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

by Albert Schweitzer

This rational mysticism makes it a reproach against the “mythical idealism” of Strauss that in it philosophy does violence to history, and the historic Christ only retains His significance as a mere ideal. A new examination of the sources is necessary to decide upon the extent of the mythical element.

The Gospel of Matthew cannot, Wilke agrees, have been the work of an eyewitness. “The principal argument against its authenticity is the absence of the characteristic marks of an eyewitness, which must necessarily have been present in a gospel actually composed by a disciple of the Lord, and which are not present here. The narrative is lacking in precision, fragmentary and legendary, tradition everywhere manifest in its very form.” There are discrepancies in the legends of the first and second chapters, as well as elsewhere, e.g. the stories of the baptism, the temptation, and the transfiguration. In other cases, where there is a basis of historic fact, there is an admixture of legendary material, as in the narratives of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In the Gospel of Mark, Wilke recognises the pictorial vividness of many of the descriptions, and conjectures that in some way or other it goes back to the Petrine tradition. The author of the Fourth Gospel is not an eyewitness; the κατά (according to) only indicates the origin of the tradition; the author received it, either directly or indirectly, from the Apostle, but he gave to it the gnosticising dialectical form of the Alexandrian theology.

As against the Diegesentheorie[71] Wilke defends the independence and originality of the individual Gospels. “No one of the Evangelists knew the writing of any of the others, each produced an independent work drawn from a separate source.”

In the remarks on points of detail in this work of Wilke's there is evidence of a remarkable grasp of the critical data; we already get a hint of the “mathematician” of the Synoptic problem, [pg 114] who, two years later, was to work out convincingly the literary argument for the priority of Mark. But the historian is quite subordinated to the literary critic, and, when all is said, Wilke takes up no clearly defined position in regard to Strauss's main problem, as is evident from his seeking to retain, on more or less plausible grounds, a whole series of miracles, among them the miracle of Cana and the resurrection.

For most thinkers of that period, however, the question “myth or history” yielded in interest to the philosophical question of the relation of the historical Jesus to the ideal Christ. That was the second problem raised by Strauss. Some thought to refute him by showing that his exposition of the relation of the Jesus of history to the ideal Christ was not justified even from the point of view of the Hegelian philosophy, arguing that the edifice which he had raised was not in harmony with the ground-plan of the Hegelian speculative system. He therefore felt it necessary, in his reply to the review in the Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, to expound “the general relationship of the Hegelian philosophy to theological criticism,”[72] and to express in more precise form the thoughts upon speculative and historical Christology which he had suggested at the close of the second volume of his “Life of Jesus.”

He admits that Hegel's philosophy is ambiguous in this matter, since it is not clear “whether the evangelical fact as such, not indeed in its isolation, but together with the whole series of manifestations of the idea (of God-manhood) in the history of the world, is the truth; or whether the embodiment of the idea in that single fact is only a formula of which consciousness makes use in forming its concept.” The Hegelian “right,” he says, represented by Marheineke and Göschel, emphasises the positive side of the master's religious philosophy, implying that in Jesus the idea of God-manhood was perfectly fulfilled and in a certain sense intelligibly realised. “If these men,” Strauss explains, “appeal to Hegel and declare that he would not have recognised my book as an expression of his meaning, they say nothing which is not in accordance with my own convictions. Hegel was personally no friend to historical criticism. It annoyed him, as it annoyed Goethe, to see the historic figures of antiquity, on which their thoughts were accustomed lovingly to dwell, assailed by critical doubts. Even if it was in some cases wreaths of mist which they took for pinnacles of rock, they did not want to have this forced upon their attention, nor to [pg 115] be disturbed in the illusion from which they were conscious of receiving an elevating influence.”

But though prepared to admit that he had added to the edifice of Hegel's religious philosophy an annexe of historical criticism, of which the master would hardly have approved, Strauss is convinced that he is the only logical representative of Hegel's essential view. “The question which can be decided from the standpoint of the philosophy of religion is not whether what is narrated in the Gospels actually happened or not, but whether in view of the truth of certain conceptions it must necessarily have happened. And in regard to this, what I assert is that from the general system of the Hegelian philosophy it by no means necessarily follows that such an event must have happened, but that from the standpoint of the system the truth of that history from which actually the conception arose is reduced to a matter of indifference; it may have happened, but it may just as well not have happened, and the task of deciding on this point may be calmly handed over to historical criticism.”

Strauss reminds us that, even according to Hegel, the belief in Jesus as God-made-man is not immediately given with His appearing in the world of sense, but only arose after His death and the removal of His sensible presence. The master himself had acknowledged the existence of mythical elements in the Life of Jesus; in regard to miracle he had expressed the opinion that the true miracle was “Spirit.” The conception of the resurrection and ascension as outward facts of sense was not recognised by him as true.

Hegel's authority may, no doubt, fairly be appealed to by those who believe, not only in an incarnation of God in a general sense, “but also that this manifestation of God in flesh has taken place in this man (Jesus) at this definite time and place.”... “In making the assertion,” concludes Strauss, “that the truth of the Gospel narrative cannot be proved, whether in whole or in part, from philosophical considerations, but that the task of inquiring into its truth must be left to historical criticism, I should like to associate myself with the ‘left wing’ of the Hegelian school, were it not that the Hegelians prefer to exclude me altogether from their borders, and to throw me into the arms of other systems of thought—only, it must be admitted, to have me tossed back to them like a ball.”