Another explanation seems more necessary in this connection. In describing the Traditionalism of the time of Christ, I must have said what, I fear, may, most unwillingly on my part, wound the feelings of some who still cling, if not to the faith of, yet to what now represents the ancient Synagogue. But let me appeal to their fairness. I must needs state what I believe to be the facts; and I could neither keep them back nor soften them, since it was of the very essence of my argument to present Christ as both in contact and in contrast with Jewish Traditionalism. No educated Western Jew would, in these days, confess himself as occupying the exact standpoint of Rabbinic Traditionalism. Some will select parts of the system; others will allegorise, explain, or modify it; very many will, in heart - often also openly - repudiate the whole. And here it is surely not necessary for me to rebut or disown those vile falsehoods about the Jews which ignorance, cupidity, and bigoted hatred have of late again so strangely raised. But I would go further, and assert that, in reference to Jesus of Nazareth, no educated Israelite of to-day would identify himself with the religious leaders of the people eighteen centuries ago. Yet is not this disclaimer of that Traditionalism which not only explains the rejection of Jesus, but is the sole logical raison d'être of the Synagogue, also its condemnation?
I know, indeed, that from this negative there is a vast step in advance to the positive in the reception of the Gospel, and that many continue in the Synagogue, because they are not so convinced of the other as truthfully to profess it. And perhaps the means we have taken to present it have not always been the wisest. The mere appeal to the literal fulfilment of certain prophetic passages in the Old Testament not only leads chiefly to critical discussions, but rests the case on what is, after all, a secondary line of argumentation. In the New Testament prophecies are not made to point to facts, but facts to point back to prophecies. The New Testament presents the fulfilment of all prophecy rather than of prophecies, and individual predictions serve as fingerposts to great outstanding facts, which mark where the roads meet and part. And here, as it seems to me, we are at one with the ancient Synagogue. In proof, I would call special attention to Appendix IX., which gives a list of all the Old Testament passages Messianically applied in Jewish writings. We, as well as they, appeal to all Scripture, to all prophecy, as that of which the reality is in the Messiah. But we also appeal to the whole tendency and new direction which the Gospel presents in opposition to that of Traditionalism; to the new revelation of the Father, to the new brotherhood of man, and to the satisfaction of the deepest wants of the heart, which Christ has brought - in short, to the Scriptural, the moral, and the spiritual elements; and we would ask whether all this could have been only the outcome of a Carpenter's Son at Nazareth at the time, and amidst the surroundings which we so well know.
In seeking to reproduce in detail the life, opinions, and teaching of the contemporaries of Christ, we have also in great measure addressed ourselves to what was the third special object in view in this History. This was to clear the path of difficulties - in other words, to meet such objections as might be raised to the Gospel-narratives. And this, as regards principle - not details and minor questions, which will cause little uneasiness to the thoughtful and calm reader; quite irrespective also of any theory of inspiration which may be proposed, and hence of any harmonistic or kindred attempts which may be made. Broadly speaking, the attacks on the Gospel-narratives may be grouped under these three particulars: they may be represented as intentional fraud by the writers, and imposition on the readers; or, secondly, a rationalistic explanation may be sought of them, showing how what originally had been quite simple and natural was misunderstood by ignorance, or perverted by superstition; or, thirdly, they may be represented as the outcome of ideas and expectations at the time, which gathered around the beloved Teacher of Nazareth, and, so to speak, found body in legends that clustered around the Person and Life of Him Who was regarded as the Messiah. . . . And this is supposed to account for the preaching of the Apostles, for their life-witness, for their martyr-death, for the Church, for the course which history has taken, as well as for the dearest hopes and experiences of Christian life!