THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Authorities.
Invasion of the domain of synagogue authority by such a movement as that of the prophet of Nazareth could not fail to provoke a violent reaction. This became apparent first in the murmurs of the
Galilean Pharisees at the disregard 5. Collision shown by his followers for set fasts, Y**^.*^6 ceremonial ablutions, and even for the
Sabbath. Jesus deprecated icono-
clasm, but insisted on the prior right of " the greater matters of the law, judgment, mercy and good faith." Local orthodoxy was reenforced by a delegation of " scribes from Jerusalem." These, when their unworthy ascription of the healings wrought " by the Spirit of God " to Beelzebub had been rebuked by Jesus, openly challenged his authority to teach, and demanded a prophet's authentication by " sign from heaven." Jesus' reply was a noble repudiation of such criteria in favor of God-given " signs of the times." He denounced the usurpation by the scribes of the right to admit to or exclude from " sonship," and their pretensions to be solely qualified to reveal " the Father." Against them he appealed to the " inward light." He thanked the infinite " Lord of heaven and earth " that his truth was not given to the wise and prudent, but to minds as simple as babes. As representative and champion of the " little ones " he even declared that real knowledge of the Father belongs to him who has the filial spirit; while the Father reserves to himself alone the right to say who is a son (Q, Matt. xi. 25-27 = Luke x. 21-22).*
But the Jews required a sign. The scribes remained masters of the field. Whether because of popular desertion, or the threatening attitude of Antipas, whose secret murder of John the Baptist
at Machaerus falls at about this period
Crisis in (Mark vL 14~29; cf- Luke xiiL 31~35)> Galilee. Jesus' public work in Galilee is from now on abruptly broken off. He remains in hiding on the northern frontier until, after secretly rallying his adherents in Capernaum, he undertakes with them the last emprise. The ultimate decision was made at Ca?sarea Philippi, near the ancient Dan. Jesus consulted his few remaining followers as to his own career. The campaign must either be abandoned, or else reopened on a larger, but far more perilous scale. The impetuous Peter, so Petrine tradition relates, broached at this time the daring proposal of an actual Messianic coup d'etat at Jerusalem. It was met by Jesus with a rebuke of crushing severity. He did indeed propose to attack the central seat of hierocratic usurpation, to vindicate in the temple itself the right of all the people to their own national sanctuary, now perverted into a mere instrumentality of extortion by a godless band of " robbers." Jesus was contemplating the throwing down of a gage of battle, in the face of the degenerate priestly aristocracy whose only relic of the splendid heritage of Maccabean sovereignty was the citadel of the temple. But he would do so in the name only of " the things that be of God." Zealot nationalists should not
* For the generic use of " the son " cf. John viii. 35. For the being known ("recognized") of God, cf. Gal. iv. 9; II Tim. ii. 19.
7- Jesus as '
seize the reins to pervert his movement into a mere fruitless insurrection against the Romans. Once turned in this direction the result to himself, his followers, his cause, as he could not but foresee would be inevitably fatal. Of the imminence of this danger he warned them, once and again. Yet withal, in the spirit of that unconquerable faith in God which they had learned to know as his most distinctive trait he assured them that even if — as was only too probable — shipwreck did thus come of all their earthly hopes, even if they lost their lives for his sake and the Gospel's, they should find them again. Within the lifetime of that unworthy generation should come his vindication in the great " day of the Son of Man " of Danielic vision.
In the light of later conviction this assurance of divine vindication in the Messianic judgment came to be interpreted as a prediction by Jesus that he himself would come again as the Son „ of Man. This term is already conof Man." sistently employed in the oldest evangelic source (Q) as a self-designation of Jesus, though not yet in Paul. From Q it passes to Mark and thence to the entire evangelic tradition, creating the wrong impression that Jesus was a visionary (Ekstatiker), carried away with the apocalyptic enthusiasm of the early post-resurrection conventicles. In reality his ideal was ethicoreligious; and the integrity and unswervable fidelity of his simple, straightforward purpose ought to have made it impossible in the present to impute to him a perversion from this ideal. In spite of Jesus' crushing rebuke, a later element of the Palestinian Gospel (Matt. xvi. 17) makes Peter's suggestion of Messiahship at this time the foundation of the Church. Jesus, it is said, declared it a bath kol, or revelation from God. Parallel to this prose statement is the apocalypse or " vision " story of the transfiguration, interjected by Mark in ix. 2- 10 from some Pauline source of the symbolic type represented in John. Jesus was " metamorphosed " (cf. II Cor. iii. 18) before the eyes of Peter, James and John into his glorified form, while the translated " witnesses of Messiah," Moses and Elias, stood beside him. The voice of God then declared his true character. This again, it need- hardly be said, belongs to the history of Christological doctrine; not to the story of Jesus.
The exodus from Galilee was accomplished secretly. The little body of those who were willing to leave all and follow Jesus to possible martyrdom went by way of the Jordan valley, Peraea and Jericho. At this last stage of the journey it received an encouraging accession, whether the story of Mark is followed or the " special source " of Luke. Shortly before Passover, Jesus entered the temple, surrounded by a motley company of enthusiastic, yet orderly supporters. The priestly authorities were overawed. The most obnoxious of abuses inaugurated in the sanctuary by " the hissing brood of Annas " was abolished, peremptorily, and yet without mob violence. In answer to the challenge of the sanhedrin Jesus gave as the sign of his authority " the baptism of John," a movement " from heaven and not of men." He had succeeded in
8. The 'Finale.