Page:Quest of the Historical Jesus (1911).djvu/319

 Him; he makes the enthusiastic earthly Messianic belief of the people "tug and tear" at Jesus Himself. Sometimes one is tempted to ask whether the author in his zeal "to use conscientiously the results of the whole range of scientific criticism" has not forgotten the main thing, the study of the Gospels themselves.

And is all this science supposed to be new? Is this picture of Jesus really the outcome of the latest criticism? Has it not been in existence since the beginning of the 'forties, since Weisse's criticism of the Gospel history? Is it not in principle the same as Renan's, only that Germanic lapses of taste here take the place of Gallic, and "German art for German people," here quite out of place, has done its best to remove from the picture every trace of fidelity?

Kai Jans' "Manuscript" represents the limit of the process of diminishing the personality of Jesus. Weisse left Him still some greatness, something unexplained, and did not venture to apply to everything the petty standards of inquisitive modern psychology. In the 'sixties psychology became more confident and Jesus smaller; at the close of the century the confidence of psychology is at its greatest and the figure of Jesus its smallest-so small, that Frenssen ventures to let His life be projected and written by one who is in the midst of a love affair!

This human life of Jesus is to be "heart-stirring" from beginning to to end, and "in no respect to go beyond human standards"! And this Jesus who "racks His brains and shapes His plans" is to contribute to bring about a re-birth of the German people. How could He? He is Himself only a phantom created by the Germanic mind in pursuit of a religious will-o'-the-wisp.

It is possible, however, to do injustice to Frenssen's presentation, and to the whole of the confident, unconsciously modernising criticism of which he here acts as the mouthpiece. These writers have the great merit of having brought certain cultured circles nearer to Jesus and made them more sympathetic towards Him. Their fault lies in their confidence, which has blinded them to what Jesus is and is not, what He can and cannot do, so that in the end they fail to understand "the signs of the times" either as historians or as men of the present.