THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
circuits far afield, beyond the bruit and uproar, addressed himself to preparing his chosen companions for his great sacrifice — first leading them in the socalled " Later Galilean ministry " (from the feeding of the 5,000 to the confession at Csesarea Philippi) to a better apprehension of the majesty of his person as the Son of God, and of the character of the kingdom he came to found, as consisting not in meat and drink but in righteousness; and then, in the so-called " Persean ministry " (from the confession at Csesarea Philippi to the final arrival at Jerusalem) specifically preparing them for his death and resurrection. Thus he walked straightforward in the path he had chosen, and his choice of which is already made clear in the account of his temptation, set at the beginning of his public career; and in his own good time and way — in the end forcing the hand of his opponents to secure that he should die at the Passover — shed his blood as the blood of the new covenant sacrifice for the remission of sins. Having power thus to lay down his life, he had power also to take it again, and in due time he rose again from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high, leaving behind him his promise to come again in his glory, to perfect the kingdom he had inaugurated.
It is appropriate that this miraculous life should be set between the great marvels of the virginbirth and the resurrection and ascen- 6. The sion. These can appear strange only
Virgin- wnen the intervening life is looked Birth; the Up0n as that of a merely human being, .. " endowed, no doubt, not only with un-
usual qualities, but also with the unusual favor of God, yet after all nothing more than human and therefore presumably entering the world like other human beings, and at the end paying the universal debt of human nature. From the standpoint of the evangelical writers, and of the entirety of primitive Christianity, which looked upon Jesus not as a merely human being but as God himself come into the world on a mission of mercy that involved the humiliation of a human life and death, it would be this assumed community with common humanity in mode of entrance into and exit from the earthly life which would seem strange and incredible. The entrance of the Lord of Glory into the world could not but be supernatural; his exit from the world, after the work which he had undertaken had been performed, could not fail to bear the stamp of triumph. There is no reason for doubting the trustworthiness of the narratives at these points, beyond the anti-supernaturalistic instinct which strives consciously or unconsciously to naturalize the whole evangelical narrative. The " infancy chapters " of Luke are demonstrably from Luke's own hand, bear evident traces of having been derived from trustworthy sources of information, and possess all the authority which attaches to the communications of a historian who evinces himself sober, careful, and exact, by every historical test. The parallel chapters of Matthew, while obviously independent of those of Luke — recording in common with them not a single incident beyond the bare fact of the virgin-birth — are thoroughly at one with them in
the main fact, and in the incidents they record fit with remarkable completeness into the interstices of Luke's narrative. Similarly, the narratives of the resurrection, full of diversity in details as they are, and raising repeated puzzling questions of order and arrangement, yet not only bear consentient testimony to all the main facts, but fit into one another so as to create a consistent narrative — which has moreover the support of the contemporary testimony of Paul. The persistent attempts to explain away the facts so witnessed or to substitute for the account which the New Testament writers give of them some more plausible explanation, as the natunalistic mind estimates plausibility, are all wrecked on the directness, precision, and copiousness of the testimony; and on the great effects which have flowed from this fact in the revolution wrought in the minds and lives of the apostles themselves, and in the revolution wrought through their preaching of the resurrection in the life and history of the world. The entire history of the world for 2,000 years is the warranty of the reality of the resurrection of Christ, by which the forces were let loose which have created it. " Unique spiritual effects," it has been remarked, with great reasonableness, " require a unique spiritual cause; and we shall never understand the full significance of the cause, if we begin by denying or minimizing its uniqueness."
For details see the separate articles on the several distinct topics, e.g., Christology; Gospels; Miracles; Parables; Resurrection; Virgin-birth. Benjamin B. Warfield.
B. I. Limitation of the Field: The means of writing a satisfactory life of Christ have never existed. From the outset what the Church attempted was no more than the story of Jesus covering a twelvemonth. Even in this its object was not historical but apologetic. There exists a bare mention by a few secular writers of 110-120 a.d. of the origin of the obnoxious " Christians." Pliny, the earliest (112 a.d.), merely describes the sect. Tacitus, an accurate historian, c. 115 a.d., dates its rise from the execution of " Christus " by Pilate, procurator of Judea under Tiberius. Secular writers have no more to tell. They would have been compelled to refer inquirers to the tradition preserved by the sect itself. Now even the latest of our four Gospels can be traced in some form by its use in orthodox, heretical, and even anti-Christian writers, to about the same period; so that the whole question of the historical investigator resolves itself into a valuation and comparison of the writings preserved by the Church itself, in the interest of ita own defense and edification.
n. The Sources: The story of Jesus included what was needful for the uses of the Church. Fortunately the severest tests known to the science of literary and historical criticism leave the Church in possession of two groups of writings which circulated in Christian conventicles 50-100 a.d. These are (1) apostolic letters, homilies and " prophecies," writings directly addressed to the edification of particular churches; and (2) etiological narratives, purporting to give account of Christian origins.