Page:Quest of the Historical Jesus (1911).djvu/104



Thus, for example, the opinions which he expresses on the great Parousia discourse in Matt. xxiv. are extremely cautious. The detailed prophecies regarding the Second Coming which the Synoptists put into the mouth of Jesus cannot be derived from Jesus Himself. The question suggests itself, however, whether He did not cherish the hope, and make the promise, that He would one day appear in glory as the Messiah? "If in any period of His life He held Himself to be the Messiah and that there was a period when He did so there can be no doubt�and if He described Himself as the Son of Man, He must have expected the coming in the clouds which Daniel had ascribed to the Son of Man; but it may be questioned whether He thought of this as an exaltation which should take place even in His lifetime, or as something which was only to take place after His death. Utterances like Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28 rather suggest the former, but the possibility remains that later, when He had begun to feel that His death was certain, His conception took the latter form, and that Matt. xxvi. 64 was spoken with this in view." Thus, even for Strauss, the problem of the Son of Man is already the central problem in which are focused all the questions regarding the Messiahship and eschatology.

From all this it may be seen how strongly he had been influenced by Reimarus, whom, indeed, he frequently mentions. It would be still more evident if he had not obscured his historical views by constantly bringing the mythological explanation into play.

The thought of the supernatural realisation of the Kingdom of God must also, according to Strauss, be the starting-point of any attempt to understand Jesus' attitude towards the Law and the Gentiles, so far as that is possible in view of the conflicting data. The conservative passages must carry most weight. They need not necessarily fall at the beginning of His ministry, because it is questionable whether the hypothesis of a later period of increasing liberality in regard to the law and the Gentiles can be made probable. There would be more chance of proving that the conservative sayings are the only authentic ones, for unless all the indications are misleading the terminus a quo for this change of attitude is the death of Jesus. He no doubt looked forward to the abolition of the Law and the removal of the barriers between Jew and Gentile, but only in the future Kingdom. "If that be so," remarks Strauss, "the difference between the views of Jesus and of Paul consisted only in this, that while Jesus expected these limitations to fall away when, at His second coming, the earth should be renewed, Paul believed himself justified in doing away with them in consequence of the first coming of the Messiah, upon the still unregenerated earth."

The eschatological passages are therefore the most authentic of all. If there is anything historic about Jesus, it is His assertion