Page:Quest of the Historical Jesus (1911).djvu/325

 apply it to a mere historical man." Bruno Bauer had urged the same considerations upon the theology of his time, declaring it to be unthinkable that a man could have arisen among the Jews and declared "I am the Messiah."

But the unfortunate thing is that Kalthoff has not worked through Bruno Bauer's criticism, and does not appear to assume it as a basis, hut remains standing half-way instead of thinking the questions through to the end as that keen critic did. According to Kalthoff it would appear that, year in year out, there was a constant succession of Messianic disturbances among the Jews and of crucified claimants of the Messiahship. "There had been many a 'Christ,'" he says in one place, "before there was any question of a Jesus in connexion with this title."

How does Kalthoff know that? If he had fairly considered and felt the force of Bruno Bauer's arguments, he would never have ventured on this assertion; he would have learned that it is not only historically unproved, but intrinsically impossible.

But Kalthoff was in far too great a hurry to present to his readers a description of the growth of Christianity, and therewith of the picture of the Christ, to absorb thoroughly the criticism of his great predecessor. He soon leads his reader away from the high road of criticism into a morass of speculation, in order to arrive by a short cut at Graeco-Roman primitive Christianity. But the trouble is that while the guide walks lightly and safely, the ordinary man, weighed down by the pressure of historical considerations, sinks to rise no more.

The conjectural argument which Kalthoff follows out is in itself acute, and forms a suitable pendent to Bauer's reconstruction of the course of events. Bauer proposed to derive Christianity from the Graeco-Roman philosophy; Kalthoff, recognising that the origin of popular Christianity constitutes the main question, takes as his starting-point the social movements of the time.

In the Roman Empire, so runs his argument, among the oppressed masses of the slaves and the populace, eruptive forces were concentrated under high tension. A communistic movement arose, to which the influence of the Jewish element in the proletariat gave a Messianic-Apocalyptic colouring. The Jewish synagogue influenced Roman social conditions so that "the crude social ferment at work in the Roman Empire amalgamated itself with the religious and philosophical forces of the time to form the new Christian social movement." Early Christian writers had learned in the synagogue to construct "personifications." The whole Late-Jewish literature rests upon this principle. Thus "the Christ" became the ideal hero of the Christian community, "from the socio-religious standpoint the figure of Christ is the