Thus, in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, the owner of the vineyard, after sending servant after servant to negotiate with the labourers, sends his own son, Mk. adding 'his well-beloved,' by whom Jesus obAdously intends Himself. Of course, it may be said that the Messiah was different from all the prophets, and that this difference may be indicated by the difference between a son and a servant ; but the analogy would be closer if a more intimate and personal relationship were assumed.
One of the most striking passages pointing in the same direction is one that, at first sight, seems to point the opposite way. In Mk 13^^, speak- ing of a date in the future, Jesus says, ' But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.' Naturally tliis has been often quoted as a conclusive disproof of the orthodox doctrine of the Sonship of our Lord, and it has been one of the chief occasions for the invention of the kenotic theories, as they are called, of His Person ; but, on the other hand, it is one of the clearest indications of a consciousness superior to mere humanity, for it places the speaker above both men and angels so obviously, tliat even Holtzmann, in an unwonted outburst of concession, exclaims : ' This is the single passage in which the Son, while opposed along with the angels to the Father, appears to become a metaphysical magni- tude' (iV^T T^eo^. i. 268).
The inference appearing to follow from the passage just quoted is that Jesus was a Being above both men and angels, but inferior to God. But a more profound and true knowledge is supplied
by the most impressive passage of all on this sub- ject in the Synoptics — the words of Jesus with which the First Gospel concludes : ' All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world' (28i9f-)- The close resemblance will be noted between the opening words of this statement and the opening words of the saying in Mt IP'', already commented on. The promise, 'Lo, I am with you alway,' has likewise a parallel in Mt 18^<* 'Where two or three are gathered to- gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' But the association of 'the Son' with the Father and the Holy Ghost is the most remarkable expression in the Synoptics of the self-conscious- ness of Jesus. How much it implies is a problem for dogmatic theology ; but it is enough to remark here that it undoubtedly runs up into the ontological or metaphysical. Of course, its authenticity as a saying actually proceeding from Jesus has been fiercely disputed, and in certain quarters the air is affected of treating it as beyond dispute an addition to the actual words of Christ ; but its place in the ordinance of baptism connects it closely with the Author of that rite ; and there is no reason for rejecting it which would not, at the same time, imply the rejection of the whole section of the life of our Lord which follows His death on the cross.
2. The Fourth Gospel. — When we turn from the Synoptics to the Fourth Gospel, we are immediately conscious of being in a different atmosphere and at a difierent altitude, and the effect is at first bewildering. Instead of a studied reticence on the subject of who and whence He was, such as we encounter in the previous GosjDels, Jesus places this subject in the foreground, and instead of letting His higher claims escape only at rare intervals and in the society of His chosen friends. He proclaims them to all and sundry, and, as one might say, from the housetops. This raises many questions as to the origin and purpose of this Gospel, which cannot be fully discussed in this place ; but it may be said that, if both representa- tions are to be accepted as historical, we must conceive the words of Christ as having ranged over a wider area than is usually assumed. If in His mind there were circles of thought as diverse as those of the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, there must have been ample spaces round both circles, in which the outer elements of both might touch and blend. There is a tendency, due to the preoccupation of study, to narrow the life of Christ down to what has been actually recorded ; but this is in many ways misleading, and it is mistaken. It is certain that the acts recorded of Him are only a few stray flowers thrown over the wall of an ample garden ; and it is not unreasonable to infer tliat the same is true of His words.
As, however, we grow accustomed to the new environment in the Gospel of St. John, we begin to perceive that the figure which stands in the midst is not so different as it appears at first sight from the one we have just been studying. He is still ' the Son of Man' as well as ' the Son of God,' though the proportion in which these names occur is reversed. The way in which He here calls Him- self ' the Son ' and God His Father is exactly similar to the usage in the Synoptics, only He has these terms far more frequently on His lips. Not a few of the most astonishing statements He makes about Himself are substantially anticipated in the verse of an earlier Gospel so frequently re- ferred to, Mt IP''. He does not hesitate, even in