(2) In the same way, it seems to the present writer, we are to interpret the reference to the authorship of Ps 110 (Mt 22*i-'= = Mk 12»5-3? = Lk 20"-"). There were three distinct ideas current about this Psalm which Jesus adopts as the groundwork of His argument : (i.) it was Davidic, (ii.) it was written by David under the influence of inspiration (Aa/3i5 ^v wvevixari.), (iii.) it was ex- plicitly Messianic. If Jesus placed the imprimatur of His Divine authority upon any one of these notions, we are bound to believe that He did so on all, and by consequence on the Messianic ideas which were popularly held, and which doubtless were supposed to be favoured by Ps 110. We know, however, that He habitually discouraged the popular belief in a Messiah who was to be an earthly Sovereign of all-conquering power, which was held to be countenanced by the words of this
" See Hastings' OB, Extra Vol. p. 24 f.
Psalm (cf. Jn 6'^ IS^*'- and Lk 17="'). There is no hint given by any of the three Synoptists that Jesus corrected these Messianic expectations during the course of the argument. His purpose was other than this, 'to argue from the contents' of the Psalm, and not at all to correct ideas as to authorship and interpretation (cf. Driver, LOT'^ p. 363 n. ; and A. F. Kirkpatrick, ' Psalms,' in the Cambridge Bible, Introd. to Ps 110).
The whole edifice so laboriously constructed by the opponents of a rational criticism, on the basis of Jesus' references to this Psalm as «ell as to other portions of OT Scriptures, falls to the j^round when considered beneath 'the dry light of reason.* The following words of Bishop Gore are so moderate and reason- able in connexion with this reference of Jesus to the Davidic authorship of Ps 110, that we may be pardoned for quoting them in full. ' On the face of it, the argument suggests that the Messiah could not be David's Son,—" if David calleth him Lord, how is he his Son?"— but, in fact, \b< i>urp(tse is not to prove or disprove anything, to affirm or deny anything, but simply to press upon the Pharisees an arguiiient "which their habitual assumptions ought to have suggested to them ; to confront them with just that question, which they, with their principles, ought to have been asking themselves ' (Damp- ton Lect. p. 198). In a word, nothing can be truer than that both 'the Saviour and the Apostles have quoted a body of sacred Scriptures, and it does not appear that in their teaching they had any wish to introduce a novel theory as to the mean- ing and authority of that collection. Neither the Apostolic writ- ings nor the tradition of the Christian Church bear any trace of an explicit decision given by JcBus Christ or the Apostles with respect to the Canon of the Old Testament, and still less of a decision which would have the effect of formally correcting opinions which obtained in the Jewish world ' (Loisy, Caiwn de t'Ancie7i Testament, p. 97).
V. Summary and Conclusion.— In summing up and reviewing the conditions under which the teaching of Jesus was ushered into the world, and the relation in which that teaching stood to the human race, we cannot do better than quote a passage from a little work of the last-named writer (L'Evangile et I'Sglise), though he is there dealing with a very ditferent problem :—
' Nothing could make Jesus other than a Jew He was only man under condition of belon^m, to one 1 In that in which He was born the branc said to have carried in it the religious futur future was known in quite a pietist iiiai r tr reign of God, by the symbol of the '
the Founder of _
Israel. The Gospel, appearing in Ju i i M t q pear
elsewhere, was bound to le cunhtiti 1 I \ Ju I i m Its Jewish exterior is the human bod\ u iu se L>i nt 1 is the Spirit of Jesus. But take awav tht 1 od\ in 1 th soul will vanish in the air like the ht,htest brcxth U itho it the idea of the Messiah, the Gospel would have been but a n et i] h\sical possibility, an invisible, intangible essence even unintellif,ible, for want of a definition appropriate to the means of know ledge, not a living and conquering reaht> The Gospel will always need a body to be human Having become the hope of Chris tian people, it has corrected in the interpretation cei tain parts
ilways stri\mg after t if l i i [ i ^nd his 'is the nnsteri tb it J i II is far
as it could be revealed, and under the cond tions whith nndt revelation possible. It may be said that Christ lived it ab ninth as He made it manifest.
The present writer has no intention of entering into the very difficult and much-debated (|ucstiuii of the connexion between Jesus' ideas of ' the kingdom of God' (or 'of heaven') during the early and the later periods of His active ministry, or how far the latter was a development of the former ; nor again to inquire as to the period when it dawned upon His consciousness that His death was the condition upon which its inauguration and subsequent life rested. Broadly speaking, a line of demarcation might be drawn through the life as it is presented to us, cutting it into two fairly well marked divisions at the time of the Petrine confession and the Transfiguration. After these events Jesus began to concentrate His teaching more especially upon the circle of dis- ciples gathered closely round Him. It was then