152 The Designations of Our Lord
No doubt there are some striking phrases occurring in our present Mark which are lacking from this series Other Possible of broken extracts from it. But the Elements in the same figure is here outlined. And most Primitive Mark q£ even these striking phrases are re- stored if we will attend also to passages common to Mark and one of the other evangelists, of which it would be hard to deny that they may therefore have had a place in the primitive document underlying all three. Thus, for example, in the fragments peculiar to Matthew and Mark, while Jesus is not addressed as 'Lord' except by the Syro- Phoenician woman (Mk 7"^ Mt 15^'^) , and is not spoken of at all by the general Messianic designation, ' the Christ,' He yet does call Himself both the ' Son of Man,' and undefinedly, ' the Son.' As ' Son of Man,' he asserts. He " came " to execute a great mission, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mk lo^^ Mt 20^^), and therefore has a prospect of suffering before Him (Mk 9^% Mt 17^-, Mk i4'S
finally on the part of our Lord, the disciples, and the people, in the story of the entry into Jerusalem (iii ^^i). However, the expression 'Son of God' never occurs except in the voice at the Baptism (i^^), and in the utterance of 13^-, though elsewhere in the Gospel it forms the proper formula for profession of belief (i'^ 3^^ 5^ 9'^ 14^^ ^S^^) '■> and the word ' Christ ' only occurs in the Confession of the Twelve (8-^), and in the theological dispute of iz^^, though it likewise is often employed elsewhere by the evangelist (i^-^* 1321 1461 1582), The term ' Son of Man ' is found in 2^^'-^ lo^^-*^, as also in 1421.41.82^ if indeed these parts of the story of the Passion belong to the group of which we are speaking; while in the sections due to the evangelist it occurs only in 99.12,31 after the pattern of 8^1 and lo^^." One cannot help admiring the skill with which the attention of the reader is kept from dwelling on the fact that all the significant, high designations of Jesus are left in the fragment of the Gospel which is allowed to be primitive; but the fact cannot even so be totally obscured.
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The Synoptic Jesus Primitive 153
Mt 26*^), but dies only to rise again (Mk 9*, Mt 17*). As ' Son ' He represents Himself as of superangellc dignity, and therefore above all creatures, standing next to God Himself (Mk 13^^, Mt 24^^). In the pas- sages peculiar to Mark and Luke, we find Him testi- fied to as the Messiah by the demons, who, although they know His earthly origin ('Jesus of Nazareth'), profess to know Him also to be the ' Holy One of God' (Mk i^\ Lk 4^4) and the 'Son of the Most High God' (Mk s\ Lk 82«). Not only does He not repel these ascriptions, but He speaks of Himself as the ' Son of Man,' teaching that He is to suffer many things and be killed, but after three days to rise again (Mk 8^\ Lk 9^^). A primitive gospel contain- ing all this falls short in nothing of the testimony borne by our present Mark to our Lord's higher nature.
It is not neccessary for our purpose to expend effort
in endeavoring to ascertain the compass most com-
Christology of nionly attributed to the second hypo-
the 'Primitive thetical document supposed to underlie
Sayings q^j. Synoptics, the so-called, and let us
add, very much miscalled, " Logia."* We may as well
at once direct our eyes to its minimum contents, — the
* The reconstruction of these so-called " Logia " by Harnack in his Spriiche und Reden Jesu, etc., 1907, pp. 88-102, provides one of the most convenient and accessible forms in which they may be studied, although Harnack (like Wellhausen) deprives them of the Passion story, and even eliminates the conception of the Passion from them (see to the contrary, Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmis- sion, 1907). Their christology is minimizingly described by von Soden, History of Early Christian Literature, 1906, pp. 136, 137. While asserting that the claim advanced for Jesus in this document is "scarcely more than any master might make on his disciples," von Soden is yet constrained to allow that " a higher self-consciousness may be clearly traced in the background." " The word ' Christ,' " he con-
154 The Designations of Our Lord