like this they would have been irrelevant and inconclusive. The oc- casion called for the emphatic isolation of the glorious resurrection, which followed the culmination of the sufferings of Jesus and in which His past miracles were swallowed up like stars in the sunshine. As for the teaching of Jesus our records are plainly incomplete, and, whether the Fourth Gospel be permitted to give evidence or not it is quite clear that the arguments used by Jesus and the topics He treated were determined for Him by the character of those to whom He addressed Himself. When the Christian missionaries addressed themselves to men of different nationalities, they could not presume in them knowledge of Jewish presuppositions and therefore, quite apart from its relative insignificance they postponed indefinitely much of the teaching of Jesus. For in any case this teaching was relatively insignificant in their view; the essence of their message was Jesus and the Resurrection. Particular. incidents and particular sayings may have their value as links in the chain of proof that—witness here and witness there—Jesus was He of whom Moses and the Prophets had spoken. But such proof belongs properly to the controversy with the Jews and, in many cases, not to the original phase of it. Historical or biographical sermons upon which the Gospel according to St. Mark is by tradition asserted to be based, were a sequel to the summons, ‘ Repent and believe”. It may well be that St. Peter did so preach, and that he dwelt rather upon the record of Jesus’ life in Galilee of the Gentiles, because his own audience had little in common with the Jews of Jerusalem; but his reminiscences of the ministry prior to the Passion were not, as has been said,! ‘‘ the best, the most inspiring message that he could deliver at such a critical time”. He himself had seen and heard these things; yet, when the crisis came, he himself denied and repudiated Jesus. The impressiveness of these things, which failed to convince an eye-witness, was not likely to be heightened, when he repeated them to strangers. And there can be little doubt that, if he had inserted a reference to the Trans- figuration (for example), it would be said nowadays that this was the mark of a sedulous forger, anxious to keep up the part he was playing. In his intercourse with Jesus St. Peter had learned and unlearned here a little and there a little. But at the last his faith was not
1Von Soden, Early Christian Literature (English Translation), London, 1906, pp. 278 f. : ‘* It is evident that St. Peter cannot have written this epistle. The oldest personal disciple of our Lord would never have omitted the slightest reference to that which must above all things have distinguished him in the eyes of his readers. And how, especially at such a critical time, could he have refrained from speaking of
reminiscences which formed the best, the most inspiring, message that he could deliver ?””
ο INTRODUCTION
proof against the appearance of failure. When, therefore, he con- verted and began to establish his brethren, he imparted to them the convictions he had acquired, and did not parade the diverse and devious steps by which he had painfully reached that height.
A third objection is that the Greek of this Epistle is better than a Galilean peasant could compass and that a Palestinian Jew would not possess such a familiar knowledge of the Old Testament in Greek.
Such an objection seems to take no account at all of certain known facts and of general probability. Even a Galilean peasant, who stayed in his native place, needed and presumably acquired some knowledge of the Greek language in his intercourse with the non-Jewish inhabitants ofthe land, whom Josephus calls indifferently Greeks and Syrians. If he went up to Jerusalem for the feasts he there came into contact with Jews of the Dispersion, most of whom lived in the Greek-speaking world. The part played by these assemblies in cementing the solidarity of the whole nation is commonly overlooked; and therefore it is worth while to quote Philo’s explicit statement on the subject.1 ‘“ The Temple made with hands,” he says, ‘‘ is necessary for men in general. They must have a place where they can give thanks for benefits and pray for pardon when they sin. So there is the temple at Jerusalem and no other. They must rise up from the ends of the earth and resort thither, if they would offer sacrifice. They must leave their fatherland, their friends and their kinsfolk, and so prove the sincerity of their religion. And this they do. At every feast myriads from East and West, from North and South repair to the Temple to be free for a little space from the business and the confusion of their lives. They draw breath for a little while, as they have leisure for holiness and the honouring of God. And so they make friends with strangers hitherto unknown to them ; and over sacrifices and libations they form a community of interests which is the surest pledge of unanimity.” In the face of this, it seems impossible to accept the modern dis- tinction between Alexandrian and Palestinian Judaism as corre- sponding to an absolute severance in life, language and religion in the first century of the present era. Apart from this normal inter- course of all classes of religiously minded Jews, those who aspired to direct their fellows as Sages or Scribes seem to have travelled in foreign countries as a part of their training. And further, it is known that the delivery of the Temple dues at Jerusalem was regarded as a pious duty which the foremost members of each