RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jesus Christ
tism of John, including the healings which center in Capernaum, and in fact 'at the very door of Peter's house (Mark i. 15-39, ii. 1-22, iv. 35, v. 43); (2) the journey to Jerusalem, interpreted by Peter as a Messianic enterprise (Mark viii. 27 sqq., xi. 15 sqq.); (3) the night of betrayal (cf. I Cor. xi. 23), the crucifixion and resurrection (Mark xiv. 16). In all these Peter's figure is central.
Two unavoidable inferences from what Paul has shown of Peter's Gospel confirm the tradition which connects the story of Jesus with him. (1) Without the impression of an extraordinary personality and an extraordinary career, the initial experience of Peter, echoed in
7. Consequences.
that of his brethren and of Paul (I Cor. xv. 3-11), the true foundation experience of the Church, could never have occurred. (2) Having occurred, all Peter's remembered intercourse with Jesus would be shot through with transfiguring rays from the later vision of his heavenly glory. The process is artlessly acknowledged in the case of the so-called triumphal entry in John xii. 16. What proved Jesus to have been the Christ whose coming to establish his kingdom only awaits Israel's repentance (Acts iii. 19-26) — this formed the substance of Peter's story.
Turning to the second and later group of sources, the fourfold tradition, the four canonical Gospels in their fundamental character may fairly be compared with the four tendencies so distinctly marked by Paul among the Corinthian believers of 55 a.d. The Roman Gospel
8. Four Types of
Tradition (Mark) recalls those " of Paul," the Ephesian (John) those " of Apollos," the Antiochian (Luke — Acts), those " of Cephas," the Palestinian (Matthew) those " of Christ." Mark and John are both Pauline in the sense of making faith in the person of Christ essential rather than obedience to precept. But in Mark it is the external side of Paulinism which is presented. It appears with the same crudity in its doctrine of the Spirit, and brusqueness in repudiation of Jewish scruples, which calls forth Paul's rebuke of his too inconsiderate adherents in Corinth.
The Fourth Gospel systematically idealizes the
tradition both of " sayings " and " doings " for
the inculcation of a Christology now openly allied
to the Logos philosophy of Ephesus
w ' j6 and Alexandria. Differences exist John. among critics as to its authorship, but comparatively none as to its speculative and theological character. Its slender modicum of underlying historic tradition can be employed only with utmost critical caution to criticize or supplement the Petrine story in a few details, so completely has it been volatilized in the dominant interest of presenting Christological theory. Aiming only to depict the drama of the incarnate Logos, this Gospel takes indeed the foremost rank as a source for the later history of Pauline Christology, but is almost unusable for the history of Jesus of Nazareth.
The two Gospels assigned respectively to Jerusalem and Antioch have much in common after the subtraction of Mark. They do not, with Paul, Mark and John, ignore the Davidic descent of Jesus
(cf. Rom. i. 3-4 with Mark xii. 25-37; John vii. 40- 43), but prefix independently to the Petrine narrative two genealogies, followed by accounts of Jesus' miraculous birth and childhood. The thewand Pedigrees, though mutually exclu-
John. sive, are really ancient attempts to justify the tradition alluded to by Paul (Rom. i. 3), which possibly had some foundation in the claims of Jesus' family. The stories of the virgin-birth are equally inconsistent with one another, and merely seek in a crude way to adjust the Jewish-Christian doctrine of the pedigrees (Jesus the Christ as son of David) to the Greek or Pauline incarnation doctrine. These also have significance for the history of Christological doctrine, but not for the history of Jesus. The most important new element contributed by Matthew and Luke is the source which they share in common. This was certainly in its fundamental character more closely allied in aim to Matthew than to Luke, its principal object being not to narrate the career of Jesus, but to embody his precepts. If it be supposed that those of Corinth who said " I am of Christ " meant " my conduct is governed by the precepts delivered as from him," their later development may be traced in the combination effected in Matthew, as all critics now admit, of the Gospel of Mark with that primitive compilation of Jesus' teachings made by the Apostle Matthew in the tongue of Palestine, to which Papias refers in 145 a.d. as the " Logia or Syntagma of the Dominical Oracles." The greater leaning of Luke to narrative material, his less intolerant attitude toward teachers and workers of " lawlessness," and the central position accorded to Peter and to the Petrine solution of the great issue at Antioch in his second treatise (Acts xv.; cf. Gal. ii.), justify in classifying the Antiochian Gospel as corresponding to those who declared " I am of Cephas."
It will readily be seen that the most invaluable
of all sources for that extraordinary character and
career which through its influence on Peter and
Paul has given rise to the Christian re-
* /* a ligion, is the underlying non-Mark
a ____4„ element common to Matthew and Luke
Aramaic ._
Source. w)> whose relation to the reported " Hebrew " compilation (the Logia) is as yet unexplained. Unlike the " wonder-loving " Mark, Q is not dominated by the effort to prove by accounts of prodigies surrounding his career that Jesus was the Son of God in the Pauline sense (Mark i. 1), but aims primarily to report his teaching. Even more, while it alludes to Jesus' miracles, as Paul alludes to those of his time, it presents Jesus' attitude toward them as one of severe rebuke of the popular craving for signs (Matt. xii. 38 sqq.; Luke xi. 29 sqq.) as well as of the suggestion that he might violate by his human will the divine order of the world (Matt. iv. 3-7; Luke iv. 3, 4, 9-12). This aim, and this relative independence of Pauline Christology qualify Q, fragmentary as it is, for use as a corrective in relation to the Petrine tradition, much as the Pauline epistles have been used in relation to the fourfold narrative.
The foregoing analysis of the sources in their
Jesus Christ