Taking first the passages in St. Mark, with their parallels in the other Synoptics, and turning to Mk 2^" (cf. Lk 5-*, Mt 9^), we are confronted at once with the representation that quite early in His ministry, when in the presence of hostile scribes, Jesus definitely identifies Himself with the ' Son of Man.' '. . . that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins ... I say unto thee, Arise.' It is, of course, possible that the incident is not here in its due chronological position — that it properly belongs to a much later time in the Evangelical narrative. But there is no reason, unless it be the presence of the phrase now in question, to think so. More likely is it that in this case the ambiguity of the Aramaic is account- able for the presence of the title- in the Greek rendering. The scribes were charging Jesus with blasphemy because He assumed to pronounce the forgiveness of sins, that being, as they held, in the power of God only, and not in that of any man. Jesus responds by undertaking to afford a convinc- ing sign that even ' a man [meaning Himself] hath authority,' etc. Such a reconstruction of the passage finds support in Mt 9*, where we read that the multitudes who stood by ' glorified God, which had given such authority unto men' — the multitudes understanding our Lord to have employed no title, and taking the expression He used in its collective sense.
In Mk 228 (cf Lk 6^, Mt 128) ^ur Lord's argument in regard to the observance of the Sabbath seems to demand that ' man ' should be substituted where we now read ' the Son of Man. ' He is vindicating the action of His disciples, and asserting for all others the same freedom in regard to the use of the Sabbath as they had exercised. Jesus is
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not concerned to assert His own personal rights, but those of His followers, and of all who sutiered from restrictions which threatened to turn that which was given for man's benefit into a bondage. ' The Sabbath was made for man ... so that man is lord [or rather "owner" — K^pios answering here to a familiar sense of the Hebrew hv^ — Swete, Com. on St. Martc] even of the Sabbath.'
Taking next the two remaining pre-Ca^sarean occurrences of ' the Son of Man ' in St. Luke, the earlier of the two, Lk Q^'^, presents little difficulty. It is an obvious case of an editorial insertion of the title. Where St. Luke has ' for the Son of Man's sake,' Mt 5'^ has, 'for my sake' — the latter being clearly the earlier form of the saying. Lk 7^* (cf. Mt 11^^) is quite conceivably another case of tlie reverent substitution by tradition of the title in place of a pronoun. Our Lord is contrasting His action with that of the Baptist. What more likely than that He should say, 'John the Baptist is come ... I am come ' ? The title can be deemed here in no wise essential.
It remains to glance at six passages in the First Gospel besides those already mentioned, in which ' the Son of Man ' is found prior to Peter's confes- sion. Taking these cases in order of their occur- rence in the Gospel, it is sufficient as to the first, Mt 8=", to note that its parallel is Lk ^^—i.e. according to St. Luke the incident of the scribe who volunteered to follow Jesus was subsequent to Peter's confession. There is no reason to suspect here any misconception of our Lord's words on the part of His translators. He cannot have said that in contrast to beasts and birds ' man ' hath not where to lay his head. The contrast drawn is between such creatures and Himself, the Messianic 'Son of Man.' If even He had no resting-place. His followers might know thereby what hardship they must be prepared to undergo. Mt 10'^^ is quite cleaily not in its true chronological order ; it belongs to a later time than the first mission of the Twelve, and to a connexion in which a larger work was contemplated than that with which they were then entrusted. But the Evangelist, following his pre- ference for topical arrangement, has linked these later words to the instructions given to the Twelve when they were about to set out on their earliest missionary expedition.
Mt 12^2, when compared with Lk 12^" and with Mk 3-^, is found to be a combination of two different reports of our Lord's saying as to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Mk 3-* has no mention of ' the Son of Man,' but it has the expression, quite unique in the Gospels, 'the sons of men.' It runs thus: ' All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies . . . but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. . . .' In the parallel in St. Luke, the unwonted phrase ' the sons of men ' disappears, and its place is taken by the familiar expression 'the Son of Man,' and the entire saying is modified in accordance therewith. That St. Mark has the utterance in its genuine form is unquestionable. Whether it properly be- longs to the period before the incident at Caesarea, or, as St. Luke suggests, was later than it, it did not contain the title 'the Son of Man.'