■ y. -^ ^' L '^ m ^ ml ;- .■■•^•' %/S W„ ;»*';~\. ■if;^; PRINCBTONt-JlT. J. BS 2397 .B573 1896 v.l Beyschlag, Willibald, 1823 1900. New Testame Historica nt theology, or 1 account of the Shelf mW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY rRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITKD, ran T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : SIMI'KIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS. TORONTO : THE WILLARD TR^.OT DEPOSITORY. 0fhj Cfstamnit CI)foloig:K HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS AND OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY ACCORDING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT SOURCES Dr. WILLIBALD BEYSCHLAG PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT HALLE ^ranslatcit itn Rev. NEIL BUCHANAN IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I SECOND ENGLISH EDITION P: D I N B U R G II T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1896 [The Translation is Copyrvjht by arrangement with the A^dJior] CONTENTS PAGE The Author's Preface to the English Edition . . . xiii Preface xix Introduction 1 § 1. Subject and Problem 1 § 2. Standpoint 4 § 3. Sketch of tlie Treatment of our Subject up to the Present 11 § 4. Questions of Method . . . . . . . 16 § 5. The Question as to an Old Testament Judaistic Previous History 23 BOOK I THE TEACHING OF JESUS ACCOKDING TO THE SYNOPTISTS CHAPTER I Introductory .....,..,. 27 § 1. Teaching and Life 28 § 2. Sources 29 § 3. Peculiarity of Jesus' Teaching 31 § 4. Origin of Jesus' Teaching .... .34 § 5. Revealed Character of Christ's Teaching .... 36 § 6. Relation of the Teaching of Jesus to the Old Testament . 38 CHAPTER II The Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom op God ... 41 § 1. Meaning of the Word 41 § 2. Its Historical Root .43 VI CONTENTS § 3. Jesus' Idea of the Kingdom § 4. The Present and Future Kingdom . § 5. Inner Relation of the two Aspects . § 6. The Kingdom as a Power of Salvation PAQE 45 49 52 54 CHAPTER III The Son of Man and Son of God . § 1. § 2. § 3. § 4. § 5. § 6. § 8. § 9. §10. §11. §12. Personal Relation of Jesus to the Idea of the Kingdom The Idea of the Messiah Attitude of Jesus to this Idea of Messiah The Name Son of Man : Interpretations to be Rejected Investigation . . . . ■ Conclusion of the Investigation The Name Son of God . Old Testament Usage The Meaning of Jesus The Question of Divine Descent Purely Human Consciousness of Clirist Sinlessness of Jesus His Oneness with God . 56 56 57 58 60 62 64 67 68 69 71 73 75 77 CHAPTEE . IV The Heavenly Father and the World 79 § 1. The New Idea of God .... 79 § 2. The Name Father . 80 § 3. The ii; dyxSo; and tsAjo; 82 § 4. Heaven and Earth . 84 § 5. Angels .... 86 /§, 6. Man § 7. Sin 88 90 § 8. Satan .... 93 § 9. The Inner Relation of God to the World 95 § 10. The Divine Righteousness A § 11. The Grace and Mercy of God 97 99 CHAPTER V The Way of Righteousness 102 § 1. The Concept of Righteousness 102 § 2. Position towards the current Teaching and Practice of Righteousness . 105 § 3. Relation to the Ritual Law 107 CONTENTS vn § 4. The fundamental Comniandments as Starting-point of the Fultihnent § 5. The Love of our Neighbour .... § 6. Love towards God § 7. Love of God and appraising of the World § 8. Love for God and Self- Perfection 111 115 118 121 125 CHAPTEE VI The Messianic Salv.\tion ■' § 1. The Fact of a Doctrine of Salvation J § 2. The Kingdom of Heaven as Salvation . >! § 3. The Way of Salvation. Calling and Election ^ § 4. The Way of Salvation. Conversion and Forgiveness ' § 5. The Way of Salvation. Sonship and Sanctification § 6. Means of Salvation, Word and Miracle . § 7. The personal Mediator of Salvation § 8. The saving Significance of His Deatli § 9. Doctrinal Significance of the Institution of the Lord's Supper . . § 10. Concluding Remarks 130 130 133 137 140 144 146 148 150 154 158 CHAPTER VII The Church § 1. Discipleship ........ § 2. The Church § 3. Church Order : («) Government of the Spirit, Faith and Prayer, Binding and Loosing .... § 4. Church Order : (b) Love, Discipline, Infallibility § 5. The Authority of Peter, Matt. xvi. 18, 19 § 6. Objective Points of Support for the Church Life (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) ..... § 7. Historical Task of the Church .... § 8. Prophetic Outlook 160 160 162 165 168 171 176 179 183 CHAPTER VIII The Judgment of the World . § 1, Authenticity and Difficulties § 2. The Idea of the Judgment of the World and of the Office of Judge of the World § 3. The Idea of the Return in Glory .... § 4. The final Picture of the Judgment of the World § 5. The Destruction of Jerusalem § 6. The Parousia as a Historical Process 187 188 189 192 193 195 198 CONTENTS § 7. The Original State of things and the Traditional Form . § 8. The Fixture Judgment ....... § 9. Imiiossiblity of maintaining the usual Conception § 10. Proof of continuous Development in the World to come § 11. The Resurrection of the Dead § 12. Retrospect and Conclusion 212 PAGE 201 204 205 207 210 BOOK II THE TEACHING OF JESUS ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN CHAPTER I Introductory § 1. The Johannine Question . § 2. Genuineness of the Gospel § 3. Difficulty of the Discourses of Jesus § 4. Suggested Solution . . . , 216 216 217 219 221 CHAPTER II God and the World 224 § 1. The Idea of God 224 § 2. The Idea of the World 225 § 3. Evil 228 § 4. The universal Revelation of God in the World . . 231 § 5. Estimation of the Old Testament 234 CHAPTER III The Testimony of Jesus to Himself s § § 8. § 9. §10. §11. The Problem ...... Jesus the Messenger of God . The Son of Man and Son of God . Purely Human Form of Consciousness . Sinlessness and Oneness with God The Idea of Pre-existence Historical and Psychological Explanation of it The several Utterances concerning Pre-existence Heavenly Mission and Descent The Source from which He derives His Knowledge of Heavenly Things .... Conclusion 236 236 237 240 244 247 249 250 252 256 260 264 CONTENTS IX CHAPTER IV. The Founding op Salvation § 1. The Kingdom of Heaven and Eternal Life ■^ § 2. Other Designations of the Blessing of Salvation § 3. The Means of Salvation ..... § 4. Saving Significance of the Death of Jesus § 5. Glorification of Jesus and sending of the Spirit § 6. The Glorified Christ and the Holy Spirit PAGE 266 266 268 270 273 276 279 CHAPTER V The Development of Eternal Life . ^ § 1. Way of Salvation .... § 2. The Gospel Community . § 3. Relation of the Disciples to the World § 4. The Judgment of the World § 5. The Resurrection and Eternal Life . 282 282 287 290 293 297 BOOK III VIEWS OF THE FIEST APOSTLES L THE FIRST APOSTLES AND THE FIRST COMMUNITY, ACCORDING TO THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES CHAPTER I The Standpoint op the First Apostles 300 § 1. Credibility of the Acts of the Apostles .... 300 § 2. Standpoint of the Disciples during the Lifetime of Jesus 301 § 3. Impression of the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus . 303 § 4. The Outpouring of the Spirit ...... 305 CHAPTER II ThE Preaching of the Original Apostles § 1. The Witnesses § 2. Jesus the Christ . . ' § 3, The Preaching of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus § 4. The Future and the Present Salvation 308 308 308 311 315 CONTENTS CHAPTER III The Life of the Primitive Church § 1. Biblico - Theological Significance of Cliurcli ..... § 2. Its Position in Judaism . § 3. Brotlieiiy Love and Earthly Possessions § 4. The Regulations of the Community the Primitive §»• Legal or Evangelical Standpoint PAGE 317 317 318 321 322 324 CHAPTER IV Further Developments § 1. Stephen § 2. The Speech of Stephen § 3. The Question regarding the Conversion of the Gentiles § 4. The Convention of Apostles 327 327 329 331 333 II. THE EPISTLE OF JAMES CHAPTER I Introductory 337 § 1. Opinions regarding the Epistle of James . . .337 § 2. The Circle of Readers 338 § 3. The Author 341 CHAPTER II God and Man 343 § 2. Man 345 §3. Sin 346 J J § 4. The Position of God towards sinful Men .... 348 CHAPTER III The Salvation that is in Christ § 1. The Second Birth . § 2. The Election and Promise § 3. The Law of Liberty § 4. Jesus the Christ and Lord 350 350 351 352 355 CONTENTS XI CHAPTER IV PAGE 357 Faith and Works ^ § 1. Concept of Works 357 ^ § 2. Concept of Faith 358 > - § 3. Relation between Faith and Works .... 359 CHAPTER V Justification § 1. The Concept Justification in general § 2. James' Doctrine of Justification § 3. James and Paul .... 362 362 364 366 CHAPTER VI The Christian Life § 1. Love of God and Contempt for the World § 2. Sanctification and its Means § 3. Warning against Sins of the Tongue § 4. The Christian Community § 5. The Christian Hope . . . 369 369 370 372 374 375 in. THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER CHAPTER I Introductory § 1. Difference between the two Ejnstles of Peter § 2. Marks of Genuineness in the First Epistle § 3. Answer to certain Objections . § 4. The Doctrinal Peculiarity of the Epistle 377 377 377 380 382 CHAPTER II God the Father and the People of PIis Inheritance . § 1. Idea of God § 2. The Inheritance and its Transference to the Christians H § 3. The Way of Salvation CHAPTER III The Person and Sufferings of Christ § 1. The Person of Christ § 2. Saving Significance of the Sutt'erings and Death of Christ § 3. Old Testament Types ....... 385 385 386 388 391 391 394 398 xu CONTENTS CHAPTER IV The Pilgrim State and Walk of the Christian . § 1. Tlie Resurrection of Christ as the Foundation of Christian Life ... § 2. Life in the Word, in the Sjiirit, in the Lord, in God § 3. The Life in Faitli, Ho2:>e, Obedience, and Sanctificatioi § 4. The Life in Christian and in Natural Fellow-shiji § 5. The Christian in Suffering . ... PAGE 402 402 404 406 408 411 CHAPTER V The Preaching to the Dead and the World § 1. The Sphere of Hope § 2. The Preaching to the Dead § 3. The Judgment of the World Judgment of the 413 413 413 417 ERRATA Page 68, line 7 from top, read Mark xiii. 32 instead of Mark xiii. 14. „ „ 12 from bottom, read Ex. iv. 22 instead of Ex. xxii. 4. 74, ,, 13 from bottom, 7-ead Matt. xi. 25 instead of Matt. xxii. 23. 94, ., 17 from top, read Luke xiii. 16 instead o/Luke xvi. 16. 97, ,, 8 from top, read Matt. x. 8 instead of Mark x. 8. 105, note 1, read Matt. xxii. 40 instead of Mark xxiii. 40. 116, line 2 from bottom, read Luke xvii. 3, 4 instead of Luke xvi. 3, 4. 141. top line, read iviarpicpiiv instead of i77iarpi:piadxt. „ line 9 from bottom, read Matt. iv. 17 instead o/Matt. iv. 12. 173, „ 15 from top, read Matt. xvi. 21 ff. instead o/Matt. xxi. 21. 191, „ 8 from top, read Luke xii. 8 instead o/Luke xviii. 8. 199, „ 2 from top, read. Matt. xxvi. 64 instead of Matt. xxiv. G4. 215, „ 6 from bottom, read Mark xii. 24, 25 instead of Matt. xii. 24, 25. PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION The following work, which has now the honour of being translated into English, and which contains the main pro- duct of many years of theological occupation with the New Testament, has met with a more favourable reception in Germany than I could have expected. Not that my anti- cipations that it would displease the extreme parties on right and left have been falsified ; for even the moderate party now dominant in Germany, whilst regarding it with more respect, has treated it as alien to itself. All the more encouraging is that practical criticism, which consists in the eager purchase, diligent reading, and warm praise of a book by susceptible readers. This experience pleases me the more that I view New Testament theology as the source destined to rejuvenate our traditional Church and doctrinal systems, concerning the insufficiency of which our age, with all its other differences, is pretty unanimous. There are undoubtedly needs and feelings in England like our own, though, perhaps, the power of orthodox scholasticism may not be so great, and the inclina- tion to abandon tradition and go back to the Holy Scriptures much stronger ; and therefore I hail it as a new sign of the spiritual fellowship of German and English Protestantism, that my effort to promote a deeper and freer conception of the New Testament religion has met with sympathy on the other side of the Channel, and is to gain a wider sphere of influence through a careful and intelligent translation. Biblical theology, as a science still in its infancy, is liable to more uncertainty as to what exactly are its idea and the limits of its task than any other branch of theological science. And therefore, I am not surprised that the criticisms of my Xiv TREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION book, which have hitherto appeared, have Leen directed mainh' against that enlargement of its idea and sphere which is peculiar to my work. It is said that I liave modernised to some extent the biblical views, and treated them in a manner too subjective, and in this way have made biblical theology approximate too closely to a biblical dogmatic. This impres- sion is no doubt connected with the fact that to me the doc- trinal views of the New Testament are not mere thoughts of past times, but words of eternal truth addressed to us likewise. But I should regret if this religious attitude of mine, which in itself is surely permissible, were found not only to have shown itself in certain incidental allusions to the pre- valent systems of doctrine which have no essential bearing on my task, but also to have disturbed the scientific impartiality and objectivity of my historical account. I have as yet waited in vain for a proof of the latter, for the fact that others expound contested points of the Scriptures in another way than I do is no such proof. The only English criticism of my book that I have seen is that of Professor Dickson in the Critical licviciv. He ha3 satisfied himself with calling in question the scheme of pro- cedure laid down as necessary for a proper treatment of my task. In spite of his great sympathy with my general theological position and his hearty recognition of my work, this critic decidedly prefers the principles on which the well- known work of Dr. Weiss is constructed, and views the points in which my treatment departs from those principles as peculiarities which lessen the value of my treatise. We, in Germany, prize Weiss' book as the most thorough and com- plete collection of materials for a historical account of the New Testament religion, but no one can call it a historical account in the proper sense. Not only is the book very hard reading, but one may go through it carefully, and at the end be just as wise as he was before about the religion of the New Testament as a whole. It is undoubtedly used much more as a book of reference than as a book for reading, and there was absolute need of its being supplemented by an entirely different treatment of the subject. In undertaking this task I have kept well in view the conditions and limitations of a historical presentation. I am PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION XV conscious of the wide difference between such a work as C. I. Nitzsch's System of Christian Doctrine and a biblical theology which is to treat especially of the New Testament. The work of Nitzsch is a doctrinal system of biblical dogmatic and ethics, drawn indiscriminately from the various Scripture writers ; while my task is to examine the several historical accounts of the religion revealed in the New Testament, and exhibit in accordance with this, not what lue have to believe, but what Jesus and His apostles believed. But although there is no dispute about the historical character of biblical theology, yet the idea one has of the way in which history should be written, the high or low conception one forms of historical writing, is matter of importance. Even chronicles are a kind of history, but an imperfect kind, which has ceased to satisfy anyone. At the present day we demand more from history than a mere compilation of notes, carefully selected from the original sources and put in a convenient form. For this would yield no true picture, or at best only a Chinese painting without spirit or life : the actions and thoughts of old times and other nations would remain to us strange and unintelligible. We demand of history a living picture of the unfamiliar life of men in the remote past, not the digging out and exhibition of imperfect mummies, but the mental reproduction of living forms with whom we can think and feel. But to this end a certain translation into our own modes of thought and expression of that which is past and unfamiliar is absolutely indispensable. We must, of course, in the first place transfer ourselves into the past and steep ourselves in it, as my critic demands ; yet we must not con- tent ourselves with this, but must seek to revive the past and bring it into the present. This higher idea of liistory lies at the basis of all the really important contributions to profane history which our century has made ; they may all, from an antiquated stand- point, be reproached with a " modernising " of antiquity. Am I to be blamed for venturing to apply this higher idea of history to the biblical history of religion ? Where could it be more applicable than in the case of the Bible, which is meant to present us, not with a record of antiquities, but with imperishable words of eternal life ? Xvi PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION These considerations, I believe, completely justify those peculiar principles of procedure which my English critic rejects as unjustifiable and suspicious. The primitive Christian religion as mirrored in the New Testament writings is un- questionably a historical phenomenon, a historical fact and form of life, and the business of biblical theology is to repre- sent it as such. Now this religion lies before us in a small number of popular sketches of the life of Jesus and of some occasional writings of His apostles or companions of His apostles. A procedure such as is demanded by my reviewer, of simply ascertaining and arranging the doctrines that are expressly stated, would be quite insufficient, because that which these sources present, in the shape of formal doctrine, is far from exhausting their religious doctrinal content. How much of what belongs to the religion of the new covenant have we to gather from mere hints, or presuppositions of Jesus and His apostles ! If we were to leave these out of account we would, for example, have, in the case of Paul, no doctrine of God ; in the case of Jesus, no doctrine of man, that is, in either case we would be deprived of one of the two poles between which religion altogether moves. When my critic again and agaiji maintains that biblical theology has to do simply with that which the Bible presents of religious teaching, he overlooks the fact that a great part of that teaching is pre- sented, not in the form of doctrine, but as mere doctrinal material, and that for that very reason we cannot be satisfied with a procedure of merely ascertaining and combining, such as he will alone admit. But even that which he regards as so suspicious, " the translation " of what we find in the Bible into our own modes of thought and speech, is indispensable. For we are to endeavour to understand what we find in the Bible ; and as we are neither Jews nor Greeks of the first Eoman Empire, but Germans or Englishmen of the nineteenth century, how are we to understand without a translation in the widest and deepest sense of the word ? A translation of the biblical speech, in the ordinary sense, into German or English of the present day, is itself a kind of modernising process. But a mere dictionary translation would help us very little, would give us only words without intelligible meaning. There must be PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION XVll added a mental translation, a transference not merely into our vocabulary, but also into our mode of thought, as speech and thought cannot at all be separated. No doubt this procedure may be abused, and lead to a voluntary or involuntary importation of one's own ideas, but " abusus non tollit usum." Finally, in asserting that the work of biblical theology can dispense with criticism and divination just as little as any other writing of history, I have no doubt made a state- ment that is also capable of being greatly misunderstood and abused, but rightly understood it is quite self - evident. Without criticism, that is, without judgment, not merely about the actuality, but also about the importance of the facts recorded, no one can write a history of the New Testa- ment religion, or, in fact, any rational history whatever. Just as little can he do so without divination, that is, without that process of mental creation which out of dissimilar fragments produces a harmonious whole, I understand here by criti- cism, not indeed a judgment as to what worth particular views in the Bible may have for us, but what they signified for Jesus and for Paul themselves ; and by " reading between the lines," I mean not a conjectural reading into, but a reading out by divination of what is not expressed but implied. Thus Paul has nowhere given us an exposition of the way in which he conceives it possible to reconcile the existence of the divine government of the world with human freedom, but in a whole series of utterances he forces on us the conviction, that in his opinion such a harmony existed. Have I then done anything superfluous or arbitrary in attempt- ing to divine his solution of the problem from these various references to it ? This extension and deepening of the historical task which is demanded by our age, is, I believe, quite indispensable, though it adds immensely to the difficulties and dangers of the historian's work. Everything, however, depends on these principles being legitimately applied and not abused. In this respect my English critic testifies that I have only made a moderate use of those principles which he regards as suspicious ; yet he is of opinion that my book is to be used with care. In this he is certainly right. No historian can rise above a certain subjectivism, for he has only two eyes, and these his BEYSCHLAG. — T. 3 XVlll PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION own two eyes, wherewith to see. However, one is just as little protected from this subjectivism by proceeding according to the principles of Weiss' book ; but for that, for example, Weiss would not have propounded that entirely onesided conception of the Pauline doctrine of the death of Jesus, which views this death as sufficient only for the taking away of guilt, not for the actual overcoming of sin. Nor would he have ascribed to the apostle that abstruse scheme of salvation, in which there is for man not one means of salvation but two, faith for justification, and baptism for the communication of the Spirit. It may be that I have not succeeded everywhere in discovering the sense of the original, but have now and again read in my own ideas, and I can only say that I should be truly thankful for any real proof in such cases, in order that it may assist me to improve my judgment and my presentation. In my work I have striven throughout to obtain results not from preconceived ideas, but from authorities honestly expounded, and I claim no more trust on the part of the reader than may be justified by an earnest and strict examination of these authorities. And therefore, with cordial greetings to the English readers who are interested in such work, I would say in the language of the apostle, " Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." DR. WILLIBALD BEYSCHLAG. Halle, December 1893. PREFACE In publishing the first half of a work which has been the favourite task of my life, it may be well to present the reader with some preliminary account of the motives and points of view by which I have been guided. The immediate cause of my preparing a history of New Testament theology was the fact that my Christology of the Neio Testament, published in 1865, had been for some years out of print, and I could not make up my mind to publish a new edition of this fragment of a larger organic whole. That book was my answer to the attacks which Hengstenberg had made upon me, on account of my discourse at the Altenburg Church Conference, with the aim of destroying my theological and ecclesiastical effectiveness. Hurriedly written within nine months, it bore the stamp of its first purpose, and in a new edition I should have had to recast, not indeed the main thought, but a great part of the manner of proof, with the view of getting rid of its strongly defensive and dogmatic character. But a new treatment of the Christological theme, especially after the publication of my Life of Jesus, had no attraction for me. On the other hand, the long expressed wish of attached students, as well as the peculiarity of my whole theological training and development, urged me to undertake a complete presentation of New Testament theology. If there is any peculiar gift which I might claim in the sphere of theoretic theology, it is sympathy with the currents of thought in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. This sympathy with the lines of thought in the Bible has kept me free from lifeless scholasticism in theology on the one hand, and from merely destructive criticism on XX PKEFACE the other. It has enabled me to find such a unity of faith and knowledge as I was capable of and required, and, at the same time, it has rendered possible that combination of scientific and practical labour in the service of the Protestant Church which has been the soul of my active life. As in this book I follow in the footsteps of my great teacher, C. I. Nitzsch, who is already almost forgotten, though undeservedly so, I recognise that in view of the present theological and ecclesiastical tendencies my course will be attended with no particular favour. Nay, as my temperament does not allow me to treat matters, which have a far closer interest for me than that of the mere scholar, with the superior coolness which passes with many as the mark of a genuine scientific spirit, my exposition will undoubtedly excite equal displeasure in the opposing wings, both of advanced criticism and traditional dogmatism. I may be allowed here to make some candid acknowledgments to both sides. No intelligent reader will fail to recognise that I occupy the standpoint of historical criticism as the only possible one to-day for scientific theology in dealing with the Scriptures, and that I unreservedly renounce the inferences drawn from that antiquated theory of inspiration which has done more to encumber the Bible than to illumine it. But yet I feel myself in fundamental opposition to the modern criticism which has been widely prevalent in theological circles since the days of Baur, without, on that account, admitting that I am behind the times. I have learned from Schleiermacher that criticism is an art, which, above all, seeks by thought to restore life to the writing that is to be judged, and to judge it only from the basis of this living reproduction ; and I have learned from my honoured teacher Bleek that this art is not to be exercised without a corresponding virtue, the virtue of dis- cretion and diffidence, of reverent feeling towards historical tradition, of discrimination between results that carry prob- ability and idle imaginings that simply cumber the path with rubbish, which the next inquirer has to clear away. It seems to me that since the mighty impression produced and the mighty influence exercised by Baur, critical tools have become a common possession, but the art of using them and its corre- sponding virtue have been on the wane. It is held to be the PEEFACE XXI business of criticism to arraign every historical tradition ; it is thought a service to shake conservative positions witliout putting any better positive understanding of the matter in their place ; people are far more bent on saying something that is new, than on saying something that is tenable. In contrast with this sort of criticism, which brings the art of criticism and whatever is to any degree liberal in the treat- ment of theology into disrepute, I have indicated in the intro- ductory diccussions of my chief sections what, in my opinion, after careful consideration, a sober criticism has to say about the New Testament documents, and hope that my presentation of the biblico-theological results will verify these historic and critical assumptions. On the other hand, concerning the subject-matter of that presentation, I have to exhibit a great unison in the biblical doctrine of salvation, a substantial agreement even between Paul and the original apostles, and between Paul and Jesus Himself, in all that is important. And I think with this result, if it will stand the test, the good Protestant theologian as well as the simple Bible Christian may rest content. But, except in a very modified way, I have not any scriptural support to proffer for the traditional creed of the Church. I must not only adhere to my christological decisions, advanced five-and -twenty years ago, but must also oppose the traditional juristic doctrine of reconciliation as unbiblical, and maintain a radical distinction between the harmonious biblical doctrines and the current formulae of the Church. If there are people to-day, as there were people at the time of the Altenburg Church Conference, who should find a want of faith in these results, I must leave them to their standpoint of faith in tradition, perhaps reminding them of the words of an old and very orthodox Church Father: "Christ has said, I am the truth; He has not said, I am the custom," My conviction, which is shared by not a few of the most faithful members and servants of the Church, is, that a renovated expression of our Church doctrine is one of the most urgent duties of the time. No stress laid on practical Christianity, however well meant and warranted it may be, will be of any use unless, with the conscientious earnestness which should be inherent in us as Protestants, we seek to ascertain whether the convictions on XXll PREFACE which it rests are really grounded on the truth. I regard it as the most fatal defect of the so-called "mediating theology" to which I rejoice in other points to belong, that, with few exceptions, instead of exercising a courageous and scriptural criticism on the doctrinal tradition of the Church, it now excuses and now conceals its deviations from that tradition. It has also confounded the historical estimate of the Church's dogmatic with an approximate restoration of it, helping thereby to foster the would-be orthodoxy of our day, which, like a somnambulist, goes with its eyes closed on the house- tops of the century. If, indeed, our deviations from the traditional were abatements or diminutions of original Christianity, we would have no right to speak or to exist. But the opposite of this is the case. The biblical mode of teaching is far richer, deeper, more satisfying to the intellect, and the religious and moral life, than the scholastic, and we are only exercising our right as good Protestants, we are only doing our evangelic duty, received from the Eeformation, when we go back from scholasticism to the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, which, during the last century, have been interpreted in accordance with new methods. In this sense, as a modest contribution to the reconstruction of our Church theology, I here submit the results of many years' familiarity with the writings of the New Testament, in the hope that though, in the well-known words of the poet, " Nothing will please him who is perfect," there may be some in process of growth who will be grateful for help here as everywhere. And now a few more remarks about the formal arrange- ment of my book, as it follows from the scientific and practical tendency which is inseparable from my disposition and mode of thought. As a matter of course, my expositions are con- cerned with the scientific discussions of the present ; but, in order to keep my book from swelling out of proportion, I have restricted to special cases express statements of the views of others, and as far as possible referred to them in notes. I have thought that special reference now and then was due to the much-read book of Dr. Weiss, which in some respects sums up the work hitherto done in this field. It may be hoped that the complaints made in one quarter about my Life of Christ, that I did not go deep enough into the exegetical PEEFACE XXm evidence, will not be repeated here. There is nothing easier than to tumble out the contents of exegetical note-books in such a book as this. But in doing so one mixes up the business of exegesis and history, and makes needlessly large books at a time when already there is of making books no end. I hope that I have given a presentation sufficient for the intelligent reader everywhere of the exegetical basis which alone belongs to a biblical theology, sometimes by express discussions, sometimes by noting the harmony of different facts, sometimes by simple quotation or translation of passages, while the original text is quoted where it is important to have the Greek words. If, on the other hand, many things are introduced which learned experts may find superfluous, I would ask them to remember that I desire to have my book read not merely by such experts, but also by working clergy- men and students, as well as — if it should be so fortunate — by cultured laymen who may wish to inquire about the sources of our Christian faith and doctrine. Nevertheless I do not doubt that numerous defects will adhere to this as to my earlier work, springing partly from my personal peculiarity, partly from my scanty and broken leisure within six years, in which I have been forced to complete the book bit by bit. I can only pray that a kindly reception may be given to what- ever real help I have to proffer, and that the rest may not be too long dwelt upon. May God, who has allowed me to com- plete in soundness and freshness of mind this life-work, grant His blessing for this attempt to clear a broader roadway for His truth. WILLIBALD BEYSCHLAG. Halle, 1891. i(EW testame?nt theology INTEODUCTION § 1. Subject and Problem The question as to the original teaching of Jesus and His apostles has never been entirely set at rest in the course of the Christian centuries. How often has Christendom, un- satisfied, nay, repelled by that which the Church as dispenser of Christian doctrine offered it, raised its eyes to the hills whence help came to the dying world so many centuries before, and gone back from the turbid brooks of a derived tradition to the sources from which the water of life flows forth in its original purity. But the springs rose from wells that were sealed. The Ileformation gave men a deeper draught from these springs, and declared the fountain to be accessible to every man. Yet no man who knows what he is saying will maintain that Protestant Christendom to-day has the consciousness of being saturated with the original teaching of Christ, without addition or diminution. The present has only one advantage over every former period of Cliristendom. It has made the satisfaction of that deep legitimate desire the subject of methodical, scientific work, which is just our biblical and especially our New Testament Theology. " Biblical Theology," " New Testament Theology," has become current as an awkward name for a subject of the very first importance, — a name which is explained by the scientific history of its origin, to be referred to further on. For it does not mean a theology which occupies itself with the Bible, — • r.EVSCHLAG. — I. I 2 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY all brandies of biblical study would then have to be compre- hended under this name, — but a theology which the Bible itself has and proffers, the theology which lies before us in the Bible. But the Bible contains no " theology " in the strict sense of the word, no scientific doctrine of divine tilings. It contains religion as distinguished from theology. And that is just its excellence, that it contains pure religion ; that, as we believe, it presents the true and perfect religion as distinguished from all subsequent theological manipulation of the same. Consequently, the current name, " Biblical Theology," can only be maintained by taking theology here in the wider sense of doctrine and doctrinal contents of a religious and moral character, without any scientific form. But we are met on the threshold by a modern objection to this provisional conception of the matter. Is doctrine, even in this sense, really the essential content of the Bible ? Is not its content above all fact and history ? As for Christ- ianity in particular, is it not a life in God mediated through Jesus Christ, rather than a doctrine of divine things ? The friends of biblical theology have no wish to deny the truth which underlies these statements ; but it is a half truth, and therefore liable to be misunderstood. To say nothing of the apostles, who, at anyrate, taught something concerning Christ, or of Paul who was certainly one of the greatest teachers in the world's history, the statement that " Jesus Christ brought no new doctrine, but presented in His person a holy life with God and before God, and in the strength which He drew from that spiritual life He devoted Himself to the service of His brethren in order to win them for the kingdom of God," ^ is, with all the truth which it contains, one of those misleading statements that oppose things which are not mutually exclusive. No one can deny that Jesus was known by His contemporaries as a " Master," that is, as a Teachei'. His preaching was hailed as a new doctrine (Mark i. 27), and He Himself was conscious that its was His special mission to convey a knowledge of God which was unheard of before Him, and which could not be obtained without Him (Matt. xi. 27). Certainly this knowledge is only the abstract side of the life in God which He unfolds in order to cora- ^ Plarnack, History of Dogma, vol. i. p. 36. INTKODUCTION 3 municate ; but this new life is anything but an unconscious one ; nor is it imparted by magic, but clothes itself in idea, word, and preaching, and thus becomes essentially and neces- sarily a new doctrine of divine things. Nor is it otherwise with the content of Holy Scripture as a whole. No doubt that content is above all things testimony, the attestation of facts of divine revelation ; but in the testimony there is thought, in the fact there is idea. What God reveals of Himself is truth to be thought about and to be proclaimed ; that is, of course, doctrine, or doctrinal content. This doctrinal content of the Bible must, according to our Protestant principle of Scripture, be the basis of our system- atic theology, as well as of our practical preaching. But before we can turn it into the scientific forms of thought of the present day, or bring it to bear in our preaching on the immediate requirements of the Church, it is necessary to realise what was its original shape as it appeared in history. And this is just the task of our biblical theology. It is therefore the crowning result of our directly biblical studies. Our first duty in coming to the biblical writings, as the historical documents of our religion, is to make ourselves acquainted with their origin, the place and character of their connection with the progress of a historical revelation. This introductory critical task being performed, we search through the several writings once more, word for word, in order to understand them in detail from the general point of view we have gained, and in order to turn their contents to account ; this is the work of exposition. But the multifarious results of this work are, at first, but stones which obtain their full and proper value only when they are joined together in a great structure ; they are elements which have to be restored to that organic connection to which they once belonged, before that more or less fragmentary and incidental literary verification. Now, according as this mental reproduction takes place from the point of view of the fact, or that of the idea, it yields the theological departments of the history of the old covenant, of the life of Jesus, the history of the apostolic age, or again that of biblical theology of the Old and New Testament. Not, indeed, as if the several parts of the Bible apportioned themselves in a purely external way to 4 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY the one scientific division or the other, the formally historical parts coming to this, and the formally doctrinal parts belong- ing to that. That would yield an equally meagre biblical history and biblical theology, as the formal history, quite as much as the intentional teaching in the biblical documents, comes far short of what was really to be narrated and taught. No ; to take an example from the Old Testament, while the faith of the Psalmist, the wisdom of the Proverbs, and still more the preaching of the prophets belong to the history of Israel, and indeed present its inmost and most peculiar facts, it is equally certain, conversely, that the religious and moral 'teaching of the old covenant must be sought not merely in the sayings of Moses and the prophets, but also in the confessions of the Psalms, the sacred institutions, customs, and hopes of the nation. In the same way, it is but a limited part of the New Testament doctrinal content which is purposely developed in the didactic utterances of Jesus and the occasional writings of His apostles ; a greater part, perhaps, comes to us but faintly echoed in the form of pre- supposition or cursory hint, or emerges in the actual conduct of those who teach. But what we have to reproduce is not merely the fragments incidentally worked out in detail, but the whole view of the world as it lived in the hearts of Jesus and His first witnesses. Accordingly, the idea and function of New Testament theology may be easily and simply expressed. It is the historical presentation of the New Testament religion from its abstract doctrinal side, the scientific restoration of the moral and religious elements of doctrine which existed in the consciousness of Jesus and His first witnesses, and found expression in their words and writings. It is therefore essentially a historical discipline, a branch of theological science which is related to the sacred history of the Bible, very much as the history of dogma is related to the history of the Church. § 2. Standpoint Protestant theology undertakes such a presentation under the twofold conviction of the revealed character of the INTRODUCTION 5 biblical religion, and the historical character of the biblical revelation. Not that a presentation of the doctrinal contents of the Bible would be impossible without a belief in its origin as higher than that of non-biblical religions. Eut quite apart from the question whether such a presentation could do justice to the subject, it would therewith sink to the level of a mere chapter in the general history of religion, which could not claim the rank of a special theological department, or any higher value than other chapters of that history. Attempts have been made to treat biblical theology in this way, but that is not the Christian or Protestant standpoint. As Christians we believe that the biblical, and especially the New Testament religion, as distinguished from every other, rests on a divine revelation, and as I'rotestant Christians we believe that this revelation has found such complete and final expression in the Scriptures, especially those of the New Testament, that their doctrinal contents remain for all time the standard of Christian faith and practice. We therefore regard New Testament theology as not merely a chapter of the general history of religion, in which we may take a human and purely scientific interest, but as an essential means of learning scientifically from the sources the contents of our Christian faith. We regard it as the touch- stone and source from which our Church doctrine is to be renewed, nay, as the indispensable nursery of our whole Church culture. Yet this revealed character of the biblical religion is not to be proved here as a preliminary. So far as this needs to be established scientifically, it belongs to fundamental theology as apologetics ; for biblical theology it is only a presupposition on which its mode of treatment is not dependent, but without which biblical religion would be for ns an insoluble enigma. It may be sufficient here to call attention to the proof to be given further on. To speak briefly, the idea of revelation is the necessary correlate to the idea of religion. If religion, that is, an immediate personal relation of man to God, has any truth at all, then it postu- lates the possibility of an opening up of the heart of the eternal God to the heart of man coming to meet Him. That is a possibility which cannot be realised in heathendom, where the heart of m.an, seeking God, blunderingly grasps the hem b NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY of His garment and mistakes nature, His majestic raiment, for Himself. It can only be realised where the heart of man rising above and beyond nature, grasping something super- natural, ethically absolute and holy, presses beyond God's external manifestations into His essence, as is the case in the religion of the Bible, and only in it. This does not mean that the objective revelation is repeated afresh in the case of everyone who embraces this true religion ; it is broadly human in its references ; it is a communication to one which is meant for others at the same time, — a communication which is effected in a definite historical place and at a crisis in time in such wise that anyone who would take from the fulness of this perfect communication needs only the subjective .appropriation, that is, the subjective revelation of its divine truth. The fundamental Christian experience from the beginning to the present day is, that this process of divine revelation, meant for the whole human race, has really taken place within the limits of Scripture, and reached for all time its highest point in Jesus Christ, as well as that the New Testament writings which testify of Him are genuine docu- ments of God's completed revelation. Christendom draws from the person of its founder by means of these writings which testify of Him a supernatural world - overcoming spiritual life, a satisfaction of the deepest needs of the human heart and of the human race such as can be got nowhere else, and by these Scriptures it is led back from all the errors of its historical course to its original and imperishable sources. The theology of to-day does not deny what lias just been declared about Jesus, but it does partly deny what lias been asserted of the New Testament Scriptures. It does not deny the revealed character of Christianity in general, but while recognising it more or less definitely in the personal life of Jesus, does not extend that recognition to the New Testa- ment writings as such. In virtue of a conception of revelation which divests it as far as possible of a doctrinal character, it yet considers that literature with its doctrinal contents as a purely human historical product, as the literary source of a first chapter of the history of dogma, in which as in the later chapters there is a theological treatment of the Christian INTRODUCTION 7 facts of revelation, a series of purely human reflections of these facts which are not even consistent with each other. It is manifest that this would completely destroy the signifi- cance of the Xew Testament teaching as a standard for all time, its significance as a great permanent text for the history of dogma, in a word, the Protestant principle of Scripture. Without falling back on the old dogma of inspira- tion, or wishing to formulate a new one, we must at once declare ourselves opposed to such a view. Although the New Testament writers belong only in part to the original circle of disciples, the apostles who write being, so to speak, in great measure different from those who preached by word of mouth, yet no one will deny that these writings are the oldest documents of Christianity. It has, however, to be proved that they are not genuine accounts of the actual rise of Christianity, and do not stand to the revelation of God in Christ in a relation of descent so immediate and clear, that this revelation may be learned from them pure and undetiled. The impression which Christendom from the first has re- ceived, and still receives, from this early Christian literature, fixes a wide gulf between it and the ecclesiastical literature which followed. These original writings are certainly a subject for free critical examination, which may correct many old church traditions; and certainly this criticism will bring to light deutero-canonical fragments, approximating to the uncanonical in the collection which was formed gradually and without science. Yet it can only in the end confirm the judgment of the Church, which has drawn the boundary-line thus and not otherwise — as against the modern attempts to place an Epistle of Clement or the Shepherd of Hermas on the same level with these deutero-canonical fragments. With a sure religious tact, which does not fail even in those cases where the historic tradition was in error about the origin of a book, the old Church has fixed the classic literature of early Christianity, the collection of writings in which it felt the pulse-beat of the period of creation as distinguished from that of elaboration, and elaboration by means alien in spirit. We feel this pulse-beat still. As often as we base a sermon on a text of Scripture we become convinced that the words of Scripture are in point of fact related to the preaching of 8 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY the Church at all times, as that of text to commentary. Bub \\Q may also discern the historical reasons for this abidin;:f distinction and superiority. Christianity at an early period Avas detached from its Hebrew motlier soil and transplanted into the foreign field of Greek culture, where, like a plant in foreign soil, it could not but change its form and be subject to the critical and theologising spirit of the Hellenic schools. But the New Testament embraces that primitive Christian literature which was in existence before that great transition. Tor these writings are rooted in that mother soil of New Testament revelation, in naive connection with the Old Testament views which were fulfilled and transfigured in Christ, and they are produced by the prophetic spirit which had its home in Palestine, and which Jesus unsealed afresh. They are thus able to mirror the New Testament revelation to which they stand so near in time, with a directness which all later writings of the Church naturally and necessarily lack. What is right and legitimate in the view of the New Testament writings which we have just rejected, lies in what we a little while ago designated as the other presupposition of our biblical theology, " the historical character of the biblical revelation." In fact, the biblical religion, together with the sacred writings which attest it, is, in spite of its divine origin, something truly historical, originating according to the laws of human nature. In modern times, in contradistinction to earlier periods, the view has become widely prevalent that develop- ment, that great law which we perceive in all natural and spiritual life, belongs also to the sphere of biblical religion, and that within the Bible there is a great progress from the elementary and imperfect to the richer and more complete. And the Bible itself, which proclaims the greatest progress of humanity and history in passing from the old covenant to the new, is very far from raising any objection to this view. Development can only be predicated of what is in some sense imperfect and human, not of what is eternally perfect and divine ; and therefore a human and imperfect side of the biblical religion and its documents is, in principle, conceded with that historical view. The sum total of all those various kinds of imperfections, from the want of religious and moral knowledge of the Old Testament men of God up to the defects INTRODUCTION 9 of the New Testament tradition which sets Christ before us, the marks of the human which a close examination of the Bible cannot fail to perceive, no longer disconcerts us. That the genesis of the religion of the Bible itself, as well as of its records,— notwithstanding the divine soul in both, — proceeded just as naturally and humanly as any other historical develop- ment, we freely admit, and therefore in no way limit the right of historical criticism in either case. But how is this com- patible with our belief in a true revelation of God underlying the religion of the Bible, and finding its literary monuments in the Bible ? It would not indeed be compatible with this belief if we were to retain the earlier view of the revealed religion of the Bible as something abstractly divine and not as something divine-human ; or if with an awkward anti- quated conception of religion we were to regard revelation as an aggregate of doctrines which are communicated by God to the human spirit ready made, — which that spirit could not of itself discover, — and Holy Scripture as the infallible rule sent down from heaven which contains these doctrines. A view which requires the first page of the Bible to contain the same pure doctrine as the last, and will not allow any mention of human imperfections, or even of different individual concep- tions of the one doctrine, would justify the reproach that such a revelation does violence to the human spirit, and surprises it with communications which it cannot even truly appropriate. But instead of this, we now understand by revelation, in con- sequence of our better knowledge of the nature of religion, rather an awakening and enlightening of tlie inmost life of the soul, a divine fertilisation of all in the inner man that has affinity with God, which certainly affects and fully engages his intellect also, but does not overwhelm it by thrusting upon it a doctrine above the reach of reason. We understand by it a self-communication of the Divine Spirit to the human such as is in keeping with the nature of religious intercourse with God, and is conditioned of itself by the measure of human receptivity and capacity. Accordingly, the course of the divine revelation, as it completes itself for the whole of humanity and history within definite historical limits, must be a more and more inward union of the Holy Spirit of God with the devout human 10 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY spirit, and the offspring of this nnion, the reh'gion of revela- tion, will naturally and necessarily bear divine as well as human features. The revelation of God can only be perfected in the climax of this course of history where an ideal humanity presents itself as a vessel for God's eternal fulness, and even here it is at the outset a heavenly glory in an earthly servant form. It must at the beginning come down to the deepest poverty and feebleness of man, and thence, stage by stage, increase the receptivity to which it can more and more fully impart itself in ever richer communications. And that is just how it is in the artlessly composed Bible history. The divine revelation addresses itself to those men pre-eminently religious, who then turn what they have received to account in the founding of a community, and out of this community again issue those who can receive a higher stage of revelation. The smoking flax of true religion is nursed into flame in the hearth of a family and tribe community by the childlike intercourse with the living God which an Abraham cultivates in the midst of a world sinking into heathenism. From this proceeds Moses, to whom the Eternal appears in the fiery llame of His holiness, and he makes his vision of God the basis of a national community, a divine commonwealth in Israel. From this national community again proceed the prophets, the living conscience of the nation, to whom God makes Himself known in an ever clearer light, and whom He, in view of the downfall of the outer commonwealth of God, convinces of His eternal love and faithfulness, with which He will yet crown His work in Israel. From them at length the quiet community of the poor and suffering draw their living hope in the deepest outward ruin of the nation, and thus become the historical environment of Him in whom the gracious fulfilment comes down from heaven, the Son of Man and Son of God, whose perfect humanity filled with divine love became the fit vessel and instrument for a revelation which was to master the world. And even He, the perfect one and the perfecter, could only speak in the forms of His time and people, could only speak from the course of an as yet incomplete life-work, and was forced in a sense to be His own prophet. His life in its completed issue has, so to say, outstripped His teaching, and therefore could only sufficiently INTEODUCTION 1 1 be made the subject of expository preaching by His disciples and successors. These also, in the form of their culture, bein.tr in diverse ways children of their age, are again differently afl'ected by their disposition and mode of life, in their exposi- tion of the Saviour's life, so as to give a peculiar aspect of the common theme in the preaching of each. All this enables ITS to describe the divine revelation, not, of course, in its abstract divinity, — in this it remains the indescribable, mysterious source of the historical revelation that is to be exhibited, — but the biblical revelation in its divine human aspect, the religion of revelation bearing the stamp both of the eternal and the temporal. § 3. Sketch of the Treatment of our Subject up TO THE Present This human and historical nature of the biblical religion has not at all times been prized as it should within the Church ; in fact, the Church for long failed to apprehend it, and therefore biblical theology, in the sense described above, has only of late become possible. The human, historical nature of the Bible came to be completely misapprehended, not only by conceiving the divine revelation in a onesided and exaggerated way as doctrine above reason, but by directly confounding it with its literary productions and documentary attestations, viz. tlie biblical writings. The Bible, from be- ginning to end, had to be the uniform oracular book of revealed doctrine. That did not promote, but prevented the under- standing of it. The presupposition that the Bible must everywhere teach with the same divine perfection, caused the Church to fall into the most arbitrary allegorical exposition, and in spite of appeals to Holy Scripture made the Church's doctrine more and more unlike the announcement of salvation which Scripture contains. The reformation certainly went back in earnest to the Scriptures, re-established principles of reason for its exposition, and would allow nothing to be regarded as Church doctrine but the biblical gospel. But it suffered so much of that erroneous assumption to remain, as might render a more biblical dogmatic possible, but not a historical knowledge of the doctrinal contents of the Bible, 12 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY And the rigidity of the Protestant system of doctrine soon led back to a new scholasticism which again closed the Bible that had scarcely been opened. If Melanchthon and Calvin de- veloped their dogmatic text -books immediately from the Scriptures, especially from the Epistles of Paid, their succes- sors did not continue on this path, but rather based their (loL^'matic on the creeds of the Church, contenting themselves with confirming the doctrines thence deduced with biblical dicta jJrohimtla, proof passages taken without distinction from different parts of Scripture, and torn out of the connection to which they belonged. It was therefore reserved for the time of the decay of this Protestant scholasticism, and the begin- ning of the historical and critical study of the Bible, to advance gradually to the idea of a biblical theology as now understood. Genuine friends of orthodoxy were the first, from a sense of the insufrlciency and obsoleteness of its schol- astic form, to endeavour to regenerate it from the utterly neglected Bible, and thus did the name biblical theology — in the sense of a biblical as distinguished from a scholastic dogmatic — first become current in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Bilsching of Gottingen advanced the idea of a thcologia c solis Uteris sandis concinnaia, and wrote " of the advantage of biblical dogmatic theology over scholastic " (175 6-1 7 o 8) ; and Zachariii, who likewise taught in Gottingen, composed (1775 ff.) a " BihUccd Theology, or Examination of the Biblical Grounds of the iirinci-pcd Christian Doctrines." That which was here meant to be a new support of the dogmatic of the Church came to undermine it, as rationalism soon suc- ceeded orthodoxy dying of old age. Bahrdt and Amnion started from the same didactic conception of the Scriptures as the orthodox, but applied it in their own rationalistic sense, and therefore the old traditional violence to the meaning of Scripture for the sake of a dogmatic system, seemed as if it were only to be replaced by a new kind of violence. It was in these circumstances that the Altorf theologian J. Ph. Gabler clearly disentangled the matter in his academic lecture " de justo discrimine theologia3 biblire et dogmatics" (1789), by putting the two entirely different questions : " What in point of fact do the Scriptures teach ? " and " What is dogmatic truth for us ? " This cleared the way for an impartial dogmatic and INTRODUCTION 1 3 purely historical examination of Scripture, — a way which about the same time the pioneer labours of Semler had opened from another side. The conception of biblical theology as historical science, as the historical presentation of the doctrinal contents of the Bible, was found. In this sense Lorenz Bauer of Altorf first produced a Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (179G— 1800), with the addition of a Biblical Ethic (1804). According to him biblical theology is " a simple representation, purged from all foreign notions, of the religious theories of the Jews before Christ, and of Jesus and His apostles, deduced from their writings according to the different j)eriods and views of the writers." By distinguishing not only Old and New Testament, but also the theology of the different authors, he already in point of form carries out the historical view. This indeed leaves much to be wished as regards the subject- matter, as the author, looking through rationalistic spectacles, makes arbitrary distinctions between doctrinal contents of universal validity and mere ideas of the time, or accommoda- tions. Kaisers' Biblical Theology, or Judaism and Christianity (Erlangen, 1813), does not go much beyond Bauer. The author, from a philosophical standpoint of the time (after- wards abandoned), wished to treat the religion of the Bible as a special chapter of a critical history of comparative religions. On the other hand, de Wette's Biblical Dogmatic of the Old and New Testaments (1813; 2nd ed. 1830), marks a real advance in the impartial estimate of what is properly biblical. By undertaking to represent the Christian religion in its relation to the Jewish culture of the time, just as the dog- matic of the Church represents it in relation to the culture of to-day, de Wette, notwithstanding the title dogmatic, rather gave a history of dogma within the Bible. It treats separ- ately of Old and New Testament, dividing the former into Hebraism and Judaism, and the latter into the teaching of Jesus and that of His apostles ; the idea of religion which is thereby set up is at least more in harmony with the biblical than the old rationalistic idea. De Wette's successors, Baum- garten-Crusius and v. Colin, start from a similar standpoint. The former, indeed {Outlines of Biblical Theology, 1828), by failing to distinguish any period, not even keeping Old and 14 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY New Testament apart, reverts to the standpoint of biblical dogmatic. The latter {Biblical Theology, edited by D. Schulz, 183 G) adheres to the division of de Wette, and supports it with a more abundant learning. The influence of Schleier- macher, the great renovator of our theology, which is from this time perceptible, is at first only indirect within our province, as a fresh and biblical dogmatic was sought on the new footing in religion and theology with far better results than in the transition time of the eighteenth century. Among a series of works of that kind stands out the really biblical System of Christian Doctrine, by C. I. Mtzsch. But this greatest of Schleiermacher's successors has also directly fos- tered biblical theology, by introducing it into the circle of his academic lectures. His thoughtful sketch distinguishes in the Old Testament the patriarchal, the Mosaic, the prophetic, and the Judaistic stage ; in the New Testament, the teaching of Jesus and that of His apostles. Each stage has a historical introduction, and is divided into ontology, doctrine of salvation, and ethics. The separate consideration of the several apos- tolic modes of teaching, which is still wanting here, was in the meantime commenced in the treatment in monographs of a Pauline or Johannine system of doctrine (the former by Usteri and Diihne, 1832 and 1838 ; the latter by Frommann, 1830), and was advanced by Neander in particular, who in his Apostolic Age attempted to present the teaching of James, Peter, Paul, and John according to psychological differences in their character. From a similar standpoint — besides lesser works of the school of JSTeander — is the much-used Biblical Theology of the New Testament, by Chr. F. Schmid, of Tubingen (edited by Weizsacker, 1853), a work which also treats of the history of Jesus and of the apostles, and methodically treats the doctrinal systems of the latter according to their different position to the law and the prophets. Henceforth the development of New Testament theology is mainly affected by the impulse given by Chr. F. Baur. Whatever objections may be taken to his constructive concep- tion of the early Christian situation, Baur has opposed to the merely individual distinctions of Neander great historical contrasts and stages of development, and carried out even wrong views with such ability and acuteness, that partly by INTRODUCTION 1 5 the successors whom he inspired, partly by the contradiction he evoked, the investigation of biblical theology has been lifted to a new height, and, in particular, the perception of the actual state of things has been rendered more acute. The separate investigation either of definite systems or special heads of doctrine, has increased beyond all reckoning since Baur's time. The biblico-theological development of his view of history fell at first to prominent disciples : Schwegler in his post -apostolic age, Hilgenfeld and K. E. Kostlin in their writings on the Johannine system of doctrine, Holsten in his Gospel of Pdcr and Paul, etc. The lectures of the master on New Testament theology, delivered from 1852-1860, only appeared after his death (1864). They will always be memorable as the practical manifesto of a historical and literary criticism which made the picture of Jesus a wavering shadow, the primitive apostles Jewish refiners of the law, and the Apostle Paul the real creator of Christianity. Eduard Eeuss, in his Hisioirc dc la tMolorjic chrctiennc au siklc ajiostoliquc, perhaps the ablest discussion of the subject we possess, though it be somewhat sketchy, has shown, on the other hand, how far the opinions advanced by Baur may be modified by an impartial estimate of their elements of truth in favour of a standpoint which is both more religious and more historical. Apart from the healthy development into which Eeuss has guided back our science, there remain the contemporary works of Lutterbeck and von Hofmann. Lutterbeck's New Testament System of Doctrine, 185 2, only illustrates how incapable a X3upil of Catholic theology is, though scholarly and intel- lectually free, of finding his way in this Protestant problem and discussion. And von Hofmann's Biblical Tlicology of the Neio Testament (edited by Volk, 1886), the fragment with which he closed his well-planned but perverse Bible Studies, suffers from the delusion that it is possible to write a history of the New Testament revelation in its pure divine objectivity, instead of a history of the New Testament religion of revela- tion, an undertaking which could only result in a greater display of the human and sulyective. The merit of having freed our science from Baur's scheme of history has been earned by Albrecht Eitschl in the second edition of his book on the Old Catholic Church, 1857. His own positive theology 16 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY was not derived from biblical principles, but only sought to put itself in agreement with the teaching of Scripture, with scholarly though sometimes violent acuteness (in the second volume of his Lclirc von tier Rcchtfcrtifjunrj und Versohnung). Tlie Nao Testament Theology, by Immer (1875), and the works of PHeiderer {Paulinism, 187o, and Das Urcliristcntltum, seine Scliriftcn und Lehren, 1877), move, so far as the intervening change of the scientific situation permits, on the lines of Baur, yet variously modifying Baur's position, and, as is specially the case with Pfleiderer's Faulinism, taking an independent view. H. Cremer, in his painstaking Biblical Thcologiccd Lexicon of Nctu Testament Greek [Trans. T. & T. Clark], has furnished a very valual)le aid for the examination of details, strongly influenced, of course, by orthodox tradition. But the most important recent appearance in our province is the Biblical Theology of Weiss [Trans. T. & T. Clark], which has run through five editions since 18G8. In extensive knowledge of the literature, carefulness, and thoroughness in the prej)aratory exegetical work, in the completeness and distinctness with which the material is set forth, this meritorious work will be difficult to surpass, and he who undertakes to confront it with a new treatment of the subject will have to give a satisfactory account of the reasons which have moved him to do so. § 4. Questions of Method The impulse to this undertaking lies for us, not merely in the distinction of a free historical presentation from the rigid form of a manual composed in paragraphs with their elucidations, nor even merely in a considerable number of details in which our judgment about the actual teaching of the New Testament, sometimes in the most important articles of doctrine, differs from that of Weiss, but especially in a somewhat different conception of the task itself, which com- pels us to differ entirely, both as to arrangement and execution, from that manual which at present rules our subject. We may therefore be allowed to connect our preliminary observa- tions on method with that work. The problem of working out a historical presentation of the Xew Testament religion from tliose definite canonical sources, INTRODUCTION 17 requires a union, as far as possible, of the historic and literary treatment. In Weiss' Manual the historical treatment of the material seems to us to be unduly subordinated to the literary. In his paragraphs and elucidations the raw material furnished by exegesis is indeed set forth with great completeness and in good order, but it is not combined into great living forms. And yet it is the highest task of writing history to set forth the results obtained from an investigation of the sources, not merely as a well-arranged collection of raw material, but to restore from that the living image itself, the fragmentary evidence of which lies before us in these results. I know, indeed, that the application of this highest historical duty to New Testament theology creates the danger and temptation of importing something of one's own into the doctrinal system that is to be described. But not only is this danger in no way excluded by that literary treatment — it is a risk that must be incurred in the writing of history. Hence it follows that we have rights and duties which are not recognised in the Manual of Weiss. In the first place, history is, and remains, according to its nature, the subjective reproduction of what is in itself objective and alien to us. But how is this extraneous matter to become intelligible to me, and become my own, unless I somehow translate it into the mode of thought and speech of the present day ? Even the religious doctrines of the ISTew Testament which grew up on the soil of a foreign nationality, and are parted from us by eighteen centuries, must be translated — certainly with the utmost possible care not to subtract or add anything to them — into the thought and speech of the present day, if they are not to remain for us obscure oracles with a strange sound. Further, it seems to me to be closely connected with this, that there must be a part taken in biblical theology by two powers, which, as far as I can see. Dr. Weiss excludes from it, the powers of criticism and divination. Criticism, not, of course, in the sense of asking whether or how far the doctrinal con- tents of the New Testament can hold good, even for us to-day, as dogmatic truth, but in the sense of examining the ques- tion as to what value a definite view has for the biblical preacher himself ; whether it is an outcome of his own spiritual life, or a traditional heritage ; whether it is for him kernel or BEYSCHLAG. 1. 2 18 NEW TESTA.MENT THEOLOGY husk ; and whether it exhaustively expresses his own thinking on a definite point of doctrine, or is perhaps only one of the ways in which he views it, — a view and an estimate of one side of the matter. And as to divination, without which there can he no such thing as history, because without a certain reading between the lines the sources, always scanty and frag- mentary, never yield a living whole, where could it be more indispensable, used with all possible caution, than just here, — here, where the object is to elicit a view of the world from the discourses of Jesus handed down to us in a concise selec- tion, or from the fugitive writings of His disciples, consisting at most of but a few pages, and that view of the world in each case assuming an individual form. If beyond dispute Jesus gave His teaching with greater fulness than the repro- duction of it in the Gospels, if the apostles have, from a much more many-sided world of ideas,used particular trains of thought to meet particular circumstances, the task of correspondingly reproducing the primitive Christian doctrine from the New Testament imperatively demands that we should not merely render the trains of thought that lie before us, but also that from bare hints, from what is unspoken but implied in the didactic utterance, we should guess at the world of thought of the biblical teachers. Another characteristic feature of that treatment, which is more literary than historical, is the way in which Weiss' Manual sets up almost as many systems of doctrine as there are books in the New Testament, while justice is not done to the teaching of Jesus, The Pauline system is treated in four parts, according to the Thessalonian Epistles, the four great doctrinal and controversial Epistles, the Epistles of the captivity, and, finally, the Pastoral Epistles ; while the teach- ing of Jesus is briefly discussed, not according to the four Gospels, but only according to a supposed oldest source (the Synoptists). That seems to me an excess and a deficiency. We expect from a New Testament theology, above all, an account of the teaching of Jesus, not merely so far as it is the presupposition of the apostolic systems, as Weiss regards it, but a presentation of the teaching of Jesus for its own sake. The teaching of Jesus is to us a main fact of New Testament theology, if not precisely the main fact, which, as INTRODUCTION 1 9 a matter of course, should be treated according to all the accounts of it that we have, not merely according to an account conjectured by the critic to be the oldest, not even according to the Synoptists merely, if we regard the Gospel of John as an apostolic report — as Dr. Weiss does. As to the Pauline system, on the other hand, we do not want a doctrinal abstract from the several types of the apostle's letters, but a survey as far as possible of the Pauline world of ideas, in their connection, their unity and many-sidedness, and therefore we must, here also, take collectively all the genuine documents we have. If we get the impression that the doctrinal thoughts of the apostle continued to develop in particular points, we must note that in its place, but we must not on that account build the Pauline system of doctrine three or four times. In that case we would have- to extract it directly from each several Epistle, as there may be perceived certain differences between the Epistle to the Eomans and that to the Galatians. But the distinction — - and we make this remark not so much against Weiss' book as quite generally — must be kept within limits if the total impression of the subject is not to suffer and become dis- torted. While it is certainly right to keep separate, not only the teaching of Jesus and that of the apostles, but also the teaching of James, Peter, Paul, and John, and to consider each of them, not according to an abstract dogmatic scheme, but from his peculiar point of view, it is as certainly incum- bent on us to throw into bold relief the great amount of unison in all these different doctrinal utterances. Such a unison exists, and in a larger measure than our onesided modern method of huntin!::^ after formal differences is willing to admit. The men of the K"ew Testament were conscious of IDroclaiming a uniform gospel, though in different tongues, and it is the duty of New Testament theology to give a presentation of this unity in its diversity. Weiss has undoubtedly adopted his peculiar method in view of the present condition of questions concerning New Testament Introduction. He has very adroitly taken all the views of modern criticism into account in his arrangements. While he contests the whole of these critical judgments, even in the case of the Pastoral Epistles and the Second Epistle of 20 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY Peter, yet he himself gives countenance to doubts about the Gospel of John by excluding it from the sources of our knowledge of the teaching of Jesus, and likewise to attacks on the Pauline Epistles of the captivity, by separating them from the great doctrinal and controversial Epistles. And who could deny that the present state of criticism of the New Testament writings furnishes peculiar diificulties for biblical theology, and that this theology must take fitting .account of that condition of the question of sources ? Yet I ;am of opinion that the historian has not to be guided by foreign judgments about his sources, at least not by those which he regards as decidedly false, but that he must lay at the basis of his structure his own well-considered opinion on the matter. If I regarded the Pastoral Epistles as non- Pauline, or the Second Epistle of Peter as spurious, I should then make no use of them in my presentation of Pauline or Petrine systems of doctrine, but would have to take notice of them in those passages of my history of doctrine where I fancied them to have arisen, and would therewith prove the correctness of my view of history. And if I regarded the Gospel of John as a genuine record of the teaching of Jesus, I would have to make use of it for the knowledge of this teaching, and not merely turn it to account as an expression of its author's ideas. Not that we are, on that account, to take no notice of the important distinction between the synoptic and Johannine account of the teaching of Jesus. I may regard the Gospel of John as decidedly apostolic, and yet recognise that his reports of speeches have passed through a strong medium of subjective reconstruction. I will there- fore give a separate account of the teaching of Jesus according to the Synoptists and John, and so leave the biblico-theological records to be settled by the yet undecided controversy about the Gospel of John. In the same way, I may consider it possible that the Apocalypse and the Gospel of John belong to the same author, and yet guard against treating the doctrinal contents of both as material of the same Johannine system of doctrine. The critical question is too largely an open one, and, on the other hand, the circle of ideas in the two writings is too diverse to warrant us in treating as a harmonious world of ideas that which, at anyrate, could only INTRODUCTION 2 1 belong to very different stages of development of the same author. This already decides certain main questions regarding the systematic arrangement of our material. We will not only distinguish the teaching of Jesus from that of His apostles, luit also the teaching of Jesus according to the Synoptists and according to John, and not only keep apart a primitive apos- tolic, a Pauline and Johannine system of doctrine, but also treat quite separately the doctrinal system of the Apocalypse and also of James, First Peter, and the Epistles to the Hebrews. We may be in doubt as to the order of succession of the doctrinal systems of the Epistles, especially if we regard them, as a whole, as productions of the same first century. A purely chronological succession cannot be exhibited, as we are anything but certain as to the earlier or later origin of some of the Scripture writings. The comparatively late com- position of one of these writings would not, however, prove that the mode of thought underlying it could not have been matured just as early or earlier than that of a younger con- temporary who happened to write before. A succession according to the lower or higher degree of doctrinal develop- ment seems therefore to be the preferable one. The moving principle of the development of early Christian doctrine is the need of an understanding with Judaism. This characteristic would give us a rising gradation of ever more richly developed modes of teaching. Paul, the strictest arbiter between Judaism and Christianity, and at the same time the most doctrinal of the Xew Testament writers, would then necessarily close the series, and even the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Johannine system, and, still more, James and Peter, would have their place before him. And this succession, opposed as it would be to the modern critical tendency, would, in point of fact, have the advantage of truly setting forth, in comparison with Paul, the inner affinity between the mode of thought of the primitive apostles on the one hand, and the Epistle to the Hebrews and Johannine writings on the other : an affinity notwithstanding great differences really exists, though as a rule it is not recognised. Nevertheless, that point of view of an understanding with Judaism does not yet give a satis- factory principle of division, as the need for it, in the case of 22 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY the Christians, falls into the background after the destruction of Jerusalem : even decidedly post-Pauline systems of doctrine, and in comparison with Paul, of a less developed character, may be unaffected by this need. And thus a certain accom- modation between the chronological arrangement, and that according to tenor seems to be necessary. It is best to place the great Pauline system of doctrine in the middle of the apostolic age, to which at anyrate it belongs in time, and to let it be preceded by a primitive apostolic stage, and followed by one more developed. We shall hardly be contradicted if we construct the latter group from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse, and other Johannine remains ; but there will not be the same readiness to allow us to place the discourses of the earlier part of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of James, and First Peter before Paulinism. We might, in fact, hesitate about the position of the First Epistle of Peter, not so much on account of the prevalent attacks on its genuineness, as because, even on the assumption of its genuineness, it is probably of post-Pauline date, and not unaffected by Paul in its mode of teaching. However, this mode of teaching still seems predominantly pre-Pauline, related to that of James no less than that of Paul. It stands to the Petrine speeches of the Acts of the Apostles in a relation of the simplest develop- ment of their mode of thought, so that the reasons prepon- derate for placing it — just where the historical Peter stood — midway between James and Paul. There still remains in this arrangement of New Testament doctrinal systems a residue which yields no coherent presentation of Christianity, but only elements of such a presentation : Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so far as they are not mere narrators, but disclose some views of their own, the Epistle of Jude, the Second Epistle of Peter, and the Pastoral Epistles. We shall gather up in a closing group the doctrinal elements which appsar in these writings as fragmentary witnesses of a common Christian view, partly of the apostolic and partly of the immediately post-apostolic period ; a supplement to the great original doctrinal formation of the apostolic circle, and the natural transition to the doctrinal development of the old Catholic period. introduction 23 § 5. The Question as to an Old Testament, Judaistic PREVIOUS History There still remains one final preliminary question before we come to our main subject. Every period of history whose presentation we may undertake has a preparatory history in which its roots somehow lie, and therefore every historical undertaking usually begins with a review of that preparatory history. Is it necessary for us to proceed in the same way here in the case of New Testament theology ? There can be no doubt that the teaching of the New Testament, with all the originality of revelation which it claims, has a historical presupposition and preparatory stage — the religious teaching of the Old Testament. The gospel unfolds itself within a national community, which already has a religious history of two thousand years behind it, and it is throughout connected with the religious possessions of this community and with the results of its history. Its views of God and of the world, of sin and law, of the blessing and way of salvation, of the kingdom of God and its Bearer the Messiah, are all rooted in the Old Testament. The apostles look upon the Old Testa- ment as Holy Scripture even for the Christian communities. They verify their teaching by it, and Jesus Himself brings His preaching into the closest relation to the law and the prophets. " Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil " (Matt. v. 17). This fulfilling does not indeed leave the Old Testament views and doctrines as they were, but distinctly advances and transforms them. There is not an idea in the New Testament which is not somehow rooted in the Old, but there is not an idea in the Old Testament which does not become something essentially new and higher in the New.^ Accordingly, Jesus and His apostles consider the Old Testa- ment in a light in which its own authors did not consider it, in the light of that new and perfect revelation of which also it is truly said : " Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new." It is questionable whether this relation demands a preceding presentation of Old 1 Cf. Oeliler, Old Testament Theology, p. 66 ; H. Schultz, Old Testament Theology [both Trans. T. & T. Clark]. 24 NEW TESTAilENT THEOLOGY Testament theology as an Introduction to New Testament theology. Nothing, of course, hut a sketch of the former could be attempted, for a searching and detailed presentatioiii would be no Introduction, but an independent work which would require a special call and training. But a mere sketch would only offer that which the reader of a New Testament theology already has, a general survey of the Old Testament history of religion. It could not oiler the very thing that would chiefly make it helpful to New Testament theology, viz. the Old Testament roots of the several New Testament concepts and notions. In these circumstances it seems allowable, and even imperative, to represent the New Testa- ment theology in its actual novelty without further preface, and only bring out at each step in its exposition the dis- tinction as well as the connection it has with that of the Old Testament. But must we not at last give an introductory presentation of the final stage of the religious history of Israel, that condi- tion of the Jewish religion which the nascent Christianity finds existent and from which it separates ? There can be no c[uestion that the religious thought and life of the Jewish people was not stationary from the time of the origin of the latest Old Testament canonic writing. Though the period when this writing originated be much later than Jewish tradi- tion asserts, not in the Persian, but in the Maccabean age, yet the writings of the last half-century before Christ, the biblical Apocrypha and the non-biblical pseudepigrapha, as well as the writings of Philo and Josephus, and above all the New Testament itself, testify to a movement of mind surging round the nascent Christianity, quite different from what the latest psalmists and prophets would lead us to expect. And, assuredly he who undertakes to write a history of the origin of Christianity, and in particular the life of Jesus, will not be at liberty to omit a description of this historical soil, just be- cause the history of the birth of the gospel is completed in the reciprocal action between it and that which was trans- planted into it from above. But it is quite a different matter when our task is to present the original doctrinal ideas of Christianity in their liistorical development. This doctrinal development has almost no connection at all with the peculiar INTRODUCTION 25 teaching of the Judaistic period; at anyrate, the connection is such that the Judaistic world of ideas, in itself meagre and obscure, does not throw any special light upon the under- standing of it. Of course, Jesus is formally a child of His people and time, so far as concerns His world of ideas and His speech. He also makes use of such forms of presentation as became current only in the post-canonic age, such as, above all, the concept of the kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God. And the apostles likewise, especially Paul, are here and there in their Christolociical views fond of using theologoumena of the Jewish schools, such as " the creative word," " the hypostatic image," '•' the spiritual Adam," " the man from heaven." Jesus and His apostles may also have made use of a series of prophetic and eschatological views which are reproduced in the Jewish Apocalypses. Yet all these are but forms of thought and presentation, into which they are the first to breathe any spirit at all, and especially the new Christian spirit of which their Jewish predecessors had no idea. Xotwith- standing these meagre and purely formal connections, we have, speaking generally, rather a relation of opposition to the Judaistic doctrines and modes of thought. We shall find that Jesus kept Himself completely independent of the different tendencies and modes of thought which prevailed among the Jewish people of His day ; that He was engaged in a war of death and life with that one which was pre- dominant, the Pharisaic and Eabbinic ; and that He recognised the one contemporary appearance with which He had any affinity, John the Baptist, as His forerunner, but not as His leader and master. It was from the first a main feature of His teaching, which His disciples also received from Him, to pass beyond the ideas of post-canonic development to the canonical, biblical, and specially prophetic, from the Pharisaic precepts of men to the living word of God (cf. Mark vii. 1 f.). Prom all this it may already be seen that a preliminary development of the Judaistic didactic ideas, especially of the Pharisaic and Ptabbinic, is in no way indispensable to the understanding of the teaching of Jesus and His apostles, quite apart from the fact that we have not sufficient sources at our command to gain a clear conception of the state of pre- 26 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY Cliristian ideas of the time.^ We may therefore disregard such a so-called histoiical preface to New Testament theology with a good conscience, and allow that to speak to us in all its novelty and originality which, at all events, bears in itself the character of novelty and originality in a greater degree than anything else in the whole history of the world. 1 The very praiseAvortliy jircseutation by Weber of the "Altsynogale Theologie " brings to view only a decidedly post-Christian stage of develop- meut. BOOK I THE TEACHING OF JESUS ACCOEDmG TO THE SYNOPTISTS CHAPTEE I INTEODUCTORY EiiOM an early period Christendom directed its attention more to the significance of Christ's person and work than to the significance of His teaching. The former occupies throughout the foreground even in the apostolic sjDeeches and Epistles, while there is little reference to His words ; and the Church since then, even the Protestant, preaches, indeed, a doctrine about Christ, but only looks, as it were in passing, at Jesus' own teaching, in the doctrine of His prophetic office, which seems as though it were but introductory to His priestly and kingly offices. An opposite current has indeed set in in recent times. An effort has been made to insist upon the teaching of Jesus, as contrasted with the doctrine about Christ, as Christianity proper ; but this procedure has not been able to parry the reproach of explaining Christianity away. What is the right and true attitude here ? As it seems equally questionable to impute to Christendom a thorough misunderstanding of that on which it rests, or, again, to lower to a subordinate place in His life-work that in which Jesus manifestly found the vocation of His life, the question at once is forced upon us as to the relation of His teaching to His person and His work. The investigation 28 KEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY of this question will give us a preliminary idea of the pecu- liarity of His teaching. § 1. Teaching and Life That Jesus appeared among His people as a teacher is attested by friend and foe ; they all addressed Him as Eabbi, Master, Teacher, and He always accepted this address as correct. But the people felt at once a profound difference between His teaching and that of the scribes : " What new doctrine is this ? " exclaim His hearers in the synagogue. " He preaches with authority, and not as the scribes " (Mark i. 27; Matt. vii. 29). By the higher authority with which He spoke, by a divinely authoritative character of His teach- ing, the people recognised Him as a prophet equal to the greatest of their old prophets (Mark viii. 28 ; Matt. xvi. 14). His disciples, however, hoped and anticipated still more from Him : " He was a prophet mighty in word and deed before God and all the people ; but we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel" (Luke xxiv. 19). And He met that hope with His inmost consciousness ; He knew Himself to be the Messiah, the God-sent deliverer of Israel, and had no higher wish than to be recognised as such in the right sense (Mark viii. 29; Matt. xvi. IG). His teaching therefore, from the very first, has for its background a unique self-consciousness, the incomparable significance of His person, and from the beginning was directed towards something that must be more than teaching, that must be work and deed, viz. the founding of God's kingdom. And this founding was finally accomplished, not by His teaching as such, but by His personal devotion to and completion of His life-work, by His death and resurrection. Does His teaching thereby lose its original fundamental significance, and sink down to a mere introduction to New Testament revelation ? It must be said that little as the teaching of Jesus in itself, apart from the conclusion of His life, could have called into exist- ence the kingdom of God, as little could that ending of His life have called it into being without the foregoing doctrinal revelation. This doctrinal revelation first induced that end to His life, and gave it meaning ; and it alone collected that INTRODUCTORY 29 community of disciples who were able to grasp and propagate that meaning. And therefore His doctrine is not indeed His life-work itself, but the ideal reflection of it, the evidence of what He wished, what He was conscious of being and doing. His teaching therefore is that in His appearance and active life which is necessary to make that life intelligible to us, and without which the apostolic teaching about Him would only be a sum of dogmatic utterances which we could not comprehend, and whose truth we could not prove — a result not a little awkward for that view which contrasts the " teaching of Jesus " as Christianity proper with the apostolic " teaching about Christ." § 2. Sources If this be the significance of the teaching of Jesus for the full understanding of Christianity, we must inquire the more urgently about its sources. Jesus did not write any- thing ; He simply trained His disciples in personal intercourse to be the living witnesses of His mission. Even they did not immediately record their reminiscences, but confided them to oral testimony ; and when one of them, at a great age, set about leaving his treasures of memory as a legacy to the community, remembrance and exposition had become to him so inseparable, that he could only bring forth his picture of Jesus, and especially the sayings of Jesus, in an original form resulting from the fusion of his own spiritual life. But although we must, on that account, take no notice of the Johannine source in constructing a picture of Jesus that is to be authentic even in form, we are still in possession of a sufficient and well-attested tradition. The first three Gospels have preserved the reminiscences of the life of Jesus as they existed in the earliest days of Christendom, both within r^/evea avTT} and before the extinction of His contemporaries (Matt. xiv. 34 ; Mark xiii. 30 ; Luke xxi. 32) ; they also, on their part, rest on still earlier notes whose reliable origin is certain. Papias has attested the existence of a collection of sayings (of Jesus) which the Apostle Matthew, that is, one of the constant com- panions of Jesus, composed in Hebrew (Aramaic) ; antl this earliest, most reliable, and richest source of knowledge of the 30 KEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY teaching of Jesus, may be recognised in the speeches with which the first and third evangelists break in upon the sequence of their chief source.^ But even this main narrative source which they both have in common with the Gospel of Mark, and which, at any rate, appears in Mark's Gospel with least change, " the primitive Gospel " contains a treasure of doctrinal sayings of Jesus ; and this primitive Gospel, according to the credible testimony of the same Papias, is — at least with respect to its greatest part and most important matter — traced back to Mark, the companion of the Apostle Peter, that is, to Peter's own didactic utterances.- Finally, whatever is peculiar to Matthew, or in far greater abundance to Luke, either springs likewise from that collection of sayings, or, according to Luke i. 1, presupposes other very old sources, and is authen- ticated by the fact that it resembles the most certainly authentic both in tone and in value. The wording of many sayings, or the connection in which they appear, or the inter- pretation they receive in that connection, do indeed deviate from each other in details, as could not but be expected in a tradition passing through so many hands. Many important words have been introduced in a different setting in Matthew and Luke, partly on account of different Greek translations of those Aramaic sayings, partly on account of the involuntary changes of oral tradition, to which we may also add the dif- ferent conjectures of one or other evangelist about the original occasion of the saying. In such cases, when the use to be made of the saying in biblical theology is affected by this diversity, a critical investigation of the original terms and meaning must, of course, take place. The merely oral charac- ter of the original tradition has affected the meaning and wording much less than one would have supposed from other cases. The method of teaching of antiquity, resting always on oral communications, gave a fidelity to the apostle's memo- ries to a degree unknown to us. The sayings of Jesus especially, by the peculiarity of their contents as well as their form, had an incomparable power of stamping themselves upon the memory. Besides, they would be so frequently and intentionally repeated in the circle of the first believers, as very soon to form a fixed common possession preserved with 1 Cf. my Lcben Jcsu, i. p. 8G. - Ibid, jl 84. INTRODUCTORY 81 sacred reverence. And therefore there is really very little against which the irresolute modern criticism raises serious question : some sayings, which from their Judaising or Ebion- itic impress seem to be marked as productions of a Jewish - Christian tradition ; some various readings and expositions of parables, and, in particular, a part of the prophetic discourses in the more restricted sense, which, on account of their inner difficulties, one would fain trace back to a later apocalyptic source, although, from all signs, they seem to spring from the same source as the Sermon on the Mount and the most incontestable parables. These doubtful sayings will, of course, have to be dealt with in detail ; the abiding proof of their genuineness is the quite definite and inimit- able impress which distinguishes the essentially permanent character of the synoptic sayings of Jesus, not only from all the wisdom of this world, but also from the other sayings of the New Testament. § 3. Peculiarity of Jesus' Teaching This very peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus is what we have to explain in form and contents, so far as that is possible by anticipation. The form in which Jesus speaks in the synoptic tradition is the gnomic or parabolic, examples of which we find already in the Old Testament, the short, terse maxim out of which the. longer didactic or polemic discourses are constructed, or the concise pictorial narrative, the parable. Both forms of teaching are eminently suited to the require- ments of oral instruction, such as Jesus gave to His disciples in particular, beside His preaching to the people (Mark iv. 10-32); they make the ideas to be communicated in the highest degree clear, impressive, and memorable. But the universally pictorial style of Jesus' doctrine is conditioned not merely by a necessity of teaching, but rather springs — and this leads us deeper into the peculiarity of His teaching — chiefly from the nature of the things to be communicated. These are just the eternal truths, the heavenly things in earthly speech, which can only be brought home to the popular understanding by pictorial forms. It is therefore the mother speech of religion which Jesus uses. And He 32 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY uses this speech with a purity and perfection that makes His mode of communication quite incomparable. It is distin- guished not only from all speech of science, but also from that speech of religious contemplation which meets us in the writings of the apostles. It is distinguished from it, as the livino; source is from the fresh and clear flowing brook ; it is all directness, living perception, pure genius ; everything in it flows, not from any mediated or artificial world of ideas, but from native spiritual wealth, from the fulness of His inner life. We also find, in addition to this, that He rarely, and only out of condescension to the ignorance of His opponents or for their confusion, has recourse to argument or means of proof. As a rule, He disdains these for the reason that He does not need them for His own sake, and that the sincere hearts among His hearers do not need them ; because what He says is self-evident to the reason and conscience of the sincere man. His word is therefore in the highest sense testimony, viz. testimony to the Divine which lives and moves in Him. " Verily I say unto you " is the constant expression of an inward certainty which can count on the willing or unwilling inward assent of His hearers. He does not even in any formal way teach the religion which lives in Him. Its moral deductions are taught as in the Sermon on the Mount, or its conditions and ways of operation as in the parables. The thing itself He merely expresses, nay, still more pre- supposes than expresses. It is to Him as the silent, clear, starry heaven, which, as a matter of course, hangs over the earth though clouds conceal it from the eyes of men. Then consider also the peculiar contents of the new faith which He in this way proclaims. That we may not anticipate and get lost in vagueness, let us note only a few characteristic features which distinguish it from all, and raise it above all that is otherwise called religion in the world. The religion of Jesus is, above all, a religion for the world, for universal man. Although it speaks the language of Israel, and was first offered to the people of Israel, yet even in its birth it divests itself inwardly of every national limitation. It makes all men neighbours, makes no distinction between them before God, and meets with heavenly satisfaction the needs of the human heart, which are the same everywhere. It is further INTRODUCTORY o 6 a religion of the spirit, a religion of inwardness and freedom. It does not bind to sacred places or times, it knows no sacri- fices or ceremonies, no forms or formulae as in themselves pleasing to God. Nothing is of value in it but the pure heart, the love of God, and what that love calls forth in the heart of man. And yet it is capable of the most vigorous outward expression. It, too, has forms of the religious life, personal as well as social, but they have value only in so far as they call forth or fulfil the free impulse of the heart. Again, it is the perfectly moral and morally perfect religion. Everything in it has its ethical side, its moral fruits, without which it is of no value in the sight of God. And the moral demand which this divine faith makes is the highest, the strictest, the most comprehensive conceivable. Over and above every outward and particular deed of obedience, it claims the whole inward man for God and His command- ments. It recognises nothing but the highest and purest motives, and follows sin into the inmost recesses of the heart, to the uprising of anger and the motion of evil desire. And this religion of inexorable moral strictness is at the same time a religion of salvation, a religion of grace in the most comprehensive sense of the word. From the same idea of God as the absolutely Good One, out of which springs the absolute demand, " Be ye perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect," arises, at the same time, the glad message of His unlimited fatherly mercy which goes in search of the lost son and meets him with forgiveness, — out of it there flows the idea of a kingdom of God and a communion with God, which can be given only to the poor in spirit, those who have a real feeling of need, because its desire is to make the poor rich, and satisfy with righteousness those who hunger and thirst for it. Finally, the gospel of Jesus is the religion of eternal life. It restores man to his lost eternal home, makes him at home as no other faith can in the invisible world of perfec- tion which his soul craves, and thereby lifs him above the imperfections of his earthly existence. But it does not do so in such a way as to depreciate this earthly existence and induce men to flee from the world, or long for death. It rather consecrates this earth as a vestibule of heaven, and its sufferings as a school of eternal life. The idea of the kingdom BEYSCHLAG. — I. 3 34 KEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY of heaven, the idea of a kingdom of God, sown in time and ripened in eternity, removes the antithesis of this world and the next — of life and death. § 4. Origin of Jesus' Teaching If this is the peculiarity of the religious teaching of Jesus, there can hardly be any reasonable doubt about its origin. It bears throughout the impress of the highest originality, of originating immediately in His own inner life ; but it does so, not in the sense of being the outcome of His subjective fancy, — in that case it would be the most insoluble of psychological and historical riddles, — but as an immediate gift to His soul from above, a revelation of God in Him and through Him. That at least is the consciousness which He Himself had of His doctrine. " All things are delivered unto Me of My Father." " My doctrine is not Mine, but that of Him who sent Me" (Matt. xi. 27 ; John vii. 16). In point of fact it is impossible, often as the attempt has been made, to deduce the consciousness of Jesus and the contents of His teaching from any spiritual power which existed in His day. Even though a contact of Jesus with the Hellenic world had not already been excluded by outer facts of His life — how could He have kindled His inner light and life at this hearth ? The religion of classical antiquity, even in its noblest manifestations, and its then foremost living mysteries, was the worship of deified nature, and therefore the direct opposite of the religion of Jesus. And the philosophy of antiquity, even where its highest presentiments of truth approach to the gospel, was just philosophy and not revela- tion, — a wavering, doubting question addressed to heaven, not a certified answer from heaven such as Jesus gives. But even the Jewish religion in which He was born and trained is no key to His own. That religion is dominated by pretty much the opposite of all those characteristics of the religion of Jesus on which we have been insisting. The Jewish religion in the days of Jesus, with all its proselytising and dreams of a world dominion, was just as narrow-hearted and national as could be, and notwithstanding a certain spiritualising of its worship in the synagogue, it clung more tenaciously than INTKODUCTORY 3 5 ever to outer forms and postures. It could not indeed deny its inborn ethical character, but it externalised and made it as superficial as possible. And instead of referring its like- wise inborn belief in salvation to the redemption of the inner man, it referred it to redemption from outer natural and political restraints. It certainly developed belief in another world, departing thus from its earlier tradition, but in such a way as to fill that other world with earthly sensuous dreams, instead of making this world spiritual by having aims above earth. In a word, the living religion of the Jewish people of that day is just that which we find expressed more consciously and formally in Pharisaism. And in view of our Gospel records, there is no need for wasting words in seeking to prove the depth of the contrast that existed between Jesus and Pharisaism, a contrast that excludes any original affinity or sympathy. ISTor is there any affinity of spirit between Jesus and the other well - known types of current Judaism. Sadduceism, that worn-out aristocratic priestly conservatism which was entirely opposed to the religious development of Judaism, and possessed no positive religious principle at all, could only, with its denial of eternal life, have been an offence to Jesus. Neither has Jesus made any allusion even in word to Essenism with which so many would like to connect Him. Deeper religious needs, it is true, lay at the basis of Essenism, but they were satisfied in a way that was completely foreign and offensive to Jesus, the way of monasticism and mysticism springing out of a view at bottom dualistic and ascetic, of which we can find no trace in the teaching of Jesus. There is just as little trace of Alexandrianism in Him, — that artificial theology of mediation between the Old Testament religion and Greek philosophy, which is related to the teaching of Jesus as cistern water to the living fountain. Now there was, of course, among the Jews of that day, besides these degenerate tendencies, a more genuine succession of the psalmists and prophets, those " poor in spirit " and " quiet in the land," to the circle of whom Jesus and His family undoubtedly belonged. But the purer and deeper that genuine issue of Old Testament religion was, the more must there have been impressed on it a feature which was completely foreign to Jesus personally, which was indeed the very 36 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY opposite of His peculiar consciousness, that fundamental feature of the consciousness of guilt, the deeply felt discord between the holy God and sinful Israel of which we have a directly typical example in John the Baptist. This feeling of estrangement from God, of sin and guilt separating God and man from each other, might indeed be felt by Jesus in com- passionate sympathy, and perhaps His submitting to the baptism of John may be explained by this sympathy. But it is so completely foreign to Him personally that the ground- tone of His whole self-consciousness is rather the undisturbed sense of communion with God, the blessed consciousness of divine Sonship. § 5, Kevealed Chaeacter of Christ's Teaching This brings us to the real mystery of the personality of Jesus which forms the salient point of His whole teaching, and which explains and confirms on all sides its peculiarities as described above. He did not preach a union of God with all men which is either inherent in all or reached by way of self- development, but He is immediately and originally certain of that communion only for Himself. But out of it, out of the consciousness of being in a unique sense the Son of God, grew His consciousness of being the Saviour, and His sense of a vocation to help His brethren to a similar communion with God, or — what is the same thing — to receive them into the kingdom of heaven that appears in Him ; and from this point His "evangel," His teaching and preaching, unfolds itself on all sides. We are only incidentally reminded here, where the object is merely a sketch, not a justification of the teaching of Jesus, how impossible it is to resolve all that enduring ground- consciousness of His into a fanatical dream, how firmly it must be founded on the truth, on a fact which not merely lets Him have a revelation, but makes Himself a personal revelation of God. For this self-consciousness of Jesus did not grow on the soil of a Hellenic self-deceptive intermixture of the divine and human, but on the basis of the law and prophets, on the basis of the ethico-metaphysical distinction between God and man, on which it is not conceivable except as the reflection of an inner life which absolutely does not know that which separates INTKODUCTORY 37 the holy God and the heart of man, viz. sin.^ The character of His teaching, however, directly furnishes a twofold proof of the truth of that self-consciousness. The first is more of a formal nature. The teaching of Jesus as a teaching of religion resting on revelation may be most readily compared with the teaching of the prophets ; though there obtains here an important difference. The divine inspiration comes upon the prophet by fits and starts, as a power half-foreign, which falls, as it were, upon him in specially elevated moments of his life. But in the case of Jesus everything is equable. He knows no difference between hours of inspiration and ordinary hours. The spring of divine revelation wells up in Him quietly and constantly, not while He is exalted above Himself but while simply Himself and giving Himself. It is the eternal foundation of His personal life from which His words of eternal life at all times flow. The second proof to which we refer, leads us into the contents and central point of His teaching. He is not merely, like Moses, the prophet of His religion ; He Himself is its living content and basis, as His person supports, guarantees, indeed first makes possible His entire teaching. If communion with God, " the kingdom of God," had not been personally realised in Him, His whole proclamation of it would have been destitute both of truth and meaning ; nay, as a child of His people and its religion He could not have even grasped the idea of a kingdom of God, the dwelling of the holy God with the sinful sons of men, had it not originally been realised in His absolutely pure communion of heart with God. But then we comprehend how all the great characteristics of His teaching, emphasised above, are nothing else than the natural manifestations of His personal consciousness, the simple issues of the fact of His unique and ideally perfect relation to God. Because He has the pure heart of the perfect child of God, He is able to see the Father in heaven as no prophet before Him and no apostle after Him, and all the mists of national limitation and legal externality fall away from the eyes of His spirit. Because the eternal Good, the eh ayad6<; (Mark x. 18), with His holy love, lives and moves in Him, He can, on the one hand, clearly unfold the holy demands of that love to the judging even of heart ^ Cf. my Leben Jesu, i. p. 182. 38 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY and thoughts, and at the same time guarantee and realise the whole saving, forgiving, sanctifying love of the Father. Finally, because He brings the life of a higher world into this and victoriously tests it in the conflict with the earthly, the partition-wall between this world and that to come is for Him inwardly abolished, and the whole earthly life placed in the transfiguring light of eternity. But when we deduce all the characteristics of His teaching from His personal unlimited communion with God, and can deduce them only from that, we have traced them back to that very thing which makes Him the personal bearer of the perfect revelation of God among men, and therewith have furnished the positive proof of the revealed origin and character of His teaching. § 6. Kelation of the Teaching of Jesus to the Old Testament Nevertheless, the teaching of Jesus has one side from which its complete originality may plausibly be called in question, and that is its connection with the Old Testament. Notwithstanding all that we have said about His elevation above the religious parties of contemporary Judaism, are not the sacred documents of His people, are not the " law and the prophets " to Him divine authorities ? And does not that deprive His gospel of part at least of its character as personal revelation, and make it simply a prophetic development and completion of the Old Testament religion of Jehovah ? Certainly the law and the prophets speak to Him the word of God. He not only appeals to them as Holy Scripture against the people and the scribes, but to Himself they are a lamp to His feet and a light to His path. When the story of the temptation shows Him beating back the assaults of Satan with a text of Scripture, and the narrative of the transfigura- tion makes Moses and Elias proclaim the decease which He is to accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke ix. 31), there lies at the basis of these statements the fact, that in the most painful crises of His life He grasped and held by the words of Scripture, by the law and the prophets. And His belief in them appears so absolute as to make Him declare that "heaven and earth will pass away sooner than one jot or tittle INTKODUCTORY 39 of the law should fail " (Matt. v. 18 ; Luke xvi. 17). Accord- ingly, His teaching seems everywhere rooted in the Old Testament ; all its ideas and elements spring out of the Old Testament, and if there are many things of importance in it which He does not directly teach, that may be explained by the fact that, in the case of His disciples. He can presuppose them as elements of the Old Testament with which they were familiar. Yet we do not find Him in a relation of constrained slavish dependence on the Old Testament Scriptures. The words about the writing of divorce which was permitted, the commandment that no work should be done on the Sabbath, were in the law, and He did not pay any heed to them ; He calmly set against the first the creative thought of God, and against the latter the royal rights of the Son of Man. Nay, if we consider the matter more closely, we shall be astonished at the wide tracts of Old Testament Scripture which have, as it were, no existence for Him, though He manifestly knew them. He has scarcely touched the whole wide region of the sacrificial and ceremonial law. He has at most taken notice of the whole politico-theocratic form of the Messianic idea in order to reject it once for all, and every moral imperfection in the Old Testament, especially the theocratic spirit of revenge, with its words and deeds — even when represented by an Elias — does not for a moment mislead Him as to the law of love and meekness which becomes His kingdom. We see that He read the Old Testament with an independent mind, with a sure test in His heart which made Him distinguish the divine kernel from the human husk, the eternal idea from the imperfect and temporary expression of it, even in the most difficult cases ; and this test can only have been the higher and purer religious ideas which He bore in Himself. It is evident therefore that His relation to the Old Testament by no means contradicts or even limits what we have already said about the originality of His doctrinal ideas, as coming from the depth of His own inner life which He lived in God. What then is His relation to the law and the prophets which allows Him to believe in them without binding Him to them ? The best answer is Matt. V. 17: " Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The revelation of God did not first begin with Him ; it com- 40 NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY pletes itself in Him, and the law and prophets are just steps towards this completion. It is self-evident, therefore, that the preliminary revelation is not destroyed or abolished, but recognised by Him who comes to complete it. But it is equally self-evident that to Him this preparatory revelation is not the perfect one, and that He has to raise its detected imperfections into the perfect, and that is just the fulfilment to which the above saying refers. Not an actual fulfilment, such as might very well have been asserted of Messiah, but, as the further course of the Sermon on the Mount puts beyond all question, a didactic fulfilment, that is, a perfection and completion in virtue of which the inmost meaning of the law and the prophets is to be set forth and made authoritative, as it had not been in its Old Testament form. Jesus Himself never failed to apprehend that this Old Testament form must herewith as such be exploded, just as the covering of the bud must be burst when the blossom opens out. No jot or tittle of the law was to fail, only in the sense of not being thrown away as an empty husk ; there is in every one a divine kernel and germ, which must obtain its due, its unfold- ing. But when that is secure, what had been husk inevitably falls away, as is clear from the expositions of the law which follow in Matt. v. 1 7—2 ; in each of them an imperfect divine idea is fulfilled in spirit whilst it is destroyed in the letter. And as with the precepts of the law, so is it with all Old Testament ideas and views which Jesus turns to account ; they are confirmed and transformed in one breath. They are recognised as divine, as surely as they are rooted in the Old Testament, but in such a way that their divine character and vitality for the first time attain their full development ; in the mouth of Jesus they seem at once old and new, they are no longer Old Testament, but New Testament ideas. The watchword about fulfilling the law and the prophets goes beyond the immediate meaning of Matt. v. 1 7 ; it expresses the entire relation of Jesus to the Old Testament. He fulfils the law and the prophets, by bringing about what they aim at, the kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God. This fundamental conception of Jesus, from which His whole teaching unfolds itself — at least in the first three Gospels — is what we have above all to direct our attention to. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN OE KINGDOM OF GOD 41 CHAPTEE II THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN OR KINGDOM OF GOD Jesus appeared with the announcement, the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. iv. 17), and His whole preaching from beginning to end may be comprised in His gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark i. 1 ; Acts i. 3). The Sermon on the Mount begins with the promise of the kingdom of heaven to the poor in spirit ; the parables revolve around the idea of the kingdom of God ; the prophecies refer to its appearance. The other writings of the New Testament are also acquainted with this fundamental conception (cf. e.g. John iii. 3, 5 ; Acts viii. 1, 2; Jas. ii. 5; Eom. xiv. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 20, xv. 50), and if it does not properly belong to their diction, and there- fore appears only now and then, that only makes it the more evidently a reminiscence of Jesus' own mode of teaching. What then does Jesus mean by this His favourite watchword ? § 1. Meaning of the Word As to the meaning of the word, ^aa-cXeca may indicate the abstract kinghood, the royal power and dignity (= Heb. na^PD)^ as well as the concrete realm, the sphere of dominion (ni3pp). Luther has translated both senses by kingdom, and they so pass into each other, in idea and usage, that in many passages of the Gospels we cannot be certain which is meant. The abstract conception is, however, by far the rarer — it is certainly contained in Luke xxii. 29, xxiii. 42 : Kaycb BcaTi6efiai vfuv Kada)<; Btedero fjuot 6 irarrjp /xov, ^aacXelav ; and orav e\6r]