viii. 26 are put on the same footing with the really Messianic

prohibitions in viii. 30 and ix. 9, with which may be associated also the imposition of silence upon the demoniacs who recognise his Messiahship in Mark i. 34 and iii. 12.

266 The narrative in Matt. xiv. 22‐33, according to which the disciples, after seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, hail Him on His coming into the boat as the Son of God, and the description of the deeds of Jesus as “deeds of Christ,” in the introduction to the Baptist’s question in Matt. xi. 2, do not cancel the old theory even in Matthew, because the Synoptists, differing therein from the fourth Evangelist, do not represent the demand for a sign as a demand for a Messianic sign, nor the cures wrought by Jesus as Messianic proofs of power. The action of the demons in crying out upon Jesus as the Son of God betokens their recognition of Him; it has nothing to do with the miracles of healing as such.

267 For further examples of the pressing of the theory to its utmost limits, see Wrede, p. 134 ff.

268 It is always assumed as self‐evident that Jesus is speaking of the sufferings and persecutions which would take place after His death, or that the Evangelist, in making Him speak in this way, is thinking of these later persecutions. There is no hint of that in the text.

269 That the eschatological school showed a certain timidity in drawing the consequences of its recognition of the character of the preaching of Jesus and examining the tradition from the eschatological standpoint can be seen from Johannes Weiss’s work, “The Earliest Gospel” (_Das älteste Evangelium_), Göttingen, 1903, 414 pp. Ingenious and interesting as this work is in detail, one is surprised to find the author of the “Preaching of Jesus” here endeavouring to distinguish between Mark and “Ur‐Markus,” to point to examples of Pauline influence, to exhibit clearly the “tendencies” which guided, respectively, the original Evangelist and the redactor—all this as if he did not possess in his eschatological view of the preaching of Jesus a dominant conception which gives him a clue to quite a different psychology from that which he actually applies. Against Wrede he brings forward many arguments which are worthy of attention, but he can hardly be said to have refuted him, because it is impossible for Weiss to treat the question in the exact form in which it was raised by Wrede.

270 Wrede certainly goes too far in asserting that even in Mark’s version the experience at the baptism is conceived as an open miracle, perceptible to others. The way in which the revelations to the prophets are recounted in the Old Testament does not make in favour of this. Otherwise we should have to suppose that the Evangelist described the incident as a miracle which took place in the presence of a multitude without perceiving that in this case the Messianic secret was a secret no longer. If so, the story of the baptism stands on the same footing as the story of the Messianic entry: it is a revelation of the Messiahship which has absolutely no results.

271 The statement of Mark that Jesus, coming out of the north, appeared for a moment again in Decapolis and Capernaum, and then started off to the north once more (Mark vii. 31‐viii. 27), may here provisionally be left out of account since it stands in relation with the twofold account of the feeding of the multitude. So too the enigmatic appearance and disappearance of the people (Mark viii. 34‐ix. 30) may here be passed over. These statements make no difference to the fact that Jesus really broke off his work in Galilee shortly after the Mission of the Twelve, since they imply at most a quite transient contact with the people.

272 On the theory of the successful and unsuccessful periods in the work of Jesus see the “Sketch,” p. 3 ff., “The four Pre‐suppositions of the Modern Historical Solution.”

273 Weisse found that there was no hint in the sources of the desertion of the people, since according to these, Jesus was opposed only by the Pharisees, not by the people. The abandonment of the Galilaean work, and the departure to Jerusalem, must, he thought, have been due to some unrecorded fact which revealed to Jesus that the time had come to act in this way. Perhaps, he adds, it was the waning of Jesus’ miracle‐working power which caused the change in His attitude, since it is remarkable that He performed no further miracles during His sojourn at Jerusalem.

274 The most logical attitude in regard to it is Bousset’s, who proposes to treat the mission and everything connected with it as a “confused and unintelligible” tradition.

275 Joel iii. 13, “Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe!” In the Apocalypse of John, too, the Last Judgment is described as the heavenly harvest: “Thrust in thy sickle and reap; for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped” (Rev. xiv. 15 and 16).

The most remarkable parallel to the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples is offered by the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch: “Behold, the days come, when the time of the world shall be ripe, and the harvest of the sowing of the good and of the evil shall come, when the Almighty shall bring upon the earth and upon its inhabitants and upon their rulers confusion of spirit and terror that makes the heart stand still; and they shall hate one another and provoke one another to war; and the despised shall have power over them of reputation, and the mean shall exalt themselves over them that are highly esteemed. And the many shall be at the mercy of the few ... and all who shall be saved and shall escape the before‐ mentioned (dangers) ... shall be given into the hands of my servant, the Messiah.” (Cap. lxx. 2, 3, 9. Following the translation of E. Kautzsch.)

The connexion between the ideas of harvest and of judgment was therefore one of the stock features of the apocalyptic writings. And as the Apocalypse of Baruch dates from the period about A.D. 70, it may be assumed that this association of ideas was also current in the Jewish apocalyptic of the time of Jesus. Here is a basis for understanding the secret of the Kingdom of God in the parables of sowing and reaping historically and in accordance with the ideas of the time. What Jesus did was to make known to those who understood Him that the coming earthly harvest was the last, and was also the token of the coming heavenly harvest. The eschatological interpretation is immensely strengthened by these parallels.

276 With what right does modern critical theology tear apart even the discourse in Matt. xi. in order to make the “cry of jubilation” into the cry with which Jesus saluted the return of His disciples, and to find lodgment for the woes upon Chorazin and Bethsaida somewhere else in an appropriately gloomy context? Is not all this apparently disconnected material held together by an inner bond of connexion—the secret of the Kingdom of God which is imminently impending over Jesus and the people? Or, is Jesus expected to preach like one who has a thesis to maintain and seeks about for the most logical arrangement? Does not a certain lack of orderly connexion belong to the very idea of prophetic speech?

277 If, therefore, Jesus at a later point predicted to His disciples His resurrection, He means by that, not a single isolated act, but a complex occurrence consisting of His metamorphosis, translation to heaven, and Parousia as the Son of Man. And with this is associated the general eschatological resurrection of the dead. It is, therefore, one and the same thing whether He speaks of His resurrection or of His coming on the clouds of heaven.

278 The title of Baldensperger’s book, _The Self‐consciousness of Jesus in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His Time_, really contains a promise which is impossible of fulfilment. The contemporary “Messianic hopes” can only explain the hopes of Jesus so far as they corresponded thereto, not His view of His own Person, in which He is absolutely original.

279 Even Baldensperger’s book, _Die messianisch‐apokalyptischen Hoffnungen des Judentums_ (1903), passes at a stride from the Psalms of Solomon to Fourth Ezra. The coming volume is to deal with the eschatology of Jesus. That is a “theological,” but not an historical division of the material. The second volume should properly come in the middle of the first.

280 The fact that in the Psalms of Solomon the Messiah is designated by the ancient prophetic name of the Son of David is significant of the rising influence of the ancient prophetic literature. This designation has nothing whatever to do with a political ideal of a kingly Messiah. This Davidic King and his Kingdom are, in their character and the manner of their coming, every whit as supernatural as the Son of Man and His coming. The same historical fact was read into both Daniel and the prophets.

281 Enoch is an offshoot of the Danielic apocalyptic writings. The earliest portion, the Apocalypse of the Ten Weeks, is independent of Daniel and of contemporary origin. The Similitudes (capp. xxxvii.‐lxix.), which, with their description of the Judgment of the Son of Man, are so important in connexion with the thoughts of Jesus, may be placed in 80‐70 B.C. They do not presuppose the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey.

282 The Psalms of Solomon are therefore a decade later than the Similitudes.

283 The Apocalypse of Baruch seems to have been composed not very long after the Fall of Jerusalem. Fourth Ezra is twenty to thirty years later.

284 The Psalms of Solomon form the last document of Jewish eschatology before the coming of the Baptist. For almost a hundred years, from 60 B.C. until A.D. 30, we have no information regarding eschatological movements! And do the Psalms of Solomon really point to a deep eschatological movement at the time of the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey? Hardly, I think. It is to be noticed in studying the times of Jesus that the surrounding circumstances have no eschatological character. The Fall of Jerusalem marks the next turning‐point in the history of the apocalyptic hope, as Baruch and Fourth Ezra show.

285 Jesus promises them expressly that at the appearing of the Son of Man they shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28). It is to their part in the judgment that belong also the authority to bind and to loose which He entrusts to them—first to Peter personally (Matt. xvi. 19) and afterwards to all the Twelve (Matt. xviii. 18)—in such a way, too, that their present decisions will be somehow or other binding at the Judgment. Or does the “upon earth” refer only to the fact that the Messianic Last Judgment will be held on earth? “I give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. xvi. 19). Why should these words not be historical? Is it because in the same context Jesus speaks of the “church” which He will found upon the Rock‐disciple? But if one has once got a clear idea from Paul, a Clement, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Shepherd of Hermas, what the pre‐existing “church” was which was to appear in the last times, it will no longer appear impossible that Jesus might have spoken of the church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Of course, if the passage is given an uneschatological reference to the Church as we know it, it loses all real meaning and becomes a treasure‐trove to the Roman Catholic exegete, and a terror to the Protestant.

286 That he could be taken for the Baptist risen from the dead shows how short a time before the death of the Baptist His ministry had begun. He only became known, as the Baptist’s question shows, at the time of the mission of the disciples; Herod first heard of Him after the death of the Baptist. Had he known anything of Jesus beforehand, it would have been impossible for him suddenly to identify Him with the Baptist risen from the dead. This elementary consideration has been overlooked in all calculations of the length of the public ministry of Jesus.

287 That had been rightly remarked by Colani. Later, however, theology lost sight of the fact because it did not know how to make any historical use of it.

288 Psal. Sol. xv. 8.

289 That the baptism of John was essentially an act which gave a claim to something future may be seen from the fact that Jesus speaks of His sufferings and death as a special baptism, and asks the sons of Zebedee whether they are willing, for the sake of gaining the thrones on His right hand and His left, to undergo this baptism. If the baptism of John had had no real sacramental significance it would be unintelligible that Jesus should use this metaphor.

290 The thought of the Messianic feast is found in Isaiah lv. 1 ff. and lxv. 12 ff. It is very strongly marked in Isa. xxv. 6‐8, a passage which perhaps dates from the time of Alexander the Great, “and Jahweh of Hosts will prepare upon this mountain for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things prepared with marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. He shall destroy, in this mountain, among all peoples, the veil which has veiled all peoples and the covering which has covered all nations. He shall destroy death for ever, and the Lord Jahweh shall wipe away the tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people shall disappear from the earth.” (The German follows Kautzsch’s translation.)

In Enoch xxiv. and xxv. the conception of the Messianic feast is connected with that of the tree of life which shall offer its fruits to the elect upon the mountain of the King. Similarly in the Testament of Levi, cap. xviii. 11.

The decisive passage is in Enoch lxii. 14. After the Parousia of the Son of Man, and after the Judgment, the elect who have been saved “shall eat with the Son of Man, shall sit down and rise up with Him to all eternity.”

Jesus’ references to the Messianic feast are therefore not merely images, but point to a reality. In Matt. viii. 11 and 12 He prophesies that many shall come from the East and from the West to sit at meat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Matt. xxii. 1‐14 the Messianic feast is pictured as a royal marriage, in Matt. xxv. 1‐13 as a marriage feast.

The Apocalypse is dominated by the thought of the feast in all its forms. In Rev. ii. 7 it appears in connexion with the thought of the tree of life; in ii. 17 it is pictured as a feeding with manna; in