not manufacturing history. There is good reason to believe that in the main this is the true state of the case. Not only so, there are - grounds for the opinion that the historic spirit—interest in facts as facts—was not wanting even amid the fervour of the apostolic age. It may be worth while to mention some of these, seeing they make for the historicity of the main body of the evangelic tradition con- cerning the words, deeds, and sufferings of Jesus as these are re- corded, 6.Ρ., in the Gospel of Mark.
3. In this connection it deserves a passing notice that there existed in the primitive Church a party interested in the fact-know- ledge of Jesus, the knowledge of Christ “after the flesh” in Pauline phrase, a Christ party. From the statement made by St. Paul in the text from which the phrase just quoted is taken, it has been in- ferred that the apostle was entirely indiff.vent to the historical element.! The inference seems to me hasty ; but, be this as it may, what I am now concerned to point out is that, if St. Paul under- valued the facts of the personal ministry, there were those who did aot. There was a party who made acquaintance with these facts a necessary qualification for the apostleship, and on this ground denied that St. Paul was an apostle. The assumption underlying the Tiibin- gen tendency-criticism is that there were two parties in the apostolic Church interested in misrepresenting Jesus in different directions, one virtually making Him a narrow Judaist, the other making Him a Pauline universalist, neither party being worthy of implicit trust. This hypothesis presents a somewhat distorted view of the situation. It would be nearer the truth to say that there was a party inter- ested in facts and another interested chiefly in ideas. The one valued facts without seeing their significance; the other valued ideas without taking much trouble to indicate the fact-basis. To the bias of the former party we might be indebted for knowledge of many facts in the life of Jesus, the significance of which was not under- stood by the transmitters of the tradition.
4, Even within the Pauline party there were those who were interested in facts and in some measure animated by the historical spirit. So far from regarding Paulinists in general as idealists, we ought probably to regard St. Paul, in his passion for ideas and apparent indifference to biographic detail, as an excepticn; and to think of the majority of his followers as men who, while sympathising with his universalism, shared in no small measure the common Jewish realism. Of this type was Luke. The absence from his
2 #Corinthians v. 16.
ι6 INTRODUCTION
Gospel of even the rudiments of a doctrine of atonement, so con- spicuous a topic in the Pauline epistles, will be remarked on here- after; meantime I direct attention simply to its opening sentence. That prefatory statement is full of words and phrases breathing the fact-loving spirit: Πεπληροφορημµένων πραγμάτων, dm ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται, ἀκριβῶς, ἀσφάλειαν. The author wants to deal with facts believed; he wishes, as far as possible, to be guided by the testimony of eye-witnesses; he means to take pains in the ascertainment of the truth, that the friend for whose benefit he writes may attain unto certainty. The question here is not how far he succeeded in his aim; the point insisted on is the aim itself, the historical spirit evinced. Luke may have been unconsciously influenced to a con- siderable extent by religious bias, preconceived opinion, accepted Christian belief, and therefore not sufficiently critical, and too easily satisfied with evidence; but he honestly wanted to know the historic truth. . And in this desire he doubtless represented a class, and wrote to meet a demand on tue part of Christians who felt a keen interest in the memorabilia of the Pounder, and were not satisfied with the sources at command on account of their fragmentariness, or occasional want of agreement with each other.!