. A death like His s he remained a Jew, to be- elieve in Him as the Messiah olved the removal from the the Messiah of all the Jewish and carnal elements
which were associated with it' {Church History, i. p. 42, Eng.
tr.).
Baur's solution of the difficulty forms one of the most curious pages in the history of modern criticism. He allows that nothing but the miracle of the Resurrection could restore the faith of the disciples after such a death as that of the Cross, and yet he assures us in the same breath that the question as to the nature and the reality of the Resurrection lies outside the sphere of historical inquiry. What history requires is not so much the fact of the Resurrection of Jesus, as the belief that it was a fact.
In more recent utterances we seem to catch an echo of Baur's words, and his remarks anticipate Harnack's familiar distinction between the Easter faith and the Easter message. The Easter faith, according to Harnack, is a conviction which tells us that the Crucified has achieved an inward victory over death, and has entered into eternal life. But this so-called Easter faith appears, not unjustly, to many thoughtful minds to do away witli the need of Easter altogether. The Crucified overcame death on Good Friday, so far, that is, as an inward triumph was concerned. On Good Friday, and not upon the third day, He entered upon eternal life. And if nothing special happened on Easter Day, there seems to be little sense or point in talking about ' Easter faith.' J
But, further, this contrast between the current ideas of the Messiah and the Messiahship of Jesus in the Gospels may be illustrated from the succeed- ing history of the Jewish nation and from the cul-
♦ Muirhead, Esrhatnlmiv of .lesnn, 1904, p. 256. See, further, Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 308ff. ; J. Druni- mond, T?ie Jewish Messiah, 1877, pp. 356, 357; Row, Jesus of the Evangelists^, pp. 140, 213; Bishop Gore, Bampton Lectures, p. 192. "The whole appendix in Schiirer's GJV ii. p. 553ff., entitled ' Der leidende Messias,' should be consulted.
t Professor Votaw (Chicago), ' The Modern Jewish View or Jesus,' in the Biblical World, x.xvi. No. 2 [Aug. 1905], p. 110. The passage above is cited from the Je^vish Encyc. vii. p. 166 ; and the present writer would venture to refer forftirther litera- ture to the Witness of the Epistles, pp. S3, 360.
! See Dr. Walther'a valuable criticism. Ad. Harnack's Wesm des Christentums fur die christliche Genmnde gcpriiffi, 190i, p. 134; and also Dr. F. Blass, 'Science and Sophistry ' in Expos. Times, Oct. 1904.
CRITICISM
CRITICISM
mination of tlie Jewish hopes in the pretender Bar Cochba in the reign of Hadrian. Tlie report was circulated that the Messiah had at last appeared, and fabulous numbers are said to have joined his standard in insurrection against the Romans. We know how the struggle ended in terrible disaster to the Jews, although for some few years they fought with all their characteristic stubbornness and desperation. But the chief actor in the drama, Bar Cochba, reveals to us only too plainly the kind of Messiah whom the majority of the Jews expected, and whom they were prepared to wel- come : ' Jesus ottered Himself unresistingly to death ; the impostor died in arms . . . whatever Jesus Christ was not, this pretender was. What- ever this pretender was, Jesus Christ was not.'* One feature in the new Messiah's career may be specially noted, viz. the absence of any attempt on his part to work miracles, although no doubt all sorts of exaggerated stories of strength and power gathered round his name.t But ilf, as we are told, there was an iiTesistible tendency to attribute miraculous powers to the Messiah, if, as Professor Percy Gardner asserts, there was every probability that whether actual or not the miracles would be reported, how is it that no such miracles gathered around the name of Bar Cochba ? Is not the only explanation to be found in the fact that Jesus of Nazareth actually Avorked miracles, while the pretender worked none? J Nor must it be for- gotten in this connexion that tlie Jews in early times never attempted to deny that our Lord wrought miracles ; on the contrary, they admitted the miracles, whilst they referred them to Satanic arts or to a knowledge of the sorcery which Jesus had brought with Him from Egypt. § In the same manner the modem Jews admit that our Lord gained His notoriety not merely from His teach- ing but from His miracles, specially from those which He wrouglit a'* a healer of tlie sick. ' It was not,' writes Dr. Koliler in the Jewish Encrjc. vii. p. 167, 'as the teacher of new religious prin- ciples nor as a new lawgiver, but as a new won- der-worker that Jesus won fame and influence among the simple inhabitants of Galilee in his life- time.' II
13. But there were other claims made by our Lord, in addition to the claim to wmU iiiiiufle's, and of these great and supernatui.il • laim, it may be said that they cannot possibly Kc il'.iheil I'lum the picture of the Messiah which luucls us in the OT. Some words remarkable in their bearing upon this subject were uttered by Dr. Charles in speaking before the University of Oxford on ' The Messiah of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New- Testament ' :