THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
sition; Matthew, that this divine interposition was in fulfilment of the promises made to Israel; Luke, that it had as its end the redemption of the world; John, that the agent in it was none other than the Son of God himself. In the enforcement and illustration of their several themes each records a wealth of biographical details. But it does not follow that these details, when brought together and arranged in their chronological sequence, or even in their genetic order, will supply an adequate biography. The attempt to work them up into a biography is met, moreover, by a great initial difficulty. Every biographer takes his position, as it were, above his subject, who must live his life over again in his biographer's mind; it is of the very essence of the biographer's work thoroughly to understand his subject and to depict him as he understands him. What, then, if the subject of the biography be above the comprehension of his biographer? Obviously, in that case, a certain reduction can scarcely be avoided. This in an instance like the present, where the subject is a superhuman being, is the same as to say that a greater or lesser measure of rationalization, " naturalization," inevitably takes place. A true biography of a Godman, a biography which depicts his life from within, untangling the complex of motives which moved him, and explaining his conduct by reference to the internal sprinps of action, is in the nature of the case an impossibility for men. Human beings can explain only on the basis of their own experiences and mental processes; and so explaining they instinctively explain away what transcends their experiences and confounds their mental processes. Seeking to portray the life of Jesus as natural, they naturalize it, that is, reduce it to correspondence with their own nature. Every attempt to work out a life of Christ must therefore face not only the insufficiency of the data, but the perennial danger of falsifying the data by an instinctive naturalization of them. If, however, the expectation of attaining a "psychological" biography of Jesus must be renounced, and even a complete external life can not be pieced together from the fragmentary communications of the sources, a clear and consistent view of the course of the public ministry of Jesus can still be derived from them. The consecution of the events can be set forth, their causal relations established, and their historical development explicated. To do this is certainly in a modified sense to outline " the life of Jesus," and to do this proves by its results to be eminently worth while.
A series of synchronisms with secular history indicated by Luke, whose historical interest seems more alert than that of the other
i ra^f" evangelists, gives the needed informaworkofthe,. % ,' ° , „ ... „ . .,
"Life " n placing such a hie in its
right historical relations. The chronological framework for the " life " itself is supplied by the succession of annual feasts which are recorded by John as occurring during Jesus' public ministry. Into this framework the data furnished by the other Gospels — which are not without corroborative suggestions of order, season of occurrence, and relations — fit readily; and when so arranged yield so self-consistent and rationally de-
veloping a history as to add a strong corroboration of its trustworthiness. Differences of opinion respecting the details of arrangement of course remain possible; and these differences are not always small and not always without historical significance. But they do not affect the general outline or the main drift of the history, and on most points, even those of minor importance, a tolerable agreement exists. Thus, for example, it is all but universally allowed that Jesus was born c. 5 or 6 b.c. (year of Rome 748 or 749), and it is an erratic judgment indeed which would fix on any other year than 29 or 30 a.d. for his crucifixion. On the date of his baptism — which determines the duration of his public ministry — more difference is possible; but it is quite generally agreed that it took place late in 26 a.d. or early in 27. It is only by excluding the testimony of John that a duration of less than between two and three years can be assigned to the public ministry; and then only by subjecting the Synoptical narrative to considerable pressure. The probabilities seem strongly in favor of extending it to three years and some months. The decision between a duration of two years and some months and a duration of three years and some months depends on the determination of the two questions of where in the narrative of John the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Matt. iv. 12) is to be placed, and what the unnamed feast is which is mentioned in John v. 1. On the former of these questions opinion varies only between John iv. 1-3 and John v. 1. On the latter a great variety of opinions exists: some think of Passover, others of Purim or Pentecost, or of Trumpets or Tabernacles, or even of the day of Atonement. On the whole, the evidence seems decisively preponderant for placing the imprisonment of the Baptist at John iv. 1-3, and for identifying the feast of John v. 1 with Passover. In that case, the public ministry of Jesus covered about three years and a third, and it is probably not far wrong to assign to it the period lying between the latter part of 26 a.d. and the Passover of 30 A.D.*
The material supplied by the Gospel narrative distributes itself naturally under the heads of (1) the preparation, (2) the ministry, and (3) the consum- „ n . . mation. For the first twelve or thirof the *een years °f Jesus' life nothing is "Life. " recorded except the striking circumstances connected with his birth, and a general statement of his remarkable growth. Similarly for his youth, about seventeen years and a half, there is recorded only the single incident, at its beginning, of his conversation with the doctors in the temple. Anything like continuous narrative begins only with the public ministry, in, say, December, 26 a.d. This narrative falls naturally into four parts which may perhaps be distinguished as
* Ramsay, Sanday, and Turner prefer 29 a.d. for the date of the crucifixion. Turner's dates are : birth, 7-6 B.C.; baptism, 26 a.d.; ministry, between two and three years; death, 29 a.d. Sanday's dates are: birth, — ; baptism, late 26 a.d.; ministry, two and a half years; death, 29 a.d. Ramsay's dates are: birth, autumn, 6 B.C.; baptism, early in 26 a.d.; ministry, three years and some months; death, 29 A.D.