(o) Lietzmann, as the result of a careful ex- amination of the existing evidence, literary and philological, rejecting the .solutions of his prede- cessors, reached the startling conclusion || that 'Jesus never applied to Himself the title "son of man" at all, because it does not exist in Aramaic, and upon linguistic grounds cannot exist,' — on account, viz., of tlie fact mentioned above, that barnujthd, though it is lit. ' tlie son of man,' in actual usage means simply 'the man,' so that the distinction made in the tireek between 6 Snidpunrot and A Mi Toii avBpilmov could not have existed in Aramaic (both expressions being translations of the same word, hariidjihd). The evangelical tradi- tion wliich attributes to Christ the use of this title is consequently false. The title arose in Greek : vl6s avOpurov, as a translation of bamdsh in such passages as Mk 2"'-*, sounded strange ; it was consequently, under the influence of Dn 7", turned, under the form b uIAs toO d., into a title of Christ, first in the apocalyptic discourses declaring llis future napovala, and afterwards more generally in other di.scourses (])p. 91-95). And Lietzmann supports this conclu.-^ion by various subsidiary arguments, of which the principal are : (1) the fact that 'the son of man' was no accepted Messianic title in the age of Christ ; (2) the absence of the expression from the writings of St. Paul, which, he claims, is scarcely conceivable had it really been
• Thful. Tiidtchr. 1804, pp. 153-176 ; 1896, pp. 49-7X. t /«-. u. Jiid. Getch. (ISW) p. 312 ; ed. 3 (1897), p. 8S1 ; cf . Ski2Zm und V.n-arbfUn, vi. (1S99) p. 200f.
1 Jetn MutUrtprac/if (IbDC), pp. 91-101, 140-149. I Dahiiun. Oramtnatil:, 77 I. ; DU WorU Jem, 204L I Dei i/«ucA«nnAn, 18»6, p. 8»
used habitually by Christ ; (3) its absence likewise from the literature of the sub-aiiostolic ages, the Didarhe, Clement, I'olycarp, tlie Sliejiherd of Her- nias, etc., after a review of which Lietzmann findsit to be first alluded to by the Gno.stic sect of Ophites (pp. 62-G9), Marcion (c 120-1511 A.D.), and Ignatius {Ephes. XX. 2, ry vlw dvOpuirov Kal vl(^ $€ov). And Wellhausen, though for long he could not bring himself to such a tour de force ('Gewaltstreich '), was forced ultimately to agree with Lietzmann. The sense in which he formerly (see abovel supposed Christ to have used the expression he now considered to be too abstract, and could eon-s^e- quentlj' lind no alternative left but, bold as the step might appear, to deny that Christ used the expression at all. The title originated in Dn 7", being attributed first to Jesus in the eschatological passages (cf. Mk 13^, where, as Wellh. observes, ' the son of man ' is not expressly identified with the speaker) ; and its adoption afterwards as a "eneral self-designation of Jesus was perhaps facilitated by a misapprehension of passages such as Mk 2^, in which bamdsha, though meant gener- ally, was interpreted as referring specially to Christ.*
The general conclusion that Christ had not Himself used the title had been reached before, tboujrh without the use of the argument ba^ed upon the .\ramaic, by Volkraar in 1870, and especially by Oort (in De Uitdrukkitvj i lIk tcv a. in het AT, 1893), who, though he allowed that Jesus might have used the expression as a pjTubol of the future kingdom, argued that He did not use it as a self-designation ; it wa.s intnHiured first oa a personal title by the early (Christians from aj)ocalyplic litera- ture, and was ascribed afterwards to Jesus Hiuiself by the evangelists.
9. Such a conclusion, conflicting, as it does, with all the direct evidence that we possess on the subject, could not be accepted, except upon the clearest and strongest grounds ; and it is not sur- prising to find the leadinjr NT scholars on the Continent, including even those who approach the Gospel records from a thoroughly critical stand- point, opposed to it. The principal objections may be thus summarized. (1) The variations be- tween this title and the personal pron. presented by many of the parallel narratives (.see the Talile), show, indeed, that there are occasions on wliich we cannot be sure whether the term was actually used by our Lord or not, and it might be admitted (see § '22) that there were even other passages in which it had been attributed to Him incorrectly; but that an expression which in the Gosjiels is attribute<l solely to Him, and is never used by the evangelists themselves, slioiUd in reality have been never used by Him, but have been introduced into the Gospels entirely by the evangelists, implies an inversion of the facts which is hardly credible. (2) The attribution of the expression to Christ does not depend upon isolated texts in individual Gospels ; it has in many cases, as the Table shows, the support of the double, and even of the triple, Synoptic tradition. (3) Exactly the same usage is found, moreover, in the Independent tradition represented by the Fourth Gospel ; and, as Dr. Drumiiiond [§ '24] remarks, ' there seems to be no particular rea.son for its appearance in this Gospel, except the fact that it was at least believed to be a common expression in the mouth of Jesus.' Direct jiersoiial reminiscences unquestionably un- derlie both these traditions ; and, as the same authority further remarks, 'the apostles must have known whether their Master siioke of Him- self in the way recorded in the Gospels or not ; and the Gospels aresufliciently near apostolical .sources to make us pause before admitting that the Church is responsible for the appearance of so striking a characteristic ' as this title in the mouth ot Christ. (4) Even as-suming that the title was intro- duced into the escliatological passages in the inannei ■ Skuun u. Forarlieiun, vL (1899) pp. 188, 2001., 206, 214.