2. The originality which we have noted as char- acteristic of the Person of Christ, we should expect to find reflected in His doctrine. It was in His doctrine that He made His authority felt (Mt V^). The impression made upon those who stood in the closest relation to His Person was that He had a wonderful and life-giving doctrine to communicate (Jn 6^*). In place of His anointment to Messianic kingship. He substituted His anointment to the prophetic office (Lk 4^^-21)^ j^jj^j addressed Him- self to the work of preaching in fulfilment of His vocation as Messiah. Was there anything original, we ask, in His preaching, anything to justify His feeling tliat with His entrance on His work as a preacher the new era might be said to have begun ?
The impression made upon the people who first listened to His doctrine was that it was something new. 'A new doctrine with authority,' they ex- claimed (Mk V") as they listened to His preaching for the first time. Certainly there was much that was old in His doctrine, much that did but echo the teaching of the OT. The description He gives in one of His parables of the scribe instructed in the Kingdom of heaven, applies in the first instance to Himself. He was like a householder Avho bring- eth forth from his storeroom things new and oFd (Mt 13^2). But if there was much that was old, there was nmch also that was new and original. As compared with the teaching of the OT, to which it stands in such clo.se connexion, Christ's doctrine was original, as we saw above, in the freedom with which He selected only what appealed to Him, leaving aside much Avhich from the standpoint of His contemporaries Avas equally, if not more im- portant; in the new emphasis with Avhich it re- states certain OT doctrines, and the new value it assigns to them. It was original in the simplicity of Its requirements, as against the multitudinous demands which Judaism made upon the individual ; in the consistency with which it pursued its few
leading ideas — such, e.g., as the righteousness of the heart as that which alone avails in God's sight — to their logical issues, not hesitating to enforce the conclusions which follow, even when they con- flict with the recognized standards, as in the above case with reference to the Levitical law of clean- ness (Mk V*-''^). It was original in the feeling of confidence which it in.spired in man in relation to God, banishing that spirit of bondage which the Pharisaic attitude to the Law had produced, and putting in its place the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, ' Abba, Father' (Ko 8^^), assuring man of the love of the Father in heaven, of the preciousness of each individual in His sight, of His willingness to bestow blessings in rich abundance upon him, to forgive his sins and give him the Kingdom. But, indeed, to do justice to the originality of Christ's doctrine, we should have to mention every feature of it. The purity of the ethical tone, the loftine.ss of the ideal it sets before us, the comfort it breathes to the sinful and the sinning, the depth of the love it inculcates, the zeal for righteousness it seeks to inspire, its indifference to the ceremonial in religion and interest only for the spiritual, — these are among the features which contribute to its origin- ality. If it is true that there is scarcely a single doctrine of Christ of which we cannot find some anticipation in the OT, it is also true that there is no OT doctrine which Christ reiterates but receives a new significance from the setting it obtains in His teaching. This is the strikingljr original feature about His doctrine, — how He makes the old new by the new light in which He places it, and the new value He assigns to it. Much that He taught had been taught before. But never had it been proclaimed with such assurance, never had it been brought home to the heart of man with such con- viction, as when it was taught by Him who em- bodied in His o\vn Person the truth He taught, who, when He spoke of the love of God, could point to His own jiresence among men as the confirmation of the message that He bore, and who sealed with His blood the truth that He had proclaimed in His life.
LiTBRATURE. — Bruno Bauer, Chnstus und die Cdsaren^, 1879, Das Urfvangelium und die Gegner der Schrift ' Christits und die Cdsaren,' 1880; E. Havet, Le Christianisme et ses origines; Bunsen, The Angel Messiah nf Buddhists, Essenes, and Chris- tians, i880 ; Se.ydel, Das Evangelium ran Jesti in seinen Verhdltnissen zu Buddha-sage und Buddha-lehre, 1882, Die Buddha-legende und das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien, 1884; Oldenberg in ThLZ, 1882, No. 18, 1884, No. 8, 1905, No. 3 ; Lillie, Buddha and Early Buddhism, 1881, The Popular Life (if Buddha, 1883, Buddhism in Christendom,, or Jesus the Essene, 1885, and The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity, 1893 ; Aiken, The Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 1900 ; Stix, Christus oder Buddha, 1900 ; Pfleiderer, Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung , 1903 ; van den Bergh \an Eysinga, Indische Einfiiisse auf evangelische Erzdhlungen, 1904 ; V. Hase, Neutest. Parallelen zu buddhist. Quellen, 1905 ; Kuenen, Hihbert Lectures, 1882, Lects. iv. and v., notes xi. and xiii. ; Bousset, .Jesu Predigl in ihrem, Gegensatz zum ./udenthum, 1892, Jesus, Eng. tr. 1906 ; Votaw, The Modem Jeinsh View of Jesus (reprinted from the Biblical World, vol. xxvi. No. 2, Aug. 1905) ; Montefiore, ' The Synoptic Gospels and the Jewish Con- sciousness,' Hihbert Journal, July 1905 ; Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, ch. ii. § 2, Das Wesen des Christentums, p. 30 ff.; Drunimond, The Relation of the Apostolic Teaching to the Teaching of Christ, p. 85 ff. ; O. Holtzmann, Life of Jesus, ch. xiv. ; Bachmann, Die neue Botschaft in der Lehre Jesu, 1905 ; Eschelbacher, Das Judentum und das Wesen des Christentums, 1905; Wellhausen, 'Gesch. Israels u. Judas,' c. 11 {Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, 1884), also IJG, c. 24 (1904) ; Baldensperger, Die messian.- apocalyp. Hoffnungen des Judenthums^, 1903, also Das spdtere .Judenthum als Vorstvfe des Christenthums, 1900 ; Schiirer, HJP, also Die Predigt Jesu Christi in ihrem Verhdlt- niss zum AT u. zum Judenthum, 1882 ; Jiilicher, ' Jesus ' in Die christliche Religion, 1906; H. J. Holtzmann, NT Theoh 1897 (first two chapters) ; J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom, Reiche Goftes^, 1900; Haupt, Zum. Verstdndnis der eschatol. Aussagen Jesu, 1894 ; Wiinsche, Neue Beitriige zur Erldutervng der Evan- gelien aus Talmud und Midrasch, 1878 ; Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon, pp. 395-417; Ginsburg, Essenes; Combeare, art. 'Essenes' in Hastings' DB; Nesbit, Christ, Christians, and Christianity, bk. i. 'Jesus an Essene," 1895 (2nd ed. 1899); A. Schweitzer, Van Reimarus zu Wrede, 1906.