saying is, however, in point of fact, an express claim to be something very different from this. " The occurrence of this verse in both Mat- thew and Luke," says W. C. Allen, in loc, " even if the two Evangel- ists borrow from a single source, proves that this saying reaches back to an early stage of the Gospel tradition. If, as is probable, the two writers drew from different sources, this tradition was wide-spread. If we add the fact that a similar use of the Son-the Father occurs in Mk 13^-, this usage as a traditional saying of Christ is as strongly supported as any saying in the Gospels." Cf. Plummer on Luke's re- port of the saying, quoted above (p. 119).
22 Schmiedel, Encyc. Bib., 1876, gives a summary of the reasons relied on to exclude the passage. The history of its criticism is briefly sketched by Holtzmann, N. T. Theologie, ed. i, I. 378-379, note. F. C. Cony- beare alone has sought to put a documentary basis under the rejection: see esp. his articles in Preuschen's Zeitschrift fiir N. T. Wissenschaft, etc., 1901, Heft 4, pp. 175-78, and Hibbert Journal, I. i. The findings of Conybeare have been taken up and repeated with extraordinary avidity by nearly the whole critical school. Only Harnack holds back: " No positive proofs can be adduced for regarding 28^^ ^^^- as an inter- polation " {Expansion of Christianity, E. T., I. 44-45, note). E. Rig- genbach has sufficiently answered Conybeare — who indeed required no answer — (Schlatter and Cremer's Beitrdge zur Forderung christlicher Theologie, 1903. vii. ; also 1906, x.).^ Men like Harnack, while vin- O dicating the genuineness of the passage in Matthew, and supposing it
r,
f
172 The Designations of Our Lord
tion of Its subjective principle, which render It nuga- tory for the end for which it is invoked. In any event no reasonable grounds can be assigned for discarding the portrait of Jesus drawn by the Synoptists, or for depriving Him of the great sayings by which He is represented by them as testifying to His essential deity. It is impossible to deny on any reasonable grounds that Jesus called Himself the ' Son of Man ' by predilec- tion, and it is purely arbitrary to suppose that in doing so He did not mean what the term implies. It is equally impossible to deny that He represented Him- self under the denomination of ' Son ' as of super- angelic dignity, and as standing in a relation of inti- mate continuous intercourse with God the Father. This prepares the way for allowing farther that He repre- sented Himself as sharer with the Father in the divine Name itself, and makes nugatory all subjective objec- tion to it. The strictest scrutiny of the Synoptic record of Jesus' teaching, in other words, renders an appeal from their representation to Jesus' own teaching mean- ingless. It is not only the Synoptists who testify that Jesus is a divine person, but the Jesus they report: it is not only the Jesus as reported by them who bears this witness to Himself, but the only Jesus of history.
pre-Pauline in origin {op. cit. p. m), yet deny it to Jesus. For rea- sons why it must be vindicated to Jesus see Hort. on i P ii-^-; Sanday Criticism of the Fourth Cospel, 218, 219; Hastings' B. D., 11. 213-14, IV. 573, 574; P. H. Chase, The Lord's Command to Baptize, in the Journal of Theological Studies, July, 1905. Cf. also Bruce, The King- dom of God, 1889, p. 258: "With reference to the trinity of the Bap- tismal formula, it is to be observed that it simply sums up in brief compass the teaching of Jesus " ; and especially Zahn on Mt 2%^^-^^ (p. 711, note 7): "The text of verses 18-20 is transmitted with cer- tainty in all essential elements. With reference to the almost stereo- typed abbreviation which recurs in Eusebius (for example Demonstr.
The Synoptic Jesus Primitive 1 73
On the basis of the Synoptic record, in other words, we can be fully assured that Jesus not only was believed to have taught that He was a divine person, but actu- ally did so teach.'^^
E-vang., III. 6, 32, TzopsuOivTsg fiadrjTsuffars navra zd edvrj iv to* S'^ofiaTt iJ-ou^ 8tddaxovT£<s xrA.Y in which Conybeare, Ztschr. fiir N. T. Wiss, 1 901, p. 175 seq. supposes that he has discovered the origi- nal text, cf. E. Riggenbach, Der Trinit. Tanfbefehl, 1903 (Schlatter- Cremer, Beitr. VII. 1), by whom the matter is set at rest (erledigt). From Eus. Epist. ad Casar. (Socr. //. e. 1. %) ', c. Marc. I. l; Hist. EccL, III. 5, and other passages, it may be seen that Eusebius recognized the received text as that which had been transmitted to him too, and as that which alone could be employed in dogmatic discussion."
-3 Cf.' Stanton, Jeivisk and Christian Messiah, p. 252: "His own express language claimed the title [of Messiah] in a sense not one whit less supernatural and glorious than that in which it was afterwards understood." So p. 390: "I have endeavored to show that Jesus must have claimed to be the Christ in a sense involving His deity." Cf. pp. »54. 155.