The distinction between gradual exiierimental recognition {yLvdiaKeiv, ewiyLvdicrKeip) and the actual possession of knowledge (elS^vai) is Avell preserved ; e.g. in Jn 14^ ' If ye had come to recognize me (in my true cliaracter), ye would have had knowledge of my Father also.' Corresponding to the ethical quality of the knowledge acquired by growing per- sonal receptivity, is the nature of the ' teaching ' * (didaxv), as defined by the contexts in which this term and its verb stand ; e.g. Mt 7-^ ' The crowds were exceedingly astonished at his teaching ; for he was teaching them as having authority, and not as their scribes' (after Sermon on the Mount). Finally, the fact that Jesus was habitually addressed as ' Rabbi,' and so treated, suggests that He dealt with the same subject-matter as the official 'teachers' of the Jewish Law (Tutrth), viz. the sort of conduct pleasing to the God of Israel (cf. Mt 5^''--°), though He differed in going behind the act to the motive, and in setting this in the light of the Father's character. There was, we may be sure, a certain fitness in the plausible compliment, as coming even from Pharisaic lips, ' Rabbi, . . . of a truth thou teachest the way of God' (Mk 12"i|, cf. 12^2). We do well, then, to approach the meaning of 'knowledge' and 'teaching' in the Gospels through the senses which these terms bore in contemporary Judaism. Philo describes Jews as ' taught . . . , even long before the sacred laws and also the unwritten usages, to recognize as one God the Father and Creator of the world ' [Legatio ad Gaium, 16). Here we have a starting-point for consideration of the knowledge Jesus ofiered to im- part, as regards its substance.
i. The Synoptic Gospels.— Jesus' own know- ledge Avas rooted in the essential teaching of the OT, interpreted by a unique religious experience, which even in childhood enabled Him to make marvellous use of its contents (Lk 2'i"- ), and Avhich developed as a 'Avisdom' that matured Avith His years (v.^% The determinative element in it Avas a consciousness of the God of Israel as His Father
* This didache consisted of didaskalice or definite ' instruc- tions ' as to conduct, cf. Mk 77, Mt 159 • teaching for instruc- tions human injunctions' {lilarxovrts SiSiii.<rxa\ia.s hTaXuMTo. ^vSpurav, after Is 2913).
in a peculiarly intimate personal sense. Through this the OT revelation, as Avritten and as currently taught, Avas gradually filtered, until only those elements and interpretations remained ett'ectiA^e in His mind and speech Avhich Avere valid in the light of the idea of the Holy Father and His practical relations Avith men. Thus the ' sacred laAvs ' of Mosaism Avere transmuted into ' the teaching ' of Jesus, the Messiah, Avith its ncAv spirit and fresh emphasis. But the lines of the neAV Avere con- tinuous Avith the old as regards the primarily 2)ractical reference of the ncAv teaching, Avhich superseded that of the scribes of the Pharisaic school, then dominant (Mk l^^- 27 216. is). Thus the ' knoAvledge ' Avhich Jesus aimed at imparting in His ' teaching ' Avas analogous in scope to that recognized as such in current Palestinian Judaism, and bore essentially on true piety conceived as doing ' the Avill of God ' (Mk S^% But the form of its presentation, and much of its resulting spirit, Avere largely determined by tAvo features peculiar to Jesus as a teacher : (a) a note of fresh, personal authority, in contrast to the derivative authority claimed "by the scribes (Mk l'^^) ; (b) constant refer- ence to 'the kingdom of heaven,' the true Theoc- racy for Avhich Israel had long been Avaiting and Avatching, in connexion Avith Messiah, its DiAdnely commissioned Inaugurator. John the Baptist had sj)oken of such a Theocracy as imminent. Yet so little had he realized the spiritual ex- perience proper to it in its fulness, that Jesus, even in the act of recognizing John's supremacy in the order of prophets, can declare that ' He that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he' (Mt 11", Lk 7-«). The Messianic Kingdom, then, is bound up in a unique manner Avitli Jesus Himself as its Announcer {Krjpiacnoi') and Legislator (Si5da-K(i}v) — the tAvo aspects in Avhich He con\"eys 'knoAvledge' of it, and so of religion as it is knoAvn to the Gospels.
Wellhausen, indeed, roundly denies this {Eialeitung in die drei ersten Kvancielien, 1905, 106 ff.): 'From the Kingdom as present, Jesus as already constituted (dagewesener) and present Messiah is inseparable ; accordingly He cannot Himself ha\e spoken of it. . . . In Mark He speaks only of the future King- dom ; but He does not say that He is to bring it. . . . It is thought that the declaration of this future Kingdom was actu- ally the proper content of His preaching. Far from this, it recedes completely into the background in Mark. In the Galilsean period He does not as a rule preach at all, but He teaches : and indeed not about the Kingdom of God (which does not occur at all, save in the addition 4^0-32), but, in un- constrained succession, touching this and that matter which comes in His way ; obvious truths, with reference to the needs of a general public, which is misled by its spiritual leaders ' (p. 106). As regards the Kingdom of God, the idea of which He could assume as present to His hearers' minds, ' He emphasized in any case warning more than promise. . . . He began not with allusions to blessings {Oliickwiinschen tmd Seligpreisungen), but with the preaching of penitence : The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent ! Like Amos before Him, and like John the Baptist, He thereby protested against the illusion of the Jews, as though to them the Judgment were bound to bring the ful- filment of their wishes' (107 f.). Wellhausen goes on to question whether the phi'ase ' the gospel • was ever found on Jesus' own lips, since even in Mark 'the gospel is tantamount to Chris- tianity,' i.e. what the Church came to understand as the pur- port of its Master's life and death. Here Wellh. seems to take ' gospel ' in too rigid and uniform a sense, rather than as ' good tidings ' which may vary in connotation. In any case, it is one thing to argue that the Evangelists have made Jesus use a phrase proper to their age, not His (yet Is 61^, in view of Mt 115, Lk 722, cf. 4I8, makes His use of the verb 'preach good news ' [iva.yyiklli(r6<x.i] — as in Lk., who never uses the substanti\e [euayyixiov] — far from unlikely) : it is quite another to have dis- proved the historic truth of the idea thereby conveyed, \iz. that Jesus' own announcement of the Kingdom as imminent was in a different key from John the Baptist's. Both, no doubt, urged repentance as befitting such an expectation; but how differently this may be done, how different the motives suggested— in a word, how different the spirit of the two messages ! (see Mk 2i»f- 11, Mt 1116-19, Lk 73' -35). in the one the note of severity was uppermost, in the other that of gladness. Surely the very point of the striking saying in Mt lin, Lk 728 is that the spirit of John's message was defective, as we feel it to be, in its negative and threatening tone, as compared with vlie positive and winning note of benediction and hope added by Jesus, in the light of God's true attitude to men — a revelation