xv. 25); Jesus himself, according to Matthew and Mark, adds ἐν πνεύματι

to Δαβὶδ καλεῖ αὐτὸν Κύριον, thus plainly giving his approval to the notion that it is David who there speaks, and that the Messiah is his subject: how then can it be thought that he held the contrary opinion? It is far more probable, as Olshausen has well shown, that Jesus believed the psalm to be a messianic one: while, on the other hand, Paulus is equally correct in maintaining that it originally referred, not to the Messiah, but to some Jewish ruler, whether David or another. Thus we find that Jesus here gives a model of interpretation, in conformity, not with the text, but with the spirit of his time: a discovery which, if the above observations be just, ought to excite no surprise. The solution of the enigma which Jesus here proposes to the Pharisees, lay without doubt, according to his idea, in the doctrine of the higher nature of the Messiah; whether he held that, in virtue of this, he might be styled the Lord of David, while, in virtue of his human nature, he might also be regarded as his son; or whether he wished to remove the latter notion as erroneous. [1004] The result, however, and perhaps also the intention of Jesus with respect to the Pharisees, was merely to convince them that he was capable of retaliating on them, in their own way, by embarrassing them with captious questions, and that with better success than they had obtained in their attempts to entrap him. Hence the Evangelists place this passage at the close of the disputations prompted by the Pharisees, and Matthew adds, Neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions: a concluding form which is more suitable here than after the lesson administered to the Sadducees, where it is placed by Luke (xx. 40), or than after the discussion on the greatest commandment, where it is introduced by Mark (xii. 34).

Immediately before this question of Jesus, the first two Evangelists narrate a conversation with a lawyer, νομικὸς, or scribe, γραμματεὺς, concerning the greatest commandment. (Matt. xxii. 34 ff.; Mark xii. 28 ff.) Matthew annexes this conversation to the dispute with the Sadducees, as if the Pharisees wished, by their question as to the greatest commandment, to avenge the defeat of the Sadducees. It is well known, however, that these sects were not thus friendly; on the contrary, we read in the Acts (xxiii. 7), that the Pharisees were inclined to go over to the side of one whom they had previously persecuted, solely because he had had the address to take the position of an opponent towards the Sadducees. We may here quote Schneckenburger’s observation, [1005] that Matthew not seldom (iii. 7,