The Quest of the Historical Jesus / A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede

by Albert Schweitzer

In this matter Strauss is a sceptical eclectic. In the main he may be said to combine Griesbach's theory of the secondary origin of Mark with Schleiermacher's Diegesentheorie, the latter answering to his method of treating the sections separately. But whereas Schleiermacher had used the plan of John's Gospel as a framework into which to fit the independent narratives, Strauss's rejection of the Fourth Gospel left him without any means of connecting the sections. He makes a point, indeed, of sharply emphasising this want of connexion; and it was just this that made his work appear so extreme.

The Synoptic discourses, like the Johannine, are composite structures, created by later tradition out of sayings which originally belonged to different times and circumstances, arranged under certain leading ideas so as to form connected discourses. The sermon on the mount, the discourse at the sending forth of the twelve, the great parable-discourse, the polemic against the Pharisees, have all been gradually formed like geological deposits. So far as the original juxtaposition may be supposed to have been here and there preserved, Matthew is doubtless the most trustworthy authority for it. “From the comparison which we have been making,” says Strauss in one passage, “we can already see that the hard grit of these sayings of Jesus (die körnigen Reden Jesu) has not indeed been dissolved by the flood of oral tradition, but they have often been washed away from their original position and like rolling pebbles (Gerölle) have been deposited in places to which [pg 090] they do not properly belong.”[43] And, moreover, we find this distinction between the first three Evangelists, viz. that Matthew is a skilful collector who, while he is far from having been able always to give the original connexion, has at least known how to bring related passages aptly together, whereas in the other two many fragmentary sayings have been left exactly where chance had deposited them, which was generally in the interstices between the larger masses of discourse. Luke, indeed, has in some cases made an effort to give them an artistic setting, which is, however, by no means a satisfactory substitute for the natural connexion.

It is in his criticism of the parables that Strauss is most extreme. He starts out from the assumption that they have mutually influenced one another, and that those which may possibly be genuine have only been preserved in a secondary form. In the parable of the marriage supper of the king's son, for example, he confidently assumes that the conduct of the invited guests, who finally ill-treated and slew the messengers, and the question why the guest is not wearing a wedding-garment are secondary features.

How external he supposes the connexion of the narratives to be is clear from the way in which he explains the juxtaposition of the story of the transfiguration with the “discourse while descending the mountain.” They have, he says, really nothing to do with one another. The disciples on one occasion asked Jesus about the coming of Elijah as forerunner; Elijah also appears in the story of the transfiguration: accordingly tradition simply grouped the transfiguration and the discourse together under the heading “Elijah,” and, later on, manufactured a connexion between them.

The tendency of the work to purely critical analysis, the ostentatious avoidance of any positive expression of opinion, and not least, the manner of regarding the Synoptists as mere bundles of narratives and discourses, make it difficult—indeed, strictly speaking, impossible—to determine Strauss's own distinctive conception of the life of Jesus, to discover what he really thinks is moving behind the curtain of myth. According to the view taken in regard to this point his work becomes either a negative or a positive life of Jesus. There are, for instance, a number of incidental remarks which contain the suggestion of a positive construction of the life of Jesus. If they were taken out of their context and brought together they would yield a picture which would have points of contact with the latest eschatological view. Strauss, however, deliberately restricts his positive suggestions to these few detached remarks. He follows out no line to its conclusion. Each separate problem is indeed considered, and light is thrown upon it from various quarters with much critical [pg 091] skill. But he will not venture on a solution of any of them. Sometimes, when he thinks he has gone too far in the way of positive suggestion, he deliberately wipes it all out again with some expression of scepticism.

As to the duration of the ministry he will not even offer a vague conjecture. As to the connexion of certain events, nothing can, according to him, be known, since the Johannine outline cannot be accepted and the Synoptists arrange everything with an eye to analogies and association of ideas, though they flattered themselves that they were giving a chronologically arranged narrative. From the contents of the narratives, however, and from the monotonous recurrence of certain formulae of connexion, it is evident that no clear view of an organically connected whole can be assumed to be present in their work. We have no fixed points to enable us to reconstruct even in a measure the chronological order.

Especially interesting is his discussion of the title “Son of Man.” In the saying “the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath day” (Matt. xii. 8), the expression might, according to Strauss, simply denote “man.” In other passages one gets the impression that Jesus spoke of the Son of Man as a supernatural person, quite distinct from Himself, but identified with the Messiah. This is the most natural explanation of the passage in Matt. x. 23, where he promises the disciples, in sending them forth, that they shall not have gone over the cities of Israel before the Son of Man shall come. Here Jesus speaks of the Messiah as if He Himself were his forerunner. These sayings would, therefore, fall in the first period, before He knew Himself to be the Messiah. Strauss does not suspect the significance of this incidental remark; it contains the germ of the solution of the problem of the Son of Man on the lines of Johannes Weiss. But immediately scepticism triumphs again. How can we tell, asks Strauss, where the title Son of Man is genuine in the sayings of Jesus, and where it has been inserted without special significance, merely from habit?

Not less insoluble, in his opinion, is the question regarding the point of time at which Jesus claimed the Messianic dignity for Himself. “Whereas in John,” Strauss remarks, “Jesus remains constant in His avowal, his disciples and followers constant in their conviction, that He is the Messiah; in the Synoptics, on the other hand, there are, so to speak, relapses to be observed; so that, in the case of the disciples and the people generally, the conviction of Jesus' Messiahship expressed on earlier occasions, sometimes, in the course of the narrative, disappears again and gives place to a much lower view of Him; and even Jesus Himself, in comparison with His earlier unambiguous declaration, is more reserved on later occasions.” The account of the confession of the Messiahship at Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus pronounces Peter blessed because of [pg 092] his confession, and at the same time forbids the Twelve to speak of it, is unintelligible, since according to this same Gospel His Messiahship had been mooted by the disciples on several previous occasions, and had been acknowledged by the demoniacs. The Synoptists, therefore, contradict themselves. Then there are the further cases in which Jesus forbids the making known of His Messiahship, without any reason whatever. It would, no doubt, be historically possible to assume that it only gradually dawned upon Him that He was the Messiah—in any case not until after His baptism by John, as otherwise He would have to be supposed to have made a pretence upon that occasion—and that as often as the thought that He might be the Messiah was aroused in others by something that occurred, and was suggested to Him from without, He was immediately alarmed at hearing spoken, aloud and definitely, that which He Himself had scarcely dared to cherish as a possibility, or in regard to which He had only lately attained to a clear conviction.

From these suggestions one thing is evident, namely, that for Strauss the Messianic consciousness of Jesus was an historical fact, and is not to be referred, as has sometimes been supposed, to myth. To assert that Strauss dissolved the life of Jesus into myth is, in fact, an absurdity which, however often it may be repeated by people who have not read his book, or have read it only superficially, does not become any the less absurd by repetition.

To come to detail, Jesus thought of His Messiahship, according to Strauss, in the form that He, although of human parentage, should after His earthly life be taken up into heaven, and thence should come again to bring in His Kingdom. “As, moreover, in the higher Jewish theology, immediately after the time of Jesus, the idea of the pre-existence of the Messiah was present, the conjecture naturally suggests itself that it was also present at the time when Jesus' thoughts were being formed, and that consequently, if He once began to think of Himself as the Messiah, He might also have referred to Himself this feature of the Messianic conception. Whether Jesus had been initiated, as Paul was, into the wisdom of the schools in such a way that He could draw this conception from it, is no doubt open to question.”