of contem-
Paul does not plating it with their own eyes (iii. i). return to this part of his teaching because it was not contradicted by the missionaries of his opponents. Benot insides, the expression "born of a woman" was
vented by Paul. 28 ment, where it
from the Old Testais used to designate man under the The ordinary conditions of his birth and existence.
borrowed
it
82
28
He
Couchoud, op. cit.t p. 130. Job xi. 3-12, adv. i, rr. 14,
109
declaration of Galatians (iv. 4) would be unintelligible had not lived under the ordiif, in Paul's view, Jesus
nary conditions of humanity. very special importance attaches to the long pas-
in which, in a sage of the Epistle to the Philippians, way otherwise accidental, Paul epitomizes his whole thought concerning Christ and His work. The apostle
being in the form of God, thought it 24 not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself and took upon Him the form of a of no
writes
:
"
Who,
reputation,
servant,
and was made
in the likeness
of men.
And
humbled Himbeing found in fashion as a man, He the death even death self and became obedient unto of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things on earth and things
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of the Father"
(Phil.
ii.
5-1 1).
M. Couchoud thinks
most
It
appears
that in this passage is found the ancient epitome we possess of the story of Jesus. to him to include two elements firstly, the
descent of the divine Being into humanity and His death; and secondly, His ascension and glorification.
M. Couchoud
this
considers that a less lyrical version of

details,
is
myth, but one containing more
found
in
24 Often translated "as a usurpation." This translation does not seem to us permissible, because it assumes His existence in its divine form was equal with God AUTHOR. Translator's Note.Modtrn English version, based on Westcott and Hort's text, reads: "Though the divine nature was Hi from the with God as above beginning, yet He did not look upon equality
all
things to be clung to,"
etc.
io
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The prophet was
to
the Ascension of Isaiah.
and carried
away from world
caught up world up to the
seventh heaven.
the mysterious time. God commands a Being who is called the WellBeloved, the Chosen One, or the Son, to descend through the seven heavens, the firmament, the air, and
In this region he was a spectator of drama which will mark the end of
the earth
down
to Sheol,
where
He
is
to bind the angel
of death. That His descent shall not be perceived by the angels inhabiting the successive worlds, the Son receives the power to take to Himself in each of them a form resembling that of the beings who dwell there-
His mission accomplished, the Son ascends, this time in His own form, up to the seventh heaven. While looking upon His glorious ascension the angels are astounded. They ask how the descent of the Son of God could have escaped their perception, and they
in.
are obliged to glorify Him. The celestial Being then seats Himself at the right hand of the Supreme Glory.
There are two questions to be successively examined Is the passage from the Epistle to the Philipand is the myth it expians an Apocalyptic element,
:
find in the Ascension presses quite identical to that we of the affinity bethesis the that of Isaiah? Seeing tween the Ascension of Isaiah and the Epistle of the
manner into Philippians only enters in a subordinate first of all shall we the reasoning of M. Couchoud,
examine
this point.
is
What
which we
the Ascension of Isaiah?

it is
In the form in
know it,
a fairly complex
whole
in
which
three principal portions are easily distinguished: of i. purely Jewish narrative of the martyrdom
the prophet Isaiah sawn asunder by order of
Manasseh

(i. i, 2,
in
It appears once to have had and to have been known in an independent existence, 25 this form to Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Origen. 2. An Apocalyptic vision about Antichrist, the decadence of the Church, and the return of the Lord. In its present form this portion, whose Christian origin
12,
and
v.
1-16).
not doubtful, betrays a certain dependence as regards the Ascension, properly so called. It seems that this may be owing to editorial work, for the conception of the work of Christ found in the vision differs from
is
that in the Ascension, and can neither be considered

as the
iv.
germ of
it
nor a development from

in the exact sense
it
(ii.
13-
22).
3.
(vi.
The Ascension, i-n, 43), is the

Isaiah
of the word
us.
was
carried
portion which specially interests away by an angel up to the
seventh heaven; he received an explanation of the descent of the Well-Beloved from the higher heaven down to Sheol, whence He was to reascend to the
heaven.
The prophet
is
afterwards a witness of the
events which had been announced to him. The date of the compilation of the Ascension of
Isaiah, in
completeness as well as in each of the be determined with portions which constitute it, cannot almost Critics are absolute precision. agreed in conexact sense) cansidering that the Ascension (in the
its
not be older than the middle of the second century. It is even possible that it may be necessary to bring the date of its composition considerably later. The fact
that Origen mentions the martyrdom as a Jewish book in its present proves that he did not know the Ascension
5
Justin, Dial.
c.
Tryphon; Tertullian, Scorpiace,
viii,
De
patientia,
xiv; Origen, In. Matt., xxviii,
Comm.
in Matt., x. 18, etc.
ii2
form.
JESUS
it
THE NAZARENE
ex-
True, istence before
might have had an independent

incorporation into the
its
book
as
we
it
read it. has undergone
The amount of Christian retouching which

(especially the
eleventh chapter)
is
favorable to this hypothesis. But even supposing the Ascension not anterior to the
middle of the second century, the ideas which are deInveloped in it might date back to an older period. deed, it appears necessary to distinguish in the Ascenthat concerning sion between a fundamental myth a Christian interand the descent of the celestial Being of two elements pretation given of it. This compound For inbook. the of explains certain peculiarities
stance,
the Well-Beloved
receives
the
command
to
transform His image into that of the beings inhabiting

various spheres of the universe, so that He may arrive without difficulty at Sheol, where He is to despoil the not pursue His angel of death (ix. 16), but He does be so expressed), it descent in a straight line (if may
and when
He
arrives
on earth
2G
tervention of Satan
in
order that
He has need of the inHe may reach Sheol.

.
Satan raises the jealousy of the Jews against Him, and 27 This causes them to put Him to death (xi. 19-2 1 ) in noted be is to elements of two dissimilar
compound
another matter.
The triumph
of the Well-Beloved
is
attained through the

universe.
26
power Himself while traversing the

It is
He
receives to transform
different spheres of the
not stated that, having reached Sheol,
He
which
is
birth (xi 2-14), only attains to this through a supernatural an evident embellishment, and by which the narrative is
related to recent Apocryphal legends.

27 The incoherence betrays itself by an embellishment. In xi. 19 the Well-Beloved, crucified through the action of Satan, descends to die angel of SheoL In xi. 20 Isaiah sees Him hung on the cross.

He
wages
battle with the angel of death.
113
It appears of the Chosen that the latter is incapable One, resisting and is conquered at the instant the Lord reaches Him.
After
this victory the
Well-Beloved, recognized by
all
the angels, judges and annihilates the princes, angels and gods of this world and the world over which they
have dominion.
at the right
He
One
is is
ascends in glory, and

(x.
hand of God
12-15).
sits down The triumph
of the Chosen
sion.
This idea
therefore attained by his ascenquite different from the Christian
and anniconception, according to which the judgment hilation of the powers hostile to God is the work of
Christ returning from the heavens to His second comto heaven after the ing, and not of the Lord ascending There is thus recognizable behind the resurrection.
Christian interpretation which dominates the present form of the Ascension of Isaiah a myth of the reestablishment of the sovereignty of God by a divine being
who
descends into Sheol to despoil the angel of death, and afterwards ascends gloriously to the heavens. It that the myth may be older than Chrisis
possible
28
tianity.
28 It docs not appear to us that there is any direct contact between Outside the idea of the descent Paul and the Ascension of Isaiah of a celestial Being, which has a general character, and that of the ignorance of the angels, developed in both in very different but which are found ways, there are only two ideas in common, celestial of idea are the these and garments and that of elsewhere, the superposed spheres, or heavens. But Paul is only carried away Ascento the third and not to the seventh heaven, as Isaiah. In the Paul sion the five first heavens belong to the lower world, while has the feeling of having been carried away to a higher world. In Paul the revelation takes place by audition of ineffable words. Paul cannot In the Ascension it is by visions commented upon. what he heard. Isaiah relates his vision to Hczekiah and
repeat
to other prophets.
viii.
(Compare 2 Cor.
r. a, xii. a,
and Aac,
iv.
16,
14.)
ii 4
JESUS
is
THE NAZARENE
thought Ascension of Isaiah He merely transforms Himself. The development of the Epistle to the Philippians cannot have been from the myth, because (the negative determination in which the development of the
a proof of it) the work of Christ is in opposition to another myth, in Paul described by which there is recognizable the story of Satan, who desired to raise himself to supreme power and to claim for himself the adoration of men and angels, and who
a certain affinity between this myth and the idea dominating the Christological development of the Epistle to the Philippians, but while in Paul's Christ divests Himself of something, in the
There
myth begins
is
as a consequence of this rebellion must be annihilated. The correspondence between the work of Satan and
that of Christ
ish
is
not, however, complete, since to
Jew-
thought the idea of an incarnation of Satan

relation between the
was
the
unknown.
The
myth of Satan and
drama as Paul conceives it is therefore not one of simple and direct dependence. Paul has a doctrine simply interpreted the story of Jesus by
Christological
formulated
development
est
opposition to the Satanic myth. It would only be possible to see in the Christological of the Epistle to the Philippians the oldin
form of the history of Jesus if this portion had been written to make the Church known to persons who had never heard it spoken of which is certainly
not the case.
The
incidental
manner
in
which the development
even if we proceeds would alone suffice to prove it, to addressed did not already know that the Epistle is
Christians to
whom
it
may perhaps be
necessary to ex-
115
of the work of Christ, but superplain the importance its fluous to rehearse Replaced in its historhistory. the text of Paul is an attempt to epitomize ical
setting,
the history of Jesus in one grand drama of redemption. That it contains dogmatic elements or, if you prefer is undeniable, but these elements elements it,
mythical
do not make up the substance of the story they serve as comments on it, and supply the materials for the
;
speculative construction thus furnished.
erected upon the foundation
Attention must be called to an idea borrowed from
Judaism by Paul, and which in his eyes possesses capthat of preexistence. The conception ital importance of the preexistence of souls is found distinctly in certain
Jewish
but more distinctly still that of the pre80 Paul affirms the preexexistence of the Messiah. istence of Christ not only when, in the Epistle to the
texts,
29
15), he speaks of Christ's part in creation, but also when he uses such terms as the "man from heaven" (i Cor. xv. 47, etc.), or again, when in
Colossians
(i.
a portion of rabbinical exegesis he identifies Christ with the rock which accompanied the Israelites in the desert
(i Cor. x. 4).
These affirmations do not contradict
earthly personality of Jesus; they merely imply that humanity is unable to explain to its Weinel observes roots this personality and activity.
the
human and
(Wisdom of Solomon), Enoch zhii. 4 and Enoch and xhx 2 4 (Slavonic) 80 Enoch, also Esdras. Certain authors hold that in fourth Esdras the conception of the preexistence of the Messiah may be due to Schurer justly remarks against this idea that Christian influence.
29
Sap. Salomon
xxm
to Christianity, particularly post-Christian Judaism had, in opposition insisted on the humanity of the Messiah, as proved by the declaration
of the
Jew Tryphon,
who
will be a
man
reported by Justin: born of men" (Dial.,
"We
all
expect a Messiah
ilii. i).
ii6
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
when
it
in this connection that these ideas
by those of
antiquity,
must only be judged was habitual to explain
the mysterious in a personality by forces belonging to 81 the spiritual another world. Just as Paul felt that ii. him Christ dwelt and lived in 20), without for (Gal. that reason losing consciousness of his own human personality, so also
was he able
to see in Christ a celestial
and preexisting Being without thereby forcibly deforced to cultivate priving humanity of Him. One is
the mentality of antiquity in order to understand the of primiconceptions in virtue of which the theology
of Paul) atChristianity (and especially that of Jesus that work and in the person tempted to explain of humanity. which surpassed the common standard
tive
notion of the Messiah furnished the idea of preexistence; that of divine Sonship tended to identify and the Jesus with the hypostasis of "Wisdom" "Word." In this manner, starting from soteriology, the
The
mind was
charquickly led to attribute a cosmological acter to Christ. But the movement of Pauline Chris-
from humanity tology, if so it may be called, progresses to to divinity, and not from divinity humanity. If in the Epistle to the Colossians Paul develops the theme character of Christ and the idea of of the
cosmological
His sovereignty over

those
all celestial
beings,
it is
because
he addressed were fascinated by speculations concerning angels, and it was of moment to show them that the worship of Christ attained the realities
of the celestial world
efficacious
in a
whom
manner more complete and
than devotion paid to angels. The whole of this side of Pauline Christology thus appears to be
11 The supporters him was incarnate
of
the magician
"the great
Simon also believed that power of God" (Acts via. 10).
in

grounds.
117
the development of a doctrine elaborated on other
The
tology
Chrisdistinctly theological element of Pauline is not the point from which he sets out in
It is the result it. thought. It is the conclusion of of an effort imposed on him in the interest of practical of speculative curiosity, to apologetics, rather than and work of Jesus give an interpretation of the person harmonizing with conceptions about spiritual beings current in his time, and with the position assigned to
Paul's thought assumes Jesus by the faith. At times a character distinctly philosophic. In certain passages we have the impression of being in presence of a cos-
mological theory instead of a human history. Such, for example, is the character presented by the portion of the Epistle to the Colossians (i. 13-20) where God is referred to as He "who has delivered us from the of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of
power His well-beloved Son." Then follows a lyrical de"in Him we have scription of what this Son is like, "For Christ is redemption, the remission of sins."
the very image of the Invisible and head of all creation ; for in
that
is
God
the first-born
Him
invisible
heaven and on earth, of angels, archangels, and all the powers for and Him created been has heaven. All through Him. He was before all things, and all things unite in Him; and He is the head of the Church, which is
in
was created all the visible and the
His body. The first-born from the dead, He is to the Church the source of its life, that He in all things may stand first. For it pleased the Father that in
Him
the divine nature in
all its fullness
should dwell,
and through
Him
to reconcile all things to
Himself
ii8
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Christ's blood (making peace by the shedding of earth or in on whether the offered upon cross)
Heaven.'
"
where conception developed in this passage, an almost a divine as hypostasis, Christ appears Being, in Philo, and is certainly closely resembles that found Are we to conclude that the Christ related to it.
The
of Paul
is
an ideal Being
like the
Logos of Philo?
It does not seem necessary, for the ancient mentality saw no contradiction between the human character of
a person and his divine character. One example of the association of the two concepts is given us by the fourth of a man who evangelist, who means to relate the story with the identifies he whom and has lived on earth,
creative Logos. The case of the Epistle to the Colossians is quite of analogous; and if the historical side of the person the of touched is by the mention
Jesus
only
is
upon
cross, this
the Epistle. in favor of the nonhistorical theory the passage in which Paul speaks of the wisdom of God, "that none of the great ones of this world had known, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the glorified
of explained entirely by the character decisive as considers M. Couchoud quite
Lord" (i Cor. follows from this
ii.
M, Couchoud
who
8S
finds that
it
text that those
crucified Jesus
were mythical beings, not persons of flesh and bone, and that the drama consequently took place between heaven and earth, in an Apocalyptic atmosphere.
2 Translator's
Century
New
Note. This passage is taken from the Twentieth Testament, translated from original Greek into Modern
op.
cit.t
English (Westcott and Hort's text).
M Couchoud,
p. 132.

And
to prove that
119
we
are
certainly
with a mythical theory,
M. Couchoud
dealing here points to the
analogy that exists between our passage and the Ascension of Isaiah, where it appears that if the angels had perceived the descent of the Son of God, they would have opposed it, and would have hindered the
accomplishment of His work. They, however, did not collaborate in any way. The part played by them 84 But, on the was entirely negative and unconscious. archons crucified contrary, according to Paul, when the
the Lord, they were not ignorant that He was the 85 but they did not know the divine plan, nor Savior, did they realize that the death of Christ would cause The two concepts differ so their own annihilation. much that one cannot have been deduced from the
other they have only a very general theme in common, that of the demon deluded. It is consequently illegitimate to interpret the indication given by Paul in an
;
incidental
way by
if
sion of Isaiah.
the theory developed in the AscenBut there is more than this. It is
Paul attributes to the archons anything more than responsibility for the death of Christ.
doubtful
There
is
easily to be recognized in
them the seventy
to an idea particularly deconfided the veloped in the book of Enoch, God has 86 of the world. They direct the nations
angels to
whom, according
government
84
The passage
referring to the crucifixion belongs, as
we have
(Asc xi. 19). 85 At any rate, Paul does not say that the archons were ignorant We cannot accept the interpretation of Dibelius, of who was Christ that Paul, like the author of the Ascension of Isaiah, thinks the archons were ignorant of who Christ was. 88 Enoch There is also a reference in the book of (Ixxxix. 59) Daniel to an angel of Persia, who fought with Michael, the angel of the people of Israel (see Dan. x. 13-20).
een, to a Christian modification
120
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
7
In saying that they had the Lord, Paul does not appear to have thought of anything other than the crucifixion of Jesus by men, but by men whom he considers as agents of
and
inspire their actions.*
crucified
demoniacal powers. This conception is in all points similar to that found in the fourth Gospel, where Jesus
is
arrested by the cohort and tribune (guided by Judas,
Satan had entered) judged, and condemned by Pilate at the instigation of the Jews, and finally The whole drama is explained crucified by soldiers. by the action of "the prince of this world" in other
into
whom
There is therefore, words, Satan (see John xiv. 30 ). as Dibelius justly remarks, no contradiction between I Cor. ii. 8 (which holds the archons responsible for
the death of Jesus) and i Thess. ii. 15, where it is stated that the Jews put Jesus to death. have thus passed in review the principal pasthe Pauline Epistles where allusions to a of sages Christ myth are supposed to be found. In Paul's writdoctrine in which ings these reveal a Christological are incorporated elements borrowed from the dogmatic
88
We
tradition of Judaism,
and even fragments of myths, but it is illegitimate to reduce the whole Pauline which Christology to these, and to pass over everything to reference had in the Pauline Epistles and teaching the historical person of Jesus and to His life on earth.
In another chapter we shall return to the subject of the relation between these two elements. Let us only note here that this relation appears to be that between
**They arc in any case responsible, since, according to Enoch, they roust be judged (xc. 22). 8 the devil excites the Similarly in the Ascension of Isaiah Him. who the crucify Well-Beloved, Jews against

admitted fact and
its
121
interpretation.
Far from conthe

if it
tradicting the historical personality of Jesus, Pauline Christology would be incomprehensible
had not made the

VI.
historical facts its starting point.
IN
PAUL"
The Epistles of Paul contain but few allusions to the Gospel history, but when these are closely examined it is found that the apostle was much more familiar with
of Jesus than a superficial reading of the Epistles would lead one to think. Paul presents Jesus as a man born of woman (i Cor. xv. 21 Rom. v. 15 Gal. iv. 4), belonging to the
the
life
;
;
(Gal. iii. 16; Rom. ix. 5), and i. 3). descending from the family of David (Rom. He lived under the Jewish Law (Gal. iv. 4; Rom. xv. The Epistles say neither when nor where, but 8). since it was importance need not be attached to this,
race of
Abraham
the evolution of only at a relatively secondary stage in considered necessary to esthe tradition that it was tablish synchronism in the history of Jesus (Luke 40 Paul places himself at a point of view similar iii. i
)
,
the parents of and gives the name Jesus, he mentions His brothers, ix. Cor. of one of them, James (i 5; Gal. i. 19 and
to that of
41
Mark.
If Paul does not
know
ii.
9; cp. i Cor. xv. 7). It is impossible to decide
how Paul
conceived the
Paul
et
*See upon this subject Maurice Goguel, VApotre to which the Christ, 1904. In this work will be found a bibliography names of Joh. Weiss and P. Olaf Moc must be added. 40 These are only indicated in relation to John the Baptist
i
Msus
In Paul's writings there
is
no trace of the idea of a supernatural
birth
(see Lobstein, Etudes Christologiques, 1890).
122
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
character and moral physiognomy of the Lord. It is, in fact, not always possible to recognize whether the ideas apply to passages dealing with this order of or His gloriJesus or the Christ in His preexistence the that apostle made fication, and it does not appear
u the passage where Christ is called He who knew not sin" (2 Cor. v. 21) relates to the preexistent Christ, it would at least show that Paul had a
upon
even
this subject a
very clear distinction.
However,
if
belief in the perfect sanctity of Jesus. This, no doubt, at any rate, it cannot be that the is a dogmatic idea
the historical life of Jesus conapostle's conception of The exhortations to the imitation of tradicts it. Christ (i Cor. xi. I and Col. i. 10) imply also the
idea of this sanctity. The love of Christ referred to in
Rom.
viii.
27,
in connecbeing presented as real, must be considered tion with the glorified Christ. But the gentleness and
meekness of Christ,
in the
name of which Paul

x.
ex-
horted the Corinthians (2,
i), refer to
is
His char-
acter, since in this passage there
a transparent allu-
sion to a saying of Jesus (Matt. xi. 29). Concerning the middle period of the life of Jesus, the Epistles
contain but very
little
indeed.
Nevertheless, as
have seen, Paul knew of the existence of apostles were associated with the Master's ministry. The cross
we who
as occupied a predominating place in the preaching ii. i i Cor. iii. and in the theology of Paul (Gal. 2). The death of Jesus was portrayed as an act of
obedience towards
(Phil.
ii.
God and ii. 20). Gal and
of love towards
It
men
by the enmity of the Jews (i
was brought about Thess. ii. 15) and
123
through the ignorance of the celestial archons who Paul is aware that Jesus passed the directed them. evening preceding His death with His disciples, and that it was during this last meal that He instituted
shall return the Lord's Supper (i Cor. xi. 23). Does it also imply that Jesus was to this testimony. His followers? This cannot be of one betrayed by
We
determined with certainty, for the term employed

as
may
well signify "betrayed" as "delivered over just It has sometimes been believed that the to death."
execution of Jesus is indicated in the passage in which the apostle assimilates the death of Christ to the sacshall see of the paschal lamb ( I Cor. v. 7). later that this interpretation is far from being certain.
rifice
We
At almost every page of

his readers that Jesus died
his Epistles
Paul reminds
on the
iv.
His violent death (2 Cor. blood (Rom. iit. 25), of the sufferings He endured Phil. iii. 10), of the (2 Cor. i. 5, 7; Rom. viii. 17; exhaustion He passed through before expiring (2 Cor. xv. xiii. 4), of the insults He submitted to (Rom.
the burial of Jesus Finally he specially refers to and confirms the tradition concern(i Cor, xv. 4-8), xv. 4-8 ) ing the apparitions ( i Cor. When all these indications are grouped together the
He speaks of the of shedding of 10),

cross.
3)
if Paul does not provide a impression is gained that coherent view of the history of Jesus, he nevertheless
and more distinctly still, possesses one. Furthermore, *2 went the of he is a witness sayings of Jesus. Resch a thousand much too far in asserting that there were
42
Resch,
Der Pauhnismus und
die Logia Jesu.
Resch has been

Juiicher.
criticized
very severely, but justly, by
Wrede and
124
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
48
allusions to the sayings of Jesus

Epistles.
in the authentic
Those which are met with may be divided

allusions
suffi-
Into three groups: direct quotations,
the admission that ciently precise to authorize
Paul
had the saying of Jesus

third
series
in
mind, and
cences almost unconscious.
We
finally reminisshall leave aside this
of
allusions,
which cannot be exactly
defined, but
which are far from being without signifisusfor cance, they show how the mind of Paul was Thesthe reassure To of tained by the sayings Jesus. salonians, anxious about the fate of believers who died before the second coming, Paul declared to them that at the time of the Savior's return these would be
resurrected to join the living, and he gives this teachThess. iv. 15). It is ing "in a word of the Lord" (i the clear what it is in not teaching given which
quite
Apocryphal
ceeded.
attempts which have been made an allusion to a known saying of Jesus, to a passage in the Old Testament, or to an work such as Esdras (iv.), have not suc-
answers to
this.
The
to rediscover in the text
think that Paul in this passage is writing under the speaks by revelation, and that he This interpretation conflicts inspiration of the Spirit. with the fact that when Paul communicates any teach-
Some
writers
44
he expressly ing which he holds was revealed to him, The xii. 2 Cor. xv. Cor. out i). 51; (i points this most natural thing is to suppose that Paul is quoting
in this
48
passage an agraphon, or
in
other words a say-
Exactly 925, of which 133 are in Ephesians, 100 in the pastoral Acts. He only arrived Epistles, and 64 in the Pauline discourses at this result by stating that a parallelism existed between Paul
and the Logia, when the two texts compared possessed only one word in common. "Lucken, and Couchoud (Le Mysore de Jhus).
125
tradiing of Jesus not incorporated into the Gospel 46 first of the In the seventh chapter tion. Epistle to
the Corinthians Paul gives instructions to married he writes, "my people. "To those who are married," the Master's) but direction is (yet it is not mine,
that a
is not to leave her husband" (verse 10). referred to is the reply of Jesus to here The saying the Pharisees concerning the subject of divorce (Mark
woman
x.
12; Matt. xix. 9), preserved in a slightly different form in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v.
ii,
What gives to this citation all its importance the fact that two verses farther on, considering a wife is not particular case (that of a Christian whose
32).
is
a believer, or on the other hand, that of a Christian u woman married to a pagan), Paul writes: To all others I say, I, not the Master." Similarly, in the
course of the chapter, Paul says that, concerning virgins and unmarried women, he is content the Master" (i Cor. vii. 25; cp. 40). If the word of the Master to give his own opinion.
"has no
command from
He
was
in
Paul a revelation of the

it
Spirit, as
M. Couchoud
thinks,
would be very surprising that upon a matter

life
so important for the
produced no oracle.
the place of the
But there
of the Church, the Spirit In is more than this.
the Lord, Paul gives his own to it. It is not opinion, and he attaches great weight that of one to but the opinion of an ordinary man, whom the Master has given the power to be faithful,
word of
can thus boast of being an authorized interthe Spirit. preter of His thought and who possesses Notwithstanding this opinion, Paul takes good care
who
not to claim an authority equal to that of the Master's

46
Schmiedel, Dibelius, Feme.
126
words.
.
JESUS
Here
is
THE NAZARENE
a decisive proof that it was indeed from a word coming Jesus that the apostle meant to and to this word he attributes an absolute cite,
authority. In the
cites a saying of who preach the those of Jesus to establish the right the churches. 'The Lord gospel to be maintained by u that those who preach he writes, has commanded," the gospel shall live by the gospel." Here is certainly an allusion to the words spoken at the sending forth
same Epistle also Paul
of the disciples on a mission: "If ye are received in a house, eat and drink what is set before you, for the laborer is worthy of his hire" (Luke x. 7; Matt, now reach the last of the citations of x. 10). the words of Jesus found in Paul's Epistles, and it is
We
almost the most important and the most discussed chapter of the first among them. In the eleventh 40 Paul, in combating the Epistle to the Corinthians defective manner in which the Lord's Supper was celebrated at Corinth, recalls what took place on the last 47 He writes "I have received from evening of Jesus. I have in turn given to you." and Lord the
:
.
Many critics
48
consider that the words "I have received

indicate that there
from the Lord"
was
a vision at
the origin of the tradition concerning the last supper. They mean "I have received" in the sense "I have it
Other writers adopt a less directly from the Lord." 49 and Bousset 50 think that radical opinion. Loisy Paul, by a kind of autosuggestion, reached the point of
rejects this text as an interpolation. Maurice Goguel, L'Eucharutte des ongmes & Justin Martyr. "Percy Gardner, The Origin of the Lord's Supper, 1893.
Drews (Die Christusmythe)
w Bousset,
Loisy, Les Mysteres patens et le mystire Chrttien, 1919. D. Schr. d. N.T., ii, p. 3.
127
contemplating in vision the scene that tradition 81 and transmitted to him. Others, like Pfleiderer 52 believe that Paul obtained from a revelation, Haupt,
not the account of the last supper of Jesus, but the knowledge of the sacramental character and significance of the
had
Eucharist
Paul authorizes or justifies can we accept the hypotheNeither such a distinction. sis of Lietzmann and Ed. Meyer, who suppose that Paul synthesized in the vision on the Damascus road
Nothing
in the text of
Besides, the initial vision Jesus. did not determine Paul's knowledge of Jesus; it caused his faith to be born. All intermediate solutions should
all
that he
knew of
be put aside.
We
are in face of a dilemma: Either
the entire tradition about the last supper possessed for Paul a visionary origin, or the formula, "I have received from the Lord," means something other than
"I
know by means of
If
a vision." a vision,
it
there had been
would not diminish

it
in the eyes of the apostle the value of the tradition
the contrary, its authority would be the more increased it would be surprising that the apostle should not expressly relate a detail of a nature to
related.
On
impress his readers. Paul draws a very close parallel between the two and "I have transexpressions "I have received" mitted" (or "passed on"). They are of the same
if on one side nature, which would not be the case received it was a case of a supernatural communication
imby the apostle, and on the other didactic teaching

Urchnsttntum, i. die Ursprungliche Form Veber "Haupt, Abtndmahlswrtt, 1894.
Pfleiderer,
1
und Bcdtutung der
128
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
above all, nothing parted to the Corinthians. And, received from the have "I understand to authorizes us 11 Lord in the sense "I have it direct from the Lord.
1 '
here uses preposition "apo" which the apostle exwithout but the of tradition, marks the first origin to say is cluding an intermediary. What Paul wishes tradition goes back to the Lord, that in the last
The
who pronounced
analysis the words which he relates.
in the Epistle to the Galatians (i. i) Paul affirm that he holds his apostleship direct to desires
When
from Christ and from God without any human intervention, he uses the two prepositions "apo" and "dia,"
which proves that he perfectly conceives an apostlehuman intership coming from God, but not through mediaries. The use in our passage of the single preposition "apo" shows that the apostle only means the What he means to say is first origin of the tradition. that the narrative comes from the Lord by the interbe mediary of men. This detail did not require to
explicitly
announced; for the Corinthians it was clear from the very position of the apostle. The direct study of the text and its comparison with
the
form of the
confirms this
tradition fixed in the Gospel of Mark Doubtless the Gospel of conclusion.
Mark was
after the only. compiled a couple of decades
of the comEpistle to the Corinthians, but the date be identinot must pilation of a work like a Gospel
fied
with that of the traditions it contains. The two texts read as follows: Mark xiv. 22-25: "While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and
after saying the blessing, broke it and said : Take it ; this is body.
My
and gave to them, Then He took the

it
cup,
and after saying the thanksgiving, gave
to
129
covethem, and they all drank from it. This is nant blood, He said, which is poured out on behalf of many. I tell you that I shall never again drink of
the juice of the grape until that day drink it new in the Kingdom of God."
My
when
I shall
The
first
I myself received from the have in turn given to you
Epistle to the Corinthians, xi. 23-25 : "For Lord the account which I
how
the
Lord
Jesus,
on
the very night of His betrayal, took some bread, and, after saying the thanksgiving, broke it and said: This own body, given on your behalf. Do this in is
My
memory
in the same way with the cup, This after supper, saying: cup is the new covenant made by My blood. Do this whenever you drink it, 58 in memory of me." In order to keep to the essential points, we shall
of
Me.
And
note the following peculiarities:
round of the cup as well as after the distribution of bread, an order of There is none either in Mark or Matthew.
1.
Paul
gives, after the passing
repetition.
Luke
2.
the dis19) gives the order only after bread. the tribution of
(xxii.
the phrase 'This is body," which accomPaul adds "given panies the distribution of bread,
To
My
texts
For the question before us we confine ourselves to comparing the of Paul and Mark, bringing into the question Matthew only The latter, compared with Mark (xxvi 29) in a subordinate way The account in Luke variations some offers unimportant only, to arise from the combination of two different
88
(xxii.
traditions.
15-20) appears For a more detailed study see

Note.
M. Goguel
from
text
(UEucharistie,
m
pp. 105-26),
Translator's
Century
Hort.
New
Twentieth Testament in Modern English, based on Westcott and

Verses quoted
arc
of
I3
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
for you," which has no equivalent in Mark or Matthew, but only in Luke. to the words which end 3. Paul has no equivalent that is to the repast found in Mark and Matthew He would drink that from Jesus say, no declaration no more of the juice of the grape before drinking it
In Luke (xxii. 16) of a first cup. the distribution this phrase accompanies It must, however, be noted that in a fragment which
new
in the
Kingdom of God.
narrative of appears no longer to form part of the the is the last supper, but which commentary on really
Paul says: "For whenever drink this cup, you proclaim He comes" (i Cor. xi. 26). of the eschatological formula
it,
you eat
this
bread and
the Lord's death until
stitute
This is a reminiscence which appears to conof the Lord's elements of the principal one
Supper. All these peculiarities have a common character; they tend to assimilate the two elements constituting the rite to each other and to present them as a special
institution
in the
by Jesus. They progress, therefore, exactly same way as the evolution of the rite. This which at first appears to have had a double character,
the carrying out of a of Jesus of that which at the origin had
into
was the transformation
command
probably only been an instinctive repetition favored by the memory preserved of the last evening passed with Him. On the other hand, the evolution had as its result to form out of the distribution of the cup and
while parallel and equivalent symbols, the at that to reason there origin these suppose every the same two actions of Jesus had neither object nor the same significance. The distribution of the bread
the bread
is
two
131
symbolized the gift that Jesus made of Himself to His followers and for His followers; the cup illustrated the meeting place that He gave them in the Kingdom of God. Now the evolution of the texts must have tended continually to conform more closely
the narratives to the
rite.
It is inconceivable, while
celebrating the actions of Jesus, that additions should have been made to the story which would have differentiated it from the rite. The
had the feeling, in he was repeating the that Eucharist,

the
believer
subordinate compared with the Its origin is not to be tradition preserved in Mark. in a supernatural revelation, but in an histext, then,
of Paul
is
sought
torical tradition to
which Paul
is
the witness.
Beyond quotations, properly so called, there are in Paul's writings a certain number of allusions to words of Jesus. It will suffice here to indicate the most characteristic
I
4: "Therefore he who disregards this warning, disregards not man, but God, who gives you His Holy Spirit." Compare with Luke x. 16: "He
Thess.
iv.
who
jects
is
listens to
you
is
listening to
Me as His Messenger." to isolate you." wish Compare Gal. iv. 17: "They with Matt, xxiii. 13 "But alas for you, teachers of the
rejecting
you
is
rejecting
Me, and he who reMe; while he who rejects Me
Him who
:
sent
Law and
you
You Pharisees, hypocrites that you are. faces. in men's of Heaven turn the key of the Kingdom do not go in yourselves nor yet allow those For
who
try to
go
in to
do
so."
versions are taken from the Testament, baicd on Westcott and Horf text from original Greek.
84 Translator's
NQU.
The English
Twentieth Century
New
I32
JESUS
vi.
THE NAZARENE
:
"Bear one another's burdens, and so carry out the Law of Christ." Compare with Mark ix. 33 "If anyone wishes to be first, he must be last of all and
Gal.
2
:
servant of all"
meet abuse with blessings, we meet persecution with endurance, we meet slander with gentle appeals." Rom. xii. 14: "Bless your perMatt, secutors, bless and never curse." Compare with "Blessed are you when people taunt you, and v. 1 1
I
Cor.
iv.
12, 13:
We
evil about you persecute you and say everything sake." Luke vi. 28 "Show kinduntruly, and for
My
ness to those
pray for
i
who hate you, bless those who insult you."

v.
those
who
curse you,
"Having been present in spirit at your with meetings when the power of the Lord Jesus was us." Compare "For where two or three have come them" (Matt, together in My name I am present with
Cor.
xviii.
i
20). Cor. xiii. 2: "Even though I have such faith as 20: might move mountains." Compare Matt. xvii. could faith were only like a mustard seed, you "If
your
to that,' say to this mountain, 'Move from this place and it would be moved." Compare Mark xi. 22, Matt
xxi. 21,
and Luke xvii. 6. "Even though I give My substance 1 Cor. xiii. 3 to the poor." Compare Luke xii. 23 "Sell what beCompare Mark longs to you and give in charity." x. 21 and Matt. xix. 21. "I exhort you by the meekness and 2 Cor. x. i
:
:
:
Matt. gentleness of Christ." Compare meek and lowly in heart."
xi.
29: "I
am
Rom.
xii.
17: "Never return injury for injury."

Compare Matt.
evil." v.
133
not
that
39: "I say unto you,
resist
Rom.
xiv.
is
14: "I
know and am persuaded
Compare Matt. xv. II : nothing mouth that defiles a man's enters "It is not what
defiling in itself."
him."
speculate on the that the origin of the acquaintance apostle Paul had with the Gospel tradition. The nucleus of what
It is impossible to
do anything except
he knew must have dated back to the period preceding his conversion, and have depended upon what was told about Jesus in the first church of Jerusalem. The knowledge which he possessed in his pre-Christian
days was enriched and developed afterwards. The abundance of the allusions to the words of the Jesus and the reminiscences found in the Epistles,
fact that
ings
known
Paul appears more often to allude to sayto his readers, causes one to think he must
have been acquainted with a collection of the sayings of Jesus. The majority of those to which he refers
Hence appear to belong to the tradition of the Logia. Paul that one is induced to entertain the hypothesis must have been acquainted with a form of this collection.
The
in
Epistles of Paul afford then precise testimony tradition besupport of the existence of the Gospel
fore him.
They presume
a Jesus
who
lived,
acted,
for believers, taught, whose life was a model that in Paul are only is it True cross. died on the found fragmentary and sporadic indications concernbut this is explained ing the life and teachings of Jesus,
and who
on one hand by the fact that we possess no coherent and complete exposition of the apostle's preaching, and
34
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
on the other hand by the character of his interests. He had no special object in proving what no one in his time called in question namely, that Jesus had existed. His unique aim was to prove (what the Jews refused to admit) that Jesus was the Christ.
CHAPTER
VI
THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

I.
THE CHARACTER OF PAULINE THOUGHT

discern
is
THE oldest systematic form

we can
of Christian thought which that which the Epistles of Paul
(whose composition took place approximately between find the years 50 and 62) makes known to us. at worked not if a out, therein theoretically theology
We
any rate of very coherent character. It is important to examine its character and see whether it may be considered as a development from Jewish and Greek
premises, or
if it
be necessary to
its
bring
Jesus.
in
an historical factor
the
life
comprehension to and death of
possess in essential the with deal the Epistles only points in the and system; the picture resulting from their assemblage combination should nevertheless with the exception
The fragmentary developments which we
of some unimportant details give us a fairly accurate sketch of the general aspect that the apostle's teaching
must have presented. If Paul's was a powerful and systematic mind

the Epistle to the
his teaching
and
it
Romans
alone suffices to prove
was not dominated by philosophic preoccuteach a Paul preached a gospel and did not pations. He was the bearer of a message of salvadoctrine.
tion.
desired to pluck men from perdition and of death, and assure their access to the Kingdom
He
35
i36
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
God, not to instruct them and reveal to them a history and an explanation of things. Religious affirmations these affirmations predominate in the Epistles. But includes presuppose a very general conception, which
not only a history of humanity, but a theory of the world and a doctrine concerning God, celestial beings, and an explanation of the origin of evil, sin and
death.
II.
GOD AND DEMONS
apostle's thought was rooted in the of Israel, his point of view as retradition religious from the radical gards divinity is sufficiently different and uncompromising monotheism which characterizes
Although the
certain declarations of the second Isaiah or of Jere-
miah:
"Then
take
kindleth
shall
thereof
it
man to (wood) and warm

it
be for a
burn, for he will himself: yea, he
and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god and worshipeth it, he maketh it a graven image and
falleth
down
in the fire;
satisfied;
I
thereto. He burneth part thereof (tree) he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast and is 'Aha yea, he warmeth himself and saith,
I
1 '
And the residue I have seen the fire.' his even a he maketh thereof graven image god,
am warm.
15-17; cp. Jer. x. 3-11). be better styled point of view of Paul might "monotheism." "Although there "monolatry" than earth many are," he wrote, "either in heaven or on
(Isa. xliv.
The
There are indeed . . . beings which are called gods. many gods and lords, yet is there for us but one God,
the Father, from
whom
all
things proceed (and for
THE THEOLOGY OF PAUL

Him we
viii.
137
and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (i Cor. at least, for him who posPractically 5, 6). this formula amounts to that of sesses the gnosis
live)
monotheism, since Paul offers it as a commentary upon the other formula which the Corinthian Gnostics employed: "We are aware that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one (i Cor. is that he Paul drawn The conclusion viii. 4). by who possesses the gnosis that is, he who knows the
1 '
true nature of
demons can enter with impunity into them when consuming food offered to relation with He no longer pays them worship, and he no idols. more seeks their favor than he fears their enmity.
But those who have not yet attained this degree of knowledge ought to fly from communion with idols 1 Paul distinctly which for them would be pollution.
declares that an idol
is
nothing
not a divine being. The directed to God, but to demons, and has the effect of into direct relation with them, putting the worshiper and thereby exposing himself to divine anger. There the Unique Father exist, therefore, other gods than these are the demons who, under the guise of idols,
are adored by pagans. Idolatry is an insult to God, who alone has the right to be adored. In the very fact that they have claimed worship, the demons have made themselves enemies of God. Although we do
to say, it is worship paid to an idol is not
that
is
not find in the Epistles explicit theories on this point, the it is very probable that Paul does not explain
origin of
demons by a fundamental and
irreducible
dualism, but by the theory of

1
Satan, a celestial
being
Maurice Goguel, L'EuConcerning communion with demons, see
chart f tief p. 167.
38
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
rebelled against God. An allusion to this theory is found in the great Christological passage of the the attitude of the Epistle to the Philippians, where to that of another being preexisting Christ is opposed that is full divinity himself for to seize who
who
sought
away was created in the face of God an army of demons hostile to Him. There are the enemies referred to in The last to be conquered and I Cor. xv. 25, 26.
as destroyed will be Death, who is not to be imagined an abstract power, but as a personality, Thanatos, the Epistle probably identical with Satan himself. In
to say, desired to impose himself upon man to be worof Satan, who seduced shiped* Through the rebellion in his train a faction of celestial beings, there
to the
Hebrews, whose thought upon many points

is
is
closely related to Paul's, the devil

fied
directly identi-
with Thanatos
in the
formula, "he
who
has the
power of death that is to say, the devil" (Heb. The same identification is not found formally ii. 14). It appears, however, to be inferable from in Paul.
this
god of world" (2 Cor. iv. 4) who is evidently the devil, and on the other hand he asserts the existing world is death owing to sin (Rom. subjected to the dominion of
fairly precise indications.
Paul speaks of a
v.
12, vi. 23;
Cor. xv. 21
).
According to
Cor.
the abandonment of the incestuous to the power of Satan will have as its consequence the destruction that is, the death of the guilty one. of the flesh
v. 5,
According to I Cor. x. 10, the rebellious Israelites in the desert were delivered over to the exterminator 2 It follows from these (Satan), who destroyed them.
world" "Through the jealousy of the devil, death entered the first" the from a murderer was devil "The of Solomon). (Wisdom
2
139
passages that Satan and Thanatos are two equivalent terms, or, more precisely, Thanatos is Satan considered as exercising one of his essential functions. Satan before his rebellion was one of the beings of the army of heaven. The existence of a whole hier-
archy of beings inhabiting the heavens angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities and powers
to the Colossians particularly referred to in the Epistle has nothing in it which is contrary to the will (i. 16)
Evil comes uniquely from the action of these beings, who, instead of keeping the subordinate position appertaining to them, dared to
and design of God.
rise
and oppose themselves to God. Thus
is
explained
the fact that the Pauline theory not only insists upon a disorder introduced into humanity, but also of a
disorder within the cosmos, making necessary the redemption not of humanity alone, but of the entire creation
(Rom.
viii.
19-22)
in
other
words,
(
the
xv.
reestablishing of the sovereignty of
God
Con
24-26).
III.
SIN
AND EVIL
is
If this notion of cosmic disorder
fundamental
in
the thought of Paul, and if the redemption of sinners in is with him but a portion of a more general work, and his Epistles it is the notion of human his
preaching redemption which occupies the premier place. Looked at from the point of view of humanity, evil takes the form of sin. It is a state of things whose
(John
are
"Satan, the Evil One, and 44). identical" (Rabbi Simon ben Lakisch).
viii.
the Angel of Death
4o
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
is
essential characteristic
ment and opposition to

dishonors
Him
ignorance of God, estrangeSin (i Cor. xv. 34).
God (Rom.
ii.
23);
it
is
rebellion against
5, xi.
His
it is
will
19) does not only conceive it as an act or series of acts, but as a state characterized by the subordination of
.
also a state of
and His law (Rom. ii. 8, weakness (Rom.
iii.
30, etc.)
v. 6, vi.
Paul
humanity to a power hostile to

vi.
God (Rom.
iii.
9, v. 19,
17-20,
vii.
resides the
20; Gal. iii. 22). power of sin, and through which

vi.
It is in the flesh that

it is
ex-
is 3).* 5-14* the to universal. The whole beginning of the Epistle Romans is devoted to establishing this thesis, and paridea cherished by Judaticularly that (contrary to an
ercised
(Rom.
12,
vii.
viii.
Sin
them less ism) the sin of the Jews does not separate from God than the sin of the pagans (Rom. ii. 1-3, The law, indeed, is not a 1 8, xi. 32; Gal. iii. 21). means of escaping from the domination and conseis to reveal it (Rom. quences of sin. Its first task In a certain sense it gives sin manifestation iii. 20). transforming a tendency more or less unconscious
by
into
iii.
open rebellion (Rom. iv. 15, v. 13, vii. 7-13; Gal. and 22). In itself, however, the law is holy, just
life good (Rom. vii. 12). It was designed to give in other obtain to life, or, in showing the path to follow God of the to access (Rom. vii. 10), Kingdom words, and rendered disarmed been has but it impotent by the
3). It is the disorder introduced into the world which has prevented the law producing the effects it should have done.
flesh
(Rom.
vii.
14,
viii.
We may
is
to
if
whether the
it
leave aside the question, difficult enough to answer, as flesh is the cause or only the seat of the sin, and so by its very nature or as a result of a fall.

in the interpretation of Paulinism
141
This brings us to the question of capital importance

the origin of sin. Faithful on this point to Jewish dogma, Paul seeks the origin of sin in the disobedience of Adam. His
expressed in the parallel between Adam and of the Jesus Christ, which appears to have been one habitual themes of his preaching, and of which we possess two examples, both incomplete, in I Cor. xv.
theory
is
45-47, and
tion
is
in
Rom.
sin
v.
12-21.
the
v.
The
central affirma-
that
entered
world
disobedience of
Adam (Rom.
through the 17-19). This dis-
obedience has introduced a principle which produces consequences even where there are no acts of rebellion
Adam (v. 21). Paul conceived the disobedience of the first man to the narrative in Genesis (iii. 1-19), to alludes (2 Cor. xi. 3). But the disobedience of Adam is only an
similar to that of
certainly
according
which he
historical
and explanation of the origin of sin. It shows when, in what conditions, sin entered the world; it does not
The theory, therefore, only explain why it exists. not solve it. puts the problem further back; it does
So Paul looks
at the
problem again and from another
for it is a question point of view, and he indicates of indications only and not of a theory systematically worked out how the seduction of Satan was exercised and what the relation is between the sin of man and
It is in Rom. the rebellion of Satan against God. sole the i. 18-32, where is to bfc found passage that
might be called a philosophy of

indications are
religion, that these
met
with.
The
starting point of the
argument
is
is
an admission of
fact.
The wrath
of
God
manifested from heaven upon the injustice and im-
I42
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
How
is it that men mankind (Rom. i. 18). to worrefused have and to truth so thus are opposed To this question which is, besides, not ship God? Paul replies by rejecting the expressly formulated a of idea complete ignorance of God on the part of man. God revealed Himself to men, but they fell into
piety of
of this attitude idolatry (i. 19-23). The punishment their to men abandoned is that God passions, which crime and imof caused them to fall into all kinds
purity
24-32). In the beginning there was, therewhose fore, a kind of natural knowledge of God, invisible attributes, infinite power and divinity are revealed in creation (i. 19, 20). But man rejected
(i.
this
knowledge of God offered to him
(i.
21); he
refused to give the worship due to God; his heart became hardened, and has lost itself in vain speculaThus came about the adoration of men and tions.
animals, rendering to the creature the worship which Creator. Idolatry is the root rightly belonged to the
provoked abandoned man to his evil passions. These without doubt existed before this, but they were to some extent it was this control disciplined and kept under control;
of
all sin.
The
divine wrath which
it
which was destroyed. Idolatry does not affect hua pervermanity alone. Paul does not conceive it as sion of the religious sense which substitutes imaginary adore demons beings for its real object. Idolaters
that
is,
celestial spirits in rebellion against
God.
In
two orders of beings in idolatry we find in alliance rebellion against God Satan and his angels, who claim the worship which only belongs by right to God, and mankind, which consents to accord to them the wor:
ship which
it
refuses to
God.
The second
of these

facts
is
143
In 2 Cor. xi. 3 it is a result of the first. of sin there was a seducthe at that shown beginning demons obtained act the the is tion by Satan it whereby the worship of mankind. Human sin is thus in direct
;
relation with the rebellion of Satan.

is
Sin
is
thus not
a cosmic fact; it is but one only a human fact; it of consequence of Satan's rebellion, one special case
the disorder which was thus introduced into the universe. In fact, notwithstanding the extremely valuable
indications which are given us in the passage in Rom. it is almost exclusively of the consequences viii.
19-22,
Sin involves for humanity of sin that Paul speaks. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. vi. 23). death. But the mechanism of this consequence, if we may so
term
it,
aspects.
logical
is presented by Paul under two Sometimes we meet with the idea of

:
different
a kind of
and necessary relation takes place to some degree of

out
sin
its
breeds death.
This
withis
own nature and
God
intervening to exact any sanction.

calls
This
what Paul
viii.
"the law of sin
and death" (Rom.
2; cp. v. 12).
In consequence of sin man has fallen under the dominion of death, which must reign until at the moment at the end of time, when it will be destroyed
beside this, we by Christ (i Cor. xv. 24, 25). But find almost at every page of the Pauline Epistles the
idea that death
is
cept of judgment execute it has such precision in Paul's thought that, * is like I Cor. iv. 3, the word "day" in a
the result of a judgment. The conand the return of the Lord who will
passage
:
meant
4
in the sense
Paul writes
Day
"We
of judicial authority of judgment. shall all appear before the judgment
of Lord's return
144
scat of
JESUS
God"
THE NAZARENE
(Rom. xiv. 10; cp. with 2 Cor. v. 10). of With the idea judgment must be combined that of the divine wrath which at the end of time will fall upon the guilty (i Thess. i. 10, v. 9; Rom. i. 18, ii. 5, v. 9;
Col. iiL 6).
conceptions.
There are thus
in Paul's
thought two
;
appears as a Judge who executes upon sin the penalty it deserves according to the other, He is a witness, to some degree not at passive, or rather the penalty He imposes comes,
According to one,
God
the end of time, but at the very moment that sin in the fact appears in the world. It consists entirely that humanity is abandoned to the power of Satan.
probably because he found these two conceptions in the religious traditions of his nation that Paul allowed them to coexist in his mind, and that he
It is
perhaps was unaware of the contradiction existing between them.
IV.
THE REDEMPTION
The human
disorder in the world and the corruption of nature demands a work of restoration, a re-
demption.
initiative
all this is
Paul
the
insists greatly
1
of this work
belongs to
on the idea that the God alone. "But

(2 Cor. v. 18).
It is
work of God,' he wrote
Man
8
here can boast of nothing.

is
God who
calls
There
a certain amount of incoherence in Paul's thought on
The Judge is sometimes God and sometimes Christ (2 Cor. The first is related to the ancient Hebrew tradition of v. 10). Yahwch (judge) the second is more Messianic Dialectically, the contradiction is resolved by the idea of God judging through Jesus
this.
;
Christ (Rom. ii. 16). In a subordinate position is found in Paul the idea of judgment of the world by the saints (see i Cor. vi. a). In his struggle with Judeo-Christianity he insists much upon the
145
men to salvation 7 (i Thess. ii. 12, v. 9; I Cor. i. 9; Rom. viii. 28, ix. 24, xi. 32). Redemption appears at first as an effect of the love of God (Rom. v. 5, viii.
of the grace of God. This 39). It is also an act notion of grace, which holds a central position in
Pauline thought, is, above all, a practical one. Grace, in the life of Paul, had been an experience before it became an object of his theological meditations. There
is
a certain lack of homogeneity at least in expression redemption being attributed
noticeable in
him
sometimes to love, sometimes to compassion, sometimes to the grace of God. This would be difficult to
explain
if
we were dealing with
a logically constructed
theory, but, on the contrary, it is very readily explained if experience of redemption had preceded dogmatic Paul feels that what he is as a Christian reflection. and an apostle is the work of the grace of God. "By the grace of God," he writes, "I am what I am." He
he had undergone, at the moment of his not conversion, a change which his former life had
feels that
his routine exprepared; that he was thrown outside It was this same coerced. been had he istence that
;
force which was at
work
xii.
in his apostolic activity
(i
Cor. xv. 10 ; 2 Cor.
9). Paul in his own eyes is Just as the Christian life of an original creation and not the resultant of earlier of grace which factors, so also it is that the notion
roots in Judaism. Indeed, in explains it has no deep the Septuagint the word "grace" means only the ideas
for example, impotent to effect salvation. See, 16. ii Gal. Rom. ao; 13, all to 7 may leave aside the question whether He destines whether the fact that and mankind of a or only, part salvation, freedom. all are not saved is explicable by divine decree or by human
idea that the

ii.
Law
is
"i.
We
146
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of favor, benevolence, benediction, and pardon, and not that of a divine force which creates in man somebe looked for in Helthing new. Its origin cannot In Philo's writings grace means the lenism either. natural gifts which constitute man a reasonable being,
but so far
away
is
Philo from Paul's characteristic
idea of aid accorded to a sinner, and precisely because he is a sinner, that the assertion is found of the eternal
when wickedness began springs of grace being dried up In the into enter the world (De opificio Mundi). bestowed a the term "grace" means by gift
scriptions
the sovereign authority. In certain Pauline texts grace appears, without the being precisely defined, as the primary source
thought of salvation (2 Cor.
viii.
9, xiv.
9; Gal.
i.
16).
In
others it is a divine force which seizes man, calls him, in other words, makes transforms him, justifies him
of him
who was condemned

It is
ransomed being, a
But
its
child
of God.
of
a power which takes possession of

his entire life.
man
its
and permeates
independence
man
does not exclude the moral character of
action in producing a renewal
and a transformation of
iv. 4, xi. 5,
the personality
(Rom.
iii.
24,
6; Gal.
i.
15).
Sometimes grace is hypostatized; it seems as though for example, in the parallel it were a personal power
between
but this
Adam
is
and Jesus Christ (Rom.
v.
15-21)
nothing more than a 6gurative
mode of
expression.
character of Pauline theology, its is to substioriginality in comparison with Judaism, of justice of for that of merit, notion tute the grace this point imputed for that of acts performed. Upon
The
essential
Paul
is
distinctly conscious
of separating himself from
147
the religion of his fathers. It is this opposition which explains the energy with which he insists upon the
absolutely gratuitous and unearned character of salvation. However, the independence of grace has its the thesis he affirms with so much ferFrom limits.
vor, Paul does not
logical deduction
draw what would seem
to be the
sufficient cause of salvation
namely, that the unique and allis to be found in the paternal heart of God. The comparison between Pauline thought and the teaching of the Gospel is here very
instructive.
In the parable of the prodigal son pardon is not subordinated to the accomplishment of any other that is to condition than the repentance of the sinner
say,
depends upon no relations outside those between In Paul the offender and the one offended against. be would salvation For him same it is not the thing.
it
the reason of impossible without the cross. What is It is not enough to say that as a this difference? Pharisee Paul was too much concerned to safeguard
the holiness of
God to accept the idea of a free pardon the holiness of God, Pharisaism besides for sin, for insisted also upon His omnipotence. The true reason Paul was obliged to explain the fact is elsewhere.
of the death of Christ, which thus appeared as one of From the most essential premises of his theology. the necessity of this explanation arose the Pauline doctrine of redemption. the pardon of God is not the effect In Paul's
writings
iniof a free, spontaneous and immediately efficacious of It is subordinated to the accomplishment tiative.
only a "processus" within the divine, designed to conciliate love and justice. This
work of redemption. For Paul salvation is not
i 48
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
order of ideas which is represented in the Pauline It cordoctrine of redemption does not exhaust it. of a violation responds to the idea of sin conceived as
the law of
God and
the divine pardon

less if it
But as rebellion against Him. fruitremain would man to granted
by God
were not accompanied by a victory gained over the evil powers, who, owing to sin, exerGod has concised their dominion over humanity. ceived for the realization of salvation a plan which reveals a wisdom infinitely superior to that of the
the object of the I Cor. teaching imparted by the apostle to the perfect ( is rewhich the is This xi. ii. 6; Rom. mystery 33).
world.
This plan of redemption
is
vealed unto the elect (Col. i. 25, ii. 2). Redemption has a double object. Man must one day appear before the judgment seat of God, and if he be abandoned to
himself he will not escape condemnation. Redemption has the effect of making him the object of a judgment of acquittal, and thus having part in
the divine Kingdom. On the other hand, the sinner must be delivered from the evil powers who have dominion over him. To these two elements correspond
two
different
moments of
the
work of redemption
on one side on the other. On one side this distinction corbetween responds to that which Paul makes elsewhere of Christ, between the two parts of the redeeming work that accomplished by His death and resurrection and that which will be accomplished at the day of His
justification
and redemption properly so
called
glorious return at the end of the age.

justification
is
is
The work
ii.
of
achieved
in
principle,
while that of
8;
I
redemption
xv. 24).
only hoped for (2 Thess.

if
Cor.
However,
redemption depends upon the

victory that Christ
is
149
to gain at the end of the age
over
His enemies, His triumph is certain, for by His death and resurrection Jesus has conquered and that is, the spirdespoiled the powers and dominions
all
itual beings hostile to
God
to
whom
This it is enslaved (Col. ii. 15). Christian hope of Paul so special a character. work of justification is described by Paul with
humanity is now which gives to the
The much
more
This is not precision than that of redemption. historical plane, only because the first develops upon an end of the age, the at while the second will take place
and
will
in
character.
consequence possess an extrahistorical Paul's theoIf, in theory, redemption, on
logical system, possesses as

fication, it is
much importance
as justi-
not so from the practical point of view. The whole missionary effort of Paul and Paul was a the missionary before all else is concentrated upon This point acceptation of justification by the sinner. else followed, for, from the once gained, everything individual point of view, redemption appeared as a which the consequence of justification, and the spirit of it is the assurance (Rom. v. 10, justified one receives
viii.
23; Gal.
iv.
6).
V.
THE CHRIST AND His WORK

idea
upon which the Pauline doctrine of justification rests is that of two worlds, one under succeeding the other. The present world, placed
The fundamental
the dominion of evil powers, has for

acteristics sin,
i.
its
essential char-
20,
ii.
perish.
death and impotence (Gal. i. 4; I Cor. It is destined to 6, iii. 18; 2 Cor. iv. 3). The world of the future is the Kingdom of
5o
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The time which passes between His return is an intermediate and Christ of the death we may so period, in which the two economies (if other. The old dispensation it) overlap each
Christ and of God.
express
which (or economy) still subsists, since of the powers will perish ( I Cor. ii. reign over it, it is said that they it is never said they have perished; their 8, xv. 24) destruction is foretold for the end of time ( I Cor. xv.
;
26).
facts Sin, present world is dominated by three introduced death and the consequence of Adam's fall, by it into the world; the promise given to Abraham,
The
which, amid the darkness of a world condemned, causes hope to shine; and finally the Law of Moses. For each of these points of view the cycle is completed
by the manifestation of Christ.
Through
it
sin is
van-
to life quished, the faithful are restored to made the 22; Rom. v. 17), promise
fulfilled
is
( I
Cor. xv.
is
Abraham
,
(2 Cor. i. 20; Gal. iii. the end of the law ( Rom. x. 4 cp. Gal. iii. 2 1 iv. 5 ) . The redeeming work of Christ involves at once God
;
16), and
finally Christ
and man.
Because of
its
essentially
moral character,
it can only be accomplished by a being in close soliman. But as darity with humanity, therefore by a
humanity
radically impotent, and the initiative salvation belongs to God, it can only come through a
is
for
sonality
intimate union being who is not himself a sinner but in with God, therefore by a celestial being. Hence the double character of the Pauline Christ, a human perand at the same time superhuman, not God
but the "Son of (the term is not found in Paul), God" a contradiction that the apostle solves by the idea of the incarnation of the preexisting Christ

Christ belongs at once to the divine and the spheres; His personality has a double aspect
i.
151
human (Rom.
But there is nothing in Paul to resemble that which later was to be the orthodox dogma, because his
4).
thought does not express itself in theological definitions, and also because he does not picture to himself a combination in the person of Christ of incongruous elements, but rather the succession of diverse phases.
The Pauline idea of God (2 Cor.
is
iv.
that of a divine Being, the image 4; Col. i. 15), a celestial man
the first-born of creation (Col. (i Cor. xv. 48, 49), bei. 15), who, laying aside His celestial attributes,
came man, and who, after His resurrection, received 11 the name of "Lord (Phil. ii. 5-1 1 )
.^
outside Everything which concerns preexistence is double a has and of experience, as Paul conceives it,
origin.
This proceeds from the theological system of Judaism, in which the notion of the Messiah was reflecvery developed, but also from the theological If Jesus, by His death and resurrection, had tion.
brought about that which He had, in fact, accomof Paul, it necesplished according to the experience His that personality must have been sarily follows
unlike that of other men.
The name by which Paul most

Christ
is
that of "Son of God."

is
frequently designates This is but an image,
for there
nothing
in the
resembles the idea to be
met with
apostle's writings which later, of a Son be-
suborgotten by God. The Christ remains distinctly dinate to the Father. He was created by the Father. This follows from the parallel drawn between Adam
and Him, but also from the term "image of God/ which recalls the narrative of the creation of the first
JESUS
man
term
in the
THE NAZARENE
God
The
(Gen.
i.
image of
"first-born."
idea of the celestial
27) and also of the man or
the typical man of I Cor. xv. 48 is another form of the notion of preexistence which is affirmed in a series of explicit texts for instance, in the declaration of the
Epistle to the
Romans
that
God had
sent
His Son
ii. 5). 3; cp. Gal. iv. 4; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Phil. the in Christ taken the from It follows also by part creation (i Con viii. 6; Col. i. 15-17)-
(Rom.
viii.
that is, at the moment chosen the end of time conceived by His wisdom (Gal. by God in the plan jv. 4) Jesus was born in the midst of the Jewish
At
people, a descendant of
Abraham and
of
David (Rom.
unto God (Rom. i. 3). He was in all points obedient v. 17-19; Phil. ii. 8) and had in no wise known sin a human appear(2 Cor. v. 21 ). The texts in which viii. ance of Christ is spoken of (Rom. 3; Phil. ii. 7)
must not be interpreted against the
reality of Jesus,
the for, as H. J. Holtzmann has very well observed, of notion to the Greek word employed is not opposed 8 That which exidentity, but to that of difference.
plicitly
confirms this interpretation is the fact that Paul attributes to Christ flesh and blood (Rom. i. 3, iii. 25 ; I Cor. x. 16: Col. i. 20), while these are, in his view, elements which characterize human nature, and are
8 It may appear, given the notion of the flesh, that there is a contradiction between the humanity of Christ and the fact that He it without sin. The solution of this is given by the parallelism drawn between Adam and Jesus Christ. Just as Adam, before the fall, wa at the same time man and without sin, so it is possible to conceive
that
for Christ what Adam had been at the be noted that Jewish thought does not rigorously affirm the universality of sin. Jewish Apocryphal book, fourth few are Esdras, says that nearly all men are sinners and that very not This offers some striking affinities with Paul's thought (vii. 139).
God had
realized
creation.
It is to
153
The foreign to the celestial life (i Cor. xv. 50). death His is Christ of essence of the work upon the cross. The cross is for Paul the power and the wisdom
God (i Cor. man can have to

of
18, 23, 24), the sole reason that be assured of his salvation (Gal. vi.
i.
called 14), and for this the enemies of the Gospel are iii. of Christ the cross of enemies the 18). If (Phil. Paul combated with the energy and perseverance known to us the idea of justification by the works of
is in order particularly by circumcision, it that is, the efficacity of the cross that the offense
the
Law, and
may
i.
not be diminished (Gal.

.
v.
II, vi.
12;
Cor.
with It is upon this idea that the 17) the greatest emphasis (Gal. i. 14; i Cor. xv. 3; Rom. Several concepts are introduced to iv. 25, v. 10).
apostle insists explain
it
for instance, that of Christ as the paschal
lamb (i Cor. v. 7), that of Christ as propitiation as a levitical (that is, a means of salvation conceived that of the sacrisacrifice) (Rom. iii. 25), and also iii. Gal. vi. ransom fice by 13). But the 17; (Rom.
of justifigoverning thought which explains the process cation is that of the condemnation of sin in the flesh of Christ (Gal. Hi. 13; 2 Cor. v. 21; Rom. viii. 3).
treated by God Jesus, while being perfectly holy, was were sin personified and condemned. as though
He
This
not the idea of expiatory sacrifice incidentallyRom. iii. 25, for the victim of this sacrifice had to be of perfect purity, while the death of loaded Jesus on the cross was that of one condemned, with sin. Neither is it the equivalent of ransom, for
is
indicated in
the punishment of sin in the flesh of Jesus was a legal sanction and not a satisfaction accorded either to God or devil. Neither can it be said, as does M. Loisy,
154
JESUS
ram dedicated
THE NAZARENE
who
the
assimilates the death of Christ to the sacrifice of
destroyed by
their
to Azazel, that Christ took upon Himself the sins of men. These sins, in fact, are not His death. They subsist after it, with all
the consequences, and are only destroyed by union virtual death of the believer realized by mystical
have in Paul an original conception with Christ. notions in which juridical play a much greater part than 9 in the Jewish conception of sacrifice.
Christ without His resurrection would be without efficacy. The resurrection is not only for
We
The death of
Paul a reparation accorded to Christ, a recompense for His sacrifice still less is it a consequence of His divine nature. If Christ died without subsequent resurrection, His sacrifice was in vain (i Cor. xv. 14-17).
;
He
25).
was raised again for our
When
Paul
justification (Rom. uses the verb "to rise again'' in the
iv.
active voice
it is
always
God who
is
the subject of the

life
i.
sentence.
It is
I
Christ did not return to

raised
10 by Himself.
;
rank and to the possession of the attributes which He had in His preexistence, and He is even placed at a ii. 1 1 ) higher rank than that which He occupied (Phil.
,
Through
10; Gal. i. I Cor. vi. 14, xv. 15; 2 Cor. iv. 14; Roni. iv. 25). His resurrection Christ was restored to the
God who
Him
(i Thess.
The question whether Paul taught a doctrine of expiation has There are many texts which seem to hint been much discussed. at it; those on which it is said that Christ died "for us" or "for our sins," but it is not certain that "for us" means "in our place" and not "in our interest," and that "for our sins" may have the sense of "accepting responsibility for our sins," and not "because of our sins." It is rather the idea of solidarity which seems to adapt
itself to
10
to
As in the lay down my
Paul's thought (2 Cor. v. 15). case of the Johannine conception, "I have power life and power to take it again" (John x. 18).

and
scats
155
Himself
at the right
hand of God (Rom.
viii. 34; Col. iii. i). the divine glory. In
He
His
enters into the possession of glorious existence Christ was

,
essentially spirit
Cor. xv. 45 )
and even the
ll
Spirit
The phrase "Christ, (2 Cor. iii. 17; Rom. viii. 9, 10). of Him almost makes power of God" (i Cor. i. 24)
a
"mode" of the
divine activity.
The death and resurrection of Christ also modify His position relatively to demoniacal beings. Henceforward, indeed, they have no power over those who belong to Christ (Rom. viii. 37). He has gained the and reestablished order in the cosmos (Col.
victory
i.
first place and brought other into subjection powers. Nevertheless, accordof Christ can only ing to I Cor. xv. 24, 25, the victory at the end of time. The reconciling of these take
18-20).
He
has taken the
all
place
two
things,
in
appearance contradictory, seems
at-
tained by the idea that in the text of the Epistles to the Philippians, Romans and the Colossians they are considered as principles and in the absolute, while
in the first Epistle to the
ered
in
their
Corinthians they are considIn the chronological development.

it
Epistle to the
Romans
is
a question of a certain
not exclude a struggle. victory, but one which does The Satanic powers are not destroyed; they can still the last battle with Christ, but they will be unable
wage
In the Epistle to the Philippians (ii. to triumph. knee 9-11) Christ receives a name before which every
shall
does not imply that they will not On the other hand, in the first attempt to rebel. to the Corinthians, if there is a battle, the
bow, but
this
Epistle
11
become
Believers mystically in union with him ceased to be spirit (Gal. v. 24; Rom. vi. z).
flesh
to
i 56
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The victory of Christ is 20 Christ gains the i. CoL to certain. According This may be victory by the blood upon the cross. with I Cor. ii. 8, where the statement is
issue is fixed in advance.
compared
had known that is, understood His plans the wisdom of God the glorious Lord. Why crucified have not would they Because they would not have devoted their is this? efforts to the realization of a work which must have for them as consequence their overthrow and spoliation. The cross is thus the means by which the princes of this world are to be annihilated and despoiled. It
made
that if the archons of this world
is
the thought of impossible to interpret with precision Paul on this point, for it proceeds only by allusions
which are concerned either with the teaching he had

himself given, or with the current ideas of his time for example, those developed in the Ascension of Isaiah, and which, to appeal directly to the intelligence
of his readers,
it
sufficed to evoke.
and complete victory of Christ over the be gained at the end of the age. spirits would only After His resurrection Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Rom. viii. 34; Col. iii. i). He will under His foot, reign until all enemies have been put
The
full
enemy of all death. Then He will surrender the Kingdom to His Father, and this will be
and the
last
the end (i Cor. xv. 24, 26). It is is this Pauline Christology formed? often said that the apostle was the creator of Chris-
How
tology.
is only exact if the word "creain the sense ex nihilo, but in not tion" be understood,
This formula
the sense of a synthesis formed
from preexisting
ele-

ments.
15?
Pauline thought appears as an original solution of a problem which arose out of the circumstances themselves, for the Christological problem
The
existed
from the very moment that one

to believe in Jesus in spite
single
man
of the ignominy continued of His death. But the solutions or the outlines of them were swept aside by the powerful synthesis of Paul,
which dominated
Christian thought. Certain elements of the Christology of Paul have a speculative These are specially the notions of saintliness origin.
all later
not the observation of a fact but and of preexistence. the affirmation of a principle of the The notion, too, Messiahship has a theoretical
in so far as
it
is
and absolute character.
ing to a necessary plan, while if
The drama proceeds we adopt the
accordidea in
the parable of the vineyard, according to the thought of Jesus, we are led to the conception that the arrival of the Messiah was a last attempt at redemption, which
would not have taken place if the wickedness of mankind had not rendered fruitless the mission of the
of the death prophets. The doctrine of the necessity of Christ marks, indeed, an essential point of difference between the thought of Paul and that of Jesus. For Jesus death is the supreme proof of love for His fellow men, which He will give them if it be necessary. It is like His entire ministry, but not separated from
an appeal addressed to sinners it is not what the very cause of the it is according to Paul's thought and Reflection God. speculation are dompardon of inant in Paul. As for the preponderance accorded to one might almost say the eclipsing of the cross
it
;
it is
Christ's ministry in face of the unique and extraorit can only be explained dinary radiance of His cross
I5 8
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
into contact by the angle under which Paul entered
with the Gospel.
Paul an element whose origin is in the 12 Bruckner has shown that Jewish Messianic doctrine.
There
is
in
after eliminating
what
is
specifically Christian in the

is
Pauline Christology there
found a system of coherent ideas which finds its place in the most natural manner in the development of the Jewish Messianic doctrine.
This Christology existed
conversion.
in
Paul's
mind before
his
recognized with the spirits
Certain Hellenic elements are also to be those treating of the relations of Christ
but they
may have
been incorporated
with Jewish ideas before Paul. Nothing, however, the Pauline consider to than would be more erroneous
of Jewish or Christology as only a simple development
Judeo-Hellenic premises.
That which gives him
his
built up of these elements originality is the synthesis and the historical episode of the life and death of
Jesus.
It is
not possible to reduce to a
common
element
the historical and dogmatic constituents of the Pauline This is Christology, as M. Couchoud would do. in Paul a proved by the fact that we do not find
homogeneous conception of the cause of

as should be the case
if
Christ's death,
the entire history of Jesus, and
of His death in particular, had been the postulates of a dogmatic system. According to I Cor. ii. 8 Christ died crucified owing to the acts of the archons or rebellious angels against
12
God.
According to Rom.
vii.
Boussct
Concerning the Jewish Messianic doctrine see Schurer (Gesch.), (Die Religion des Judentums), Baldensperger (Die Met" $ianischapokalyptuchen, etc), Brflckner (Die Entstehung der Paulischen Chrutohfie).

He
died (although
159
He was not in person a sinner, but with humanity accepted by Him) through solidarity because God treated Him as though He were sin itself,
and inflicted the chastisement which sinners deserve. These two conceptions are not dialectically irreconcilable.
One might imagine

to punish
sin.
the archons as agents used
by God
Doubtless the two conceptions the same compass or being on are far from having the same plane. The first is only indicated in a quite incidental manner, in a dissertation which treats, not
of the death of Christ, but of the wisdom of God. The second is in direct relation with the doctrine of is at the heart of the apostle's justification, which
thought.
proves, however, that
made
myth
two explanations are not dealing with a readyfrom conception, nor with a system developed or doctrine, but from the interpretation by this
The
coexistence of these
we
doctrine of an historical fact.
VI.
THE
JUSTIFICATION AND REDEMPTION OF THE
SINNER
The same
still,
from
conclusion follows, with better evidence the study of the Pauline theory of the
justification
and redemption of the sinner. The death of Christ, as we have seen, abolishes the consequences of sin, and contains in germ the defeat of the demons
to
humanity is subject and whose action produces sin and death. But, however efficacious it be, this death does not abolish the actual consequences of The theoretical destruction of its power does not sin.
whom
save mankind from continuing to bear as a fact the
160
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
if the demonconsequences of sins committed, and still undermankind in principle condemned, powers are the past. in them to goes the effects of its subjection Moreover, their power continues to be exercised up
to the time
when
their defeat will be fully
consum-
mated.
accomplished by Christ in dying on the cross does not at once justify sinners ipso facto by
The work
act,
one
to
some extent magical;

that
is
it
merely makes
jus-
tification possible
before God's tribunal.

liever access to the
to say, the acquittal of man Justification opens to the be-
Heavenly Kingdom and gives him
assurance of his future redemption. Salvation can only be attained for the individual by a moral act. This plainly follows from the term of
employed by Paul. This term implies the change of the relation between persons. "We beseech you in the name of Christ," writes Paul, exerof reconciliation, cising thus what he calls the ministry
reconciliation
"be ye reconciled with God" (2 Cor. v. 20). To the act of God giving His Son there must correspond an
act of
man. God
calls the sinner; the latter

is
must
re-
spond. Justification
ner,
the act of imputing to the sinner the justice attained by Christ, who, considered as sinHimself through His death right with the has
put
Law, and who lives henceforth a life freed by the power of God from the dominion of sin and death.
The
and
This term starting point of justification is faith. 1* in Paul. found often are it from derived words
is
Faith
the specific
tian life.
did his
19
phenomenon of the religious ChrisThe type of believer is Abraham. In what faith consist? In this, that God, having
in the
About 280 times
authentic Epiatles.
161
promised that he should be the father of a large posterin this promise at the time when ity, he had confidence his age and that of his wife rendered its realization improbable (Rom. iv. 17-21). Faith is therefore not
founded upon the evidence of a truth, but upon the confidence inspired by God and His omnipotence. According to i Cor. ii. 4, 5 faith has its origin in the power of God, and not in human reasoning. Faith is faith in God (i Thess. i. 8), but there is also faith in
Christ (Gal. Christ that
through keeps His promise. To believe in Christ is to believe in the promises of God it is therefore also to believe in God. Faith has for its origin
ii.
;
16
Rom.
Hi.
22), because
it is
God
the preaching of the Gospel by the apostles and the missionaries whom God has appointed for this object (Rom. x. 14) it includes an intellectual element, the
;
idea of
God who by His power
raised
up Jesus from
the dead. Paul mentions it between the gift of wisdom and that of knowledge (i Cor. xii. 8, 9). But faith is
not only knowledge and confidence; it is also (and this is the most original element in the Pauline conception) union. The believer united to Christ is made
mystical a participator in everything touching
Him, and particresurrection. and According to I ularly in His death Thess. v. 10 Jesus died in order that believers, whether Him. This supposes sleeping or waking, may be with the establishing of an indissoluble bond between the believer and the Savior. In i Cor. i. 9 "communion"
with the Son of God, the Lord, appears as an ideal held the Lord up to the faithful. He who is united with 14 with Him becomes a (i Cor. vi. 17). In Gal.
spirit
of believers with the 14 In this passage the idea of the union Christ serves as the starting-point of the argument, which proves
62
19,
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
crucified
ii.
20 Paul declares himself to be

not I that live;
it is
with
Christ that liveth in Christ: "It is for me," and this suppression of the individual life has differits consequence the suppression of all accidental
ences of race, sex and social situation (Gal. iii. 27, Rom. viii. 29 the object of preetc.). According to destination is that believers may be made like unto the
be the image of the Son of God, so that Christ may

first-born
among many brethren (Rom. vi. 3-5, xiv. 9; 2 Cor. iv. 10, n, xi. 2). The explanation of this union is furnished by the
;
idea of the death of Christ in solidarity with humanone died for all, therefore all died and He ity. "As
died for all, so that the living should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose for them" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). The mystical union has for its effect the rupture of the bond uniting the man to the world. He asks again "Can it be that you do not
:
know
baptized into union with Christ Jesus in our earthly baptism shared His death? in our bapConsequently, through sharing His death Christ was as Him that just tism, we were buried with raised from the dead by a manifestion of the Father's
that
all
of us
who were
If we have life. power, so we also may live a new act become united with Him by the symbolic of His death, surely we shall also become united with Him
by the act symbolic of His resurrection. We recognize the truth that our old self was crucified with Christ,
order that the body, the stronghold of sin, might be rendered powerless, so that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For the man who has so died has been
in
that
we
apostle with
are concerned with one of the fundamental ideas of the which the faithful must have been very familiar.
163
we pronounced righteous and released from sin. And shall we death Christ's shared have we as believe that We know that Christ, having also share His life. once risen from the dead, will not die again. Death has power over Him no longer. ... So let it be with
for you regard yourselves as dead to sin, but as living God, through union with Christ Jesus" (Rom. vi. 218 There is here no image, but a precise formula 1 1 )
;
which
to be taken literally. Christ is free in regard to sin because in dying He paid His debt. Sin, death and
is
the law have no
more dominion over Him. The same
thing
is
Christ.
also true of the believer mystically united with also is free with regard to sin, death and
He
the law.
In the last passage cited, what is said about baptism might be interpreted symbolically. But other passages show that this explanation does not suffice, and that to
It effectively is more than a symbol. with Christ, believer the of the union about brings one "For we were all baptized to form body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or freemen" (i Cor. xii. 12).
Paul, baptism
Faith and baptism are thus presented

the two the believer with the Lord,
in Gal.
iii.
27 as
means through which is "For
realized the union of

all
of you
who were
baptized into union with Christ clothed yourselves 16 with Christ." That which is true of baptism is also true of the Eucharist. This, for Paul, is an act instituted by in commemoration of His sacrifice, and as a
Jesus
*B
Note. English version from Twentieth Century Testament, based upon Westcott and Hort's text. 16 This is confirmed by the practice of baptism for the dead to which Paul alludes in i Cor. xv. 29, without pronouncing any
Translator's
New
censure or making any reservation.
(Author's note.)
i6 4
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Him in
is
means of entering
into relation with
His death.
associated,
In this act, the faithful are invited to
with which the entire Church

sit
down
at the Lord's table
and receive His cup. The bread and the wine distributed to them are the flesh and blood of Christ. relation They put those who consume them in direct with Christ through His death. The fruit the believer
obtains by his participation in the repast is the consciousness of being by its means intimately united to
the dying Christ (i. Cor.
x. 16,
17).
Baptism and communion, then, occupy in the Pauline Like it, they system exactly the same place as faith. is attained. union which are the means through mystical What relation exists between these two things ? Have
we
if not contradictory, are their to as at any rate different origin and not reducible the idea of mystic union through faith to each other
here two notions which,
which represents Paul's thought, while the theory of the sacraments is only an interpretation of the rite seems to us practised in the Church? This solution sacraments the If difficulties. several to encounter it would be were in the background of Paul's thought
of them comprehensible that he should have spoken be to abuse an was attacked, in i Cor. xi, where there
but not that on a quite practical question (the consumption of meat sacrificed to idols) he should have relied upon the meaning of the communion as a decisive
argument. Neither would the texts relating to baptism be comprehensible. On the other hand, seeing that in
so systematic a
mind
as the apostle's the simple juxta-
is very improbposition of two different conceptions the that mystical union able, one is forced to suppose
attained by faith and that attained through the sacra-

ments are only two aspects of the same
link
fact.
165
The
is
uniting them
is
not the idea that the sacrament
The only a symbol of the faith alone efficacious. a attributes in harmful, real, fact, though apostle, action to the communion when observed without reverence, (i Cor. xi. 27-30). The sacrament acts of itself ex opre operate and without the intervention of faith, but faith that is, the conscious desire to become one
with Christ
is
necessary to direct
it is
its
action.
To
understand this necessary to get rid of the modern ideas opposing symbol and reality to each other, and
to
remember that for the mind of
antiquity the symbol

;
for partook of the reality of that which it represents instance, a name was not a simple designation, but the very substance of the thing named.
for every believer mystical union accomplished that which had been accomplished for Christ by His death and His resurrection. This is implied in the
The
justified
fundamental affirmation of Paulinism, "the believer is an inby faith." Certain texts seem to favor
idea of effective justiterpretation imputing to Paul the that is, a transformation of the believer. In fication for instance, it is stated that God "conRom. via.
demned
the requirements
4, sin in the earthly nature (of Christ) so that of the might be satisfied in us
Law
who
live
now
in obedience,
but to the Spirit." But it but of sanctification, which while justification,
not to our earthly nature, is a question here not of

inti-
mately related
Gal.
ii.
to, is still different
from
is
it.
Similarly
the exhortation to sin no
more which
addressed in
been justified by faith 17 to those who have were in Christ would have no meaning if justification
identical with sanctification.
Justification
is
forensic:
66
the
the Judge, who proclaims "just* as the (that is, acquitted) the sinner who appears Last the of is an anticipation accused before Him. It
it is
JESUS act of God
THE NAZARENE
1
Judgment.
the believer mystical union in linking the fate of which the fetter to that of Christ breaks keeps man
The
the slave of sin and death.
who
lived in the flesh

spirit,
In like manner as Christ, during His earthly ministry, has

is
become
spirit
the believer also

vi.
no longer
flesh,
but
But if in theory the believer carnal life, in practice this the and has broken with show this rupture is not consummated. It suffices to
(Rom.
12).
sin
to recall the
important place
In
filled
in
the
Pauline
Epistles by exhortations to sanctification (for instance,
never comwhich explains the somepletely realized, what special character which the Pauline morality 17 The fundamental idea upon which it rests assumes.
Gal. v. 1-6, 10).
fact, sanctification is
and
it is
this
is
that of the abolition of the
Law 18
4, 5, v. 18;
Rom.
vi.
14, vii. 1-6).

ii.
(Gal. iii. 24, iv, "I am dead unto

believer
I
Law," wrote Paul (Gal.

a free
19).
vi.
The
is
then
ix.
man
(Gal. v. i;
Rom.
18, 22;
Cor.
be spon1-19, etc.). His activity should, in principle, Since he belongs to God, he ought to live taneous. to God; since he is a spirit, he ought natuaccording
*T
Upon
the Pauline
also
morality see
Siinde bn Paulus; Paulus.
R. Bultmann,
Wernle, Der Christ und die Das Problem der Ethik bet
the Law, i*By this is meant the abolition of the ritual part of not of its moral part. But the inadequacy of the terminology which does not allow the apostle to distinguish exactly between the two an exact statement, as is seen by the things prevents his reaching declares that he is not under the passage i Cor ix, 20, where Paul a law, since he is under the without be cannot he Law, although law of Christ

rally to
167
spirit
produce what Paul
calls the fruits
of the
(Gal. v. 16;
Rom.
viii.
12).
in reality, and restored in fact.
Things are not, however, so simple
is obligation, abolished in principle, should be it as seems That which though
shown
1*
as a
Man consequence is formulated as a postulate. should strive to realize the fruits of the spirit, which He ought to are in harmony with his new nature. struggle and labor to escape indeed the very law which
in
theory no longer exists for him (Gal.

8).
v.
13;
Rom.
vi. 15, viii. 7,
The
until
morality of Paul answers to the dualism of the
fact of flesh
and
spirit
which subsists
in the believer
redemption is achieved; it possesses, therefore, a temporary value, and will be abolished when only 20 There believers shall fully live the life of the spirit.
lies
here a difference between theory and practice which must be explained. Paul has expressed in touching
classic the sense of this imperfec:
words which remain

tion of sanctification
I
"For I am so far from habitually do that I find myself doing the to want doing what But when I do what I want not very thing I hate. This to do, I am admitting that the Law is right.
.
.
.
being
sin
in
so, the action is

is
no longer
I
my
own, but that of

is
. .
which
I
within me.
in
know
there
me
A
mean
my
earthly nature.
nothing good Miserable .
curious fact must be pointed out that in the exposition of the where the modus operandt of redemption is Epistle to the Romans an exhortation, "Being justified by analyzed the argument ends by Logical consistency seems so law, let us have peace with God." declaration that many manuscripts have substia to require plainly tuted "we have" for "let us have." 20 Concerning the Pauline morality should be noted among the motives by the apostle the place occupied by the idea of
10
proposed
the imitation of Jesus (i Thess.
i.
6;
Cor.
xi.
i; i Col.
iii.
13).
168
JESUS
that I
is
21
THE NAZARENE
will deliver
man
that
am! who
me from
the
body
vii.
(Rom. bringing Doubtless the apostle gives a cry of triumph 1 5-24 ). "Thanks be unto God through to follow this lament
to
this
me
death?"
but the motive of this cry Jesus Christ our Lord" The is the hope of being delivered in the future. liberation of those who are in Christ is therefore only
a potential liberation.
This dualism which
exists in
man
after justification
is explained by the fact that the believer, although dead to the flesh, continues to live in the flesh. Neither his
body nor the world
in which he lives has been transhas formed. only received the promise of the which will be fully realized Spirit as surety of that Glory, the later (2 Cor. i. 22, v. 5; Rom. viii. 23). is the for reserved elect, celestial attribute only promised him (Rom. v. 2, viii. 18). Salvation is not fully
He
accomplished. "By our hope we were saved." Again he writes "Our salvation is nearer now than when we In the same Epistle first believed" (Rom. xiii. n).
:
we were yet sinners Christ died for us, how much more now that we are justified by His blood shall we be saved by His life?" The
further he writes
:
"If while
affirms that salvaEpistle to the Philippians similarly It is at the second tion is not yet attained (i. 6). it shall be fully realized that Lord the of coming
(Rom.
VII.
viii.
18-25).
THE
GENESIS OF THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
to explain this seeming contradiction in Paul's conception of the position of the justified man,
Translator**
How are we
NQt*.Twntteth Century Nno
Ttttamint, Wcitcott
mod Horfi
text.

which
is
169
not in fact what in theory it ought to be ? For the faithful it is only at the end of time that will be consummated the thing which in principle follows from the new situation in which he finds himself through
mystical union with Christ.
difficult
This
is
one of the most
problems which the interpretation of Paulinism presents. It is by no hazard that it is
and
delicate
so ;
tion
it is it
the consequence, we would say without hesitais the penalty of the association in Paul's thought
of two incongruous elements. There is, indeed, somein which man thing more than the complex situation forces which alterstruggles between two antagonistic
The contradiction is nately attract and repel him. much deeper it lies at the very root of Pauline thought. Paul conceives it, the situation of man In the
;
way
between justification and redemption is of a proviPaul expects the resional and temporary character. to complete the date a at of Christ turn very early 22 work begun. Justification and redemption, although remain organically linked one to the other. separate, of the same drama. So inter-related acts two They are
and complementary are they that their separation can of the only be conceived by a complete dislocation Messianic of the redemption. There Jewish doctrine is no equivalent for this dislocation in the whole Jewish
it is possible to Apocalypse. We do not think that the than following: The give any other explanation
is anterior to his conception of redemption, in Paul, Christian faith. As a Rabbi, he already expected the
22 In I Thess iv. 15 and I Cor xv. 51 Paul conceives that the return of Christ will take place during his life. He had announced had begun this to the Thessalonians in such a way that the latter to suppose that the faithful who died before the Savior's return would be excluded from salvation (i Thess. iv 13).
i7
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
who would
rescue
arrival of a Savior
men from
the
dominion of sin and death to bring them into the Kingdom of the Spirit, whose advent would be marked by the triumph of the Messiah over the enemies of God. This faith was his at the time when Jesus in his
was only a justly condemned blasphemer. Then happened the mysterious event upon the Damascus road which gave him the conviction that Jesus was that what living and in glory. From this he concluded His disciples had said about Him was true that Jesus had been the holy Son of God, sent upon earth to an unaccomplish His work. Hence was established
eyes
:
expected synthesis between the doctrine of redemption (already in his mind) and the story of the Nazarene from Jesus, crucified by Pontius Pilate, but raised again and friends His to Himself since He showed the dead the in to Paul himself, and henceforward was living
spirit life.
of synthesis of these two elements (the story unwas Jesus and the doctrine of redemption) Paul able to effect completely at once. There were in the
The
mission of the Savior-Messiah certain elements which did not permit of their relation to Jesus of Nazareth.
those which (to put it in one word) related to a triumphant Messiah, restorer of the sovdividereignty of God. Paul resolved the difficulty by
These were
all
and in ing the mission of the Messiah into two parts he reserving for the glorious return of Christ (which
considered very near) everything it was impossible to discover as accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Pauline doctrine thus proceeds
from
a dislocation of the
work of redemption.
it is
It
therefore has no single source;
not born out of
171
the elaboration or the transformation of a myth, but

fact proceeds from the interpretation of an historical constifact the by a doctrine already preexisting it: tuted by the life and the dealh of Jesus and by belief The theology of Paul assumes in His resurrection.
therefore a double starting point for its development. One is a doctrine of redemption whose origins must
be sought in Judaism; sode, the life of Jesus.
23
the other
It is
is
an historical
to
it
epi-
not possible, as
attribute
M. Coua
choud has
attempted,
to
more
homogeneous character, and by reducing one of these

elements to the other to maintain that the history of Jesus was deduced from a drama of redemption.
Indeed, it would not be possible to find in the history more or less syncretic an analogy of Jewish thought must be admitted in Paul; for to that the to process presume the existence of certain forms of Judaism
of the Diaspora sensibly differing from that of Palestine and which would not have been without a strong influence on rising Christianity would not be to state
a true parallel.
of nothing, in fact, in the Judaism of the Diaspora which offers any real analogies with the Pauline speculations on this point, and it would be historical unquestionably making use of an inadmissible
We know
method
to attempt the explanation of a given fact by it is not something which is only a conjecture. But
entirely the absence of
to see in
any parallel which forbids us Paulinism an exclusive product of specula-
tion
also the existence of incoherences and internal If the contradictions which we have pointed out.
;
it is
28 In a Judaism which, no doubt had not been entirely uninfluenced by foreign ideas, principally Greek and Persian.
172
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
had come forth in its entirety from the brain of Paul, as Minerva did from that of Jupiter, The a homogeneous character. it would present
Christian doctrine
manifest traces of the sutures
we have
discovered
us in affirmplainly prove its double origin and justify and assumes of theology ing that the Pauline system
certifies the historical tradition
about Jesus.
CHAPTER
VII
THE NONPAULINE EPISTLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

I.
THEIR CHARACTER
THE
noninterpretation of the testimony which the the for calls Christ Pauline Epistles give concerning
same observations already made concerning those of Pauline origin. These documents are the Epistle to
the Ephesians, attributed to Paul, but in which one is obliged to perceive a secondary imitation of the
I and Epistle to the Colossians ; the pastoral Epistles ( 2 Tim. and Titus), in which there appear to have been inserted fragments of authentic Pauline letters;
the
Epistle of Peter, at the basis of which arc found the essential ideas of Paul; the Epistle to th* Hebrews, written by a man very familiar with the
first
Alexandrine philosophy and exegesis; the second related to Epistle of Peter and that of Jude, closely
each other, and apparently of fairly recent period and who makes use of the lastly, the Epistle of James, traditional Jewish and Greek ethic, and shows very of analogies with the literature of the Wisdom
;
the exception of the Epistle of James, all these works belong to the literary species which Paul created by his correspondence, and all betray the influence of his theology.
striking 1 the Old Testament.
With
considered separately i The three Epistles of John, which cannot be from the fourth Gospel, are not mentioned here.
173
74
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of these letters pretends to be a complete They are written to exposition of Christian faith.
None
believers,
and onjy expound the ideas and the beliefs 2 which they assume to be those of their readers.
Several
among them,
so far as their date can be fixed
with any preciseness, were written at the time when the Gospel literature began to be spread abroad. All these Epistles should be considered as the commentary tradiupon certain points of Christian doctrine and tion it is illegitimate to employ in what concerns them
;
that is, to suppose their the argument ex silentio authors were ignorant of certain ideas because they do not give them expression. Very frequently in the Deutero-Paufine literature
The idea could only have been a moral force for men who were acquainted with the human history of Jesus. The
the idea of the imitation of Jesus
is
met with.
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, after having proposed to his readers the imitation of the heroes
of the faith spoken of in the Old Testament and Jewish tradition (xi. 1-40), concludes by exhorting them to fix their eyes upon Jesus, who "endured the
cross
and despised the shame" (Heb. xii. I, 2). The way in which this exhortation is connected with the
examples given
hensible
if this
in the eleventh
also
is
chapter is only comprereferred to an historical model.
The author also exhorts the faithful to suffer insult as of the Jesus Himself had done (xiii. 13). The writer first Epistle of Peter declares to his readers who are
called
upon to
suffer persecution that they
ought to
2 This In the Johanninc is illustrated by a significant fact to the fourth Epistles, which, as all are aware, are closely related Gospel, there is no allusion to the facts about the life of Jesus.
THE NONPAULINE
find consolation in the
EPISTLES
175
fered in the flesh
(iv.
thought that Christ also sufi), and has left to them an

:
example that they may follow in His footsteps. Thus he makes his thought precise "Reviled, He reviled not
suffered, but again; entrusted His cause to
8
He
He Him
did not threaten;
He
whose judgments are
just"
(ii.
21-23).
of the Epistle to the Ephesians, exhorting the faithful to live in love for one another proposes that they should follow the example of Christ, "who
The author
loved us and gave Himself for us"
v. 2
II.
THE PASTORAL
EPISTLES
It is true that in the pastoral Epistles the
name of
with or Jesus is never found, but always "Jesus Christ," a without the epithet of the Lord, which is designation
of the celestial Christ, not of Jesus in His earthly is no direct menministry. It is also true that there tion of His death in certain passages where an allusion
would seem natural

Titus
iii.
(i
Tim.
i.
14; 2 Tim.
i.
9, etc.;
4-7). The writer specially speaks of the manifestation of the glory of God in Jesus Christ 2 Tim. i. 9, etc. Titus iii. 4, etc.) and if ( i Tim. i. 15
;
; ;
he
insists
upon the human
character of this manifesta-
concrete detail, no tion, he does so without citing any the minds of his in were doubt because these details readers. Concerning this manifestation, he employs
the
*
word
epifaneia (2 Tim.
i.
10; Titus
iii.
4), which
of Christ on Immediately after the author speaks of the death is an allusion there that evident is It ii. Peter 24). the cross (i here not to an Apocalyptic drama, but to the crucifixion. * But account must be taken of the effect upon the mind of his readers of the form of words used by the writer.
176
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the maniappears to put it in the same category with 5 Tim. vi. 14; return His at Christ of festation (i not be must it 2 Tim. iv. i, 8; Titus ii. 13), but the Christ expected forgotten that the identity of the of the with end at the Jesus who had already age
appeared
in history
had for the Christian
faith
much
importance. In the first Epistle to Timothy there is a definite allusion to a testimony given by Jesus in the presence of Pontius Pilate. The writer urges Timothy to fight the good fight of faith, to seize hold upon eternal life
to which he
had been
called,
and of which he had made

"I
life,
confession in the presence of several witnesses. of all urge you as in the sight of God, the source
and of Christ
Jesus,
who
before Pontius Pilate

I
made
the great profession of faith
commandments
without stain
appearing of our Lord in 12-14). The mention of the Roman Procurator has and the same conditions, found in Ignatius Justin,
in the first given rise to the suggestion that the phrase the article of first sketch be a Epistle to Timothy might
urge you to keep His or reproach until the Jesus Christ" (i Tim. vi.
in the
creed
"He
suffered under Pontius Pilate."
M.
Kattenbusch thinks that the testimony of Timothy which is referred to is that given by him at the time
of his baptism.
Concerning Jesus Christ, the phrase and "give testimony'* may have a double meaning, His to and relate both to the declarations of Jesus In the article of the creed the mention of sufferings.
Pilate
is
only a chronological indication.

Dot
Interest* det
It
is
too
Von
Soden,
apostoltschen
Zeitalter*
an der
Evangelischen Geschichte (Freiburg im Br., 1892). * Von Soden, op. cit.; Kattenbusch, Das apostolischt Symbol.
THE NONPAULINE
EPISTLES
177
brief to have been introduced in an apologetic interest 7 to confirm the reality of the crucifixion. M. Kattenbusch believes that the phrase in the creed
arises
"In the
Pilate."
from the transfer of a formula of exorcism, name of Jesus Christ, crucified by Pontius
8
The
This theory gives rise to various objections. parallelism which exists between the confession of
Timothy and that of Jesus Christ compels us to give the term the same meaning in the two cases, and negatives the introduction (even in a subordinate
manner)'
into the confession of Jesus Christ of the notion of not apply for Timsuffering and death, which would
idea of the suffering of Christ is so ailhave important in Christian thought that it could not been merely suggested. This idea once excluded, there
othy.
The
no longer any connection (according to M. Kattenbusch's view) between the passage of the first Epistle to Timothy and the article of the creed. Nevertheless, it is difficult to admit that the coincidence between the
is
two phrases
The
article
quite fortuitous. of the explanation offered by M. Kattenbusch

is
of the creed
is
no more satisfactory.
If the
mention of Pontius Pilate possessed a chronological have been interest, an indication of this kind would
more
of Jesus. The insertion into the creed of a formula of exorcism which does not seem to have had wide currency does not appear to be more natural either.
in place in reference to the birth
in the first Epistle interpretation of the passage to Timothy, infinitely more satisfactory than those
t If
An
such were
its
character,
the
function
of Pilate
should be
This formula
10
attested
by
Justin,
by Ireneus and by Palladium
I78
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
hitherto proposed, has been offered by M. Baldensto have definitely explained perger, who seems to us the meaning and scope of the text simultaneously with
its
relations to the article of the creed.

in its
We
shall
sum up
which
main features
his illuminating study, of
all
the conclusions
(it
seems to us) must be
concerning the testimony of for its object to fix the time had have not Jesus could Neither Timothy nor the other in which He lived.
accepted.
The phrase
readers of the Epistle required enlightenment on this Besides, the writer has no care for history or point.
chronology.
His eyes are
on the past.
on the future and not Neither does he dream of affirming the

fixed
it,
as the reality of the facts of evangelical history, or,
mythologists have
The
be quite was the contest against pations dominating his thought have a practical attacks he which Those heresies. the Christians. of life character and a reference to the
of making history out of a myth. mere mention of Pontius Pilate would, besides, inadequate to do that. One of the preoccu-
What
is
known by
mits us to affirm that
us about the author's thought perif he had found himself con-
fronted by a negation respecting the reality of the life of Jesus, he would not have confined himself to a combat on a side issue by the phrase, "He rendered testi-
mony
a phrase which, besides, before Pontius Pilate" an to allusion was a simple episode known to his readers and in no wise in doubt among them. The mere mention of the fact permits the argument to be drawn
from
it.
suffering;
was a question of testimony and not of there is therefore no reason to suppose an

It
Baldenspergcr, // a rendu ttmoignage sous Ponce Pilate (Revue
179
antl-Docetist polemic as
Pilate
is
is
the case in other texts where
ment
It is
starting point of the arguis not the testimony of Jesus, but that of Timothy. only incidentally, and as an encouragement for
mentioned.
10
The
Timothy to persevere
of Jesus
is
testimony not think does Baldensperger faith of which confession that it is Timothy's baptismal is referred to, but a testimony which Timothy had
recalled.
in his attitude, that the
M.
given of his faith before the magistrates who had "One is justified interrogated him on the subject.
in saying," writes
M.
Baldensperger, "that Timothy,
like Christ, had been summoned before the Roman confessed his magistrates and that he had publicly In this way the text of I Timothy is replaced faith. in the historical environment to which it belongs by
period of persecutions. The duty of the Church was clearly marked out; they of the leaders were obliged to insist that the disciples of Jesus should
origin.
It is a
themselves publicly confess their faith without lending from themselves save to to more or less formal denials " n And M. Baldensperger points out persecution. a whole series of maxims found in that very appositely
the
New
sion.
Jesus,
duty of public confes"Whosoever shall confess Me before men," said Father who is in "I will confess him before
Testament
recalls this
heaven.
Whosoever
x. 32,
same
will I
before men, the deny in heaven" deny before My Father who is

shall
My Me
(Matt.
33).
Doubtless
all
these declarations
did not have their first origin at the period of the in which they stand out in persecutions, but the way
10
For instance, Ignatius, ad Magn. t xi; ad Smyrn>

Baldensperger op.
at., p. 20, etc.
La;
ad. Tral.
ix, i.
I So
relief
and clearly an undeniable solicitude their Christians to shows anxiety to outline clearly exhortation of the First duty, as is also done in his Lord in your hearts, the Epistle of Peter: "Sanctify
reveals
whomsobeing always ready to give an account before " in is faith which of the you" ever may question you
these circumstances, given the a model importance which the idea of the Christ as that the natural was it possessed in Christian thought,
(i
Pet
iii.
15).
Under
come
Pilate should episode of the interrogation of Jesus by to be insisted upon. In this was seen a living ex-
ample of the attitude incumbent upon the faithful when did interrogated by the judicial authorities. But why examthe to of the the writer Timothy Epistle propose had He when of testimony? given already Jesus ple The answer is the history of the persecutions of proves it that generally one single interrogation the Christians was not considered sufficient. In 2 Tim.
iv. 1
6 there
is
a reference to a
first
appearance before
the magistrates, which implies necessarily that there will be a second, and Pliny expressly states that he was in the habit of interrogating accused persons two
or three times.
This
is
the reason that
Timothy was
In the
critical
exhorted to persevere
in his attitude.
circumstances through which Christianity was passing, exhortation to fidelity in the confession of faith was the always a present need. It was therefore originally
12 Concerning the importance of testimony at the period of perseThe fact that the Christians of Pergamos cutions see Apoc. 11. 13. did not deny their faith at the time of the martyrdom of Antipas has caused the presence of Nicolaites among them to be considered
as having little importance, while the struggle against heresy was one of the dominating occupations of the author of the letters
to the seven churches.
THE NONPAULINE
EPISTLES
181
idea of the "Christ as model" for the confessors of the faith which gave birth to a symbolical formula destined
to enter later into the Apostles' Creed.
There remains
to explain the transformation by which the phrase suffered under Pontius Pilate" was substituted for
"He "He
gave testimony before Pontius Pilate." of the word perger supposes an error of interpretation and not of marteria, taken in the sense of martyrdom
confession.
M.
Baldens-
This explanation
is
It is difficult to accept in respect
perhaps not sufficient. of a phrase which
must have long had for Christians a great practical value. Perhaps it might be possible to think of another
the creed which explanation. The various phrases of refer to Christ are so arranged as to constitute a
summary of His history, and
it
might be asked
if it
was
not through an assimilation with what is stated conthe general idea cerning the crucifixion and death that besides also included the notion of
martyrdom (which of testimony) has been substituted for the narrower

one.
Whatever the explanation may

passage
I
be, the scope of the
Tim.
exegesis of
M.
13 stands out clearly through the Baldensperger. It is no question of

vi.
the evolution of history from a myth, as M. Couchoud thinks, nor of an effort to crystallize by a chronological
detail a history
utilization,
which might seem inconsistent, but the with an immediately practical aim in view,
of a detail in the tradition

a lesson
known
to every one, teaching

insist.
upon which
it
was necessary to
This conclusion illuminates this fact: that for the writer of the pastorals the Christian faith rested upon real history. This affirmation is found in such a form
1 82
JESUS
it
THE NAZARENE
that
of making proves the writer had no sentiment
an innovation.
III.
THE
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
Although the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes current use of the name of Jesus, and not only of
of Jesus Jesus Christ or the Lord, the historical person in his does not thought possess very special importance. He who is designated by the name of Jesus is the glorified Lord who preexisted and who is now in heaven. Thus it has sometimes been thought that the Christ of
the Epistle to the Hebrews was a purely mythical per14 has observed, this sonage," and, indeed, as Windisch not a man who had Jesus was a celestial Being, and made a impression upon those who had
profound
known Him.
His history
all
is
presented in abstract
terms which almost
apply to the traditional type
of the Messiah, borrowed from the Old Testament, and especially from the Psalms. What is said about His death is in some aspects lacking in everything of
historical character.
The
Priest
;
Jesus of the Epistle to the
Hebrews
is
High
who
offers
His own blood
not the condemned of the But these feaRomans." the Sanhedrin, executed by tures, which have considerable importance, are not the
in sacrifice (ix.
is
n) He
only ones to point out.
He
is
now
If Christ preexisted, and if in celestial glory, the link which unites these
is
two periods of His history

*
His
incarnation.
Herein,
Drews, Die Christusmythe ; Smith, Ecce Deus; Coucboud, Le
tire de Jttvs. i* Windisch, 11 Von
Dtr Htbrdrbrief.
cit.,
Sodcn, op.
p. 120.
THE NONPAULINE
as
EPISTLES
is
183
Von Soden
has well observed,
conception
to the Philippians. closely related to that of the Epistle The idea of the human life of Jesus in the thought of our author does not play a purely minor
part;
it
explains
Jesus
redemption accomplished by redemption at the center of the author's
the
thought.
emphasizes certain features which clearly show that a history of Jesus, and in particular of His death, was familiar to him, and forms the foundation of his of theology. He indicates that the manifestation
He
Christ took place at a recent date, in a period which The he considers the last in the world's history (i. 2) message had been brought to him by those who had
.
first
heard the preaching of Jesus (ii. 3). He describes the sufferings and temptations of Jesus in words which would be with difficulty explicable as theoretical views, and he maintains that they should be a model and a
consolation to
men who
also have to support suffering
and persecution.
being tempted,
"Because
He
Himself has
suffered,
He
is
able to succor those
who
are
of tempted" (ii. 18). "Although He was the Son and His from obedience learned He sufferings; God, all those who believe to He became made perfect, being
the author of eternal salvation" (v. 8, 9). The lot of Christ is exactly the same as that of all men, who must die once, after which is the judgment
in
Him
(ix.
27, 28).
The whole
constitutes a
summary of
Christ's sufferings ; there is no intention by the author to rewrite a history that in any case his readers know, but there is a certain care to depict in it a drama of
a practical lesson redemption and the desire to attach

to
it.
84
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
is
One
the Passion single detail concerning
related
any by John (xix. 20). This is, besides, extremely probable, and seems to be presumed in all the accounts.
Because the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews brings
This is that Jesus died in the Epistle to the Hebrews. outside the city (xiii. 12), This detail is not found in of the Gospel narratives, but seems to be implied
owing to the allegorical significance which he accords it, there is no legitimate reason
this detail into relief
to suppose that he postulates it for ulterior conIn a speculative construction this detail venience. would not be thus isolated; it would form part of a
In the congeneral picture interpreted as an allegory. to be is it ditions in which it is found, explained only it is borrowed from a narrative of that by supposing the death of Jesus, from which it is detached because
of
its
allegorical interest.
IV.
THE
FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER, EPISTLE OF
JUDE, THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER AND THE
EPISTLE OF JAMES
the concept Epistle of Peter, if we except of the Christ as the model of the faithful, does not allusion to the facts of the life and death contain
The
first
any
presented as the The holiness of realization of a prophetic program. in i Pet. ii. 22, and Isaiah (liii. 9) Jesus is based upon writer the to His sufferings, quotes the when
of Jesus.
The Gospel
history
is
referring
same prophet (liii. 4-6). The first Epistle of Peter shows how the theological interpretation of the Gospel
history,
already vaguely outlined in the preceding
THE NONPAULINE
EPISTLES
185
hisgeneration, tended to become substituted for the to authorbrief too is of Jude tory itself. The Epistle
ize any conclusions whatever, for
it is rash, seeing the the of expressions employed, to suppose as vagueness does Weinel, that verse 4 is a polemic against Docetism. Admitting the date of its composition as prob-
ably fairly late, we might pass over the second Epistle 10 of Peter written at a time when the Epistles of Paul already formed a collection of recognized authority
to say, when Christianity and its doctrines were settled in their essential features. The author alludes to the account of the transfiguration
(iii.
15,
6)
that
is
as related in the Synoptic Gospels (i. 16-18). the ground of the distinctly places himself on
He
very
his considerGospel tradition. This does not prevent a from uniquely doging the person and work of Jesus of view. Here is a manifest proof and it matic
point does not apply to the second Epistle of Peter alone that a theological conception of the Christ in no wise excludes the historic tradition. This is an idea which
must not be
lost sight of
when one begins an examina-
physiognomy book of the
This has a peculiar tion of the Epistle of James. found in any other be to is not which
Testament. No allusion is found to the history of Jesus, even when the line of thought would seem necessarily to require it, as in Chapter
New
v. 10.
Beyond the opening

16 It is
salutation
(i.
i) the
name of
more
by
have unnecessary to say that our observation! would only if the authenticity of the Epistle be admitted, as is done and certain Protestant critics for instance, Catholic
force
exegesis
Spitte
(Der Zxvnlc Brief des Petrus) and Zahn (EinleUung
in
das
Neue Testament).
86
JESUS
is
THE NAZARENE
Jesus Christ duced 1T in a
only found once (ii. i), and it is introway that might suggest an interpolation.
the hypothesis which considers the Epistle to be a Jewish work in which the name of Jesus Christ has
Hence
been introduced
in
two
different places.
18
This hypoth-
esis does not appear admissible owing to the numerous reminiscences of Gospel phrases found in the Epistle
and because they are the Pauline formulas concerntransing justification by faith (somewhat inaccurately the in in mind has writer the which it is mitted, true)
second chapter (ii. 14-26). The Epistle introduces us to an original type of Christianity conceived as a The rule of life and a source of moral inspiration. or the royal Gospel is the perfect law of liberty (i. 25)
practical instructions given not does place them in any relation by the writer. with a drama of redemption, historical or mythical. It is evident that from such a work no conclusion as
law
(ii.
8).
These are
He
to the character of the evangelical tradition can be drawn, the latter being ignored, or, to be more precise,
they are left aside.
V.
CONCLUSION
In their entirety the non-Pauline Epistles of the New Testament show us, then, the continuation of the dein the velopment which we have already recognized the as serves The Gospel history Pauline Epistles.
*T
"Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord."
"Massebieau, L'Epitre de Jacques

Spitte,
Dfr Brief de$ Jakobus,
etc.
Spitta
and Massebieau developed
die l'(Eui>re d'un Chritienf; is interesting to note that their theories independently of
est
It
each other.
THE NONPAULINE
EPISTLES
187
base of the development of a doctrine of redemption, and the further we advance the more does the doctrine grow in importance and tend to substitute itself for
the history of which originally
tation.
1
it
was the
interpre-
19
Fathers
continues in the writings of the Apostolic it shows less (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas), but and less originality. It is unnecessary to examine this in detail, for these documents were written at a time when doctrine and tradi-
The same development
tion
were fixed
in their essential elements.
THE
I.
CHAPTER VIII CHRIST OF THE APOCALYPSE

CHARACTER OF THE APOCALYPSE
("REVELATIONS")
Johannine Apocalypse, as we have it, dates from that is, from a the last decade of the first century
THE
period
when
essential elements
at least in its a Gospel literature existed and the author of the Apocalypse
it.
appears to
know
There
is
no direct reference to
the contents of this literature in his book, but the On the nature of the work sufficiently explains it.
other hand, one lights upon reminiscences which are clear enough to prove that the author knew the Gospel "Unless you are on the watch," says the tradition.
like a Angel of the Church of Sardis, "I shall come comI am hour what at not know thief, and you will Matt. xxiv. This is almost a quotation from ing." "If the master of the 43, 44 and Luke xii. 39, 40: of the night" (Luke, watch what at known house had "at what hour") "the thief would come, he would have watched." "Be ye ready, for the Son of man will
come
an hour when ye think not." "He who overcometh," is read in the conclusion of the same letter, "will I confess before My Father and before tjis x. 32, Luke xii. 8 angels." This reminds us of Matt. Me before confess men, the same shall "Whosoever
at
will I confess before
My
Father
188
who
is
in
Heaven"
(Luke has
it,
"before the angels of God").
The
189
phrase in the Apocalypse (xiii. 10), "Whoever shall kill with the sword, the same shall be killed with the sword," recalls Matt. xxvi. 52, "All they who take up the sword shall perish by the sword." Finally, the
illustration of the
Water of
is
Life in xxi. 6 and
xxii.
17
is
too similar to what

vii.
found
in
John
iv.
10,
a chance etc., 37, to permit the supposition of coincidence. The Apocalypse must not be taken alone. In order
that
all
it
may
be correctly interpreted,
it
the knowledge which
the ideas and be taken must presumes

all
into account.
The Christ of the Apocalypse, notwithstanding the name Jesus by which He is most frequently designated, He is the Lord in the heavens, is a celestial Being. iii. is awaited n), and whose return (i. 5-13 and 1 who occupies the testimony rendered to the Christ,
so great a place in the book, is a testimony rendered to the Lord in the heavens, as may be inferred from Could it be otherwise in a book whose ii.
13. Chapter entire outlook
is
towards the future?
Nevertheless,
The this celestial Being has had a human history. he but prewriter makes no direct mention of this, sumes it in saying, for instance, that He died (i. 5,
v.
9)
or that
it
He
is
had been
crucified at
Jerusalem
slain
(xi.
8), and
is
precisely this which
explains his
celestial dignity.
It is the
lamb who was
who
(v. 6). details of the figure characteristic most the Among of Christ is that which states that He died and returned
alone
worthy to break the seals of the book
to
life.
The
the frequent mention of the blood of
^Thc word Is found no less than nine times, without counting the noun "witness" (five times) and the verb "witness" (four times).
i9
JESUS
its
THE NAZARENE
of purifying action presumes a doctrine Deuterothe and Paul of those like redemption, which, Pauline Epistles, is a theological interpretation of the drama of Calvary. There is not to be found in the
lamb and
Apocalypse any detail which
recalls
the Gospel ac-
counts of the Passion, but to appreciate this fact at its true significance allowance must be made for the allein the Apocalyptic writings. gorical character inherent The mere mention of the death of the lamb evokes for
the readers of the book the souvenir of the Passion
with
sufficient clearness.
on the other hand, in the Apocalypse certain pictures which have a distinctly mythical character. The Messiah there appears completely stripped
There
are,
of
all
human
features.
He
is
a Being entirely ideal.
ought these images to be interpreted? To reply to this question certain principles which are essential to the interpretation of the Apocalypse must be re-
How
The Johannine Apocalypse belongs to a membered. in the bulk is disgroup of books whose composition tributed over the two centuries which preceded and the two centuries which followed in the Christian era.
2
This species of literature possesses its rules, its habits, its methods, which are found almost identical in all the writings belonging to it Jewish as well as Christian. There is an Apocalyptic tradition' which explains the affinity obeserved between the various works. There are always the same images and symbols to be
found, the same activities at work. But this is not all. The writers of this Apocalyptic literature must not be considered as visionaries notwithstanding the im2
taries, particularly those
Consult on this subject the introduction to the various commenof Boussct, Charles, and Loisy.
191
Christian proportant part played by inspiration in the not as but "rabbis," ductions ignorant of the works
of their predecessors. On the contrary, they carefully studied them, discovered their prophecies, corrected,
modernized, and adapted them to new surroundings. Often they introduced in the works they composed borrowed from descriptions more or less elaborate, the canonical of author The an older Apocalypse.
Thus are this procedure. the repethe the doublets, incoherences, to be explained of which and his work, titions so frequently found in
book has not departed from
it
an instance the juxtaposition the at of the scene breaking of the seven seals (v. 1-8) and that of the seven trumpet blasts (viii. 2-11), to
will suffice to give as
which
may be
also
added that of the seven bowls

is
(xv. 1-16). Hence a double duty the interpreter of the Apocalypse.

;
incumbent upon
writer
is
The
far
from being a mere compiler he does not
restrict
him-
self to sewing together and framing the fragments of of already existprevious works. If he has made use
that literary ing material, in adding thereto portions to express in order is it analysis cannot fail to identify,
his
own
them
ideas and personal sentiments, and to press into the service of the object he aimed at. Above
all it is
and the
necessary to disentangle his personal thought drew. Bousset, signification of the picture he
who
He this point. strongly and judiciously insisted upon the Apocwrote that "the main task is to understand
literary
has done more than any one to influence the study of the Apocalypse by the analysis of its sources, has
and original work possessing its alypse as a personal be a grave error to attribute would It unity."
directly to the author of the
Apocalypse
all
the ideas
I 92
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
in the documents he used without taking into account the corrections in detail he made, and, above all, the indications which follow
and sentiments found
from the main plan of his work and of the part played in its development by fragments borrowed from earlier
documents. Certain of these fragments express ideas and sentiments they were not in their origin destined to convey, and among those which the writer has adopted to an idea which dominated his mind are to be
express
found others which are not
his at all,
and which have
only penetrated into the book

tive
in its actual
form owing
to their solidarity with others belonging to the primi-
document.
II.
THE
VISION OF THE
WOMAN AND THE DRAGON
This rule of interpretation should particularly be 4 M. Stahl and M. Couapplied to Chapter xii, in which choud, independently of each other, have thought they
found the concept of a Christ purely ideal. The vision of Chapter xii forms a whole complete in relation either itself, and which possesses no organic It is it. follows what or with with what precedes
it in itself. permissible therefore to consider 6 The seer says that a great portent shows itself in the heavens:
8
The
studies
of
failure to recognize these principles vitiates radically the Stahl and Couchoud; Stahl, Le Document 70;
MM.
Couchoud, Le Mystere de Jesus. 4 Upon this chapter see Wellhausen (Analyse der Offenbarvng Johannu) Stahl, Couchoud. e Wellhausen and Stahl think that the first scene takes place ID in the heaven a sign which reality en the earth, and there is only announces it. It would be difficult, according to them, to conceive an

A woman appears, clothed with the sun; she has
;
193
the
moon under her feet, and upon her head is a crown of twelve stars she is with child, and upon the point of also appears in giving birth to it. Another portent
the heavens.
It is a great fiery
heads with seven crowns. hurled down to the earth the third of the stars of heaven. The dragon stood before the woman about to birth to the child and prepared to devour her
give
child as soon as
it
dragon with seven His tail swept away and
was born.
The woman gave
birth
to a son destined to rule the nations with a rod of The child is carried away to the presence of iron.
God
before His throne.
The woman
flees
away
into
the wilderness, where for a period of 1,260 days she 6 Then ensues a battle in is nourished and tended. his the heavens. Michael and angels fight against the
enemies dragon and gain the victory they drive their found be to not are from the heavens. They again. The
accouchement in the very heavens, and besides, the child, as soon as he is born, is caught up into the heavens, and finally it is said that the woman fled into the desert, which is opposed not to the heavens, but to another place in the earth. None of these three arguments can be admitted. One cannot insist that an Apocalyptic scene should be probable. The theory of superposed heavens allows us to conthat the child born in one of the lower heavens, or ceive
readily rather (seeing that stars are mentioned) in the firmament, is immeheaven He is, in fact, placed diately after carried away to a higher before the throne of God. This is not the place of his birth. Finally, the fact that the return of the woman on the earth is not expressly mentioned is nothing more than a piece of negligence in the form of
the account.
that is, 3^/2 years, the half of time for Apocalyptic calculations l Wellhausen and Stahl consider these $ /2 years to be since Daniel Alfaric as M. but remarks, with the duration of the Jewish war, And fit this period imperfectly. very the only years 3^2 reason, In is traditional in the Apocalypse. besides, the figure of 3^ yars his work of 1907 Wcllhausen has not reproduced the interpretation
6
These 1,260 days represent 42 months
of a
week of
years, the
unh
which he gave in 1899.
i 94
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
he who is called the great dragon, the old serpent, the inhabitants of deceives he who devil and Satan, the earth, is hurled to the earth, and his angels share In heaven a voice is heard celebrating the his fate.
victory.
the day of salvation and power and dominion of our God, and the rule of His Christ, for
is
Now
the accuser of our Brethren had been hurled down, he who ceased not, night and day, to accuse them before
our God.
love of
Their victory was through the blood of the

their testimony.
lamb and by the word of

life
In their
they shrank not from death. Woe and ye who inhabit them rejoice, ye heavens, descended has devil the for the unto the earth and sea, in fury, knowing that his days are counted. unto
Therefore
!
you
year.
saw he was conquered he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But to the woman were given the wings of the great eagle, so that she might fly to the wilderness, where she is nourished for one year, for two years, and for half a 7 Then the dragon poured water from his mouth
When
the dragon
might be drowned. But the Earth came to her help and opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon went away to make war
like a river so that she
upon the
rest of her children
commandments of God
they who observe the and are faithful to the testihis stand
mony
shore.
of Jesus
8
and he took
is
upon the
sea-
This passage
tion of a
*
not a free creation, but the adaptarecent Apocalyptic fragment.
more
The
That is to say, f/ 2 years, "for a time, and times, and half a time." This last part of the sentence serves to connect with the picture which follows.
8

interest
195
which
is
centered at the beginning on the
Messiah's birth turns in the divine canticle and its conclusion upon the destiny of believers. In the verses
7-9 the victory over the dragon is gained by Michael and his angels. According to verse n, on the conthe blood of trary, it is by the martyrs, who through their of faithfulness the and lamb the testimony by have overthrown their accuser. There is another incoherence not less significant between the picture given The in verses 1-9 and that outlined in verses 13-18.
two
flights
of the
woman
is
into the desert, the refuge
which
in
both passages
represented as prepared for
her, the duration of this retreat, all manifestly
form
a doublet.
is
But while in the first passage the woman the mother of the Messiah, and may, therefore, be
9
identified as the people of Israel,
in the
she
is
the
mother of believers
that
is,
second passage 10 the Church.
of the battle against the dragon is not one and the same throughout the chapter either. In the first passage the Messiah plays no part; He is only
The image
was
extremely probable, as M. Loisy has shown, that the woman this is a portion of an originally an astral personage and that But for the writer the entire interest of the astrological myth. the fight with the dragon picture is centered in lOWellhausen (Analyse), followed by Stahl, considers the woman The other to be Zion and the first child to be the Jewish Messiah
* It is
children would therefore be Jews who had fled from Jerusalem because they did not rely upon arms, like the Zealots, but only on Under these conditions it is God, to reestablish the Theocracy. is made of the first group of the children mention no that strange of Zion. It would thus be necessary to suppose much mutilation of the source of the passage, not only at the end but in the middle, which would seem improbable. It is for this reason that we prefer to consider the verses 13-17, which follow a portion due to Christian
over the theme (developed inspiration (verses 10-12), as a glossing in the Jewish fragment found at the beginning of the chapter) by
the Christian editor.
i 96
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the king destined to reign with power when order is restored in the world. It may perhaps be imagined that He will be called upon to play a part in the last the supreme moment phase of the struggle, but up to in shelter before and heaven in reserve in He is held the throne of God, the victory being gained by Michael and his angels. In the celestial hymn, on the contrary, that is thanks to the blood of the lamb it is
through
the Messiah's
ceptible
that the martyrs gain the victory. It may be added that no organic relation is perbetween the statement (in the first portion of
work
the Chap, xii) of Satan being hurled to earth, and mention of the same thing in Chapters xix, xx chapters which, in their essentials at least, there
is
good
reason to attribute to the writer of the Johannine
Apocalypse.
As
beginning
for the character of the fragment utilized at the of Chapter xii, it does not seem possible to
it.
quite secondary part that it must be indicates Messiah the by played 11 In whatever way the Jewish and not Christian. be conceived, how primitive origin of Christianity may can it be supposed that at the end of the first century
hesitate in recognizing
in it
The
a Christian could have imagined Christ as rapt up to the heavens immediately after His birth, while completely suppressing
His
historical
ministry and the
redemption
drama?"
that this
"Weilhausen (Analyse), while admitting

attested
in
idea of the
is
Messiah rapt up to the heavens immediately after
his birth
not
it a Judaism, maintains that it is possible to see in compromise between two Messianic conceptions the Messiah coming from the people of Israel and the Messiah of Daniel coming from (Cp. Israel heaven. This idea is found in the rabbinical tradition. Levi, Le ravisttment du Messie enfant )
12
Wellhausen, Analyse, p.
20.

While borrowing
its
197
Jewish fragment, the Christian author has made additions to it which entirely
this
change
character.
The
defeat of the dragon, for
the sake of which he collected this fragment, must in the original have been final; in his
work
it is
no more
than a stage of the great struggle and the guarantee The writer makes use of it to of future victory.
adexpress one of the ideas to which he was most dicted, which in his readers' eyes had the greatest
practical value
and
reality
the idea that the very rage
of the devil against the Christians, as manifested in was the consequence of his first dethe
persecutions,
feat,
less
and that
this
rage would continue to be power-
remained faithful provided only that the Christians and were able to bear their sufferings without yielding
to weakness.
We
newly heavens and transported before the throne of God, form of Christian Christology; it is an the
primitive
are unable, then, to discern in the idea of the born Messiah, immediately caught up to the
element borrowed, and which does not express the If at the thought of the author of the Apocalypse. indeed the idea of a beginning of the chapter there is and not a Chrisa purely mythical Messiah, it is Jewish be legits tian idea. xii, therefore, cannot
Chapter nonhistorical mately invoked by the supporters of the character of Jesus, and the considerations above offered to support the thesis that the Apocalypse assumes the Gospel tradition maintain their force.
CHAPTER IX
THE THEORY OF THE PROPHETIC ORIGIN OF THE GOSPEL TRADITION

I.
THE FUNCTION
OF THE PROPHETIC ARGUMENT
IN PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY
THE
led us to the conclusion preceding chapters have that the theology found in the Epistles of the New
in
Testament and
the Apocalypse necessarily presume

It is
the existence of the Gospel tradition. tradition that we have now to deal.
with this
But before be-
of it, we shall find it conginning the direct study venient to examine a theory which, if well founded, would offer in favor of the thesis of the mythologists
an argument of great weight this is the theory which or at least the most holds that the Gospel narratives from themes important among them are developed supplied by the Old Testament.
:
Already had Schelling,
in a
course of lectures upon
the philosophy of art given at the beginning of the last century, observed that the history of Jesus was.
whose creation and completely enveloped in fables in the development had been suggested by prophecies 1 Old Testament. After him Strauss sought to find in
the
Old Testament one of the sources of the Gospel

After
this critics occupied
myths.
with the history of
the Gospel tradition recognized the profound influence exercised upon it by the Old Testament.
i
Schelling,
Sammliche W*rke,
1856,
Stuttgart.
198
THEORY OF PROPHETIC ORIGIN
199
Returning to their observations, M. Salomon Reinach has stated in very harsh terms the problem which this contact poses. The solution which he gives of it is the historical character of the distinctly unfavorable to
events related in the Gospels. His observations are confined to one particular point, the history of the crucifixion of Jesus. Indeed, here is the knot of
the problem, for according as one admits or denies the character of the reality of the cross, the historical of Jesus will be substantiated or will fall to
person the ground.
We
may, therefore, confine our observa-
tions to this point of capital importance: Is the account of the crucifixion of Jesus the relation of a real
derived from the supposed fulfillment of certain prophecies previously read in the Old Testafact,
or
is it
ment?
Reinach's opinion, and M. Couchoud entirely 8 shares his point of view, the problem presented is a are in face of a dilemma. Given very simple one.
In
M.
We
and agreement between a prophecy and a narrative, the Either are two explanations only possible: to be by orthodox prophecy is, in fact, what it is taken
traditional theology
that
is,
it
rests
upon a super-
or the natural and anticipated knowledge of events narrative has been suggested, and, so to speak, enand ought to be considered gendered, by the prophecy, as totally without value. To admit the first hypothesis
priori and conseconditions of histhe outside oneself quently to place torical research.
would be to accept a dogmatic a
i
*t
Salomon Reinach, Orpheus; Le Venet 17 du Psaume xxii; Bossutt V argument det propheties, etc. Couchoud, Le Myttir* de Shut, p. 49. tc.
200
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Arc we,
therefore, forced to accept the second alter-
native, and to conclude that all the portions of Gospel fulfillment of history in which the recognition of the
charprophecies is possible are of a purely mythical tradithe in those which Gospel acter, even including tion itself has recognized them? First of all must be
noted the conditions
in which the prophetic argument 4 and first appeared developed in early Christianity. Before everything else there existed an apologetic
method of which the Christian missionaries made
use.
The history of Jesus bewildered the Jews, so contrary was it to the way in which they conceived the Messiah. The cross of Jesus had been to Paul the object which
Christians said about prevented his belief in what the Him. That which was true of Paul was certainly also
true of
all
those
who had
is
received a similar education.
prepared to yield to Justin's argument claiming to prove by scriptural demonstration 5 that the Messiah is called upon to suffer, but he abso-
The Jew Tryphon
admit that the Christ had perished In his eyes, by the infamous punishment of the cross. the of Paul, as in those formerly phrase of Deuremains an invincible obstacle: "Cursed be
lutely refuses to
teronomy he who is hung on a tree"
(xxi.
23).
was withSays Tryphon: "Your pretended Christ out honor and without glory, to such a degree that He was under the most extreme malediction of the
See concerning this subject the interesting studies of Weidel, also of Feigel; also compare with Nicolardot, Let Procedts dt rtdaction de$ trots premiers evangelistes. not confine him* (Dialogues Ixxvi. 6 and Ixxxix. 2). Justin does
death of invoking the Scriptures to fix the meaning of the use of them, also the very fact of the death (tee of Psa. xxii. Apol., i. 35), where he invokes the testimony
self to
Jesus.
He makes

Law
aoi
(Dialogues, xxxii. 3). are aware, accepting the arguAgain he writes: "We ment of Justin, that the Christ must suffer . . . but
crucified!"
He
was
that
He
had to be
crucified, that
He
had to
die a death
a death of such a degree of shame and dishonor cursed by the Law prove this to us, for we are totally
unable to conceive
it" (xc. I, Ixxxix. 2, xciii.
4).
Tryphon was no exception. He represented a point of view which had already evolved towards the idea
8 of a suffering Messiah. Before his time the passage in Isaiah (Chap, liii) had not yet been connected with
the Messiah.
It is impossible to say precisely if Christian ideas did not influence Judaism on this point. At
all events,
what
is
found
in the pre-Christian
is
period
concerning the efficacy of suffering 8 the germ of later development.
at the
most merely
The
idea of the re-
of suffering concerning the martyrs of the time of Antiochus Epiphanius is found in the second book of the Maccabees, especially in the celebrated episode of the death of the mother and of her u seven sons: As for me, said the last of them, like
deeming
utility
6 Schurer writes that it is "impossible to deny that in the second with the century of our era certain Jewish circles were familiar idea of a Messiah suffering to expiate the sins of men." in the period * Referring to the idea of the Messiah's sufferings See also Volz, Judische Eschatologie von following, see Dalman. Daniel bit Aklba. It should be noted, however, that even at the Messiah is commonly met period where the idea of the suffering with in Judaism, interpretations are given to Isaiah (Chap, liii) which do not relate to the Messiah. Origen, for example, cites, in the his work Contra Cehvm, the opinion of a Jew who referred
and be dispersed in prophecy to the Jewish people, obliged to suffer, the world so that many proselytes might be won over. 8 We do not attach much importance to the idea found in a passage of the fourth book of Esdras, where it is stated that the Messiah must die after reigning 400 years. There is no question there of
expiation.
202
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
my brothers, I give my body and my life for the laws of my fathers, praying to God to show mercy quickly to my people. May the anger of the Most High, justly incited by our race, be ended at my and my brother's
death" (2 Mace.
in the fourth
vii.
book
found 37, 38). The same idea is from dates of the Maccabees, which
the
century of our era. At the point of expiring, the martyr Eleazar addresses this prayer to God: "Have compassion upon my people; for their sake be
first
Make of my blood a punishment and means of purification, accept my life for their ransom" (4 Mace. vi. 29). Notwithstanding the interest and importance of the
satisfied
with
my
indications to be gleaned in these it is only possible to recognize in
and some other
texts,
them materials which
have been utilized
later in the elaboration of a doctrine
of the Messianic sufferings. But this doctrine did not exist in the Judaism of the first century, and it is this
fact
which made the task of the Christian apologists

difficult
and missionaries a
one.
presented to Justin was presented confrom the first days of the life of the Church. siderable effort must have been made to discover in
The problem
the Scriptures a demonstration of the necessity of the Messianic sufferings. To find this must have required a with the prophecies. The quite special acquaintance
not find in apostle Paul explains that if the Jews did the Scriptures the same thing as the Christians, it was because, while reading Moses, they had a veil over
their intelligence (2 Cor.
ciples
iii.
15, 16).
When
the dis-
met with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, it was necessary for Him to "open up to them the Scriptures" (Luke xxiv. 32). While commencing with Moses, He

expounded to them everything
203
in the prophetic writ-
ings concerning Himself, as well as the necessity for the Christ to suffer to enter into His glory (xxiv. 26,
27). The concept of the sufferings and the death of the Messiah, which the Christians had so great a need to discover in the Old Testament, was therefore, by their own admission, only contained there in such an
obscure manner that a special capacity was required to This renders the hypothesis that the Scripfind it. tures suggested the idea of the crucifixion of the
Messiah one of very small a
priori probability.
II.
THE RELATIONS OF PROPHECY AND THE GOSPEL

HISTORY
the relations between prophecy and history is not so simple as the dilemma
The problem of
the Gospel
formulated by
is
Reinach would suppose. It convenient, we think, to distinguish between several
M. Salomon
cases.
I.
Creations due to Prophetic Exegesis

is
There
first
of
all
among
these a series which
These are the episodes support M. Reinach's theory. or details which for the main part are only found in the youngest Gospel narratives. If the influence of them completely, it prophecy does not suffice to explain
certainly appears to
genesis. It will suffice
have taken some part in their to mention here some examples:
204
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The most
ancient tradition seem to have considered
9 Jesus the son of Joseph. The idea of the supernatural birth, as it is found developed in Matthew (i. 18),
arises partly
from the
Son of the passage thus phrased in the Septuagint version: "A virgin shall a prophecy whose realizaconceive and bear a son" 10 in the Matthew tion is (i. 22, etc.) by
in the
her application to Mary and Isaiah (vii. 14), prophet
emphasized
narrative of the birth of Jesus.

as a Similarly, primitive tradition represented Jesus a as prophecy of Galilean, born at Nazareth; but
had announced that the Messiah would be born in Judea, it was found necessary to put hisand Luke have done tory in harmony with it. Matthew
Micah
(v. I
this in
be
different ways, which, besides, are not to 11 states that reconciled with each other. Matthew
two
Jesus
His birth the parents of Jesus went to reside at Nazareth to flee from the wrath of Herod and his heirs (ii* 19-23). Luke affirms that the parents of resided at Nazareth, but that Jesus was born at
after
This idea is presumed, in their primitive form, by the genealogies the Syraic version of Sinai given by Matthew and Luke. Compare
of Matt.
i.
1-16:
"
"Joseph, to
whom
is
will beget a son
This reading
the Virgin Mary was betrothed, supported by certain manuscripts
of the old Latin version. Neither John nor Paul make the slightest reference to a supernatural birth. (See M. Goguel, Infrod. au N.T.,
I, P-
text has a word which signifies "young woman and not "virgin." It has no relation whatever to the Messiah. The prophecy of Isaiah relates to the deliverance of Jerusalem, besieged will by the king of Syria. A sign is given to Achai a young woman became enceinte, and (it is announced to the king) before the child is born and "knows how to reject evil and choose the good" (that is to sty, in a very short time) "the country whose two kings thou
10
469.)
The Hebrew
fearest shall be abandoned." 11 By the way, he finds in die arrival of Jesus at Nazareth the
fulfillment of a
prophecy
(ii.
23).
205
Bethlehem, where His parents had come upon the occasion of the census taken by Quirinius (ii. 1-39)In the gospel of the infancy it is also possible to instance the flight into Egypt as having a prophetic the words of origin (Matt. ii. 13-15), fulfilling
Hosea, which in the original text related to the people of Israel and not to the Messiah: "Out of Egypt have I called My Son." There is also to be noted in this connection the massacre of the innocents (Matt ii. 16of the 18), in which the evangelist saw the fulfillment words of Jeremiah (xxxi. 15).
2.
Modifications
Due
to Prophetic Exegesis
Sometimes prophetic exegesis has only caused the modification or the addition of one detail. Thus
Matthew
(xxi.
14-16) records that after
He
had
driven the dealers out of the Temple, Jesus was the of the children. This object of an ovation on the part
detail
was
certainly suggested
Psalm
(viii.
3)
by the words of the "Out of the mouths of babes and
hast called forth praise." Certain desucklings tails of the history of the Passion must have the same Mark n) and Luke (xxii. 5) relate that
Thou
origin.
(xiv.
the chief priests promised Judas a sum of money if he would deliver Jesus to them. Matthew (xxvi. 15) was thirty pieces of silver, and specifies that the sum
he later
relates that Judas, seeing how to the chief priests and returns events had happened, the elders to say, "I have sinned in delivering up the blood of the innocent," and he then flings the thirty
(xxvii.
3-10)
and goes out to hang pieces on the floor of the Temple himself. The priests decide that this money, being the
206
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
be paid into the treasury, so price of blood, cannot it in the purchase of a plot of ground bethey employ for forlonging to a potter, to be a burial ground Matthew himself reveals the origin of this eigners. the prophecy of story by saying: 'Thus was fulfilled the of silver Jeremiah: they took the thirty pieces who was valued by the people of Israel price of them for the potter's field as the Lord had and
Him
gave
commanded me."
12
Mark
relates
how,
at the
moment when
Jesus
is
to
be crucified, He is offered aromatic vinegar to drink. The women of Jerusalem were in the habit of giving to
condemned persons
13
a stupefying drink to attenuate
their sufferings. (xxvii. 34), remembering doubtless a passage in the Psalms, "they made me to
Matthew
22), has substituted "gall" for the aromatic drink, and has thus changed the significance of the detail. In Luke (xxiii. 6-16) the episode of the appeareat gall"
(Ixix.
an episode whose hisance of Jesus before Herod l4 probtorical character cannot possibly be admitted the of the to not memory only ably owes its origin
which Herod had shown to Jesus in Galilee 31-33)7 but also to the words of the psalm(Luke "The kings of the earth and the great ones have ist
hostility
xiii.
:
This passage is not found in Jeremiah. It is borrowed from Zechariah (xi. 12) with the addition of some details taken from
12
Jeremiah
(xviii. 2,
xxxii.
6).
custom, attested by the Talmud (Wunschc), may originate in a passage in Proverbs: "Give strong liquors to him who perishes and wine to him who has bitterness of soul Let him drink and for-
"This
get his poverty and

14
let him no more remember his pain" (Wunsche, Neue Beitrage nur Erlantenung der Evangelien, etc.).
his authority, could
Indeed, one cannot imagine how the Procurator, so jealous of have recognized, even as an exceptional thing, any right of jurisdiction to Herod at Jerusalem.
207
assembled together against the Lord and against His Anointed" (Psa. ii. 2), the great ones being represented by the Jewish authorities and Pilate. Herod has been added to them to fulfill more completely the do prophecy. Two of the phrases on the cross which
not belong to the most ancient tradition (since Luke is the only one to record them) have their origin in the Eternal, prophecy. It is said of the Servant of
interceded for the guilty" (Isa. liii. 12). Luke attributes to the crucified Jesus this prayer: "Father, do" " forgive them, for they know not what they
"He
(xxiii.
24)
and
at the
moment where Mark
(xv.
37)
and Matthew
in (xxvii. 50) relate that Jesus expired the senmouth His giving a loud cry, Luke puts into tence, inspired direct from the Psalms (xxxi. 6) :
"Father,
(xxiii.
into
Thy hands
commend
My
spirit"
46).
In John's Gospel the episode of the spear-thrust which the Law prescribed re(xix. 31-37) fulfills that not be garding the paschal lamb, whose bones must
broken
(Exod.
xii.
10-46;
Num.
ix.
12; cp.
Psa.
xxxiv. 21 ). evangelist remarks: "This was done A bone in order that the Scripture should be fulfilled of His shall not be broken" (xix. 36, 37). This influence of prophecy may have also reacted upon certain
The
narratives of the
fast in the desert
13; Matt. iv. 2; Luke iv. circum2) suggest, notwithstanding the different the before stances, the forty days which Moses passed
i.
common (Mark
tradition.
The
forty days'
There is, furthermore, reason to doubt the primitive character of this sentence in Luke. The verse 34 of Chapter zxiii is lacking, in Codex Cantabrifact, in certain good texts (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, be seen to explain its supcan reason no and and others), giensis,
pression.
208
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
xxiv. 18 and xxxiv. 28), or the forty the Israelites ate manna in the which years during 16 The idea of the Spirit dedesert (Exod. xvi. 35). scending upon Jesus at the moment of baptism (Mark i. 10; Matt. iii. 16; Luke iii. 22; cp. John L 32, 33) "The might have as its origin the passage in Isaiah.
Lord (Exod.
Spirit of
God
shall rest
upon Him"
(xi.
2), It
is
not
impossible
that the crucifixion of the
two robbers
the transgres-
(Mark
(liii.
xv. 27)
may have been
suggested by Isaiah
12),
17
"He was numbered among
With the cases which we have been citing may sors." be compared those where some distortion or adaptation of certain narratives has taken place under the
influence of a prophecy.
In the account of the entry into Jerusalem the four to Jesus in the evangelists represent the ovation made cxviii. 25, in Psa. form of the messianic acclamation
26).
The announcement of the to have been made during a

in Psa. xli.
16
treachery of Judas seems repast, because a passage
io
18
has been taken literally:
"He who
The
accounts of the temptation in
Matthew and Luke abound

It
with citations from the Old Testament
not,
however, certain
They must evidently that they are creations of prophetic exegesis be taken for symbolical narratives, which leads one to consider what the influence of the Old Testament could have been upon Jesut
Himself.
but not directly * 7 Luke (xxii. 37) certainly quote* this passage, account we menconcerning the crucifixion of the two thieves. The tioo has been considered from antiquity as proved, that in certain the manuscripts of Mark there is to be read: "Thus was fulfilled word of the Scripture: He was numbered among the transgressors" a version which it is impossible to consider as primitive (Mark
xv. 28). 18 R. Bultmann seems to us to go too far in explaining the formation of the accounts concerning Judas to the influence of this psalm. The would not hare tradition, which plainly tends to glorify the apostles,
has
THEORY OF PROPHETIC ORIGIN eaten My bread has raised his heel against
will betray
209
Mark states that Jesus

of you
Me
during the meal declared : he who dips his hand with
Me. 11 "One
Me
into the dish."
Matthew
relates this, presenting the
episode in the form "he who dips his hand with into the dish" as an act actually performed at that moment, introducing in this way into the account
Me
very
the designation of the traitor. Luke also refers to a not involve the gesture; his account, however, does traitor. the of John has combined personal designation the two traditions, placing side by side a public an-
nouncement of the treachery (xiii. 18-22) with a aside designation of the traitor Judas in words spoken Satan whom into (verses 23-26). After this Judas, had entered, rises from the table according to the reto do quickly that quest which Jesus had made to him which he had to do (verses 27-30). The Synoptic was Gospels, which all agree in presuming that Judas not state do the evening, present at the beginning of
that he left Jesus and His companions. Nevertheless, at the Mount of Olives he is at the head of those who
come
too important 19 In it to pass without a word. not have could tradition the preits primitive form sumed the presence of Judas, and it is perhaps the fact of his absence at this time which gave substance to the
to arrest Jesus. for tradition to allow
His departure
is
have had, and which resuspicions that Jesus must vealed to Him the knowledge that the circle of His enemies was closing up around Him, and that
of Jesus (Geschichte der imagined the betrayal by one of them
He
wan-
oclischen Tradition). i9 John is so much
aware of this importance that he expressly mentions the departure of Judas, and takes the trouble to explain why this departure did not surprise the other disciples (xiii. 27-30).
210
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
would no longer be able to escape them. It is because the expression borrowed from the psalmist had been
taken literally that the presence of Judas at the last repast has been presumed.
The
account of the insults which the passers-by

crucified
threw at Jesus when
and Luke) betrays by

influence of Psa. xxii. 8
(see Mark, Matthew 20 the the use of certain words
and Matthew has emphasized this by introducing the words which recall verse 9 of the same psalm: "He trusted in God; let God deliver Him now if He will have Him" (xxvii. 43). Never;
theless the entire scene cannot
have
its
sole origin in
the psalm.
The episode of the vinegar given to Jesus at the moment He was about to expire is important to consider.
Mark
I
"Eloi
Eloi
recounts that after Jesus had cried out, Lama sabachtanei ?" certain among those
"He is calling upon Elias"; another, a sponge with vinegar and offering it to Him, soaking said: "Let be; let us see if Elias will deliver Him." This scene is enigmatical in that it attributes contrapresent
said,
the derision dictory sentiments to those standing by and the pity which implied in the sneer about Elias offered the sponge. one who the of the gesture inspired the soldiers, and of Vinegar was the usual beverage
in order to procure Him Jesus was only offered some of the second intervention The relief. some slight
soldier tends to hinder the compassionate gesture of
47~49) has hcre slightly modified the account of Mark, and in so doing he has
the
first.
Matthew
(xxvii.
transformed the significance of the scene. It is one of those who had uttered the sarcasm who offers the
20 See
Mark
XT. 29;
Matt
xxvii. 39;
Luke
zxiii. 35.
211
of vinegar to Jesus. His action thus becomes a gesture had Matthew because that is and derision, probably been influenced by the passage in Psa. Ixix. 22: "To 21 assuage my thirst, they make me drink vinegar." In John's Gospel (xix. 28, 29) the episode formed under the influence of the prophecy.
is
trans-
At
the
moment
to expire, Jesus said, in order 22 it is ; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, "I thirst" is offered a sponge soaked in vinegar. then that
He
was about
He
Let us point out another
detail.
Matthew state that during the stood looking on some distance Luke adds the friends of Jesus, possibly to avoid the in the appearance of the disciples being disinterested
fate of their Master, but doubtless also
fluence of
Mark and crucifixion the women away. To the women

Both
under the
u
in-
two passages in the Psalms: My and my acquaintances forsake me ... my kindred remain apart" (xxxviii. 12) and "Thou hast removed my 23 friends far from me" (Ixxx. 9).
friends
the just cited bring into prominence least at or influenced, fact that prophecy suggested,
The examples
21 In the Gospel of Peter (xvi) it is evidently with the object of magnifying the sufferings of Jesus that He is made to drink vinegar mixed with gall. 22 The xxii. 16; evangelist seems to think of this passage in Psa. "My strength is dried up like clay and my tongue cleaves to the
palate."
28 Perhaps it is convenient to mention, to complete these remarks, certain rather superficial resemblances which the evangelists do not at the trial appear to haA-e noticed for example, the false witnesses This is a detail which of Jesus (Psa xxvn 12, xxxv 11, cix 2) of an innaturally had its place in the narrative of the sufferings nocent person. may also mention the silence of Jesus before His judges (cp. Isa lui. 7; Psa. xxxviii. 14, 15). Besides, the silence of Jesus is not complete Even the Gospel of Peter, which expressly of Jesus spoken on the cross lays emphasis on it, relates one remark
We
212
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
We
to exclude historical
must now consider ancertain Gospel narratives. influence of prophecy the in which facts of series other
does not seem to us in any
veracity.
way
III.
INFLUENCE OF PROPHECY ON THE FACTS
In certain instances the influence of the Old Testament has been exercised, not on the narratives, but on
the facts themselves, by inspiring certain actions, sentiments, or sayings of Jesus. His thought and His pity
were nourished by the Old Testament, particularly by the prophecies and the Psalms. He was constantly into fulfilling the spired by them, and devoted Himself the program which He there found traced out. In
that in the oldest account of the baptism of Jesus of Gospel of Mark there is a reference to a vision
of being the Son Jesus when He acquires the belief 24 clouds the sees It is Jesus who of God. opening and who hears the celestial words. It is not astonishing
that the experience then realized by Him was exof pressed in a phrase inspired by various passages the Old Testament, particularly by the verse of Psa.
ii.
7:
"Thou
11
art
My
Son; this day have
begotten
Thee.
*4
25
In Matthew and Luke the vision becomes an objective revela-
tion for the people. Its evolution in John is still more advanced when the scene of the baptism is replaced by a sign given to John the
Baptist,
who
states
who
it is
whose coining he had announced without
recognition.
and for * In passing may be noted the influence of a Sam. vii. 14, the explanation of the term "well beloved" that of Isa. xlv. 4. What is said concerning the baptism may be repeated in regard to the ix. 7, etc.), phrase which accompanies the Transfiguration (Mark xlv. Isa. and xviiL Deut of influence 4 may be the 15 where partial
213
In several episodes, as in the preaching of Jesus at Nazareth (Luke iv. 16-30) and the reply to the mesexpressly porMessianic of the the as proaccomplishment trayed Ixi. i, 2,). If it be Iviii. Isaiah in 6, (xxxv. 5, gram
sengers of John the Baptist (Matt vii. 18-23), the ministry of Jesus
xi.
is
2-6 and Luke
called by granted that Jesus was persuaded He was God to carry on His work and to be His Messiah then (with which important point we shall deal later),
these episodes explain themselves, and there is no to necessity at all to attribute a purely literary origin
them.
The
is
salem
daughter of Zion! Shout for joy, O Behold thy King cometh unto daughter of Jerusalem thee, just and victorious. He is humble and rideth upon
narrative of the entry of Jesus into Jeruthe staging of the prophecy of Zechariah:
"Be
joyful,
an ass
ix.
upon an
ass
and the foal of an ass" (Zech.

(xxi.
9).
Doubtless
Matthew has exaggerated
8)
in
speaking of a great multitude who acclaimed Jesus. Mark has the Greek word which may signify "some,"
and
it is
probable that
it
was
solely
from the
little
band
who accompanied Jesus that the ovation came. The incident must have passed almost unobserved,
and
to
this
it is
which explains the absence of any allusion

in
it
either in the contests
and Pharisees or
of Jesus with the Scribes the account of His trial. Jesus
was inspired by the idea of the humble and gentle Messiah which He found in Zechariah, and so He
observed. It should, however, be noted that the history of the Transto be the end of a fairly comfiguration, as we possess it, appears
plex evolution.
214
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
to make of it organized His entry into the Holy City words. the of the fulfillment prophet's The purification of the Temple, as recounted in Mark, rests upon the contrast of two prophetic texts
which portrays the Temple as a house of prayer for all nations, and that of Jer. vii. 1 1, which accused the Jews of having made of it a den of thieves. To grant that Jesus was more impressed words in by these two texts, and forced to act by the the Psalm (Ixix. 10), 'The zeal for Thine house hath
that of Isa.
Ivi.
7,
up," which the fourth Gospel (ii. 17) quotes in reference, is more natural than to suppose that these
eaten
texts
me
have only been remarked and

26
illustrated
by
tra-
The reply of Jesus to the adjuration of the dition. at the high priest, "Ye shall see the Son of man seated hand of power and coming upon the clouds of
right
heaven"
xxii.
(Mark
is
is
69),
This reply
62; cp. Matt. xxvi. 64 and Luke inspired directly from Daniel (vii. 13). no creation of tradition, but an authentic
xiv.
declaration of Jesus, for the idea of resurrection upon the third, or after three days (current in primitive is found is the Christianity), is not found in it. What an idea idea of the return upon the clouds of heaven
doubtless often met with in the most ancient Church, but which was never separated from faith in the resurrection.
Finally
we
shall cite a last
example characteristic
* It cannot be objected against the historical veracity of the incident of the purification of the Temple that the intervention of Jesus had oo direct serious consequences for Him, while, nevertheless, it
was a provocation
offered to the Jewish authorities
The
latter,
in-
was a proof of zeal for the deed, could not reprove Jesus for what Temple. Indirectly, however, the censure of the authorities implied in the action of Jesus must have had its influence upon the measures
taken against
Him
later.

He gave
215
of the influence of the Old Testament on Jesus Himself. At the moment He was about to expire upon the
expression to the despair filling His soul from Psa. xxii. "My God! by the sentence borrowed God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and the
cross
words were spoken in Aramean (Mark xv. 34 and Matt. xxvi. 40) Although it is not possible to know of Jesus from given the absence of friends or disciples how the memory of these words the foot of the cross
.
My
could have been preserved, we are unable to see in them a creation of Christian tradition. Indeed, they
(that of Jesus abandoned by God) which is quite opposed to the way the ancient Church conceived the relations between Jesus and God. Trasuch a phrase, but it is imhave dition
express an idea
may
preserved
possible to imagine that
it
invented
it.
John has not
this exrepeated it, and Luke himself has replaced of declaration a clamation of despair by perfect and filial abandonment to the divine hand: "Father, into
Thy hands
IV.
commend
My
spirit" (xxiii.
46).
FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECIES DISCOVERED AFTER THE EVENT
There is still a third series of facts to examine. These are the facts in which the correspondence of the Gospel record with the Old Testament has only
been noticed "a posteriori" during a secondary stage of the Gospel tradition. Its discovery took place during
the course of the search for proofs drawn from the Old Testament, which the necessities of apologetic defense at an early date imposed upon the preachers of
the Gospel. In these cases also the concordance of his-
216
JESUS
character.
THE NAZARENE
is
tory with prophecy

ical
not a proof of their nonhistorbesides,
The agreement,
quently only extends to general features, nothing very characteristic. Matthew is particularly given to recognizing the fulfillment of prophecies in the Gospel history. In the
cures
finds
most freand possesses
made by
the
:
Jesus at
Capernaum
(viii.
16, 17)
he
accomplishment took upon Himself our infirmities and (liii. 4) of our diseases." (In the way Matthew burden the bore cites this passage of Isaiah there is no trace of expiacures of the tory or substitutionary suffering.) The The Isaiah fulfill also demoniacs theory of (xlii. 1-4)-
of the words
of
Isaiah
"He
27
parables
Ixxviii. 2
is
based upon Isa. vi. 9, 10 and upon Psa. texts which are not cited by Mark in this
connection.
by prophecy
Sometimes it is at a period prior to the composition of Mark's Gospel that the interpretation of history is made. This is the case, for instance, in
the application of the prophecy of Isaiah (xl. 3) to John the Baptist (see Mark i. 3 Matt. iii. 3; Luke iii.
;
4; John
i.
23), or that of Malachi (iii. i) (see Mark 2; Matt. xi. 10 Luke vii. 27). It is naturally to the history of the Passion (the first
i.
;
have been compart of the Gospel history which may had the greatest impiled, and that which manifestly
portance for Christians) that
it
was
specially sought to
apply prophetic interpretation.

27 The idea that the parable was a method in use by Jesus to disas a creation guise His thought from noninitiates must be regarded its origin to owes This Mark or tradition 12). theory 11, (iv. by by the idea that if Jesus was not understood it is because He did not desire to be understood. In reality the parable was a method of exposition adapted to the popular audiences to whom Jesus appealed*

It frequently
217
happens that a text from the prophets
or the Psalms describes a situation of a fairly general for instance, that of the righteous man surcharacter
rounded by enemies who puts
his trust in
God and
is
cruelly maltreated. to conclude from the comparisons made by the primitive Church between these facts and the sufferings of
We
should not be able, however,
was found Jesus that the idea itself of these sufferings in the Psalms or the prophets. The passage is familiar in which Plato paints the lot of the persecuted upright
man, maltreated and
finally nailed to the cross (Plato,
of deriving Republic). No one, however, would dream of the Retext the from Passion the of the history Testament Old read the public. The Christians who
with the conviction that the history of Jesus was foreshadowed there did not fail to note that what was said of the persecuted righteous man applied admirably to drawn to Jesus. Their attention had been particularly
Psa.
of which Jesus upon the cross had cited a verse. They did not fail to emphasize in the records which they gave of the Passion the similitudes in
xxii.,
which they discovered therein. their eyes providential very simple criterion enables us to recognize these
harmonies established a posteriori and to distinguish them from those which are explicable as history
In the latter the conevolved from a prophecy. cordance is perfect, starting from the oldest accounts, and it is emphasized by a quotation. On the
generally
other hand, when the harmony between the prophecy and the story has only been recognized after the fact, as a rule it is only by degrees that it has gained pre-
progress of the assimilation by comparing the various forms of the tracision.
It is possible to follow the
2i8
JESUS
Mark
THE NAZARENE
One example
will illustrate
dition with each other.
had the out carried had been crucified the soldiers who sentence shared His garments among them, drawing
our point.
(xv. 24) states that after Jesus
lots for
them. 28 In ancient times the clothing of the

29
is, there; there victims belonged to the executioners fore, in the detail given nothing out of the ordinary, and the first narrators who related it merely desired to
illustrate their story

it
by a concrete
detail.
Later on
was observed that in Psa. xxii. the righteous man persecuted had said: "They parted my garments among them and drew lots for my vesture" and thus had a detail of the story of the Passion been prophesied by the psalmist. Matthew, who, as we have realizarecalled, attached so much importance to the not had the in of the tion Gospel story, prophecies no makes he since remarked this concordance,
;
yet 80 The fourth evangelist has reference to the psalm. and noticed not only emphasized the words of the but what is more, referring the two parallel
psalmist,
expressions of the psalm to
two
different actions, he
has made a distinction between the drawing of lots 81 and the sharing of the garments, justifor the robe
the robe of Jesus fying the procedure by the fact that
Matthew (xxvii. 35) and Luke (xxiii 34) say the same thing. Fulda, Das Kreuz und die Kreutigung. **One is unable, indeed, to consider as authentic the received text
*9
which adds at the end of Matthew's account, "In order that it might be fulfilled as spoken by the prophet, they parted my garments among them and drew lots for my robe." This reading is only attested by certain Western manuscripts based upon certain forms of the Latin, Syrian and Armenian versions. It is an addition which comes from
John
six. 24.
"Just
(Zech.
as
Matthew
(xxi. 7), interpreting
Zechariah
its
literally,
rep-
resents Jesus as riding

ix. 9).
upon an ass and on
foal as the
same time
219
*2 was without any seam (John xix. 23-24). Complete the prophecy only exists here at the end harmony with of the development of the record. It would have been from entirely different if the episode had been inspired
the
words
in the
psalm.
The problem
of the relation
between prophecy and the Gospel history thus appears, when we attempt to get close to the subject, vastly more complex than the dilemma formulated by M. Reinach would assume.
V.
THE
CRUCIFIXION
Let us now leave aside the problem of the general relation between history and prophecy in order to ex88 and amine the essential thesis stated by M. Reinach 84 in is that Their thesis endorsed by M. Couchoud. Psa. xxii the idea of the crucifixion is found, and parversion: ticularly in verse 17, as given in the Septuagint
"A crowd
feet."
32
S5
of dogs encircled me; a band of malefactors
surrounded me.
They
pierced
my
hands
and
my
iii).
Similar to the robe of the high priests (Josephus, Antiquities, The seamless robe of the high priest may have its origin in the the fourth evangelist may interpretation of Leviticus. It is possible hint here at speculations analogous to those made by Philo concernassimilated to the Logos (De f r m ing the sacerdotal robe which is
fugiis, 20).
Salomon Reinach, Le Verse 17 du Psaume xxii. Couchoud does not seem to Couchoud, Le Mysore de Jesus. know M. Reinach's works, since he does not quote them. 88 The Hebrew text, very probably corrupted, runs: "A band of around me, as a lion to seize my hands and my scoundrels
33
4
prowls
Bible du Centenaire gives up the translation of the and has the following note: "The text runs: Mike a lion my hand and my feet/ which yields no acceptable meaning The ancient versions run: they have pierced (Greek), or they have bound (Hebraic Psalmbook of Jerome), or they have insulted (second version,
feet."
The
last line
220
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
If this passage of the psalmist were really the source of the belief in the crucifixion of the Messiah, it is surcited in connection with prising that it has not been 88 But this the event before the time of Justin Martyr. If we look is not all, nor is it even the essential point.
at the totality of the tradition we find that the Psa. xxii was first applied to Jesus in an Aramean context,
since
46) relate that it was in Aramean that Jesus when on the cross that cried aloud: "Eloi! Eloi! Lama Sabachthanei"
Mark
(xv.
34) and Matthew
(xxvii.
is.
"My God! My God! why

8T
hast thou
forsaken
Me?"
Now,
in the
Hebraic
is
text of the
psalm no
allusion to the crucifixion
to be discovered.
The
Palestinian tradition know of no interpretation which referred to it, since Aquila, Symmachus and Jerome have translated by "they have bound" the words which
the Septuagint has rendered by "they have pierced." It was, therefore, only at a secondary stage of the
evolution of the tradition that
it
8S
cover in this psalm ment of the cross.
possible to disa passage relating to the punish-
was
These read therefore Aquila, Midrasch) my hands and my feet* ThU verb in any case can'ka'rou,' instead of 'ka'an' (like a lion). not mean 'they have pierced' as the current version has it" first author who has applied Justin Martyr (I Apol, 35) is the In the New Testament are Psa. xxii. 17 to the story of the Passion to be found several citations or reminiscences of this psalm; none relates either directly or indirectly to the story of the Passion. have already pointed out the influence exerted by the psalm on certain details of the story of the crucifixion. 7 It is not of the narrator possible to explain this fact as an effort to give his account an archaic color, since the use of the Aramaic had language is confirmed by the fact that the soldiers believed Jesut
We
invoked Elijah. as see Loisy, Revue d'histoire
ft
dt
litleraturt riliguusei, 1913.

Would it have been known in advance that
discovered
it
221
if it had not been must have been there that the crucifixion had not been is, if the very idea of MM. anterior to the interpretation of the psalm? The readof it. no doubt have and Couchoud Reinach
confirm their ing of the psalm does not appear to In its entirety Psa. xxii is the cry of anguish opinion. from a man surrounded by enemies and threatened
from every
fidence in
quarter.
His
situation seems desperate,
but notwithstanding he
still
hopes and places
his con-
God.
He
recalls the deliverance
formerly
accorded by Jehovah: "Thou dost inhabit the sancIn thee did our tuary. Thou art the glory of Israel.
They had confidence and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto Thee and were saved. They put their trust in Thee and were not deceived
fathers trust.
1'
(verses 4-6).
wretched man
In the verses which follow (7-9) the describes his misery, and then gives his
reasons to hope: "Yea, it is Thou who hast brought me forth from the womb of my mother. ... Go not
far from me, for I am in tribulation. Come nigh unto 39 (See verses me, for there is none to help me."
10-12.) After the verses 13-19, which describe the situation of the afflicted one, there comes an invocation to from me Jehovah: "But Thou, Jehovah, be not far Deliver me to my Thou art help strength; hasten
I
my
life
from the sword.

is to
My
only Good,
40
(deliver
birth."
me)
"That
say,
"Thou has adopted me from my
He who
received the new-born child on his knees (whether natural or adopted own by that fact (sec Gen, 1. father) recognized the child as his
23; cp. Gen.

17).
xlviii. 12 and Job iii. 12). 40 Poetical expression signifying the life, the soul
(sec Psa,
222
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
1'
41 Save me from the jaw of the from the dog.
lion.
(See verses 20-22). The psalm ends in the praise of Jehovah, who has delivered the one who called upon Him "I will pro:
claim Thy name unto my brethren, and will praise Thee in the midst of the congregation. Ye who fear Jehovah Let all the race of Israel tremble praise Him. has not spurned nor rejected the He For before Him. turned away His prayer of the afflicted neither has He face from him" (verses 23-25). If the desire had been to interpret in one narrative the subject matter of the psalm, one would have spoken
.
of an
afflicted
man threatened by his
enemies, but
whom
God
exegesis was begun with given unless the reading of this psalm the related was the conviction that in it story of the
marvelously protects from their assaults. Without doubt it may be understood that the deliverance means the resurrection, and this is what Messianic has done. But would this interpretation be
death and resurrection of Jesus? Besides, do the words

"they have pierced
my
hands and
my
feet" constitute
a very distinct allusion to the crucifixion? When the cross is referred to, there are brought into prominence the two notions of hanging and exposure on the cross.
hands and feet by means of nails did not it was only an accessory to the itself cause death punishment. Furthermore, it is by no means certain
The
fixing of
that the hands of the victim were always fixed by nails ; as for the feet, it is more doubtful still. The archaeologist,
41
Victor Schultze, writes:
"As regards
the
Literally, "against the

it
preceding
hand of the dog." (This note and the two are borrowed from the Bible du Cenienaire.)
223
means employed (the cross properly so called), stake or gibbet, and for the method of attaching the victim thereto, the executioners seem to have had the greatest and liberty allowed. Ropes alone were used, or ropes
nails.
In these latter cases sometimes the hands only, 4a and sometimes hands and feet, were fixed by nails." Dom Leclercq, whom no one will suspect of treating
tradition with lack of respect, writes : "The condemned approached the gibbet, to which he was bound, his
hands on the crosspiece and
his feet placed
upon a
small board." As for nails, the learned Benedictine 48 In fact, the most andoes not even mention them. no mention of nails. makes tradition cient Gospel
There
is
a reference to
them for the
first
time in the
44
Thomas Johannine account of the Resurrected One, 45 marks the hands His in I see having said: "Unless of the nails, and unless I put my hand into His side, I
will not believe."
Jesus invites him to put his finger
into
His hands and

xx.
(John
in
then, at the
25-27). same phase of the tradition as the wound in other words, as one of the latest elethe side
hand into His (Jesus') side The wounds in the hands appear
his
46 ments of the Johannine narrative.
There
is
also a
Schultze,
article
"Kreuz,
Kreuzigung,"
Real
Encyclop.
Protestantische TMologie.
Dora Leclercq,
Paris,
1914.
article "Croix," Diet, d' Archtologie Chriliennc, In the article "Clous," of the same dictionary, Dom
of the cross either. Leclercq makes no reference to nails "In Luke xxiv. 39 the Resurrected One says to the disciples, are in presence of a frightened of His apparition, thinking they feet. It is Ifeel Me and see. hands and ghost: "See blood as ye see I have" It is not a question spirit has not flesh and it it a of the of Jesus as the crucified, but to notice that recognition real being before them. 45 This text does not speak of the feet.
My
My
Maurice Goguel, Introd. au N.T.,
ii,
p. 33*.
224
JESUS
(xxi)
THE NAZARENE
47
reference to nails in the hands found in the Gospel of but no mention of nails in the feet is found Peter
before Justin Martyr (ApoL, i. 35 ). If the history of the Passion had as its principal source a passage where it is a question of pierced hands and feet, it would be very strange, it must be admitted, that no mention of nails in the hands
is
found
before the fourth evangelist before Justin Martyr.

49
.
48
nor of nails
in the feet
From
these considerations
it
cannot be admitted
that the story of the crucifixion has been drawn from verse 17 of Psa. xxii. It is only after the event that this text was related to the story of the cross. As for
the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which has so greatly influenced Christian thought and piety, it cannot either be considered as one of the sources of the idea of the
death of the Messiah and of the accounts dealing with it. Let us first of all remember what has already been of the pointed out, that it was only after the beginning Christian era, and under conditions which do not per-
mit us to exclude a priori the possibility of the ence of Christian ideas, that this chapter was
influ-
inter-
47 Fickcr believes he finds in a passage of the A eta Petn cum Simone, (in a reference to a young man, nude and bound) an allusion to the crucifixion without nails. W. Bauer remarks that the ropes do not necessarily exclude nails, and thus the importance (already
dubious enough) of the passage in the
A eta
Petn cum Simon f
is
still
further diminished. "Not in reference to the crucifixion, but in an account of the It is known that these have been most influenced by resurrection.
apologetics. In the account of Jesus' burial, Mark Matthew is taken down from the cross.
and Luke say that the body and John say it is taken
from the removed
cross.
The Gospel
of Peter alone says that the naili are
(xxi).
225
Messiah. In several passages prcted as relating to the it of the New Testament inspired the interpretation either by supplying the given of the death of Christ, ii. Pet. I in as terms employed 22-25, or in Acts viii.
by Philip to the Ethiopian queen's eunuch take the form of a commenthis text has tary upon Isa. liii. 7, 8, or, again, where formulas the employed inspired in a more general way in John 5. 29-36, Rom. iv. 25, and i Cor. xv. 3. In all
32,
etc.,
where the
instructions given
these passages, of which several are of a fairly recent date, it is not a question of the fact of the death of
Christ, but of
its significance.
In Paul's
own
writings
Isa. liii. I is only expressly cited in Rom. x. 16, not in reference to the death of Christ, but to the op-
Elsewhere it position against Christian preaching. the ideas of that has been remarked (by Schweitzer)
Paul cannot be explained as due to the influence of the because this passage defifty-third chapter of Isaiah, of the velops the idea of the value of the sufferings
servant of Jehovah, while Paul attributes a redeeming character not to the sufferings, but to the death of
Christ.
80
With regard
upon
it is
the narratives of the Passion,

It inspired
to the influence of this chapter of Isaiah we have seen that

u
:
very limited. before His arrest

in
the declaration of Jesus This that is written must yet be
Me. And He was reckoned among accomplished the transgressors" (Luke xxii. 37), and also in Luke
the intercession of Jesus for His executioners (xxiii.
34;
cp.
with Isa.
text
IB
liii.
12).
John
xii.
The same
is
also cited in
38, in
a passage which
not put into the mouth of Jesus, but which contains the reflections of the evangelist about the failure of the ministry of Jesus.
226
JESUS
VI.
THE NAZARENE
CHRIST THE PASCHAL LAMB

thinks, indeed, that the idea of the exercised a profound influence on the
M. Couchoud
paschal lamb the death of Jesus. genesis of the tradition concerning the with The identification of Jesus paschal lamb is, in
fact, current in ancient
Christianity.
It
is
very old,
since
it is
already found
in the first Epistle to the Corin-
apostle addresses the faithful, exhorting them to be pure, and in referring to those guilty of incest he points out the danger to which the Church will expose herself by allowing the leaven of wickedthians.
The
within her. ness, liable to corrupt the whole, to subsist

It is therefore necessary,
oughly the old leaven,

u
51
M and to celebrate the feast
he says, to purge out thorin
Christ our passover is sacripurity and in truth. For v. ficed for us" (i Cor. 7). Let us first observe that if the assimilation of the
death of Christ to the sacrifice of the lamb was already and how could it have been otherwise if it current was the primary nucleus of tradition? it would not be easy to understand the precision of the explanation that the lamb was Christ. The Corinthians would have
well known, without Paul being obliged to
tell them whom he was of lamb expressly who this paschal wished to speak. The whole passage is figurative; it contains nothing to show that Paul conceived the
"As
was done
in
Jewish homes on the nth day of Nisan, the
day of the preparation of the Passover There if no reference here to a private feast, of which there it no trace in primitive Christianity, but of the Christian life, in its It therefore seems to entirety, inaugurated by the death of Christ.
this
us very conjectural to suppose, with Johannes Weiss and others, that image had been suggested to Paul by the fact that he was writ* iog about the time of the Passover Feast
227
death of Christ under the category of the paschal lamb or of any other Levitical sacrifice other than as a sim58 It is merely an elucidation, for it is ple illustration.
not as a
but as a juridical condemnation, that death of Christ in his doctrine of the Paul interprets
sacrifice,
redemption.
assimilation of Christ to the paschal lamb is also found, but in conditions which indicate the influ-
The
ence of yet other ideas, in the Johannine formula "the 1 lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world'
(John But
i.
29-36).
in the tradition
it is
concerning the Lord's Supis
per that the idea of a Christian passover
specially
and developed. The comparison was very natural, of Jesus. suggested by the date itself of the death of critics number an reason There is increasing (as admit) to fix this, as indicated by the fourth Gospel, 64 that is, upon the at the fourteenth day of Nisan in sacrifice. offered was lamb the paschal very day when
The
conditions in which the idea of Christ the paschal
lamb was developed are characteristic, and clearly show that we are in presence of an assimilation made
u
In the Synoptic Gospels the idea is of Jesus the developed by attributing to the last repast to have had seem not paschal character which it does
a posteriori."
in
the primitive tradition
65
;
in the
fourth Gospel
56
83 In Rom. iii. 24 it is, on the contrary, to the sacrifice of the feast This duality of expiation that Paul compares the death of Christ would be difficult to understand if the crucifixion had been deduced from the Jewish doctrine of sacrifice. It is, on the other hand, quite
natural
19x0.
if the assimilation had been made "a posteriori." Maurice Goguel, Les Sources du recit Johanmqut de la Passion,
**Id. t L'Eucharistie. Introd. au N.T., .,
ii.
228
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the development of the idea is indicated in a portion it is stated belonging to the most recent stratum, where the case in as not were of broken, the that Jesus
legs
of the thieves, thus
fulfilling the prescriptions

57
of the
Law
57
concerning the paschal lamb.
do not speak here of Psa. xxiv, of which Paul cites a verse r 26) where there is no question at all of the believes that primitive Christianity had M. Couchoud Gospel history. found in this psalm "the lament of the Son of God, fallen into the hands of cruel archons." What we have said above concerning the the significance passage of x Cor. ii. 8 proves that this text has not
in a passage (i Cor.
We
which M. Couchoud attaches
to
it.
CHAPTER X

I.
COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS
Gospel tradition is presented in the form of four 1 narratives, whose parentage is certain and whose three first members are even parallel for a considerable part of their content. Before it is possible to come to any
THE
conclusion concerning this tradition there is a questhat of the relation of literary history to be solved
tions
which these narratives have to each other. It is necessary to examine the group of the first three the fourth Gospels, known as the Synoptics, and
8
separately.
The most
Mark.
It
ancient of the Synoptics
is
the Gospel of
must have been composed
at a date a little have been of Palestine origin, perhaps the to seems John Mark of whom the book of Acts speaks (Acts
Rome
perhaps at later than A.D. 70. Its author
*Wc may neglect the Apocryphal Gospels, for in what has been impreserved to us there is nothing which is not of secondary portance when compared with the Canonical Gospels 2 For the defense in detail of the theory which we here present in summary we refer readers to our Introduction to the New Testament, Parts
I and II. Without dwelling on the
Gospel to
call its call the
Mark cannot be regarded as rigorously author Mark for the sake of convenience,
of the
first
fact that the attribution of the second proved, we shall

just
as
we
is
shall
authors of the three others respectively Matthew, Luke and

third
John, while the attribution debatable, and that of the it certainly not established,
Gospel to Luke
to
very
and fourth
229
Matthew and John
230
xii.
JESUS
is
THE NAZARENE
complexity, whose author
25 ). It
work of some
has utilized traditions of different sources, doubtless inserting
them
Among
framework created by him. these sources the two best are a collection
into the
of narratives going back to the apostle Peter, which were the echo of his missionary preaching, and a selection of discourses, the Logia, whose first origin seems very ancient, but of which Mark has borrowed relatively
little,
doubtless because he
hands of readers for
whom
his
its
knew it was in the work was designed.
ten years or so after composition the Gossome revision pel of Mark seems to have undergone its modified which has not perceptibly general aspect.
Some
The Logia with which Mark was
acquainted, and
which he used with discretion, should in our opinion be considered rather as a collection than as a literary work well put together and arranged according to a
rational plan.
This collection became richer as
it
grew, and by that very fact more varied in because, as would be natural, each person inserted of which to attributed and discourses it Jesus
in character,
sayings
he knew, but which had been neglected or ignored by the first editors. It is still possible to distinguish with
sufficient precision three stages
first,
of the collection.
The
which no doubt is not the primitive form but only the most ancient within our reach is made up of elements of the collection which Matthew and Luke have
borrowed and which appear in their versions in the same order. It is one form of this primitive stage that Mark seems to have known and made use of. The two other stages are those which Matthew on one side and Luke on the other had at their disposal. To each must be attributed not only those portions which
231
Matthew and Luke possess in common, and are wantare only ing in Mark, but also other portions which
found
one of them, but belong to the same type 4 as the portion common to both, or which are in close 5 Some are found in the first relationship with them.
in
and in the third Gospels in forms which differ too much from each other to permit of their belonging to the 6 same source. The Gospels of Matthew and of Luke are, to put
it
simply,
two attempts,
parallel but independent of
each other, to concentrate the Gospel tradition.
Their
authors (who appear to have worked, Luke somewhere between the years 75 and 85 and Matthew between 80 and 90) desired to write in one single work
;
the two principal documents existing in their time upon the Gospel history: the narrative of Mark and the Furthermore, both gleaned from various sub-
Logia.
Luke's aim, moreover, was to give a His coherent account, complete and well arranged. which narratives include work thus shows an attempt to edification into the literary originally were works of domain proper. Notwithstanding this, the Gospel of Luke is of the same type as those of Mark and
sidiary sources.
Matthew.
fourth Gospel must have been composed between the years 90 and no. Although it is, like the
The
4 This is the case, for instance, for a certain number of parables which are only found in Matthew or only in Luke. and which 5 For instance, the curses only found in Luke (vi. 24-26) which Beatitudes the with 20-23), (vi. in are relationship
organic
latter are also
found
in
Matthew
(v.
3-10).
For example, the Beatitudes in Matthew (v. 3-10) from each 30-23) are in forms too widely different of the differences being explained by editorial work, at however, too similar to permit us to consider them
and Luke
(vi.
other to allow but which arc,
independent.
232
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
and missionary and not Synoptic Gospels, an apologetic it an historical work, possesses certain features which
are peculiar to it. It assumes that its readers not only are familiar with the Gospel tradition, but also that hands (most probthey have certain narratives in their
to which it frequently ably our Synoptic Gospels) some alludes, either by explicitly correcting them on to its readers certain known as in or supposing points facts to which it makes no allusion itself, but which arc recorded therein. The fourth evangelist did not claim to substitute his
work for
it
;
that of his predecessors;
would not be clearly intellion the basis they gible without them he only desired, offered him, to develop a certain number of meditato a fairly large extent
tions
upon themes of the Gospel history which he has
(a fact betraying the influence of the type created by the Synoptics) between a narrative about the opening of the ministry of Jesus and one concerninserted
ing the Passion.
The
objective of the fourth evangelist
essentially
being admitted, a very delitheological and religious cate problem is encountered concerning the methods T Some critics, like Jean Reville and him. used
by
8 Loisy, consider that all the deviations from the three first Gospels which are found in the fourth are and symbolism others, explicable in terms of allegory
M.
like
10 Godet,' and Zahn, and
in a less absolute
manner
Reville,
Le quatrieme
faangile, ton engine, sa valeur hit-
tongue. Alfred
first
Loisy,
M. Loisy has
Le quatriemt faangile. In hii second edition modified certain points of the theory defended in the
Frederic Godet, Commentairc tur I'Evangile dt Saint Jean.
"Theodor Zahn, Das Evanaelium da Johanntt

the Father Calmes,
direct
11
233
think that John, in order to cor-
rect the narratives of his predecessors,
was guided by
and personal experience. however, the conservative critics agree that the souvenirs of the old apostle were somewhat vague, and that he did not distinguish with clearness between the Jesus he had followed in Galilee and Judea and the ideal
Christ
To
a certain extent,
who
lived in his heart.
None
of these theories
all
seems to us to take complete account of
the some-
what complex
although he
factors of the problem.
We believe
that
may not have attached great importance to historical necessities, the fourth evangelist was acoral traditions quainted with data and written and
which it is impossible to reconstruct with precision, nor even to describe or date with certainty, but several of which show themselves to be excellent in comparison with the Synoptic tradition. Without having any intention to utilize historically the sources at his disposal,
John had borrowed data from them sometimes even in it has happened that he has inserted some fragments
;
his
for instance, be inclined to recognize some of these sources as evidence for the narratives which portray Jesus baptizing by the side of John (iii. 22), or coming to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. i, etc.), or as being arrested by
own
narrative.
We should,
These the cohort led by the tribune (xviii. 3-12). data are only preserved in the fourth Gospel in a
we is characteristic sporadic manner, and this fact shows It would be prepared even to say symbolical. that the Gospel literature was not primarily interested It only prein the history of the ministry of Jesus.
served the
memory
because of
its religious
--_.._..
value.
Calmei, L'Evanoile ftIon Saint Jean.
234
JESUS
II.
THE NAZARENE
THE GOSPEL IDEA
Luke, at the beginning of his book, tells Theophilus, whom he dedicates it, that he had undertaken to write it to convince his friend of the certainty of the
to
i. 4). things in which he had been instructed (Luke that conclusion in his also wrought Jesus says John
many
miracles besides those which he has recorded,

in these
and he continues
Christ, the
words: 'These have been

believe that Jesus
is
written in order that you
may
the
Son of God, and,
believing,
may
have
life in
His name"
everything
edification
gospel, therefore, is before (xx. 31). of else, not a book of history, but a book
and
religious
;
teaching.
History
is
the
method of
This
is
"gospel"
not an object in itself. the examination of the word also shown by In the Greek Bible, if the word itself.
instruction
it is
12
only found in the material sense of 18 good news, the verb of the same root, euaggdizein, and particularly in the second is sometimes met with book of Isaiah having a sense which announces and
euanggelia
is
Only
It is
in the feminine
and not
terminology.
The
neuter
word appears
in the neuter, as in the Christian for the first time in Greek.
found in the plural in an inscription of Priene dating from 9 B.C. Researches sul le Grec du N.T. (text and translation in J. Rouffiac, In this inscription concerning the d'apres let inscriptions de Priene).
introduction of the Julian calendar into Asia, Augustus is hailed as the "Saviour" of the world, and it is stated that "the day of the was for the world the beginning of the good news birth of the
god which he brought/' It must be noted that this inscription establishes no relation between the term signifying "good news" and the qualification of Saviour given to Augustus. The use of the plural shows that what is expected from the emperor are material advantages,
not spiritual wealth* 13 For instance, 2 Kings xviii. 20, 22, 27; 4 Kings
vii,
9.

prepares the
235
14
The Old
for the Christian idea of the gospel. Testament thus contains (at least implicitly)
way
the idea of a gospel as the proclamation of a divine That which invests this fact with its deliverance. full significance is that the evangelists expressly porfulfillment of these tray the ministry of Jesus as the
15
prophecies. Upon Christian ground, it is with the apostle Paul time that, so far as we know, there appears for the first as limitation without sometimes word the "gospel," of the as "the gospel," sometimes specialized "gospel The Christ." of or the "gospel God," "my gospel,"
"gospel" in
its
unlimited sense
is
by Paul, the mystery of the humanity ransomed by the death and resurrection of
the gospel Jesus Christ ( I Cor. xv. I ) in this sense From this fundais the power of God (Rom. i. 16). that of the is derived another, mental signification
,
the doctrine preached redemption of sinful
The preaching of redemption (Phil. i. 7 and ii. 22). comes from God, gospel of God is the gospel which been has which the apostle charged by Him to preach
of Christ," this
As for the phrase "gospel etc.). not to be understood in the sense of the teaching given by Jesus, but in that of the teach16 (i Cor. ix. 12, ing of which Christ is the essence meant the Paul to The therefore,
(Rom.
i.
i,
xv.
1 6,
is
etc.).
gospel,
preaching whose
deemer.
This is element may have

i*
Ixi.
subject or content was Christ the not a history, although the historical
its
xl
Re-
place and be at
;
its
base.
lii.
It is
$
For instance, Psa.

i.
10 and xxvi. 2
22.
ha.
xl, 9,
7 !*
and
xi. 5; Luke iv. 21, vii. For the justification of this Introd. au. N. T. t I. pp. 25-18.
"Matt.
16
statement
see
Maurice Goguel,
236
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
tfcetfcme conception also found in all the other books of Testament outside the Gospels. The books the
New
because relating the history of Jesus are called Gospels
they were composed, not in an historical or biographThey are books of ical, but in a missionary interest. the Chrisexposition of apostolic doctrine, preaching 11 tian faith. "Gospel of Jesus Christ in Mark i. I does
a gospel preached by Jesus Christ, but a docThe trine whose essence and content is Jesus Christ. the docof the is the of author interpreter only Gospel
not
mean
of salvation. This it is which explains the obof this kind are called jectivity with which works "the Gospel," and the modesty with categorically
trine
which their presumed authors are referred to

11
is
shown
by the simple phrase "according
It was only at to. word the that a relatively late period "gospel" was interpreted in the sense which subsequently prevailed
book which narrated the history of Jesus. used the word "gosJesus does not appear to have 17 It is only put into His mouth by pel" Himself. 18 and Matthew Mark, each upon two occasions (Mark xiiL 10 Matt. xxiv. 14; Markxiv. 9; Matt. xxvi. 13). In each passage the "gospel" means not the teaching
that
is,
of Jesus, but the future preaching of the apostles. In each it is more than doubtful whether the word Himself. In the first case, "gospel" comes from Jesus the editors have used the word which meant in the time
they wrote "Christian teaching."
* 7 It it,
As
for the second,
of course, necessary to eliminate passages where the word used by the narrator (Mark i. i, 14; Matt iv. 23, is. "gospel" into the mouth of Jesus by 25) and thote where it is plainly put Mark (i. 15, viii. 35, x. 29), but is not found in the parallel texts
is
of
Matthew and Luke.
"Luke
hat no parallel to these passages.

there are
in
237
good reasons for thinking that the portion

it is
found (the episode of the ointment at Bethany) did not form part of the most primitive and in the solemn deposit of the Gospel tradition,
which
affirmation that the act of the
woman would
be nar-
rated wherever the Gospel would be preached, there the period when certainly seems to be a reminiscence of 19 of the Gospel. this portion did not yet form part
the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists is seen the rise of the idea of the gospel as narrative or document alongside the idea of the gospel as a doctrine.
With
That which we have seen concerning the meaning of the word "gospel" in the first Christian generations shows that it was not in an historical interest that the traditions concerning the life and teachings of Jesus
were
collected, preserved,
and committed to writing.
The thought
of the early Christians was entirely turned and not to the past. They expected future the toward the early return of Christ, whose task was to comand all plete the work of redemption already begun,
was completely foreign to their minds. In so far as they had need of an authority, and in the perthey found it in the Old Testament and been guided by the suasion that they had inspired those who had Still, it was impossible that
interest in organization
Spirit.
lived in the companionship of Jesus should not carehad been, of the memory of what fully preserve
He
what were
He
had said and done.
For them these things
a source of inspiration and an example. When upon the morrow of the Passion a Christian of the distheology began to form, the meditations
Maurice Gogucl, UEvanaile de Marc dans set rapports avtc ceux d< Matthieu ft de Luc, Paris, 1909; Introd., i. p. 298.
238
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
were centered around an historic fact, This death contradicted the life and teaching, since impression produced by His it represented Him as if abandoned and even cursed by God. The necessity of solving this contradiction was
ciples of Jesus
the death of the Lord.
for Christian thought the most powerful of stimulants. had lived with Him, had been Jesus, for those who the incarnation of the highest moral authority. They had formed the habit of looking to Him, of expectHis example. ing His counsel, of being inspired by moral the authority of His He, disappeared,
having
it became transformed personality did not disappear; the to itself attached and memory of His acts and His
words.
assured the preservatriple interest, therefore,
memoirs of the Gospel history a sentimental Those who had been in contact interest first of all. with Jesus could not let His memory fade away in their minds and hearts; in the next place there was a moral interest, the words and actions of Jesus being
tion of
considered as offering or inspiring the solution of the moral and practical problems which they found facing them; finally there was a theological interest, for it
was impossible to ignore what they considered the human episode of the grand drama of redemption. At the beginning, at least, no special value was
attached to the tradition preserving a coherent history of the life of Jesus. From the speculative point of view, the sole thing of importance was the simple
His death; from the moral point of view, the important things were the words, the acts, the attitudes in which the soul of Jesus was manifested. Thus from the beginning the Church had need of trafact of

ditions concerning
239
His
life,
but fragmentary memoirs
were,
amply
sufficient for
her needs.
of Paul, for as have we seen, which, presume instance, correspond, the of details of the knowledge Gospel history many and the memory of many of the Master's words, but
It is to this situation that the Epistles
not a coherent, organic and systematic tradition about
His
life.
Without doubt
first
it
was
in a less definite
form
that the
evangelists found the substance of their
narratives.
III.
THE ABSENCE
OF CHRONOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Two
at once
in
facts are
when
thus understood which strike one the Gospel tradition and the conditions
which it is presented are studied. The first is that we have neither in the canonical tradition nor in that which is extracanonical any precise indication concerntook ing the times in which the facts of Gospel history this which the that is second plan upon place; the
history
is
arranged
in the Synoptics
20
is
artificial.
It
was
by the first evangelist to group furnished him as together memoirs which tradition
arbitrarily created
It will
isolated units.
be convenient to examine these two consideraAs regards the appearance of tions in succession. that God had sent Jesus in history, Paul merely says
since from what has only speak of the first three evangelists, an it follows that it is not admissible to speak of said been just
20
We
The historical or geographical framework of the fourth evangelist is caused by the evangelist juxtaposing appearance of a framework scenes and by making use, as transitions between them, of
episodes
feasts at reasons for the journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem.
2 4o
JESUS
in the fullness
THE NAZARENE
of time (Gal iv. 4)- This is a needs to be kept in mind as which dogmatic concept the history of meaning that it was in the last period of the world (that world to which Paul had the sentiment
Him
of belonging) that the Gospel history is to be assigned. This at once shows that the absence of all chronological details in PauPs writings must not be interpreted as
a proof that in his thought the drama of redemption was devoid of all contact with historical reality. The close relationship which he establishes between the death of Christ and His return, which he believed to be imminent, also proves that it could only have been
at a quite recent period that the Gospel
drama had
taken place. It should be added that Paul had no reason to repeat in his Epistles what he doubtless on frequent
occasions had expounded in his oral teachings concerning the death of Jesus. of Mark, Matthew and John the In the
Gospels date of the death of Jesus is (indirectly, at any rate) indicated by the mention of Pilate, although the narrators did not mention
21
him
to give any chronological
indication, but because of the part he
The first history of Jesus. there appears a real chronological sense is Luke, indicates by a series of synchronisms (iii. I, 2)
had played in the writer in whose work
who
the
period at which the ministry of John the Baptist began. The value of the data which he gives is a question of The interesting thing is that he had small
importance. considered it necessary to give them."
The time it the cafe with the pa if age in i Tim. vi. 13. "Their value hat recently been defended by Ed. Meyer and by C. Ctchoriut. The great uncertainty which prevent* our dependence

The chronology
instance,
241
of the
life
tradition a singular vacillation.
of Jesus presents in later for Certain authors
M. Salomon
Reinach
have drawn from
this
an argument against the historical character of the traLet us see how matters stand. dition.
Irenasus (Har., ii. 22-25) declares, basing his statement on the fourth Gospel and on the presbyters who that is to say upon the work of had known
John
as admitted by all critics, that Jesus died Papias, 24 not at the age of thirty, but at the age of fifty, and it is certainly Irenaeus who is the authority for writers 26 Irenaeus is familiar with attesting the same belief.
28
not at the beginning interested in these questions. The fact that has preJewish tradition, such as we know is through Josephus, served the memory of John the Baptist permits one to suppose, as does Meyer, that it is from a Jewish source that Luke has borrowed
on these statements is that we know nothing of their origin. They cannot originate in Christian tradition, which, as we have seen, was
them.
28 born doubtless Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, was about AD. 85. He composed, about AD. 140, a work in five books entitled Explanations of the Sayings of the Lord, of which Eusebius has preserved some fragments, and from which seem to proceed all the information which Irenaeus states he held from the presbyters. Eusebius states that Papias was a man of small mind, and indeed
certain stories
which he
relates
show
that he
must have been a very
credulous
man
24 The same of Irenaeus, Th* Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. 26 Traces of an analogous conception are found in other texts, for the example in the letter from Pilate to Claudius which constitutes most ancient portion of the "Acta Pilati," in the commentary of also cites the fact that Hippolytus on Dan. iv. 23, etc. M. S. Reinach "in a whole collection of Christian works of art, sarcophagi, carvings, mosaics, some of which go back to the fourth century, John baptizing as a man of about fifty years old at least, while is
(Ere. History, in). idea is found in another treatise
presented Jesus old. Now, according to Jesus is a child of ten to twelve years A.D. 36. If he baptized before several died the years Baptist Josephus, in the year 30, Jesus would have been born at the earliest in the he would hare underyears 18 or 20, and dying at the age of thirty under the Emperor the towards Passion (still the 50 year gone
242
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the canon of the four Gospels, and attributes to it an absolute value, leaving no place for the Apocryphal
therefore, highly improbable that he was inspired by a tradition differing from theirs. His ideas originate in a particular interpretation of the in the very Gospel data. Corssen has observed that of which we are speaking Irenaeus declares
26
Gospels,
It
is,
passage
that after
His baptism Jesus came three times to Jeru-
salem for the Passover. In this statement he is in Two indications flagrant contradiction with himself. which Irenaeus in found have been put us upon the In the first place, track of the explanation sought for.
in the
same passage where he gives
his opinion as to
the age of Jesus at death, Irenaeus says that have sanctified by His death all the periods of
life
He
must
human
This is a dogmatic observation (Har., xxii). in with the authority of the Gospel which scarcely fits In the second place, traditions which he recognizes. Irena-us (ii. 22-25) relies on the authority of the
fourth Gospel and the tradition of the presbyters who had known John that is, upon Papias. It is possible to trace the exegetical process by which the idea of
has been extracted Jesus dying at the age of fifty years from the fourth Gospel. In John viii. 57 the Jews say to Jesus, "Thou art not yet fifty years old." There is the real age of Jesus evidently here no indication as to
Claudius)
"
This cannot be put
in accord
with the tradition attested

age of
not at the Irenaeus, since the latter states that Jesus died, all these which from At the at but period years. fifty thirty,
by
works
of art date the authority of the canonical Gospels was uncontested. They should be explained by the liberty which these works of art demanded, which it is not allowable to consider as documents capable
of an absolutely rigorous interpretation. 26 Concerning the opinions of I r emeus about the Gospel canon, refer to Ztha, Gfichichtt 4ft Ntvtutamtntlicht* Kamons.

at the time, but Irenaeus,
243
and no doubt the presbyters of representing Jesus as desirous before him, being that a man sanctifying the age at which it was supposed
attained the plenitude of his powers, have understood this passage to suggest that Jesus was nearly fifty years 27 One other text of the Gospel may have sugold.
In the episode gested or confirmed this interpretation. the the of of the purification Jews asked Jesus Temple to justify by a miracle the authority which He had
claimed in expelling the traders.
He
replied:
"De-
in three days" stroy this temple, and I will rebuild it observes the evangelist, did not (ii. 19), which remark, refer to the Temple of Jerusalem, but to the body of Jesus (ii. 21 ). The Jews retorted: "Forty-six years was this Temple in building, and Thou wilt rebuild it
daysl" (ii. 20). It only required to apply the same symbolism to this reply of the Jews as to the declaration of Jesus to arrive at the same idea that of the incident Jesus was forty-six years old at the time
in three
of the purification of the Temple. There is, therefore, in the work of Irenaeus no tradition on behalf of which it is possible to criticize that of the Gospels.
There are only speculations inspired by allegorical principles and dogmatic considerations. The opinion of Irenaeus and of those who followed
him cannot be interpreted as the proof of the

tion.
existence
of doubts and hesitations concerning the current tradi-
And
it
is
deducing from very inconsistent pre-
mises conclusions singularly unwarranted to suppose, with M. Salomon Reinach, that a tradition which in the reign of Claudius represented Jesus as dying could not originally have menthat is, after A.D. 41
*7
Hippocrates, according to Philo,
D<
opificto
mundi, 105.
*44
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
tioncd Pontius Pilate, who was disgraced in A.D. 36, for this presumes that the most ancient narrative of the Passion must have contained no mention of the
name of
the Roman Procurator. The point it is necesabout traditions like those of Ireto remember sary naeus is that during a long period the indifference was maintained which the first generation had shown to
everything
concerning Jesus
which
only
possessed
biographical interest.
IV.
THE PLAN
OF THE GOSPELS
from the
fact that
The same
conclusion follows also
of Jesus interduring the generation after the death without isolated in souvenirs, est was centered only coherent a into them any conscious attempt to form of facts. group, in harmony with the real development the of character the shown is setting It is this which by
of the Synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of Mark is composed of an introduction and of four portions of which the first may be subdi-
vided into eight sections.
The
1-13). The first part (i. 14 to viii. 26) Galilean ministry of Jesus and gives a picture of the of His preaching of the Gospel to the multitudes. The
(i.
of John of Jesus
introduction consists of three brief accounts the Baptist, the baptism, and the temptation
return to Galilee, the calling of the first disciples, the and the journey to Capernaum, the itinerant preaching first section which healing of the lepers, make up a welcomed by the as of Jesus portrays the activity crowd (u 14-45). Then comes a series of conflicts

which take place between Jesus and the Pharisees, Herodians ending in a cabal between these and the who wish to destroy Him (Chap, iii) It is the second
.
section
which immediately after the opening success

difficulties,
portrays the
drama. The
not allowing
tion
ever increasing, until the final third section is a kind of interlude, Jesus Himself to be discouraged by the opposi-
encounters, but continuing His ministry of instituhealing while He prepares the future by the With the fourth tion of the apostolate (iii. 7-19)section
He
20-35) the conflict becomes more acute. Even the kinsmen of Jesus accuse Him of being out of His senses, and the Pharisees declare that He is pos(iii.
sessed by Beelzebub. The fifth section gives a specimen of the teaching of Jesus, consisting of three and theoretical parables, accompanied by explanations In this section the evangelist explains the reflections.
failure of Jesus already
announced in preceding sections. Being unwilling to admit that this was not intentional, he develops the theory of the hardening of men's hearts consciously provoked, Jesus using parables designed to conceal His real thought from those
who were
not initiates
(iv.
(iv.
1-34)vi.
A sixth section
at
35 to
6) shows Jesus quitting

ill
the Galilean territory to begin His action on pagan soil
Gerasa.
He
is
not, to speak exactly,
received,
but the time for acting upon the non-Jews has not yet come. The episode of Gerasa must be looked on as
Christian mission. Having reprefigurative of the turned again to Galilee, Jesus heals the daughter of
the issue of blood, then Jairus and the woman with He is repulsed by His where returns to Nazareth,
compatriots.
246
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the second Just as after the conflicts narrated in future the for had section Jesus by the instiprepared
His rejection at Nazareth He sends forth the apostles on a mission. To this episode there is attached in a somewhat artitution of the apostolate, so after
the narrative about the perplexity of Herod and retrospectively that of the death of John the narratives Baptist (seventh section, vi. 6-30). The first the which follow up to the close of part of the Gospel (eighth section, vi. 31 to viii. 26) show a very The same episode (the characteristic arrangement. of loaves) multiplication, or rather the distribution,
ficial
way
is
related twice under
two forms
sufficiently like
one
another to prevent any hesitation in recognizing in them two variants of the same theme, and it appears
that the events which follow the second multiplication of loaves (the crossing of the lake, the discussion with
the Jews, and the healing) correspond fairly closely with those accompanying the first. This doublet shows the importance which this part of the narrative had for
tradition.
distribution of loaves has been considered to be the anticipation of the Lord's Supper, as a supreme
The
who had attempt made by Jesus to win over the people not been gained to His cause either by appeals or by 28 The failure is manifested by the Jewish healing.
raises after the first distribution the opposition, which discussion concerning the pure and the impure, and after the second demands from Jesus a sign from
Henceforward the fate of the public ministry failure was complete and irreof Jesus was sealed mediable. Jesus to some extent resigns Himself to the
heaven.
"Maurice Goguel,
L'Eucharutit, p. 51.

inevitable,
247
and renounces all public teaching designed the to win people's support. In the second part of the Gospel (viii. 27 to x. 52) it is solely to His disciples that Jesus addresses Himself.
29
At the same time His teaching is about to assume a new character. It is no longer the Gospel of the Kingdom but that of the Messiah. Jesus reveals to
His disciples the fate which awaits Him in Judea, and announces His resurrection to them, but they do After each of three not understand His teaching. prophecies of sufferings which form, so to speak, the framework of this part of the Gospel (viii. 31, 32, is placed a narrative in ix. 30-32 and x. 32-34)
which the
is startlingly as manifested. regards the arpeculiar importance rangement of the Gospel of Mark belongs to the first
disciples* lack
of intelligence
passage of this second part, where the author narrates the confession of Peter near Caesarea Philippi (viii. Starting from this passage, the notion of
27-30).
the Messiahship dominates the narrative and forms the central subject of the teaching given to the apostles. The third part of the Gospel begins with the entry
of Jesus into Jerusalem, and ends at the time
when the
Jews are preparing
to
form
a plot against
Him
(xi.
an account of the I-I3? 37)- This portion contains the discussions between Jesus and Jews and the teach-
The narratives are arranged ing given to the disciples. After Jesus, by His in well-marked progression.
29 The few narratives in which other personages intervene have attaches their center of gravity in the special teachings that Jesus r tby arc in * to them for His disciples (for example in x. X7-30> located icrted in the place in which we read them because tradition
them
in
Judea (example,
x.
46*52).
248
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of discussions
solemn entry into Jerusalem (xi. i-ii) and by the so to speak, taken purification of the Temple, has,
up His position, there is placed a series which accentuate the conflict and make it a definite This is shown by the invectives against the thing. Pharisees, which are the last words of Jesus pronounced in public (xii. 38-40). After this the evanthe teachings given gelist narrates
disciples touching final things (xiii.
by Jesus to His 1-37). This is a
One kind of testament which He bequeaths them. the of Gospel presents single episode of this portion a character different from the others it is that of the
:
widow's mite (xii. 41-44), which the evangelist has in the Temple, placed here because the act, taking place could not be well put elsewhere. The narratives of the Passion, which form the last
are so intimately portion of the Gospel (xiv. 1-16), inter-related that it is unnecessary to show that they form one complete group. They are linked with each
other in a necessary way, beginning with the plot of the Jews up to the arrival of the women at the sepulcher,
which they
empty. The plan upon which the Gospel of Mark is arsince ranged has a triple character: it is psychological, it rests upon the idea of the development of the Jewish of intelligence; it is opposition and the disciples' lack
logical
find
80
and chronological, since it shows in the events the reaction after the welcome given to Jesus; it is
80 The Gospel of Mark gives no accounts of apparitions of the Resurrected One, its end having disappeared at an early date. Those which are read in the received text have been added afterwards by a man acquainted with the other Gospels. According to a statement made by the Armenian work of Edsduniadzin, this person was the
presbyter Aristion.

geographical, since three great periods
it
:
249
divides the history of Jesus into Galilean ministry, itinerant minis-
try, and Jerusalem ministry. It is on the plan adopted by Mark that the narratives of Matthew and Luke also rest, and nothing perof haps shows better than this fact the dependence the first and third evangelists upon the second. Both, however, have been obliged to modify to a certain
extent the arrangement adopted by Mark so as to enable them to introduce into their narratives the ele-
ments they wished to add to those given by him. In the immense majority of cases the portions borrowed by Matthew from Mark are found in his work
in the
into
same order. As in Mark, the account is divided two portions by the episode of Csesarea Philippi.
But
the
in the first portion
somewhat elaborate Mark. This is not because he has represented the order of events differently, but the ordering of Mark's work was much too compact to permit the insertion of elements which Matthew desired to add. The Gospel of Matthew opens by an introduction ii ) which, in addition to what is given in (i. i to iv.
the Gospel of Mark, contains the gospel of the infancy, but in a somewhat detailed way as regards John the
Baptist and the temptation. The account of the Galilean ministry (iv. 2 to xvi. The first (iv. 2 to ix. is divided into four sections.
Matthew has not reproduced composition which we find in
12)
formed, after a short preamble, by two pictures: the preaching by words (v. i to vii. 29) and the which illustrate preaching by deeds (viii. i to ix. 34), and the two terms, "preaching healing," employed in The Seriv. 23 to characterize the activity of Jesus.
34)
is
250
JESUS
the
THE NAZARENE
mon on
inserted (v. I to vii. 29) has been at the of the of place in as a specimen Jesus teaching the time first teaching Mark's Gospel where for the
Mount
(Mark i. 21, 22). The picof turc of the activity Jesus consists of a series of portions borrowed either from Mark or from other
had been referred to
81
sources
it is
arranged
in
such a
way
as to illustrate the
of the Baptist: "The reply of Jesus to the question blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised" (xi. 5). This picture is drawn with a certain objectivity in the sense that the evangelist does not relate the impression which
the acts of Jesus produced. It is in the second section
(ix.
35 to
in
welcome given to Jesus
is
shown
42) that the In the first relief.

x.
on the order followed by Mark, place, by anticipation we have the sending forth of the disciples on a mission, and reproduced according to the Logia and not according to
Mark,
departure. that the missionaries will encounter and the hostility which will assail them which is developed (ix. 35 to
x.
the discourse which accompanies their It is specially the idea of the difficulties
42); then comes, after a note about the
itinerant
the messengers sent preaching (xi. i), the question of by John the Baptist to Jesus, followed by the testimony
of Jesus to John, the phrase about the Kingdom of God suffering violence, and the parable of the children These portions show the forerunner him(xi. 2-19).
self losing faith.
The words
concerning John the
81 The correspondence is made evident by the fact that the impression produced by the Sermon on the Mount is characterized by Matthew in exactly the same terms that Mark had employed in reference to the teaching in the Capernaum synagogue.
25*
Baptist are immediately followed by the malediction pronounced upon the unbelieving Galilean towns, and, whether it be that the evangelist did not wish (xi.
20-24) to terminate this portion by a note exclusively negative, or whether he merely copied the arrangement of his source, there comes next the doxology upon the revelation made unto infants (xi. 25-27) and the call
weary and heavy laden (xi. 28-30). In Chapter xii Matthew takes up again the thread of the narrative of Mark with the two accounts about the disputes concerning the Sabbath (xii. 1-14) and a general notice about the healings accomplished by Jesus and of
to the
the crowds
who came
to
Him
(xii.
15-21).
Still fol-
of posseslowing Mark, he relates next the accusation sion by evil spirits and the reply of Jesus (xii. 22-50), but in a more developed form. Then comes the chap-
1-52), which, although in a manner less obvious than in Mark, has also the character of a theoretical reflection upon the failure of 82 The rejection of Jesus at Nazareth brings us Jesus.
ter of parables
(xiii.
53-5 8 )- For the third section (perplexity of Herod and death of John the for the fourth (the group of Baptist, xiv. 1-13) and
to the
end of
this section (xiii.
the multiplication of loaves, xiv. 13 to xvi. 12) the narrative of Matthew is exactly parallel to that of
Mark. 88
others which 82 The parables given by Mark are completed by come from the Logia. The dependence of Matthew upon Mark it evidenced by the fact that the explanation of the parable of the in Mark, is put after the conclusion tares, which has no equivalent
natural of the teaching in parables, and separated in a not very essentials it appcart In itself the (xiii. 24-30). from parable way to correspond with the parable of the sower in Mark.^ of tome 88 Exception is made of the addition and suppression
unimportant
details.
2S2
JfiSUS
THE NAZARENE
In the second part of the Gospel, extending from Peter's confession to the healing of the blind men at Matthew follows very Jericho (xvi. 13 to xx. 34), In no detail has he the narrative of Mark.
closely any different order.
He
confines himself to omitting
two short passages (Mark ix. 38-41 and 49, 50) and 84 to adding some others. The relationship of Matthew's narrative with that
of
Mark
in the third part,

is
which deals with the Jeru-
One in the second. salem ministry, of that single passage has not been introduced, namely On the other the widow's mite (Mark xii. 41-44). In the some added has portions. hand, Matthew conwhich account of the Passion and the resurrection,
the
same as
and last part of the Gospel (xxvi. is neither omission nor transthere I to xxviii. 7), addition of certain position to be noted, but only the elements of clearly secondary importance. Matthew continues his narrative beyond the
stitutes the fourth
(for us) Mark stops; he finishes his work by the narrative of the apparition in Galilee and of the mission given by Jesus to His disciples (xxviii. It is thus only in the first part of his narrative 8-20)
.
Finally, point at which
that
Matthew diverges sensibly from the arrangement adopted by Mark. This he does for two reasons to
incorporate in his narrative the substance of the Logia and to group in compact groups the similar elements
furnished by either of the two sources at his disposal. The introduction of new matter has not led in Luke's Gospel, as in that of Matthew, to a transforma84
Some
17-19, xvii. 20, xviii. 4),

rativet
narratives derived from Mark (xvi. and others are inserted between the narborrowed from Mark (xvii. 24-27, yiii. io-35 ** 1-16).
are
combined
of
253
The new tion or retouching of the primitive plan. strucin the intercalated matter is, generally speaking,
ture of the second Gospel. Luke opens his work with a dedication to Theophilus, in which he explains the object he has in view (i. 1-4). Then comes the introduction (i. 5 to iv. 13), consisting of two elements, a gospel of the infancy differing from that of Matthew
52) and the narratives concerning John the of Jesus, this last Baptist, the baptism and temptation a narrative being preceded by genealogy (iii. i to iv. of Luke contains 13). The first part of the Gospel
(i.
5 to
ii.
the account of the Galilean ministry of Jesus (iv. 14 to ix. 17), arranged somewhat differently from the account in the second Gospel. After a short reference
to the itinerant preaching (iv. 14, 15), there comes the scene of the preaching of Jesus at Nazareth (iv. Mark gives a 16-30), which anticipates a story that a Luke has here made little later. displacement, for
the episode at Nazareth supposes continuous and oras ganized activity of Jesus at Capernaum (iv. 23), to The displacement gives will be recorded in iv. 31. of the ministry of Jesus a dramatic charthe
opening
two dominating ideas, the first of being that the Gospel was the accomplishment prophecy; the second that it was not welcomed.
acter,
and
illustrates
After the scene of Nazareth, Luke gives the narratives about Jesus at Capernaum (iv. 3i-4 I )> the
flight
of Jesus to a desert place
(iv.
42-43), the
itin-
told more briefly erant preaching in Galilee (iv. 44) account being his of elements certain in than Mark, the and healing of the lepers taken from elsewhere
(v.
12-16). These incidents follow
in the
same order as
in
Mark,
254
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
but before the last of the series Luke inserts the episode of the miraculous draft of fishes (v. i-n), which replaces the more simple narrative of the vocafound in Mark. The picture of the tion of the
disciples
early activity of Jesus
is
followed, as in
Mark, by
second section, wherein a series of conflicts already announces the failure of the preaching of Jesus (v.
(apostleship and the arrangement healing, vi. 12-19) again reproduces of Mark. In what follows there is found, on the conwhich corresponds to the fourth section
17 to
vi.
n).
The
third section
trary, nothing
(accusation of madness and possession). On the other hand, Luke inserts here two sections which are peculiar to him; the fourth consists of a
of
Mark
8*
discourse on the plain (vi. 20-49), which
the equivof the alent, although in a less well-developed form, fifth The Matthew. Sermon on the Mount given by
is
section consists of a series of passages lacking in
Mark,
and of which a portion only is found, again in Matthew dis(Luke vii. I to viii. 3). These portions are fairly inserted similar, and it is difficult to see why they were
at this place. seems to make
sible the
It
it
may
be supposed that Luke,
who
a point to interrupt as rarely as pos-
thread of Mark's narrative, has made use of what he had left out to place at the end of the discourses of Jesus a series of fresh narratives. The sixth section of Luke (viii. 4~ l8 ) corresponds
to the section of parables in Mark, but with certain In the seventh (viii. 19-56) and simplifications.
eighth sections
(ix.
1-9)
Luke only diverges from
38 The episode of Beelzebub is found again in a more developed It it in a different form, and does not seem to be from Mark. The remark of Jesus about His real parents is context (xi. 14).
given elsewhere
(viii.
19-21).

Mark upon
tion of the
255
secondary points. The ninth and last secfirst part shows, when compared with
simplification.
Mark's narrative, considerable

the
first
It only
contains the narrative of the return of the disciples and

multiplication of loaves (ix. 10-17). In the second part of the Gospel, which opens with the Mes-
Luke begins by following as far as the episode of narration very closely Mark's 80 the miracles worked in the name of Jesus (ix. 18ix. 50 as far as xviii. 14 he abandons from Then 50).
sianic confession of Peter,
'the narrative of
Mark in
order to record a whole series
of episodes peculiar to himself, and which constitute a third part of his Gospel. Jesus appears in this to
be constantly on the road and although the geographical development is not distinctly marked, He appears
;
to be going towards Jerusalem.
Analysis shows that this account (which is frequently called, by the way by no means too correctly, the narrative of the journey or
Whether ministry in Perea) is not homogeneous. the subject under consideration be the questioners of the circumstances supposed attending each epiJesus,
87
sode, or the transitions between them, one becomes convinced that the successive narrations forming this part
of the Gospel have no real unity, but that they have been borrowed from various sources and grouped together
appears as though Luke had at a point chosen in interrupted the narrative of Mark
artificially.
It
It is 86 One is not reproduced by Luke single passage of Mark the the conversation of Jesus with His disciples after descending Mount of Transfiguration (Mark ix. 9-13). This passage may have been omitted because it discussed a question of Jewish dogma, which had no interest for readers of Luke.
*T
See on
thii
point
Maurice
Goguel, Introd,
au
N.T.,
u pp.
256
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
an arbitrary manner in order to insert a series of but which he passages which he did not wish to lose, did not know where to place. In xviii. 15 he resumes the thread of Mark's narrative exactly at the point where he had left it, and the fourth part of his narra27) corresponds almost exactly with Mark to the end of the second part of the latter.** The account of the Jerusalem ministry, which forms
tive (xviii. 15 to xix.
the fifth part of the Gospel (xx. 28 to xxi. 38) is also Luke omits the curse fairly similar to that of Mark.
and gives no division into days, stating only at the end of his narrative that Jesus taught during the daytime in the Temple and at night he
upon the
fig tree,
retired to the
Mount
80 of Olives.
general
sixth part, consisting of the account of the Passion and resurrection (xxii. I to xxiv. 53), is in its sufficiently close to the cor-
The
arrangement
but from many responding part of Mark's narration, rather a it special physiognomy presents points of view of certain of the form the or the to disposition owing
more important narratives of which
it consists.
There
is here presented a problem peculiar to the point of view of the sources which Luke has followed in his narrative of the Passion. The account of the resur-
rection consists, after the discovery of the empty tomb, of the apparitions to the two disciples upon the road
to
Emmaus and to the

last
This
account
is
apostles assembled at Jerusalem. followed by that of the Ascension

It follows
(xxiv.
1-53).
It
should be noted that Luke knows
only of Judaic apparitions.

*
from the pre-
Omission of
Mark
(x.
xii.
*'Luke omits Mark

x. 25-28.
35~45) J addition of Luke (xix. 1-27)28-34, of which he gives an equivalent in
He
add*
xix. 39-44*

ment of that of Mark.
257
ceding analysis that the plan of Luke's work has no independent value of its own. It is a mere enlarge-
The
fact that neither
Matthew nor Luke have
at-
tempted to arrange their narrative of the life of Jesus otherwise than Mark had done, and that they confined
themselves to retouching the arrangement adopted by their predecessor, where it was necessary to permit the introduction of new matter, is in itself significative.
It
proves that
Matthew and Luke, who had
at their
had not, disposal sources of information which Mark found nothing therein which supplied them with information concerning the arrangement and the order of the facts. This premier observation is already unfavorable to the hypothesis according to which the to the development of Mark's narrative corresponded
real course of events.
only be solved by direct shall confine ourexamination of Mark's plan. not pretend to do which remarks to some here selves
The problem, however, can
We
plan.
exhaust the problem of the life of Jesus, but which should at least serve to explain the character of Mark's The first remark will bear on the notion of the
Messianic secret.
in
The
episode of Caesarea Philippi
which Peter recognizes Jesus as the (viii. 27-30), Christ, and the story of the Transfiguration (ix. 2-8),
which serves as celestial confirmation for him, form the pivot around which is articulated the entire construction of the Gospel.
disciples being
From
this time
onward the
esoteric prepared to receive this quasi the understand them make teaching, Jesus attempts to and death of the Messiah. necessity of the sufferings Mark answer to the real of Does this construction
258
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
development of the facts? There is reason to doubt There are found in the first part of the Gospel it.
passages which clearly present Jesus, not, doubtless, as the Messiah in the traditional sense, but at least that is, as One sent from God, as the Son of man
some one charged by God
redemption. to the account of the baptism (i. 9-1 1 ) where there is an express Messianic declaration, since it seems that a vision of Jesus and not a originally it was related as
,
We
to accomplish the work of shall not, to establish this, refer
revelation accorded to the people

40
or to the
disci-
ples.
narrator had the idea that He who acted with such revealed who authority must, to be thus obeyed, have forth ? Cersent and chose He whom those to He was
tain narratives, such as the healing of the paralytic
(ii.
disciples
must be asked if episodes such as the calling of the disciples (i. 16-20), the institution of the and the sending forth of the apostleship (iii. 13-19) on mission (vi. 6-13) do not assume that the
But
it
1-12), with the declaration that the Son of
man
has the power on earth to forgive sins (ii. 10), would have no sense if Jesus had presented Himself only as a doctor or even as a prophet. The healings of the
demoniacs, and the discussion about Beelzebub connected with them, are in this connection particularly The expulsions of demons are not, in characteristic.
the evangelist's eyes (and they were not for Jesus) acts essensimple acts of power and mercy they were a in Messianic. They assume, fact, victory gained
tially
40 It may nevertheless be asked if Mark has perfectly preserved the primitive character of the narrative and if he does not represent the people as at Itast the witnesses of the vision of Jesus,
259
over Satan, the prince of demons in other words, the realization in power of the very work which was exof pected from the Messiah, or at least an anticipation this victory. This is shown by the reply of Jesus when
the Pharisees accuse
him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Mark iii. 22). Jesus replies first by reducing the argument If Satan makes war upon himself, to an absurdity. he will not be able to stand his kingdom will come to
;
an end
(iii.
23-26).
:
Then He
this
of these expulsions, and

of the strong
He
gives the explanation does in the parable
man "No one can enter into a strong and house man's spoil his goods except he will first bind the strong man" (iii. 27). The strong man here is Satan, the prince of demons. Jesus is unable to
goods" that is, snatch from him those whom he holds dominion over if He has not first of This victory gained over demons all conquered him. Messianic a is essentially act, and the assertion of
"spoil his
of a Messianic Jesus has for the evangelist the quality declaration. This is shown by the text of Luke, which adds this declaration: "But if I, with the finger of
God, cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God is One other fact proves come upon you" (Luke xi. 20) that the Messianic proclamation of Mark viii. 27
,
could not possess the importance (if the data of Mark are adhered to) which the evangelist himself attributes to it, and marks the appearance in the Gospel tradition of a new idea, and this is the recognition of Jesus
as the
Son of
spirits,"
God by the demoniacs. 41 "The unclean Mark writes, "when they perceived Him, fell
For the evangelist demons are supernatural beings, who see and understand things which escape the knowledge of mankind.
z6o
at
JESUS
feet
THE NAZARENE
Thou
art the
4* Son of God." Doubtless Mark adds that Jesus commanded them to hold their peace (iii. 12 and v. 7), but it is impossible that these declarations which the evangelist represents as frequently occurring could have passed unperceived by the disciples, and that when hearing them that they should not have understood or suspected the Thus Messiah. the was testimony of by Jesus Mark himself the episode of Cassarea Philippi had not
His
and
cried,
in reality the
to
it.
It
is
importance which the evangelist attributes the pivot upon which the narrative is
articulated, but not that of the
Gospel history
itself.
In taking up another point of view, the same con' clusion is reached. "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, said Jesus to His disciples, "and the Son of man shall
1
be delivered unto the chief priests and unto the scribes,
and they
shall
condemn
1 '
Him to
Him
of
to the Gentiles
death, and shall deliver It is in the interest (x. 33).
"The is shown leaving Galilee. be and suffer must Son of man rejected many things, of the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and The arbe killed, and after three days rise again.
dogma
that Jesus
11
rival of Jesus at
Jerusalem
It
is
march
to execution.
presented by Mark as a the Messianic proclamation

is
of Peter which sets in motion the drama. After Jesus has been rejected by the Galilean people, He reveals Himself to His disciples as the Messiah, and goes up
to Jerusalem to die there, in accordance with the plan Did Jesus really of His own free of
redemption.
indicates) go up to Jerusalem, and His departure from Galilee there? go in order to die than those mentioned appears to have had other causes
initiative (as
Mark
"Unclean
spirits
that
is,
those possessed.

by Mark.
261
At
the close of the series of conflicts
we
read: "And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against Him, how
In Mark this they might destroy Him" (iii. 6). been so in the have statement is isolated; it could not
fact. primitive tradition from which he borrowed this No mention could have been made of a plot formed
from against Jesus without having stated what resulted The primitive tradition has not been preserved in it.
been integrity because a dogmatic construction has substituted for the account of the real development of
its
the story of Jesus.
primitive tradition another fragment is perhaps preserved, in a form, by the way, modified. This is in the episode concerning Herod
Of this
and
about Jesus (Mark vi. 14-16). In the way in which we read it, this account is outside the work; it plays no part in the development of facts. It
his perplexity
is
the debris of a tradition in which

in the story
Herod had
to play
an active part
in
of Jesus.
ingeniously conjectured that in
Wellhausen has the place where we read

there
Luke
ix. 9,
primitively to death."
put Besides the passage in Mark (iii. 6), the warning given in viii. 15 ("Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod")
is
"Herod sought to see Him," the phrase, "Herod sought to
was
Him
a trace of this hostility.
There is found in a passage peculiar to the Gospel of Luke an extremely valuable indication with the same At the close of Jesus' stay in Galilee significance. certain Pharisees came and said to Him: "Get Thee kill Thee" (Luke out, and depart hence, for Herod will
xiii.
31).
This tradition must be
historical,
for
it
contradicts the general conception of the evangelists,
2 6z
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
which always represents the Pharisees as resolutely Otherwise how can it be supposed hostile to Jesus. that a human motive should have been subsequently substituted for a dogmatic motive for the departure of
Jesus for Jerusalem ? to die there. Jesus did not come to Jerusalem only His stay appears to have had a longer duration than the Synoptics indicate, otherwise the passage such as
xiii. 34), (xxiii. 37) and (Luke T>e comnot would the from them Logia, preserved by
48
that given by
Matthew
U Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest prehensible the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children to:
her chickens under her gether, even as a hen gathereth 44 wings, and ye would not."
not easy to understand also how within a few drama of the days of which the Synoptics speak, the to time had the have would Passion begin and develop.
It
is
So far was Jesus from coming to Jerusalem to die there that He carefully organized His entry into the Holy City to impress the spectators, and by His action
and His public teaching He did His best to rally the crowd to His cause. Doubtless He must have perceived how dangerous was the part which He played. If He failed, His death was certain, for His enemies would
This
(xiii.
is
3*,
33)
so true that in the reply of Jesus Luke has added a phrase which explains the departure of Jesus for Jerusalem
than by the necessity that the Messiah must not die anywhere other He has thus in his text a doublet which is not in the Holy City. There is, perhaps, also a souvenir of Herod's hostility natural. xxiii 6-16. against Jesus in the nonhistorical account of Luke
44 John presents Jesus as coming to Jerusalem at the time of the hava Feast of Tabernacles that it, the beginning of October. a tradiattempted to show that the Johannine narrative rests here on
We
tion of great value (Introd.
an N.T.,
ii,
p. 411).
THE GOSPEE TRADITION

not disarm.
time, but
263
He
He
did not retreat while there was yet accepted in advance the sacrifice which
45 might be demanded from Him.
Nevertheless, so little was His death a dogmatic He took of necessity for Jesus that in the precaution Jerusalem every evening, He attempted to
quitting
had it not been escape from His enemies and perhaps have succeeded. He would of for the treachery Judas
The Gethsemane
episode
(Mark
xiv.
32-42)
is
in this
respect very characteristic. At the last moment, in Jesus sees the circle of His enemies closing
when
upon
Him, He
is
is
appalled.
The
scene in its essential details
with certainly historic; it is too much in contradiction almost with the idea of the Christ accepting serenity,
to with impassivity, the necessity of His sufferings tradition. it created was that belief warrant the by At the time of the composition of the oldest of our Gospels a dogmatic system had already been substi4e
tuted for the historic treatment of events, and this had happened under conditions such that those who comtraditions piled the Gospels found only fragmentary the story that seen is before them. Nevertheless, it had a quite different character at its origin. of
If, as
Jesus the mythologists say, the Gospel tradition was of history of a myth only the projection upon the plane or of an ideal drama of redemption, the Gospel hisIt would have been tory would be homogeneous. to dogmatic prininstantly manipulated according
By attaching to it a redeeming value, not in virtue of a dogmatic that if God allowed Him to perish it theory, but in the sentiment be because His death was necessary to the accomplishcould
only
ment of His work.

such as is found, for instance, in the ing and death.
6
triple
prophecy of suffer-
264
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
was
be possible to find in it, as is the ciplcs; it would not case in our actually existing Gospels, this lack of adaptation which arises
from the
fact that the tradition
frame into which inadequate or difficult to fit into the of Mark's character The it was desired to force it. narration is only explicable if matter and frame have two different origins. The latter has been elaborated
4T by dogmatic reflection the elements of the narrative have not been created as a function of this frame, but borrowed from tradition to fill it.
;
V.
CONCERNING CERTAIN FACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GOSPEL TRADITION

confirm our conclusions
it
remains for us to exhas sometimes been amine various theories by which desired to explain in whole or in part the origin of the
it
To
Gospel narratives.
48
One observation concerning method must be laid down first of all. The Gospel history is not a homothe form we geneous block which suddenly appeared in are familiar with. The observations which authorize
us to establish the* coexistence of three parallel records and that indeed prove that the tradition has evolved,
from the period which preceded the compiling of Mark's Gospel, doubtless since the primitive times of
the
life
of the Church.
Concerning
this evolution,
we
can partly recognize and partly conjecture the causes, but it is illegitimate to think that the factors which
47 In their the solution totality, of course, and without prejudicing of the critical problem which each one presents. 48 e do not revert here to the function of the prophetic exegesis
which was
dealt* with in the preceding chapter.
265
determined the evolution of the Gospel tradition, its transformations and adaptations, were the same which gave birth to it. Transformation and creation are two very different things, and those factors which explain the first do not suffice to explain the second. This is some of the causes which easily perceived in examining
have influenced the evolution of the tradition and by which certain persons have sometimes tried to explain
its
birth.
I.
Folklore
In the Gospels there are elements analogous to certain themes developed in the folklore of different 49 races which must have the same origin, but one can only explain by this fact certain details of secondary with the importance having no organic relationships most which and essentials of the narratives, frequently are only met with in the youngest forms of the tradition.
Conclusions which hold good for these details cannot properly be extended to the whole body of Critics have long since observed literature.
Gospel
the
that the darkness which covered the whole earth at
of the death of Jesus (Mark xv. 33 Luke xxiii. 44; Matt, xxvii. 45), the earthquakes and the resurrections spoken of by Matthew (xxvii. 52, 53), are occurrences which are met with outside the Gospels,
moment
but it the most widely different circumstances; fact this from conclude to would be no more legitimate that the death of Jesus is a myth than it would be to existed presume that Julius Caesar had never really
in
49 P. Saintyves, Essais
tb.
50
de folk-lore btbligue, Paris.
266
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
because numerous writers have related that his death 51 was accompanied by signs not less extraordinary.
races legends analogous to the Gospel narratives of the walking upon the waters Matt. xiv. 22-23), or of the multivi.
There are among various
(Mark
;
45-52;
Matt xjv I 3plication of loaves (Mark vi. 31-43? 21 Luke ix. 10-17; John vi. 1-13)) and the parallels
-
established by
M.
are instructive.
Saintyves are as interesting as they Their relations with the Gospel epiless direct
than those presented by certain Old Testament texts, and, above all, they only bear upon certain subordinate details. In the narra-
sode are, however,
tives of the multiplication of loaves the miracle is not the essential thing. The entire interest is concentrated
on the meal of Jesus and His disciples, in which the crowd took part. As for the episode of the walking on the waters, nothing proves that it is (at any rate in the form in which we have it) a primary element of the tradition. Doubtless Mark and Matthew in relatmiracle. The ing it considered they were narrating a last account this when But same maybe said of John.
(especially)
is
(which might
at first
that Jesus who reached the Capernaum shore of the lake before the
disciples,
there remains an impression have seemed to be extraordinary) had made the journey on foot, had
read,
possible to conceive a quite natural explanation of this fact. The mythical and supernatural element appears to have intervened, not at the origin of the tradition, but
it
who had
crossed
in the boat.
It
is
in the course
of
82
its
literary development.
What
is
"Such
as Plutarch
(C**ar), Virgil
(Georges
I),
Ovid
(Mtta*
morphoict).
What
it
here said concerning the walking on the waters
may be
267
there surprising in the fact that the editors of the Gosconsider Jesus an ordinary man, pels, who did not should have attributed a supernatural power to Him,
over the elements?

presence in the Gospel narratives of certain themes borrowed from myth or folklore is evidence of the already complex degree of evolution shown in
The
the tradition as
we have
it,
but
it
the entire tradition
had from
its
does not prove that beginnings an exclu-
sively mythical character.
2.
Inspiration and Visions
considers that one of the principal sources of the Gospel history is inspiration, and that in In the first place the oracles of ina double sense.
M. Couchoud
communications spired persons, considered as direct to Jesus in attributed been have from Christ Himself,
a so-called historical ministry; then certain acts, parcertain cures, performed by the Christians
ticularly
and explained by the power of the Christ who guided them, came to be considered as having been accomthe cures wrought by plished by Jesus Himself. Thus Peter in the name of Christ, the teaching imparted by
the words pronounced in ecstasy by Stephen under the influence of the spiritual Christ, came to be
Him,
considered as the acts and speeches of a Jesus whose from biography was thus constituted by a transference
the history of the early Christians.
of the tempest, which repeated regarding the account of the stilling Matt Tiii. appears to be only a variant of it (see Mark iv. 35-41 ;
23-27; Luke
viii.
22).
268
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
it may appear seductive, of Jesus are portrayed as teachings the situation existing to but related, not to His time, in the early Church when the Gospels were compiled. The fourth Gospel commits an evident anachronism in
for
The theory is many of the
ingenious;
as a penalty speaking of exclusion from the synagogue with which those who in the lifetime of Jesus recognized His Messiahship were threatened (ix. 22,
xii.
42), and the anachronism
is
none the
less
evident
in the Synoptics,
where Jesus is reputed to have spoken of the appearance of His disciples "before governors 53 and kings" (Matt. x. 18; Mark xiii. 9; Luke xxi. been no creation here, but merely the has There 12).
the needs of those for adaptation of the tradition to whom the Gospels were written. It is not surprising
that the authors of popular books have not carefully of Jesus and its distinguished between the teaching
application.
We
have shown,
(Chap. V),
distinction
case of the apostle Paul that in the primitive Church a very clear
in the
was drawn between the word of the Lord
and the revelations of inspired persons. In these conditions it is not conceivable that the two things could have been confounded. There is no reason to suppose
that the distinction established
in
the primitive period,

spiritual gifts,
which was the greatest flowering time of
became
the intensity of the spiritual life became less vigorous. It is not of the Gospel narratives possible to explain the origin The do. by visions, as M. Couchoud would like to u For I have received of the Lord," which phrase,
less clear later on, at a time
when
"The
term
used
by the
Gospeli
may
also
be translated
by
26$
Paul uses in I Cor. xi. 23, has not the meaning which he attributes to it, as we have seen, but it implies the existence and utilization of an earlier tradition.
beginning of the narrative a vision that accompanying the baptism of Jesus is found but it is expressly presented by Mark (i. 9-11) as a
It is true at the
vision of Jesus
and from the

64
fact that Jesus, like Paul,
might have had
visions,
it
by no means follows that
He
was never an
historical personage.
the Transfiguration (Mark ix. 2-8), plays a part in the second portion of the evanin any case is only a subordinate one, gelist, but this
vision,
One other
the Transfiguration being only the celestial confirmation of Peter's confession. This it is which is the true it is immediately after pivot of the Gospel history, since 1 art the Christ/ "Thou Peter has declared to Jesus, that the story takes a new orientation with the first announcement of the sufferings and death of the Messiah.
The
Transfiguration, in fact,
is
ill-placed in the
an account story of Jesus. It must have been originally not been has which Risen the of One, of the apparition it implied a preserved in its primitive form because the faith of the conception of the Messiahship which
Church had outgrown."

a very small Visions, however, occupy in the life of Jesus only of the Baptism and Transfiguration, account the of Outside place of the where, in so far as one can judge of the first meaning and not of narrative, it is a question of a vision of the disciples It is that referred to in the phrase, "I Jesus, we only note one saw Satan falling from heaven as lightning" (Luke x. 18), and here more than a figurative again it must be asked if this is anything
5
expression.
8
See our study.
interpretation
du
recit
Notes d'histoire faangelique, ii (Esgutsse d'un* Revue d'hist. dei dt la transfiguration).
Religions, Ixxxi, 1920, pp. 145 **
"9*
270
3.
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of Material
The Transference
Borrowed from
the
Apostolic History
It is conceivable that the tradition
of the words and
sayings of Jesus may have been enriched by aphorisms or declarations which were not originally attributed 56 to Him, but we are unable to discover with certainty
It any fact of this kind in the Gospel tradition. would, moreover, only be a question of agglomeration and would presuppose the existence of the Gospel
57
tradition.
It is true that the case
by Stephen receive my spirit" and pointed out: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts vii. 60). have an evident affinity with those which Luke
at the
moment u Lord Jesus,
of the two sentences spoken of martyrdom has been
They
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (xxiii. 34), and spirit" (xxiii. "Father, into Thy hands I commend Certain writers have believed it possible to 46). admit that between the two groups of sentences there
attributes to the dying Jesus
:
My
is
a relation of dependence, the book of Acts being the It is true that M. Loisy leans, original member.
this
that along with certain other critics, to the idea the to evangelists' portion of the Acts is prior
ac-
count ; but even

it
if this
were proved beyond
all
question,
would be inadmissible to draw conclusions of a too

It it thus, for instance, that
Acts (i. 15 and xi 6) put into the announcement of the baptism by the Spirit which the Synoptics all give as a sentence of John the Baptist. " The Gospels attribute both to John the Baptist and to Jesus the doubtless an it is there speech about the tree and its fruits, but It is also possible image which must be older than John the Baptist that Jesus had adopted a theme of the teaching of John the Baptist
lipt of Jesus the
271
sweeping and too rigorous character, since these two be found sayings of Jesus (the first of which is not to
in the primitive text
of Luke) are in any case subordinate elements foreign to the most ancient tradition of the Passion. The dependence of Luke upon the Acts
is,
The Acts were besides, not absolutely certain. written after the third Gospel by the same author or In telling the story of Stephen's the same editor.
martyrdom he
could, even if he
knew and used
more
ancient tradition, have introduced details which recalled the Passion of Jesus, thus obeying a motive which has inspired the attitude of martyrs and confessors and has had a powerful influence on the whole
literature of hagiology.
If
from words we pass to

life
narratives, the theory of
of Jesus of that which is not more originally belonged to the apostolic history is the analogy here relied fact The upon plausible.
the transference to the
exists (indeed sufficiently striking) which apparently between a series of narratives relating to Peter and a series of miracles attributed to Jesus.
There are three passages
specially
:
which
it is
neces-
sary to consider in this connection I. That in the Acts (v. 15, 16) referring to the sick he might brought from all parts to Peter in order that
cure
them by
his
shadow passing over them.
This
Mark vi. 53 f passage presents certain analogies with when related is it how, Jesus returned to 56, in which Gennesareth after the first multiplication of loaves,
all they brought to Him from the surrounding country those how and He the sick to the places where passed,
who
the hem of His garonly succeeded in touching The whole. made analogy between the ment were
272
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
The
two accounts should not lead us to ignore and neglect

episode in the story of Jesus possesses an organic importance which it has not in that of Peter. It is found in the Gospel at a
the differences between them.
time when Jesus was continually on the road. On the contrary, Peter was at Jerusalem at the time referred
to in the passage in the Acts. The extraordinary concourse of the sick and their eagerness are not justified as in the case of the Gospel narrative; there is, therefore, a characteristic accentuation of the miraculous
element
in
it.
The same
conclusion
is
forced on us
if
we
note that the cures of Jesus took place by actual contact, while those of Peter required only the mere
passage of his shadow. 2. At Lydda Peter cured the impotent man, /Eneas, who for eight years had lain upon a pallet (Acts ix. the healing of 32-35). This has been compared with
the paralytic in Mark ii. 1-12. But two details essenFirst tial in Mark's narrative are lacking in the Acts. of all the proof of an extraordinary faith given by the
who, in order to get at Jesus, remove a part of the roof of the house. Then follows
sick
man and
his bearers,
the discussion upon the forgiveness of sins. The account in Acts is thus a simplification of that in the Gospel; originality cannot be on its side.
woman named Tabitha (in Greek, Dorcas, which means Gazelle), who did much good and was extremely charitable, had just died. Her
3.
At Joppa
body was
an upper room, and messengers were sent to seek Peter at Lydda. The latter having been conducted to the place where the corpse was lying, sent every one out of the room, and after offering a and said: "Tabitha, prayer, turned towards the corpse
laid in

1
273
arise!'
The woman
then opened her eyes and sat up.
Peter took her by the hand and assisted her to rise. Calling the saints and the widows, he presented her to them alive (Acts ix. 36-43) This narration has strik.
ing analogies with the account of the raising of the daughter of Jairus in Mark. When Jesus, after His
excursion to Gerasa, returned to the western shore of the lake, a ruler of the synagogue named Jairus came
to
Him, beseeching Him
to
come and
lay
His hands
upon His daughter, then at the point of death. While that the Jesus is on His way, news is brought to Jairus child is dead. Jesus replied to Jairus "Be not afraid,
:
He found a only believe." crowd of people weeping and lamenting. He sent them all away, only keeping with Him the father and
Arrived at the house,
had of brought with Him. He entered into the chamber the hand the the dead, and taking pronounces body by the words in Aramaic, "Talitha Kumi," which, being arise." The interpreted, is "Damsel, I say unto thee, restores child, who was twelve years old, arose. Jesus her to her parents, and commanded that something
mother of the
child
and the three
disciples
He
should be given her to eat.
improbable that these two narratives arc in which we are familiar with them form in the side on which But other. each of independent
It is
at least
quite
is
In the Gospel this story is combined the healing of the woman very closely with that of with the issue of blood (Mark v. 25, etc.), while in the Acts it is isolated. This already is favorable to
the priority?
On the other the priority of the Gospel narrative. discloses Tabitha of hand, the story of the resurrection that the influence of two Old Testament narratives
274
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
woman by
of the resurrection of the Sarepta widow's son by of the Elijah (i Kings xvii) and that of the raising
child of the
iv.
Shunamite
therefore a
Elisha
(2 Kings
33). Mark's, where these influences are not revealed. The account in the Acts is also more marvelous, for it is a matter of the resurrection of a person dead already several days, while in the Gospel the child has just
It
is
more developed account than
and certain details lead one to think that originot of resurrection. nally it was a matter of healing and account Mark's in The final touch belongs to a very
died,
as exercising primitive conception representing Jesus Between the name the medical activity of a rabbi. u 58 Talitha Kumi" the and the words "Tabitha"
If it were a real analogy, analogy is quite superficial. taken alone it would not enable us to say which is the original. Here, again, the account in Acts appears subordinate to that of the Gospel, which some have
59
wished to derive from the former. The two accounts of the cure of the impotent man and the raising of Dorcas are connected in the Acts. Those of the Gospels to which they have been com-
pared belong to two different
cycles.
And
finally,
the
narratives concerning Peter in the book of Acts are of among the least solid and the most recent portions
have, in particular, a very close relationship with the story of Cornelius (Acts x. I to xi. 18), and not to Paul and the designed to attribute to Peter Church at Antioch the initiative of the preaching of
it.
They
w Which
i*
certified
as
woman's name.
See
Preuschen, Dig
Apoitclgeschichtt, Tubingen, 1912. and It would completely disappear even if, with Wellhausen admitted on the Kloitermann, the reading "Rabitha Kumi" were authority of certain Western witneiset (Dot EvangMum Marti).
275
a narrative whose misleadthe Gospel to the pagans and admitted unanimously as is obvious, ing character
such by the
critics.
4.
The Liturgy
There remains to examine one last factor through whose action it has been believed the formation of the
Gospels could be explained.
factor,
This
is
the liturgical
Loisy thinks that because of their style a probe attributed to the phetico-liturgical character must
fact would Gospels, and he has pointed out that this Discussions serious not be without very consequences. about the historical character of the Gospels would,
in his opinion,
M.
lose a great part of their import if
"these were handbooks relating to the cult of the Lord Christ, if the oracles of the Lord Jesus had been worded by the prophets of the first Christian age, if
the account of the Passion was related to the ritual or 80 rituals of the Christian Passover in early times."
idea that the Gospels are only liturgical handbooks cannot in any case be considered as established.
The
In order to justify it, M. Loisy invokes the rhythm, but up to the present, notwithstanding various deliberate attempts (often ingenious), it has been imof this rhythm. It is hardly possible to discover the law are in the New Testament, there that be to disputed
in the Epistles of
Paul as well as
in the
Gospel, pas-
is perceptible, and sages where a certain periodicity as considered be which may rhythmic. But so long as with no one succeeds in defining precision what constio
Loisy,
Revue
crttigue, 1923, P-
4i.
276
tutcs a line
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
it
and a strophe,
sider the Gospels
in their
be impossible to conand with even entirety

will
more reason the whole New Testament as written in the Sibylline rhythmic form more or less resembling
discoverable in the Gospels most characteristic forms of frequently does not surpass the Oriental thought, with its predilection for parallelism
Books.
The rhythm
antithesis, for opposition, enumeration and gradawhich it tion, which follow from the dialectical process
and
which justifies us habitually employs. There is nothing in calling this a liturgical style properly so called. There is, besides, a very grave objection to the sugfor public gestion that the Gospels were compiled in first-century worship; it is that there is no trace 61 the of use a of Gospels, liturgical Christianity
14 and in Matt. xxiv. 15, "Let him that readeth understand," may refer to a 62 but it is found in the Synoptic public reading, have had an inApocalypse, which seems originally to
The remark
in
Mark
xiii.
dependent existence.
68
The
sole texts
first
cerning the Christian cult of the
possess concentury, that of
we
nothing equivalent
61 Neither is there any trace of a liturgical reading of the Epistles. 62 It is not certain that this note is primitive. Luke (xxi. 20) has His text, nevertheless, in spite of the to it.
phrase, have tried elsewhere to show flee to the mountains," is the same. that Luke's text is the oldest, and that it ha* been corrected in Matthew and Mark to dissociate the siege of Jerusalem from the events of the end. If this is so, the note may be considered as a hint to the reader, designed to emphasize the import of the new
substitution of "Jerusalem besieged" for "abomination of desolation," The form of the is closely related to that of Mark and Matthew. "and when ye shall see ... then let them that are in Judea
We
indication.
68
(See Goguel, Introd. au. N.T., i, pp. 301 ** "00 to have been, from the beginning, designed for public reading, as is shown by the remark in Apoc. i. 3 : "Happy is he who reads and happy are those who barken to the works of
The Apocalypses seem
prophecy and
who
keep what
is
there written."

Chapters
thians
277
xii and xiv of the first Epistle to the Corinand that of the Didache, 84 contain no allusion to
the reading of the Holy Scriptures at public worship, 65 The first not even the reading of the Old Testament.
certification
of a cultural reading of the Gospels
is
met with
Martyr (ApoL, i. 67). The reading of the Gospels was certainly not in his time a novThere is, however, nothing to authorize us to elty.
in Justin
In the century. present state of research concerning the formation of the New Testament canon it seems to be established
date this custom back to the
first
that public reading
was one of the
causes, not the con-
That an organic sequences, of their canonization. relation exists between the Gospel narratives and the
eucharistic ritual
and in particular it is not doubtful that the divergence between the three Synoptic accounts on one side and the Johannine account on
is
evident,
the other, respecting the date of the death of Jesus, of the corresponds to a difference between the rituals is a relation Roman Church and those of Asia, but this
complex one.
If the rites influenced the narratives,
these latter, especially at the period of origin, must also have influenced the rites. perfectly liturgical which is related narratives the of Gospel explanation the Christian if be to the rites would only possible rites could be entirely reduced to those of an earlier
age.
Now
64 It
this
is
a thesis
be said
which cannot be considered as
that the first portion of the Didache, of the moral teaching of the Gospels for the use of catechumens, would not be comprehensible if the Gospels had been at the time this book was composed the object of a regular reading. 5 There is no allusion made, either, in what Paul says of the
may even
a
which
is
summary
Christian cult.
278
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
established, especially in the case of the Eucharist. However important the contacts may be, especially in
subordinate forms, which Christianity, there is in
it
it
shows with
rites foreign to
something original which
does not owe
its
existence to borrowing.
As
confirma-
tion of this statement, the rite of baptism (which in
seems to be the transformation and adaptation of a Jewish rite) is not connected by Christian tradition with an episode of the life of Jesus. (See
itself
UEucharistie des origines a Justin Martyr, Goguel.) The interpretation of the Gospel history as a liturgy is not to be set aside only because of its hypothetical character and because it is the explanation of something partly obscure by something totally unknown, but still more because it clashes with this decisive obnamely that the influence of the cult on the
tradition could only be exercised at a time when the traat least in its essential dition was already established
details.
66
jection,
With even greater reason may we set aside without detailed discussion the liturgical explanations of certain narratives proposed by M. Saintyves. For example, that of the multiplication of loaves "by
a mystery cult analogous to that of Dionysius," which he supposes "existed in Judaism, or at any rate among the Syrians" (Estais) ; the waters "by a ceremony conor, again, that of the walking on
nected with a seasonal and initiation ritual which and Christian the ritual of the Passover/*
was both Jewish
If these are gratuitous hypotheses, what is to be thought of the veil by a rite thus explanation of the rending of the (Temple) described: "When the annual victim which the early Christians
sacrificed died, or was on the point of death, in order to show of the Eternal High clearly that this victim was fulfilling the part in pieces, and the porrent was veil the sanctuary Priest, perhaps
tions
that
not
were dispersed?" (E*sai$, p. 424). It is unnecessary to add one text and for good reason is cited to prove the
existence of this rite.
CHAPTER XI
THE ORIGIN OF THE FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION AND ITS FUNCTION IN

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY
I.
THE RESURRECTION PROBLEM
ONE
against
of the chief objections which M. Couchoud raises the historical character of Jesus is the diffi-
within the space culty he finds in understanding how, of a man could the deification of a single generation, have taken place, and this upon the territory of Judaism.
did this deification take place, and how did men who had lived close to Jesus come to identify Him with a divine Being, if not (as M. Couchoud says in a phrase which somewhat exceeds the data of the least with His Son texts) with Jehovah Himself, as
How
and Messiah?
Primitive
Christianity
was not a school of
phi-
a common losophers, but a group of believers practicing unite a body not He did worship of the Lord Jesus. of men who admired the teaching of a Master and desired to take
Him
as
a rule for their lives
2
;
He
field
brought together worshipers.

the
In the Christian
word "disciples" possesses a sense quite different from that which it has in the expression "disciples of
l
Thc
subordination
of
Christ to
God
is,
in
fact,
very clearly
affirmed by Paul (i Cor. xv. 27, 28).

* Even considering him by God.
thia teaching to
have been
directly revealed to
*79
2 8o
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Plato or Aristotle." It is the equivalent of the word 11 which is the that is, of consecrated ones "saints
most usual name for the faithful. The Christians and not only thinkers
like
Paul or
the author of the fourth Gospel, but also the humblest and least philosophical among them only considered of the history as an episode in a cosmic drama
Gospel
much vaster dimensions. How did they reach this point of view? That which convinced them that Jesus was more than a man was the conviction that He had risen
from the dead. Paul expresses the
lievers
when he
said
feeling of all be"If Christ be not risen from the
dead, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (i Cor. xv. 14). The belief in the resurrection is indeed the foundation upon which the whole structure of primitive Christianity is built. The story of its birth is nothing more than the formation of the faith
in the resurrection.
In order that we
in
may form an
idea of the conditions
appeared, it is necessary, without and traditions neglecting the criticism of the narratives this concerning the apparitions, first of all to examine
which
this belief
Christians picproblem. In what manner did the early Christ? ture to themselves the life of the risen The principal problems which are presented by the resurrection narratives may be reduced to three: I. What is the relation between the discovery of the
of empty tomb and the apparitions? Upon which two these of or rather upon which these two facts
beliefs
does the faith in the resurrection rest? Were there really at its origin two facts, real or supposed or has one been the empty tomb and the apparitions
deduced from the other?
And upon
this hypothesis,
FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION

was His
it
281
shown Himself to found empty? been have must tomb disciples, His Or, on the contrary, was it the belief in the empty tomb
believed that Jesus, having
in the resur-
which predisposed men's minds to believe
rection and fulfilled the psychological conditions which prepared and caused the visions?
2.
How was
the tradition born which fixed the time

*
of the resurrection on the morning of the third day? of the accounts 3. How can the extreme diversity
of the apparitions be explained? The anxiety to make them concordant has cost the harmonizers many efforts, but the results obtained are not proportionate
to the wealth of ingenuity expended. This diversity is much greater than is to be observed in any other part
of the Gospel history. This fact is all the more strikthe resuring seeing the very great importance which rection story had for the early Christian faith. The noticeable on one point: the is
diversity particularly place of the apparitions.
Two
forms of the tradition
may
be distinguished, one which localizes the apparitions in Galilee, the other in Judea.
Criticism has particularly emphasized the considerable influence of apologetic interests on the narratives of the apparitions. The episode of the guard placed over the sepulcher (see Matt, xxvii and xxviii) is a in characteristic example of a narrative imagined
tomb explained the discovery of the empty to by a nocturnal visit of the disciples, who, according The Master. their of off the body them, had carried
good
faith certainly
to reply to a Jewish objection.
The Jews
Behind the present tradition there is perceptible one of older form which attributed to the body of Jesus a period in the tomb xii. 40). lasting three days and three nights (Matt.
282
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
to prevent such reply was that all necessary measures 4 taken. been a maneuver had But the apologetic factor does not explain the extreme diversity of the apparition narratives. One realizes this in observing the complexity, improbability and which M. Voelarbitrary character of the criticisms by
of Amsterdam, has attempted to reduce them to one common source, alleged to be a vision of Peter in his home in Galilee, followed by a collective vision of the apostles on the shores of the lake of Galilee. The theories elaborated to explain the empty tomb are
ter,
scarcely
more
satisfactory. All of
them employ
a con-
or abduction of the jectural factor, apparent death, or even by corpse of Jesus, either by Jews, Romans,
disciples.
Even
if
there were not so

if all
much of
arbitrary in these hypotheses,
the purely the objections ad-
vanced were refuted, if the tomb had, indeed, been found empty, it would still be true that the fact would not have failed to play an important part in the genesis of faith in the resurrection, whereas we are expressly
told by Mark that the women kept silence concerning the discovery they had made and the message they had received (Mark xvi. 8). The later accounts have at-
tempted to diminish the strangeness of the simple tomb and juxtaposition of the discovery of the empty
the apparitions without establishing organic relationhave done so only in a ship between them, but they timid and imperfect way which in no degree succeeds
in
*
welding the two things together/

The
accounts of Luke
and John have an obviously apologetic
character.
'Matthew (xxviii. women, immediately
to the 9, to) mentions an apparition of Jesus after the discovery of the empty tomb. Jesus
renews the message already given by the angel.
The
disciples
go
283
us the choice Literary criticism alone does not permit are which of one out of two hypotheses equally possible, and to decide if the accounts of the apparitions have been subsequently introduced to establish the
reality of the resurrection
and
set aside the divergent
or if the discovery explanations of the empty tomb, from visions and deduced been has tomb of the empty the reality incorporated into the tradition to establish
Various theories have been pro"the third posed to explain the genesis of the formula Even if they were less hypothetical than they
of the apparitions.
day."
our documentation, they would and would only have a bearing on a subordinate point, leave the true problem existing in its entirety.
are, in the conditions of
II.
THE PAULINE CONCEPTION OF

RESURRECTION
CHRIST'S
The
decisive fact in the genesis of Christianity
was
neither the discovery of the empty tomb nor the apfaith in the pearances of Jesus to His disciples, but
to Galilee to the meeting place Jesus had given them, and there He to Luke (xxiv. 9-11) appears to them (verses 16-20). According the women bring also the message of the angel to the disciples, but However, Luke states that the these latter do not believe them.
disciples
is
directly attributed to Peter (in
version,
a4,
have been to the tomb and found it empty. This action is Luke xxiv 8), but this verse, which absent from manuscript D and in several forms of the old Latin It betrays the influence of Luke xxiv. is much suspected.
and must originate from John's narrative. In the fourth Gospel Mary Magdalene, on her own initiative, goes to inform Peter and the the disciples that she has found the tomb empty.
(xx. 1-18)
unnamed
it
is only of the latter that disciple run there at once, but it that he believed. Jesus appears afterwards to Mary to the disciples the news of Magdalene, who is charged to carry
it
aid
His resurrection.
she
is
She carries out this task, but
it
is
not said
how
received*
284
JESUS THE NAZARENE

From
the religious point of view,
it is
resurrection.
not
facts which have importance, but ideas and sentiments.

It is to the study of the conception of the early Christians of the risen Christ that it is necessary to address
ourselves.
We possess one precise and accurately dated
document (it was written about 55 or 56), which shows us how the apostle Paul conceived the person and import of the risen Christ. This is the fifteenth
Corinthians. The chapter of the first Epistle to the affirmation of the resurrection (verse 4) is confirmed The by an account of the apparitions (verses 5-8). the thought in the text would be exactly rendered by He that is the is "Christ risen; apstatement: proof the Twelve," etc. The unto then unto Cephas, peared
at the discovery of the empty tomb is not mentioned between understood as considered be most it might
;
the interment and the resurrection, each formally attested both as facts and the fulfillment of prophecies.
To conclude from the
silence of the apostle that he
ignorant of the tradition be going too far. It is still none the less true that, for Paul, faith in the resurrection is linked with the apparitions
was about the empty tomb would
and not with an empty tomb, and
this conclusion
is not only true as regards Paul, but also for the whole Christian preaching of his time, for all that was transmitted in unanimity and taught equally by Judaic or
Gentile Christians.
In the course of the chapter Paul establishes a very close relation, intimate and organic, between the resurrection of Christ and that of believers. He sees in the
resurrection of Jesus the guarantee of that of the faithful. Christ inaugurates a series of resurrections; is the first-born among the dead, the chief of the risen.
He
285
We are, therefore,
able to apply to Christ what is said concerning the resurrection in general. Christ is thus a spiritual being, which does not mean (given the Hebraic anthropology to which Paul remains faithful) that
"pure spirit," but only that He is endowed with a special organism, whose attributes are different, and in a certain degree opposed to those belonging to Paul characterizes the terterrestrial organisms.
He
is
or psychic body of which the earthly man consists by a series of terms such as corruptible, mortal, confeeble, dishonor. This being is a living "psyche," stituted by flesh and blood. The body of the heavenly man, on the contrary, possesses immortality he is the
restrial
;
"pneuma zoopoioun," and he
is
characterized by the
terms "incorruptible," "glorious," "powerful." The are the prototypes of these two species of beings first man Adam and the second Adam, who is the
Christ.
The
a
risen Christ, therefore, in Paul's view, possesses

essentially different
from that which He posIt is formed of a life. subsuperior substance, the spirit, and is no longer the necessities which jected to the contingencies and
body
sessed during His earthly
humanity; it is no longer subjected (as we should of physics or say in modern terminology) to the laws confirmed is This by the fact that perhaps physiology. uses the word he when Paul speaks of apparitions
affect
with a dative as though he would indicate that in these experiences the initiative belongs to the Christ: He shows Himself to the disciples rather than these
u$0r),
the expression which Paul uses must not be pushed to the point of reducing the apparitions in his thought to simple visions with no reality
see
Him. However,
286
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
who were favored
outside the consciousness of those
with them.
and his ideas on this point do not appear to diverge from those of the rest of the Church of his time the risen Christ lives no longer an
Thus
in Paul's
view
earthly
life.
interruption slumber, resumes his former life, as might be conceived to be the case for the daughter of Jairus, the young man of Nam, or Lazarus. The earthly life of Jesus
human being who, after an comparable to a more or less prolonged

is
He
not a
was
has
ended on Calvary; something new began at a celestial life, but in which Christ the resurrection
really
still
power of intervening in the who are His own and of influencing them.
the
It
life
of those
does not appear that Paul assigns to the period duraduring which the apparitions occurred a definite is which of last the tion. Those mentioned by him
that which he himself experienced upon the Damascus road cannot in any case by restricted to the short period of forty days spoken of in the Acts (i. 3). Furthermore, although concerning the apparition which he had seen, Paul says, "and last of all, He was seen by
me also" ( i Cor* xv. 8 ) there is no theoretical reason why the series of apparitions should be at an end. The Pauline conception of Christ glorified leaves no
,
The vision of Peter or that place for the Ascension. road are not differentiated Damascus of Paul on the from the visions and revelations of the Lord referred
to in 2 Cor.
Paul
to
in
rather, since the terms employed by Cor. xv. 8 imply that the vision upon the road
xii, or,
Damascus
closes the series of the first apparitions,
the difference between them and those which occurred later can only consist in this, that the later ones arc not,

like the first, the creative source
287
of belief in the resur-
rection and of the apostolic vocation. Thus, in Paul's view, He who showed Himself to
the apostles was the Christ glorified, as He existed in heaven. There was a personal identity between this Being and the Jesus whose body was laid in the tomb,
but
body had undergone the transformation through which all the bodies of the elect would pass In at the second coming of the Lord ( I Cor. xv. 5 1 ) Paul's view the Lord's body did not remain in the
this
.
tomb, but the fact that he does not consider

to say so expressly
is
it
necessary
spiritualist
important and significative. An analogous conception, although of a more emphatically nature, is met with in certain elements of
the Johannine tradition. The activity of the Risen One upon the faithful is therein replaced to a certain extent
by that of the
Spirit.
is
The
substitution of the Spirit for the Christ
not,
however, carried to its extreme consequence that is, the suppression of apparitions. The influence exerted
to perby the current Gospel tradition was too strong
mit John's
7
thought.
obedience to the inner logic of his Several Gospel narratives contain details
full
which directly
6
recall the Pauline conception of Christ

et
1*
notion Johannique de VEtprit
tes antecedents historiquei,

distinctly
Goguel.
7
The
marked
to
original Johannine conception in an early form of the Gospel,

tell
was perhaps more
end with the
brothers and
to
where the narrative appears sentence of Jesus to Mary Magdalene: "Go to my them that I ascend to My Father and your Father,
and your God" (xx. 27). It is difficult, indeed, to conceive that such a message could have been originally followed by
my God
other apparitions of the risen Jesus. The narrative of the apparia tradition tion to Mary Magdalene might thus be the remains of in celestial in which the Gospel history ended by the return of Christ
glory.
288
glorified.
JESUS
u
:
THE NAZARENE
is
For example, there
in
Matthew
the dec-
with you always, even laration of Jesus until the end of the world." He who thus speaks is to the ordinary conditions of existence. In not
!
Lo
am
subject the episode of Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 13-32) there are three features, not marked, it is true, with equal distinctness.
First of all
and
this is only slightly indi-
Jesus seems to appear in a somewhat mysterious way at the side of the two disciples walking and this is the second feature along the road. These
cated
do not recognize
Him
at
first.
The very appear-
ance, therefore, of Jesus
moment when Jesus had
He
vanishes
literally,
had changed. Finally, at the just made Himself recognized, He becomes invisible which
seems to imply that the Risen One possessed the faculty of rendering Himself at will either visible or invisible
in
any
case
to
appear
and
to
disappear
suddenly. In the account of the apparition at Jerusalem which Luke gives it is expressly stated the disciples thought
In the Johannine they beheld a phantom (xxiv. 27). account Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, "Touch not" (xx. 17). In the present form of the narrative this seems to suppose that Jesus, having left the tomb,
Me
to undergo in heaven a kind of purification before being able to resume contact with His disciples.
was obliged
But
it
is
that
human hands must
possible that this detail signified originally not touch the glorified body of
the Risen One.
In the Johannine account of the first appearance to the apostles, Jesus is found suddenly
8 The same feature is found in the fourth Gospel, in the account of the apparition to Mary Magdalene (xx. 15) and in the scene on the shore of the lake (xxi. 4).

in the
289
midst of His followers, who had met together, with the doors shut, owing to the fear they had of the
Jews
(xx. 19).
III.
THE CONCEPT OF THE RETURN OF CHRIST TO

MATERIAL LIFE
narratives also contain an entirely different concept, which may be designated by the term "revivification/' The idea seems to be that the life
The Gospel
of Jesus
resumed after having been interrupted by the drama on Calvary. Thomas was invited to put his and his hand into the fingers upon the nail marks
is
wound
xx. 27). Luke insists that with a phantom, but with not the apostles are dealing, 9 a Being who can be felt and who eats (Luke xxiv.
in Jesus' side
(John
and 39-42). In the account of the walk to Emmaus, the xxi. less distinctly in John disciples recognize 13, their Master when He performs the familiar gesture of the breaking of bread. Finally, in Acts i. 3 it is stated that Jesus, during the forty days which preceded
idea that a phantom cannot cat, and that an apparition taken for a spirit offers a decisive proof of his corporeal to be widely disseminated reality by sitting down to a repast, appears It serves as the theme of a popular song, composed in folklore at the camp at Holzmmden by a soldier, native of Mayenne
&The
which
is
prisoners'
It refers to a prisoner whose (France) his family and who, having returned is taken for a spirit up to the moment table before them Having announced
death certificate had reached
from captivity
he
sits
in
down
to his
Germany, meal at
his continued existence, the
refrain
runs:
"In order to reassure you I'm going to eat and drink."

Note.
The author
it
France
states that since his book was published in has been proved that the song referred to in the note was
composed before the
late
War.
Translator.
290
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
His His
ascension, gave many proofs to His disciples of resurrection. These proofs, concerning whose na-
ture the text gives us no information, ought probably to be conceived as confirmations of the reality of the
life
He
had resumed.
said suffices, without
it
That which has been
being
and extranecessary to have recourse to more recent two tradition the in to canonical narratives, distinguish to which one, concepts of the resurrection. According
is
comparable to that of Paul, the Risen One
is
no
of longer subject to the ordinary conditions

existence.
human
Himself
a celestial being who sometimes shows on earth. According to the other, the risen
He
is
Christ resumes His terrestrial existence at the very

point where death had interrupted
;
it.
;
He
body which may be felt He eats He marks of the nails in His hands and the spear thrust in His side; His wounds are not even cicatrized.
IV.
possesses a still bears the
PRIMITIVE
FORM OF THE RESURRECTION BELIEF

two concepts.
The Gospel The theory of
traditions combine these
apparitions during forty days is an atthem. They are, however, entirely harmonize to tempt different, and in reality irreconcilable. They corre-
development of most Which Christian thought. primitive? Which had the first Christians in mind when they affirmed "J esus is risen"? What were the causes which brought about the progress from one concept to the
spond to two
different phases of the

is
the
other?
already a presumption favorable to the as glorificapriority of the concept of the resurrection
There
is

tion in the fact that
291
it appears in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, while the other concept of revivification is only found in writings which, in the form known
to us, are distinctly younger. Another consideration has

spiritual concept
more weight
still.
The
is found in Paul's writings in all its with any other heterogeadmixture without purity, neous element. On the other hand, there is no narrain which the tive, whether canonical or extracanonical,
concept of revivification is not alloyed with some detail borrowed from the idea of glorification. It would, doubtless, be hazardous to affirm that there has never
existed a narrative conceived uniquely from the point of view of revivification. The existence of such a recIt would ord appears, nevertheless, very doubtful. and controversies have suited later apologetic needs so how it admirably that it is not easy to understand could have disappeared. The combination of the fea-
tures which belong respectively to the
two
different
concepts
is explicable in two ways. Either the two conat first as independent and parallel, and it existed cepts was only afterwards that an attempt was made to com-
bine them; or, on the contrary, primarily there was one simple homogeneous concept to which there were added subsequently certain divergent details which,
elimihowever, did not possess sufficient plausibility to cabeen have not nate others, which logically should them. In the case before us pable of association with
the
probability. of revivification in itself never appears to

first
explanation has
little
Concept have inspired
The
reasons which have caused more any narrative. The and more importance to be attached to the bodily maniof the Risen One also enable us to underfestations
292
stand
the
10
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
of the
resurrection
it
evolution
tradition
without being obliged to ascribe to

departure.
a double point of
of the priorAgain, it is possible to urge, in support that all the fact the ity of the spiritualist conception, features which imply the concept of revivification ap-
pear to be inspired by apologetic

so
necessities.
They
are
direct replies to objections urged against the belief in the resurrection. It would be, on the contrary,
many
to suppose, in face of the need to refute the criticisms of opponents, that apologists should have
very
difficult
made
their task
more
difficult
by sublimating and
spirit-
ualizing the belief in the resurrection. The resurrection was, therefore, first of
all
con-
ceived as the accession of Christ to a higher
life.
The
of concept of the resurrection as a mere suppression death and a restoration to the former life of Christ is
a secondary one, born out of the necessities of apologetics.
This conclusion throws

acter of
in the history
light
on the primitive char-
the belief in the resurrection.
express
it,
progress of the tradition has been, if one may so from inside to outside. It has had a ten-
The
least to render faith dency, if not to materialize, at in the resurrection more concrete. The evolution has been quite spontaneous, without there having existed any plan concerted by any one whatsoever. It is a case call to mind Pascal's saying: "I only in which we
may
vivification
in
10 In the narrativc8 containing details implying the concept of renot it ia easy to convince oneself that these details are
harmony with other elements
in
it
Thus
in
John xx 26-29 the
exhibition of wouads, implying "corporal ity" of the Risen One, does not harmonize easily with the fact that Jesus passes easily into the
room when
the doors
were
shut.

believe the narratives
293
suffer
whose witnesses would
death."
forced to believe at least in the good faith of these witnesses, for a belief founded on dishonest machinations would not have resisted persecution.
One
is
In the resurrection faith there are two elements. The first is a conviction of a religious nature: Jesus
cannot be (like other men) vanquished, a the power of death; prisoner of death. He has escaped victor. is the who it is He, in a word, Alongside of this
lives;
He
there
is
a conviction of a material historical fact

;
has quitted the tomb
He
Jesus has been seen by so-and-so.

:
What
Did
relation
is
there between these two convictions?
the apostles believe that Jesus
was
living because
to them? they found His tomb empty and He appeared were and they Or, on the contrary, did they see Him, found been have must tomb His that empty persuaded
because they had the conviction that He was living? The Gospel narratives, as we read them, express the
first
of these conceptions.
so
They show us men pro-
prepared to believe in foundly discouraged the resurrection of their Master (which, nevertheless,
little
had been announced to them) that they treated the first news of it brought to them as "idle tales" (Luke and when Jesus showed Himself to them xxiv. 1 1 ) Him eat in they had need to feel Him and to watch
;
order to convince themselves they were not in presence of a phantom. In spite of this, Matthew relates that some of them doubted. In the Pauline faith, on the
is the affirmation of contrary, the fundamental element the resurrection; no allusion is made to the empty as contomb, and the apparitions are only mentioned evidence. If this is not the most ancient con-
firmatory
294
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
the resurrection faith must have cept, the evolution of a in very strange way. Material at the beproceeded
it was founded upon material ginning, in the sense that facts or on facts held to be such (empty tomb and ap-
in order paritions), it would have become spiritualized The more. once in nature later to become material
faith in the resurrection
was
in its origin
and
a conviction of a religious nature,
an affirmation and it was not an
experimental observation. This explains the fertility it has shown in the development of Christianity. The fourth evangelist had an exact appreciation of its true
nature
tion
not seen
when he put into the mouth of Jesus the declaramade to Thomas: "Blessed are they who have n have believed." and
yet
V.
How THE
BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AROSE

considers that belief in the resurrecspontaneous way, without ante-
M. Couchoud
tion arose in a quite
cedents directly recognizable, and that the apparitions were only the manifestation of an ideal Messiah whose
This mythical history included a crucifixion espisode. theory seems to be liable to several decisive objections.
The Gospel
lief in
the simple history is not, as we have seen, transformation of a myth. On the other hand, the be-
the resurrection was in the whole of primitive of Christianity intimately associated with the thought the Lord's death. Under these conditions, how could
the resurrection have been for Peter and his first comthe object of a direct panions, at the primitive period, the belief in the death and religious experience, while
with Luke xvi. 31: "Neither will they be persuaded from the dead." rose one though
"Compare

sufferings of the
It is inconceivable that a
295
Messiah was borrowed from an ancient myth? myth could have included the idea of the sufferings and death of the Messiah without also including the idea of His triumph. The myths of Attis or of Osiris, which the
to the history of mythologists readily cite as parallels the Christian Messiah, are on this point characteristic. Death and resurrection of the divine hero in them are
on the same plane. Could

tianity?
it
be otherwise in Chris-
The
belief in the resurrection in the latter
stands in organic relationship with an experience of the following diprimitive believers, which imposes that drama the is, the idea of lemma either Gospel
:
the sufferings and death of the Messiah and that of Is only the transformation of an old the resurrection or it was the object of direct knowledge. It is
myth
of the not, however, impossible that a reminiscence of the god resurrection and death the concerning
myth
may have prepared
the minds of
men
to conceive the
idea of the resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus, but the affirmation of this resurrection, far from having been
deduced from the single fact of the death, represents in relation to it something original and new. This is confirmed by a study of the conditions in which the belief in the resurrection arose, which did not
happen with a group of
enthusiastic
disciples,
but
among men profoundly discouraged. The personality, activity and teaching of
Jesus had
the little circle of disproduced a deep impression on Him. Without having translated ciples formed around
their sentiments into precise theological propositions, had closely associated the personality of their
they
Master with the
ideal of the
Kingdom of God which
296
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
was in they had conceived under His influence. Jesus divine the fulfill to intended was their eyes He who
destined by God to realize His of the devil and to establish plan, to destroy the power the world. The Messianic over the divine dominion
work, the Son of
man
consciousness of Jesus imposed itself on them if it be incomprehensible that would it otherwise been had the drama of the survived belief in Jesus could have Passion.
;
12
Even
defeat,
if it
be admitted, as
sary to do, that Jesus had
certainly seems necesforeseen the eventuality of

it
and had attempted to prepare His disciples for the less true that the apostles were it, it remains none arrest of their Massurprised and disconcerted by the ter. Their confusion was complete; they dispersed. This point is beyond doubt the Gospel tradition which
;
tends, nevertheless, to glorify the apostles, has preserved a very distinct memory of their flight. It makes
12
We
of Jesus in the explain them.
cannot discuss the problem of the Messianic affirmations Gospels, nor the various hypotheses proposed to We think that Jesus really considered Himself as the
Son of God, and that if the Messianic conceptions of the primitive Christians may have influenced the manner in which the declarations of Jesus are related in the Gospels, and given them more precision, our opinion we shall only cite they do not explain them In support of
one decisive fact that is, the reply of Jesus to the high priest. asked if He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, Jesui see the Son of man sitting on the replies: "I am: and ye shall on the clouds of heaven" (Mark right hand of power and coming If this declaration is a product of Christian faith, the xiv. 62). fundamental idea of primitive Christianity it found therein that of
When
Matthew (xxvi. 64), in introducing resurrection on the third day. the sentence "Henceforward shall ye see. . . ." tends to substitute the idea of glorification for that of return, but he does so only in an of return upon the imperfect way, since he preserves the idea clouds of heaven. Luke goes farther still, and suppresses the idea
forward
of
of return in giving to the declaration of Jesus this form: "Henceshall the Son of man be seated at the right hand of the power
God" (Luke
xxii. 69).
297
an attempt, if not to excuse, at least to explain it, by showing in it the realization of a prophecy (see Mark 1S xiv. 27 and Matt. xxvi. 31, quoting Zech. xiii. 7). This attempt at an excuse has the value of a very precise
confirmation of the fact.

Peter,
Even
who seems
to have
had more assurance
and boldness than his companions, and who had protested that, whatever might happen, he would never
forsake his Master, according to the fourth Gospel and only made the beginning of an act of resistance, not it did this could not have been very serious, since
15 for him. He only involve any grave consequences led who away his Master, from accompanied the guard a distance (Mark xiv. 54), and he did not even find
14
the courage to admit in the presence of the servants the attachment he had had for Him. The abandonment of Jesus by His disciples can be
into interpreted in two ways. The fact of Jesus falling the hands of the soldiers without any supernatural intervention taking place on His behalf may have killed
the disciples' faith and persuaded them that they had deceived themselves in believing they found the Messiah in Him. The disciples of Jesus would thus
have been in the same case as the partisans of innumerable Messianic pretenders of the type of Theudas,
later on, Judas the Galilean (Acts v. 36, 37), and, to Him attachment their and Bar-Kochba. Their faith
of Jesus a 18 The fourth Gospel (xviii 8, 9) puts into the mouth sentence which justifies the dispersion of the disciples. but they do not name 14 The Synoptics also relate the incident,
Peter.
15
The behavior
of Peter
was
in
that of the
young man who wished
any case more circumspect than to follow Jesus and whom the
soldiers tried to arrest
(Mark
xiv. 51,
5)
298
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
would not have
Their suffered have would Messianic faith complete collapse, so far at least as this faith was centered in Jesus. The alternative interpretation is that the crisis was
resisted the defeat of their hero.
less
it
profound.
it
The
disciples'
was only shaken.
It
was
faith did not collapse; primarily the courage to
proclaim
which they lacked.
There was
in
them
weakness of character, discouragement, you Mesthe of total no there was but bankruptcy wish,
sianic faith in Jesus.
eclipse, if
not easy to decide between these two hypothof the eses, partly, no doubt, because the memory this on dwell apostles and tradition did not willingly
It
is
troubled and dark period when their faith had at least vacillated. Certain observations impel us, however,
to incline toward the second of the
just mentioned.
two interpretations
reason
There
is,
in the first place, a
which we shall call one of psychological economy. The later evolution of the apostles is easier to understand under the hypothesis of momentary or temporary weakness than under that of a total collapse of their Messianic faith. If this latter really took place, it would be necessary to admit that the disciples had remained completely impervious to what certainly seems to have been the dominating note in the thought of
Jesus in the last days of His ministry, and particularly on the last evening the thought of His death and
return.
Certain significant facts favor the hypothesis of a temporary weakness. It is sufficient to mention them. The first is that Peter, in short, had only denied Jesus
because he desired to follow

it is
Him
from a
distance,
true.
He
was
not, therefore, completely indiffer-

ent to the fate of Jesus.
16
299
The
denial itself
is
a formal
disavowal which
far
still
it was sincere But Peter only refused to admit that he knew Jesus he did not declare He was an impostor. His behavior was not that of a man who had lost all belief in Jesus it was that of a man who had not the courage to declare his faith. The ancient Church did not consider
; ;
demands consideration to see how and how far it was dictated by fear.
the behavior of Peter as the equivalent of a renunciation of his apostleship it has preserved no memory of a new reinstatement which in such a case would have
;
been necessary, and whose record would have been

dissolubly linked to that of the forfeiture.
in*
The
inci-
15-19, habitually spoken of as the "rehabilitation of Peter," has a quite different signifident in John
xxi.
Peter, notwithstanding his denial, plays a part of the first importance in the resurrection narratives, and in the incident which has been taken for his
cance.
restoration there
denial and
its
is
found no allusion which implies a
consequent disqualification.
2>
au N.T.,
they
Where
Goguel.) p. 3 did the apostles go in their perplexity? Did remain in Jerusalem hiding themselves more or
ii.
-
(See Introd.
less carefully,
or did they quit Judea to take refuge in
Galilee?
tradition represented by Luke and John the addition of (under its first form that is before to Chap, xxi) supports the first hypothesis. According exthe beginning of the book of Acts (i. 4) it was by at waited His that of disciples
The
plicit
Jesus the for inspiration of the Spirit. Jerusalem

According
command
It
was
morning
to
know
to the oldest tradition, it was not before the Sunday that the disciples quitted Jerusalem; they desired, therefore, the issue of events in the drama.
3 oo
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
therefore at Jerusalem where the decisive evolution to which the Church owed her existence took place. Events are not presented in the same way in the other
17) the disciples were still at Jerusalem, since the women received from the angel the commission to tell them that they had found the tomb empty and that they must repair to Galilee, where they will see Jesus. Owing to fear the
accounts.
According to
Mark
(xvi,
women keep
It
silence.
The
account stops at this point.
must originally have related the apparition of Jesus in Galilee, announced in xvi. 7. But was it in conseinitiaquence of the women's message or on their own
tive that the disciples quitted
Jerusalem?
The
first
the last phase hypothesis must be put aside owing to to relate intended had narrator If the of the Gospel. dewomen why, after the event, it came about that the
cided to speak, would he not have linked up this new u account by saying, for instance: At first they said to anyone" ? The primitive Gospel of Mark
nothing could not have related that the disciples quitted Jerusalem to go to meet their risen Master at the place even a flickering assigned by the angel. It was not with
was in despair, that they returned to Galilee. They must have quitted Jerusalem as soon as the tragedy of Calvary had been consumhope
in their hearts, it
mated, leaving only the Sabbath to pass, during which they could not set out on their journey. It is thus that the Gospel of Peter presents the
events :
discovered the empty tomb and received the testimony of the angel fled terrified, and although it is not explicitly stated, they said nothing. It was with tears and distress that on the morning of
The women who
301
the third day the disciples set out on the road for Galilee, That which the Gospel of Peter contains
this namely the story of the resurrection is from another origin, and has called so properly not been intercalated in a satisfactory manner in the narrative of the discovery of the empty tomb and the
more than
return to Galilee. Neither the women nor the disciples could have ignored such a sensational event as the exit
of Jesus from the tomb, as it is related in the Gospel of Peter. The account of Matthew reproduces that of Mark with some variations. In the first place Jesus appears
to the
women
(xxviii. 9, 10).
These
latter deliver the
is after message confided to them (verse 8), and it to having received it that the disciples go to Galilee, meetthe as them had the mountain which Jesus given
return of the disciples ing place (xxviii. 16). The other than in character a to Galilee has, therefore, of sense a certainty, at Mark. It was, if not with
least in the
hope of the resurrection, that they
left
Jerusalem.
The
that of
priority of
Mark's narrative compared with
Matthew is beyond question. The apparition of Jesus to the women is under suspicion; Mark would
not have suppressed it if he had found it in the source of his work. It makes a useless repetition of the apconfided by Jesus parition of the angeL The mission
to the
women
adds nothing to those they had already

in
received.
Moreover,
stating that
the
disciples
went to
Galilee to the meeting place named by the angel, the narrative of Matthew establishes a close relationship
between the empty tomb and the apparition;
it
thus
302
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
have linked
to un-
does away with one of the strangest features of Mark's account the simple juxtaposition of these two
facts.
It is natural for the tradition to
them to each
derstand
if it
other.
It would be more had dissociated them.
difficult
of tendency to connect organically the account the discovery of the empty tomb with that of the first in Luke, and particapparition is still more distinct
The
the angel's message is ularly in John. In Luke's work so transposed that he no longer speaks of a rendezvous in Galilee, but of a rendezvous that Jesus had given
while he was in Galilee (xxiv. 6). The message is delivered to the disciples, but they are not convinced It is not even said that they went to the
(xxiv.
n).
tomb. 17 In the narrative of the meeting upon the road to Emmaus matters are somewhat more definite. The to the sepulcher, but they disciples certainly had been had seen no angel (xxiv. 22-24). The message of the
women had
at least disconcerted them.
They
could not
fully believe in
took the trouble to

disciples
what had been told them, but they make some inquiry. When the returned to Jerusalem from Emmaus, they are
greeted with the cry,
"The Lord
is
risen
indeed"
of the (xxiv. 34), which implies that the question resurrection had been at any rate raised by the dis-
covery of the empty tomb. The reasons why Matthew's version must be considered as of secondary value compared with Mark's maintain all their force
for that of Luke.
to
In xxiv.
1 1
"Their words seemed
them as
idle tales,
Here
1T
a trace of the primitive conception,

least,
and they believed them not." which estabis
At
in the version
which there
reason to consider the
primitive one

lished
303
no relation between the empty tomb and the
apparitions, very clearly persists. In John's narrative (xx. 1-18) the relation between
the apparitions is closer still. to Mary Magdalene, and two disciples Jesus appears come to the tomb to investigate the women's asser-
the empty
tomb and
tion.
is
One
of them "sees and believes."
The
synthesis
thus perfectly realized. It is upon the empty tomb that the belief in the resurrection rests. Such is the
case, at least, for the
sents as a noble soul
one whom the evangelist preas the very ideal of a disciple.
Mary Magdalene and Peter are not convinced in the same way; for them apparitions are necessary. They served as confirmation for those who were not directly
convinced of the existence of Christ. Their function is thus essential; although subordinate to that of the
empty tomb,
The
perfectly coordinated with it. comparison of the accounts of the resurrection

it is
therefore prove that in the most ancient tradition which we can find the empty tomb and the apparitions were merely juxtaposed. This condition of things, to
some degree
be long maintained. inorganic, could not An obligation was necessarily felt to seek to express be in the narratives the relation that could not fail to
Thus two secondary perceived between the two facts. forms of the tradition came to birth. In the older of the two the character of the return of the disciples into
Galilee
is
transformed:
it is
to go to meet Jesus that
at length, this could not they quitted Jerusalem. But, farther and associate suffice; it was necessary to go in the the empty tomb with the apparitions, not only but also in time and space. thought of the disciples, the apparitions were transferred to With this
object
3 o4
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
remained at the Jerusalem, where the disciples still 18 tomb. the of time of the discovery empty Various objections have been raised to the thesis
of the priority of the Galilean tradition.
the a priori
dogma general upon that there cannot be any contradiction beconscious

tween the various accounts of the resurrection, and
that
recononly necessary to find some means to Certain critics have imagined in the encile them. virons of Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, a place
it is
They rest in more or less un-
19 but this place obviously has only "Galilee," Others, been imagined for the needs of the case. the example already given by the again, following author of the unauthentic ending of Mark and by the
named
editor
who added Chapter
have combined the two
traditions
xxi to the fourth Gospel, by positing a series
of Judaic apparitions followed by a series of Galilean the fact that in the apparitions. They misunderstand
was quite primitive tradition the Galilean apparition the risen Jesus. distinctly a first apparition of
Johannes Weiss has offered an original theory which
seeks to explain the origin of the Galilean tradition the through a misunderstanding. It rests entirely on I that "After 28 xiv. Mark in words of Jesus related words to before you into Galilee" am risen, I will
:
go which reference was made
(Mark
lfi
xvi.
message of the angel 7). According to Johannes Weiss, Jesus

in the
has been Accessorily the evolution of the narratives in this sense and perhaps partly determined, by the always increasing affirm importance of the Jerusalem Church and also by the need to that the apparitions did not take place in a far-off province, and thus escape more or less the possibility of verification.
facilitated,
*9
Rud.
Hofmann,
Galilaea
GalUaea
lei Jerusalem;
Oelbera; A. Resch, Das atif dem Der Auferstandcne Galilaea bet Jerusalem.
305
had announced to His disciples that after His resurrection He would lead them into Galilee, walking at their head. If this theory had any basis, the problem of the resurrection would be much simplified. The Church would be the direct continuation of the communion which during the lifetime of Jesus existed between Him and His disciples. The ingenuity of the
a whole system which suppresses rather than solves series of problems demands a very serious examination. The Jerusalemite tradition of Luke arises from downright juggling with the phrase in Mark on which
20 In the way it is underthe Galilean tradition rests. the stood by Johannes Weiss, phrase concerning the return into Galilee is the sole surviving element of a
tradition according to which Jesus had resumed, or considered it necessary to resume, after His resurrection the life which
disciples.
He
had formerly led with His
How
thought when
proves
it)
heaven?
He On the
could Jesus have entertained such a (His declaration before the Sanhedrin expected to return upon the clouds of
contrary,
is
it
to be supposed (ad-
mitting the otherwise weak and improbable hypothesis of an apparent death) that Jesus, after the drama of a certain time with Calvary, may still have lived for
that this period of His life could pass and leave no other souvenir except one senis it that traditence, very soon misunderstood? tion had never made use of it as the argument best
His
disciples?
How
is it
How
adapted to refute those
who
denied the resurrection?
last part of the 20 Matthew (xxviii 7) slightly transposes the in his version superfluous, and phrase, which consequently becomes can only be explained as a survival of the version in Mark, whose priority is thus confirmed.
306
JESUS
finally,
THE NAZARENE
how could a tradition arise which, in opmost obvious interests of apologetics, the to position reduced the manifestations of the risen Christ to a few It is still possible to suppose that brief apparitions? about the sentence Jesus leading His disciples into Galilee originally related to the period which must
And
follow the success
He
hoped to obtain
in
Judea and at
Jesus preserved the
the hope of Jerusalem. It is easy to understand that, having been deceived, tradition may not have
memory
of
it;
that a fragment of it has one single phrase, misunderstood by Mark,
how does it happen survived, and why should

but
suffice to
and suppress in give birth to the Galilean tradition the his version the souvenir of primitive Judean
tradition?
It is objected against the priority of the Galilean
tradition that
we know nothing about

whose
existence
a Christian comdirect con-
munity
in Galilee
was the
sequence of apparition not preserved the souvenir of the disciples' return to of Jerusalem either. The chances as to the preservation should documents may explain the first point.
in that region.
Tradition has
We
the existence in the early years of Jesus of a Christian commufollowing the death not mentioned in the narranity at Damascus were it
know nothing about
tive of the conversion
of Saul of Tarsus.
The same
it explanation holds for the second point. Moreover, is comprehensible that the souvenir of the Galilean
tradition tradition
may have been

had become
the Judean so preponderant that it was
obliterated
when
to His possible to speak of an order given by Jesus there to await but disciples not to leave Jerusalem,
the effusion of the Spirit (Acts
i.
4).

VI.
307
THE
BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AND THE BELIEF
The
two
religious thought of the early Christians had foci : the belief in the resurrection and the Mes-
sianic belief.
Between these two there
relationship.
What was
is an organic of each, the function precisely
and what was their relationship? The Messianic belief of the first disciples was earlier than their belief in the resurrection. The first named was born of the not impression which Jesus made on them, and was
by the drama of the Passion. If the failure of Jesus had been also a complete negation of the confidence the disciples had placed in Him, it would
entirely destroyed
not have caused a complete collapse of their abstract faith in a Messiah, but it would have radically destroyed the faith they had placed in Him. Certain passages, however, might at first sight induce one to consider the belief in the resurrection as
the origin of belief in the Messiah. Such is particuof Peter's address larly the case as regards a passage at the feast of Pentecost (Acts ii. 36), where a conarchaic and pre-Pauline ception is found of such an character that there can be no hesitation in recogniznotion. According in it the echo of a fairly primitive and Christ" Lord made "has ing to this passage, God who had (that is, the Messiah) the selfsame Jesus
21 But it is not asserted that been crucified by the Jews. before His resurrection; it Jesus was not the Messiah that He was the one on the
is,
contrary, presumed
ought
is
21
This
text
it
Paul's
work
to be compared with that in Rom i. 4, but in rather a question of the manifestation of Jesus as
Messiah.
3 o8
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
to
fulfill
whom God destined
the Messianic mission, but
who, during His earthly ministry, was not invested with the attributes of power and glory. The dignity of the Messiah has now been conferred on Him in all its that is, the Messiah fullness Jesus is now the Lord
;
transcendent
who will
return at the end of time to com-
enemies of God, assuring plete the discomfiture of the of the faithful and the the salvation at the same time
establishment and triumph of the Kingdom of God. "It is from heaven," writes Paul, "that we await the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. iii. 20) and if the continuation of this declaration, with the idea of the similitude of the body of the believer to the glo;
body of the Lord, expresses an idea essentially Pauline, the commencing phrase contains the faith
rious
common
to all Christians.
The
resurrection was, in the
first place,
at once a consolation
a sentimental satisfaction for the disciples, and a reparation of the indignity
by His ignominious condemnation. By its means Jesus was rehabilitated, and the faith of the disciples, shaken by the drama of the Passion, was restored. But this was not all. The resurrection From the placed the Messianic faith on a new plane. it asthe Church of the life of first manifestations sumed a character and outlook different from those she had nourished until then. It was no longer an inner
offered to Jesus
conviction, having the character of a secret of which even among the initiated one could only speak with
a certain prudence, and which remained surrounded by bemystery. It became a certainty openly proclaimed fore the world, forming the very essence of Christian
preaching.
There was
tactics
change of
something more than a or the abandonment of precautions

in this
309
henceforward superfluous. The Messianic creed had been exalted; it had passed from the imminent to the
transcendental plane. However paradoxical it may appear at first sight, the Christ preached in the primitive Church was not rigorously identical with the Jesus in
whom the
disciples trusted
when
He
accompanied them
on the roads of Galilee or in the streets of Jerusalem. Doubtless He was indeed the same person, but He had
now
received from
God
the full Messiahship which
formerly had been only promised Him.
The
this
first
new
resurrection in itself alone cannot have given character to the faith of the disciples. The
Christians believed that Jesus had restored several persons to life, but this did not imply in any way their exaltation. They were considered only as hav-
not as having resumed for a time their preceding life, The resurrection ing radically triumphed over death.
of
these persons has only importance for the evanof Jesus whose power they thus gelists as an activity than death. The belief in the as revealed
all
stronger resurrection of Jesus
had
in
primitive
Christianity
other consequences. The Risen One, to those who had received the revelation of His return to life, was no The resurrecordinary man, but already the Messiah.
tion belief
viction;
it
was the
exaltation of their Messianic con-
The
afforded a striking confirmation. Socialist writer, Maurenbrecher, introduces here
speaks of the faculty acin the course of the tragic quired by the Jewish race, vicissitudes of its history, to surmount all catasall disillusions sources of trophes and to extract from
a racial consideration.
He
new hopes and new illusions. This interpretation demands reservations of some importance. That which
3 io
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
drama of Cal-
in primitive Christianity survived the
but vary was not alone the Messianic faith in general, asfaith had also the personal character which this sumed. It did not attach itself to another Messiah, but
continued to see the Messiah and Savior in the crucified of Golgotha. This is not explained by a racial disbut presumes a profound attachment to the
position,
first Christians did person of Jesus the Messiah. The not make of Jesus the Messiah transcendent because He rose from the dead, but it is because His departure from earth and return to heaven had made of Him the
Messiah that they believed in His resurrection and, in a new sense, in His Messiahship. This is the conviction which explains the apparitions.
The
disciples
saw Jesus because for them

osition
is
This propthe that than truer Gospel suggested by
He
was
living.
narratives
that
is,
that the disciples believed in Jesus
as living because
He
had appeared to them.
faith of the disciples is older than the belief in the resurrection. It is this faith which was the
The Messianic
because they believed Jesus to be the Messiah and no ordinary man that they besource of the belief.
It is
lieved in
judiciously observes, the disciples of John the Baptist, who never held a similar opinion about their Master, never be-
His
resurrection.
22
As M. Loisy
lieved in
is
His
resurrection.
28
It
would be
possible,
24
it
true, to object, as does
Maurenbrecher,
that this
belief explanation of the origin of the resurrection who those of case the does not hold for (like James, see in Jesus not did case in and Peter) any possibly,
Meyer, Vnprung und Anf.f ii. p. 453, and iii, pp. 316-19, le myttire Chritwn, p. 215. Loisy, Lfs Myitlres patent ft a* Maurenbrecher, Von Nazareth nach Golgotha, p. 16*.
*8
311
the Messiah before acquiring the certainty of His This is evident, but the causes of the resurrection.
first
appearance of the resurrection faith are not necesthe conquests it sarily identical with those explaining
afterwards. It
is
very certain that the existence of a group of men who believed in the risen Jesus was, if not the unique factor, at least an essential one in the conversion to the Christian faith of those who, like Paul, had never felt the influence of Jesus during
made
His
ministry.
VII.
CONCLUSION
We
are
now
able to imagine the conditions in which
the apparitions occurred, on which is based the apolothe first century and by means of getic literature of
which the resurrection faith was vindicated. They were in the first place independent of the have seen, discovery of the empty tomb, since, as we
the most ancient tradition assumes that the disciples had no knowledge of this fact before experience of
the apparitions, and because the comparison of narrative proves that in the sequel the narrators must have been forced to subject the tradition to a complete
to coordinate and process of retouching in the attempt fuse together the narratives of the empty tomb and the Moreover, in this task they never
apparitions. completely succeeded.
It
was
in Galilee that the disciples
had
their first
visions.
but they The time of the

precision.
They had not returned there expecting them, had returned in a period of discouragement.
The
apparition cannot be existing accounts, which place

first
fixed
with
the
3 i2
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
resurrection on the
morning of the third day, represent
The primitive tradition. phase "after three but formula was not "the third day,"
a
second
of the
after a short days"; this probably originally meant fixed with not was duration precision. interval, whose
It certainly
seems from Paul's testimony that it was Peter who had the first vision, which must have been of which doubtless rapidly followed by others, several
collective visions.
It is possible that certain
were
among them had repasts as their occasions, and may have happened at the moment of the breaking of bread. The evocation of the last repast of Jesus and the memory of the words
He then spoke,
presence being easily

real presence.
His affirming at one and the same time sacrifice for His friends and the promise of a future reunion, must have played an important part in the of a spiritual genesis of apparitions, the intense feeling transformed into the sense of a
At
first
there must have been
some
indifference as
so exregards the details of the apparition narratives, the of sentiment clusively were minds dominated by the It is this which presence and the life of the Christ. an at early date, took explains that the narratives,
forms of sufficiently varied character, and ended in the extreme diversity which we observe between the accounts known to us, both canonical and extracanonical.
Lastly,
it is
certain that the resurrection
must very
soon have become a subject of bitter controversy between Jews and Christians, and the necessity of rethe plying to the varied objections advanced against
Christian faith greatly influenced the narratives
and
313
led to the creation of entire groups of traditions such as that of the empty tomb.
The
conclusions to which
we
are thus brought in
studying the origins of the resurrection faith have for the problem before us an importance whose meaning The genesis of the it is superfluous to insist upon.
resurrection faith not only presumes the historic tradition about the death of Jesus, but it appears to us as
the continuation of the activity exercised by Him duris thus the ing His lifetime. The resurrection faith
link
which unites the story of Jesus with that of Chris-
tianity,
making the second the consequence of the first. We do not, therefore, find at the birth of ChrisM. Couch oud retianity this naive euhemerism which to Renan from Loisy, as having proaches historians,
so easily accepted, but we find something quite differThe early Christians did not deify a man whose ent. and the worteaching and authority impressed them, resemblance at all to ship of the Lord Jesus has no because is It that of the emperors. they had found in Him during His ministry the one destined to accomIt is because, under the influplish the divine work. ence of the belief in His resurrection (a direct
had made on them), consequence of the impression He of their faith, exaltation the in of the disciples Jesus, but directly identified saw in Him no ordinary man,
Him
with the
celestial
of the earthly life and it was in episode of a great redemptive drama, the light of their conception of this drama that they
Messiah. Henceforth the story of Jesus was for them only an
devoted themselves to present and interpret the facts of the life of Jesus and the circumstances of His
death.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
the Church; JESUS did not create
He
did not trouble
about establishing institutions or laying down rules to assure, after His death, the continued existence of
the group which had formed around Him and to direct His mind was too much dominated by the its life.
economy to the future of His friends permit Him to trouble about on earth and to dream of organizing it. Jesus was
idea of the immediate end of the existing
not, therefore, in the usual
founder of a religion; He and fulfill by His advent the accomplishing of the

promises
plies
meaning of the word, the desired only to announce
made by God
to Israel.
no rupture with the religious the abuses which the Scribes people. If He combated and Pharisees had introduced,
His Gospel imtradition of His
He
intended to remain
faithful to the inspiration of the
Law
and Prophets.
Christianity,
and
it
on the contrary, was a new religion, was so from the day after the death of Jesus,
of the Jews, long before the time when the hostility on one side, and the necessity of freedom to welcome
the pagans on the other, had forced believers to of the organize themselves in a society independent
synagogue.
The
Christians did not only preach, as
of God, Jesus had done, the nearness of the Kingdom but before all else the doctrine of salvation by the
death and resurrection of Jesus
a death and resur-
rection which have precisely the effect of introducing

314
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
the
1 Kingdom of God. The
315
Christianity of the primi-
form of Judaism 2 nor the tive transformation of a pagan mystery, and this is true
Church was neither
a
notwithstanding all the elements which it has in common with these two religious species. It was a new religion. If in the course of events Christianity absorbed elements foreign to the thought of Jesus and
was, nevertheless, born out of the made preaching of Jesus and the impression He had around themselves had who men grouped upon the few
to Judaism,
it
Him.
it is that Christianity is not the religion of Jesus; the It was of of the worshipers personality Jesus. of the Master which linked together the Gospel
preached in Galilee and the religion of the primitive Church, and which explains the organic unity of the
entire
movement initiated by Jesus. Not only did the thought of Jesus
exercise
on the
(especially in the moral fluence as the source of her inspiration, but
Church
sphere) a decisive instill
more
was it the impression by the personality of Jesus which gave the impulse through whose activity the whole system of Christian thought was developed.
left
Between the preaching of the Kingdom of God by salvation elaborated and deJesus and the doctrine of is more than a simple there Church veloped in the
coincidence in time; there
It
1
is
an organic relationship.
is
through the impression produced
by Jesus that the
start
If mystlrt Chrtticn, p. 210. Loisy, Les Mysterff patens et the rupture between Christianity and Judaism was from the not brought about at once, but it was nevertheless fatal from the moment the Christians invoked the name of that
2 It is true that
is,
one
who had
been disavowed and rejected by the authorized leadcti
of Judaism.
3i6
JESUS
THE NAZARENE
Church professed her doctrine of redemption. If this doctrine has some kinship with the Mystery Religions, to it is differentiated from them and cannot be reduced and them. While the worshipers of Mithra, Attis
Adonis knew perfectly well that the redemptive story
of their heroes plunged into such fabulous antiquity
the Christians were persuaded that it was' not at the beginning but at the end of the age that their Christ had lived. His life, for
that
all reality
was
lost to
it,
them, could be fitted in a very intimate manner into the reality of history. If Christianity is a mystery, it is one of a very with others even more special type which contrasts
than
it
resembles them.
As M.
Loisy,
who
has
strongly insisted
upon the
originality of Christianity in
comparison with the contemporary religions, has very well observed: "It may be said, if you wish, that
underChristianity is a mystery, but it must be quite stood that this mystery is unique of its kind, and that it does not enter into the same category and is not of
the same type as the pagan mysteries, to which, nevertheless,
it is
compared and from which

is
it
has in some
way
issued."
in
If there
assimilated
elements,
it
early Christianity any speculation
from preexisting Jewish and even pagan is upon the basis of an historical tradition
and death of Jesus that
this speculation
about the
life
The historical reality of the perhas developed. to understand the sonality of Jesus alone enables us birth and development of Christianity, which otherwise would remain an enigma, and in the proper sense of the word, a miracle.
INDEX
Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, 48 Acta Petri cum Simone, 224 Acta Pilatt, 45-50
Alfanc, 24, 69, 193 Annales (Tacitus), 40 Anonymous writer on Luther,
19
Antiquities (Josephus), 33, 36
Bultmann, 166, 208

Burkitt, 29, 31
Calmes, 233
Case, 19 Celsus (Origen), 78
Cheyne, 53
"Chrestianoi," 44
Appolinarius, 60 Ascension of Isaiah, no, 114
"Chrestianos," 44 Colani, 12
Corssen, 30, 37, 40, 41 Couchoud, v, 20-28, 39,
199, 219, 226, 267, 279,
103,
Babut, 39 Bahrdt, 4
Baldensperger, 178, 179
73,
106-109, 118, 119, 182, 192,
294
80,
158,
Couissin, 90
Cyril (Alexandria), 78
Bardenhewer, 46
Batiffol, 30, 34, 35, 40, 4*> 43,
Dalman and
Streeter,
38
44 Bauer, Bruno, 10 Bauer, W, 78, 79, 87 Baur, R, 9

Bayle, I Berendts, 35 Bertram, 14 Bible du Centenaire, 219, 222
Bole, 31
De De
Bella Judaico, 35, 37, 42
Faye, 78, 83, 85 Deissmann, 52, 93 Deists, the, 2

Didache, the, 277
Dieterich, 53
Docetism, 20, 82, et seq. Dom Leclercq, 223
Drews,
18, 51, 93, xoi, 126,
182
Bolingbroke, 5 Bolland, 16
Bousset, 19, 61, 126, 158
Dunkmann, 19
Dupuis, 7
Bratke, 30
Bruckner, 158 Brune, 30

317
Ebionites,
6p Edschmiadzin, 248
3 i8
Enoch (Apoc.), nj>
INDEX
"9
Jacoby, 30 Jensen, 17
Epiphanius, 46, 58, 60 Erbt, 16
Jerome, 86
Josephus, 29-38, 53 Julian (Apostate), 78 Julicher, 19
Justin Martyr, 44, 46* 78, 83,
IV. Esdras, 115, 15*

Eusebius, 30, 32, 48, 241
Fabia, 49 Picker, 224

Pillion, 19
in,
172,
220
Fuhrmann, 16
Fulda, 218
Kalthoff, 16
Kattenbusch, 176
Kegd, JO
Keim,
Gardner, Percy, 126
Godet, 232
Goethals,
Klostermann, 105, 274 Kneller, 31
30
Laible,
Goetz, 30, 42 Gogud, M., 29, 39, 47, 73, 87,

88, 93, 95,
38
"1,
126, 129, 137,
Laqueur, 30
Lessing, 2
Levi, Israd, 196
204, 223, 227, 229, 235, 237, 246, 255, 262, 269, 276, 278,
287, 299
Levy (on Strauss), 8

Lietzmann, 127
Linck, 30, 34, 39, 43
Guignebert,
2, 8,
19, 28,
39
Harnack, 29-42, 45, 83, 84 Haupt, 126 Herder, 4 Herford, 38 Heulhard, 20 Hilgenfdd, 58 Hippolytus, 57, 60, 241 Hochart, 40, 43 Hofraann, 304 Holbach, 6 Holtzmann, 9, 55> 8 7
Lipman, 19 Lipsius, 46 Lobstem, 121 Logia (Q), 9

Loisy, 14, 86, 90, 126, 195, 220,
232, 275, 310, 315
Lucian, 78, 79
Luke
(chap, xxiii, 34), 207
Magic
papyrus
(Bib.
Nat.,
Paris), 52
Mandaean (Apoc.), 76-77 Manicheans (sect), 85

Ignatius, 80, 87,
Irenaeus, 84, 241, 242
Marcion, 83, et seq. Massebieau, 186
INDEX
Matthes, 15
3*9
Maurenbrcchcr, 309, 310 Messianic pretenders, 297
Meyer, A., 38 Meyer, Ed, 30, 37, 4*, 43,

63, 65, 69, tf,
53,
Reimarus, 2, 12 Reinach, Salomon, 20, 31, 39, 40, 49, 80, 87, 89, 90, 199, 219 Reinach, Theodore, 33 Reitzenstein, S3, 58, 73, 75
7 31
Mirabeau, 6
Renan, n, 96 Resch, 123, 304 Reuss, 9

Reville, Albert,
9
232
Naber, 15
Naasseni, 58
Reville, Jean, 87, Ritschl, 12
Naasseni hymn, 58
Robertson,
J,
M., 16, 51, 52
Napoleon
I,
Rouffiac, 234
Naumann,
19
Sabatier, 96
"Nazarene," 54-fo
Nicodemus (Gospel), 46
Nicolardot, 55, Niemojewski, 16
200
Sadler, 17
Saintyves, 265, 278

Schelling, 199
Niese, 31
Schmidtke, 60
Schiirer, 29, 31, 34, 158, 201
Norden, 30, 42 "NSR," 54
Schweitzer,
2, 4, 9,
n,
13, 17,
19
Origen, 34, 35, 49, 201
7,
83, i
Seitz,
30
Seydel, vi
Osiander (on Josephus), 30 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 266
Smith,
W. B
17, 30, 66,
57-63,
66, 69, 73, 182

Spitte, 185,
186
Stahl, 20, 24-25, 192-195
Strack, 38, 61
Papias, 241 Paulus, 4
Strauss, 8, 9, 10,
Pernot, 82
Pfleiderer, 96, 126
Stuelken, 47
Suetonius, 37, 43
Philo, 38, 118, 219
Photius, 37, 85
Tacitus, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43

Tertullian, 44, 46, 84,
Pierson, 15
"Pistis Sophia," 57
in
Tixeront, 59
Pliny, 39
Plutarch (Co*ar), 266

Polycarpe, 87 Preuschen, 44, 275
Valla, Laurentius,
I
Van den Berg van
Eysinga, 15
320
Van
Loon, 15
Venturini, 4
INDEX
Wellhausen, 28, 53, 56, 74, 105, 192-196, 274 Wetter, 56 Wernle, 166 Whale, Mrs. G., 21
Wilke, 9 Windisch, 182 Wrede, 13, 105 Wunsche, 206
Virgil (Georgics), 266 Volney, 7

Voltaire, 5,
Volz, 201 Von Schubert, 48
Von Von
Schultze, 223
Soden,
19, 176,
182
Weinel, 19, 115 Weiss, B., 9 Weisse, Johannes,
9,
13,
19*
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Jesus The Nazarene. Myth or History. Maurice Goguel (1926)

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Jesus The Nazarene. Myth or History. Maurice Goguel (1926)

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JESUS

THE * MYTH & HISTORY?;*

APPLETON AND COMPANY MCMXXVI NEW YORK * *

APPLETON AND COMPANY

superficially, the present state

Couchoud, Le Myttlre dt U*u*> Paris, 1924-

Albert Houtin, Courte kutoire du Christianisme, Parit, 1924.

THE NONCHRISTIAN TESTIMONY

"ACTA PILATI" (THE ACTS OF PILATE)

OF THE OPPONENTS OF CHRISTIAN78 S2

PAUL, BEFORE His CONVERSION, A WITNESS TO

PAUL AND THE UNITY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

AND THE JERUSALEM

GOD AND DEMONS SIN AND EVIL

OF THE PAULINE THEOLOGY

THE NEW TESTAMENT

THE THE THE

PASTORAL EPISTLES EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

........ ........ ......

THE CHRIST OF THE APOCALYPSE

THE THEORY OF THE PROPHETIC ORIGIN OF THE GOSPEL TRADITION

203 203 205

CREATIONS DUE TO PROPHETIC EXEGESIS MODIFICATIONS DUE TO PROPHETIC EXEGESIS

INFLUENCE OF PROPHECY ON THE FACTS FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECIES DISCOVERED AFTER

CHRIST THE PASCHAL LAMB

COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS

229 234 239 244 264

CONCERNING CERTAIN FACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GOSPEL TRADITION

THE RESURRECTION PROBLEM THE PAULINE CONCEPTION OF

OF THE RETURN OF CHRIST TO TERIAL LIFE

JESUS THE NAZARENE * * MYTH OR HISTORY?*

THE NAZARENE MYTH OR HISTORY?

CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

complexity and improbability of the hypotheses

compelled to construct, helped to

that the prob-

was during the eighteenth century that

that of the School

of Enlightenment (Aufklarung), which received the 4 adhesion of Reimarus and Lessing.

The same may be

said of the rationalists,

whose teaching accorded Jesus as a master of virtue

particularly given to the interpretation real but perfectly natural

has been believed that Jesus mulis

tiplied the loaves, this

because, in the desert where

upon no profound work of

and does not

Erloser der Menschen nach unsfrn drei ersten Evan-

g elicit: Vom Gottessohn der Welt Heiland nach Johannesevangeltum,

opposing a new conception of primitive Chris-

tianity to traditional opinion.

should be examined in the light of

aware that "certain followers

ence of Jesus. In so far as he

wishes to hint at opinions which

Les Ruines ou Medi-

tations sur les Revolutions des

articles in the Dictionnaire philosophique,

priests have obscured which dogmas

closely resemble those of

According to him, the philosophers who

woes of the world,

Couchoud, Le Myttlre dt Uu> Paris, 1924-