^ Cf. e.g. Shailer Mathews, The Messianic Hope in the N. T., 1905, p. 58 : " At this point we may safely use this canon : that saying is more probably genuine which treats of Messianic matters in any other way than that which characterized apostolic belief." " The trustworthiness of sayings which do not contradict, but agree with, apostolic belief must be decided on . . . more general critical grounds." It is the same canon which Prof. N. Schmidt, The Prophet of Nazareth, 1905, lays down in the words (p. 235): "These sayings possess evidential value just in proportion as they contradict the notions current in the circles through which they were transmitted."
The Synoptic Jesus Primitive i6i
context and shredded in their own contents,,, is erected, as on its foundation stone, a totally new portrait of Jesus, expressing a totally new self-consciousness, — which stands related to the Jesus of the evangelists and the self-consciousness which is ascribed to Him in their account, of course, as its precise contradictory, — seeing that It is precisely on the principle of contradic- tion that It has been concocted.
Surely we do not need to pause to point out that the procedure we are here Invited to adopt is a pre- scription for historical Investigation which must always Issue In reversing the portraiture of the historical char- acters to the records of whose lives It Is applied. The result of its universal application would be, so to speak, the writing of all history backwards and the adorn- ment of its annals with a series of portraits which would have this only to recommend them, that they represent every historical character as the exact contrast to what each was thought to be by all who knew and esteemed him. The absurdity and wrong of Invoking such a canon In the case of our Synoptic Gospels are pecu- liarly flagrant, Inasmuch as these Gospels, as we have seen, and as these very critics are frank to allow, are themselves of very early date and rest on a documentary basis, quite at one with them in the portrait they draw of Jesus, which is naturally earlier than themselves; and therefore reflect the universal conviction of the first generation of Christians. It Is really Impossible to doubt that they bring to us the aboriginal testimony of the primitive Church — a Church which included In its membership a considerable number of actual eye- witnesses of Jesus and ear-witnesses of His teaching, — as to His claims and personality.
1 62 The Designations of Our Lord
The absolute unanimity of that Church in its view of Jesus is very strikingly illustrated by the difficulty of discovering passages imbedded in our This Canon Gospels which Can be used as a founda- tion for the opposing portraiture of Jesus which the critics would fain draw. Professor Schmiedel can by the utmost sharpness of inquisition find only five, which by applying more exegetical pres- sure he can increase only to nine. The groundlessness of this assault on the trustworthiness of the portrait of Jesus presented In our Synoptics may fairly be said, therefore, to be matched by its resultlessness. Mate- rial cannot be gathered from our Gospels out of which a naturalistic Christ can be created. The method of criticism adopted being purely subjective, moreover, the assumed results naturally vary endlessly. We feel a certain sympathy, therefore, with the position assumed by those writers who frankly admit that, the evangel- ical portraiture of Jesus being distrusted, the real Jesus is hopelessly lost to our sight. Strive as we may, we are told, we cannot penetrate behind the Jesus of our first Informants — the writers of the New Testament, upon whose palette had already been mingled, never- theless, colors derived from Jewish prophecy. Rabbinic teaching, Oriental gnosis and Christian philosophy. " AH that can be determined with certainty from these writings," It is declared, " Is that conception of Christ which was the object of faith of the early Christian communities and their teachers": the real Jesus Is hopelessly hidden under the Incrustations with which faith has enveloped It.^° Nor does there seem to be
It* So, Pfleiderer, The Early Christian Conception of Christ, E. T., 1905.
The Synoptic Jesus Primitive 163