(561.W.7U 76 g-JS lO'S-lS 12'- 23 131.11.21.38 14-"J 165.32
18*- ").
It is difficult to see, however, why St. John's Gospel should be .separated from its companions in this matter (Schenkel s.iys frankly that it is only because there is no such passa-r in'St. John's Gos- pel as Mk 13»2, on whirl, „.,■ 1„ !,,«■. Whatever else must be said of W. \\"iv,l,.'s I >r,s Messiasge- heimnis, etc., 1901, it must be admitted that it lias broken down this artifii'ial distinction between the Gospel of John and the Synoptics). If they do not, like St. John (16*; 21'^), record direct ascrip- tions of precise omniscience to Jesus by His followi 1 s. il,,v ,1,,. like St. John, represent Him as Iliiii Ir r|:,ii,iiii._' to be the depository and dis- trilml-i ..I Hi,- r.iiht-r's knowledge (Mtll='-™, Lk 10---=^j. Nni .lu they lag behind St. John in attributing to Jesus the Divine prerogative of reading the heart (Mt 9', Meyer ; Mk 2'- * 8" 12"- ■", Swete, p. Ixxxviii ; I>k h-- 7™) or the manifestation, in otluM- foniis, ,,f (Jml liko omniscience (Mt 17'-'' 21-, Mk II 11' , 1,1^ ,-• IM -j-jio; <;f. o. Holtzmann, \V,n- ./. ,„ /;/ ,/,,/,/ , p I I „„d p. 15, note). Le.ast of all .1.. (!i.y t.ill l"|iiii,i St. John in insisting
matters connected with His own life and death
(Mt 9'5 12" 162' 20'8- 22. 28 262.21.34. 60_ ^H- ol'J gSl 931 1033. 39. 45 112 148. 13. 16. 3U_ Lk S** 9=2- «. 51 1250 1335 I725
183' 1930 22'0-2i.34.37 24«). Nothing could exceed the detailed precision of these announcements,— a characteristic which has been turned, of course, to their discredit as genuine utterances of Jesus by writers who find difficulty with detailed prediction. ' The form and contents of these texts,' remarks Wrede (Messiasgeheimnis, etc. p. 88), ' speak a language which cannot be misunderstood. They are nothing but a short summary of the Passion history — "cast, uf ((lursc, in the future tense."' '"The Pas^icii liist.ii V, " he proceeds, quoting Eichhorn, ••(uulil iiitainly not be more exactly related in few w ( n ds. " ' In very fact, it is perfectly clear — whether they did it by placing upon His lips predictions He never uttered and never could have uttered, is another question — that the Evan- gelists designed to represent Jesus as endowed with the absolute and unlimited foresight conso- nant with His Divine nature (see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, ed. 4, p. 464 fl'. ; and cf. A. J. Mason, The Conditioiis of our Lord^s Life on, Earth, pp. 155-194).
The force of this representation cannot be broken, of course, by raising the question afresh whether the supernatural knowledge attributed by the Evan- gelists to our Lord may not, in many of its items at least, if not in its whole extent, find its analogues, after all, in human powers, or be explained as not different in kind from that of the prophets (cf. e.g. Westcott, ' Additional Note on Jn 2-'' ; A. J. Mason, Conditions, etc. pp. 162-163). The question more immediately before us does not concern our own view of the nature and origin of this knowledge, but that of the Evangelists. If we mil keep these two questions separate we shall scarcely be able to doubt that the Evangelists mean to present this knowledge as one of the marks of our Lord's Divine dignity. In interpreting them we are not entitled to parcel out the ma,ss of the illustra- tions of His supernormal knowledge which they record to differing sources, as may fall in with our own conceptions of the inherent possibilities of each case ; finding indications in some instances merely of His fine human instinct, in others of His prophetic inspiration, while reserving others — if such others are left to us in our analysis — as products of His Divine intuition. Tlie Evangelists suggest no such lines of cleavage in the mass ; and they must be interpreted from their own stand- point. This finds its centre in their exi)ressed conviction that in Jesus Christ dwelt the fulness of the knowledge of God (Mt 1127, Lk IO22, Jn 83* 16'= 17'°). To them His knowledge of God and of Divine things, of Himself in His Person and mission, of the course of His life and the events which would befall Him in the prosecution of the work whereunto He had been sent, of the men around Him, — His followers and friends, the people and their rulers, — down to the most hidden aepths of their natures and tlie mcisi intimate processes of their secret thoughts, an.l ..t all the things forming the environment in whirh the dr.ama He was enacting was cast, hu\\e\ ei widely that environ- ment be conceived, or however minutely it be contemplated, — was but tlie manifestation, in the ever-widening circles of onr human nuxles of con- ception, of tlie perfect n|i|ireliensi<m and under- standing that dwelt ihaiij.U— ly in His Divine intelligence. He w li.i knew C.^l perfectly,— it were little that He .iheul.l kii..» mai. and the world perfectly too ; all that alleiiid His nwn work and career, of course, and with it, eipially ef (onrse, all that lay outside ui ihi^ !■ f. Mason. I'lniihtmux, etc. p. 168); in a w.nd, nnlniiitedly, all things. Even if nothin"; but the l.aw of Parsimony st(jod