[51] Olshausen 1, s. 24 ff. [↑]
[52] Schneckenburger’s Beiträge, s. 25 ff. [↑]
CHAPTER IV.
JESUS AS THE MESSIAH.[1]
§ 61.
JESUS, THE SON OF MAN.
In treating of the relation in which Jesus conceived himself to stand to the messianic idea, we can distinguish his dicta concerning his own person from those concerning the work he had undertaken.
The appellation which Jesus commonly gives himself in the Gospels is, the Son of man, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. The exactly corresponding Hebrew expression בֶּן־אָדָם is in the Old Testament a frequent designation of man in general, and thus we might be induced to understand it in the mouth of Jesus. This interpretation would suit some passages; for example, [Matt. xii. 8], where Jesus says: The Son of man is lord also of the Sabbath day, κύριος γάρ ἐστι τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου,—words which will fitly enough take a general meaning, such as Grotius affixes to them, namely, that man is lord of the Sabbath, especially if we compare Mark ([ii. 27]), who introduces them by the proposition, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, τὸ σάββατον διὰ τὸν ἄθρωπον ἐγένετο, οὐχ ὁ ἄνθρωπος διὰ τὸ σάββατον. But in the majority of cases, the phrase in question is evidently used as a special designation. Thus, [Matt. viii. 20], a scribe volunteers to become a disciple of Jesus, and is admonished to count the cost in the words, The Son of man hath not where to lay his head, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει, ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλἱνῃ: here some particular man must be intended, nay, the particular man into whose companionship the scribe wished to enter, that is, Jesus himself. As a reason for the self-application of this term by Jesus, it has been suggested that he used the third person after the oriental manner, to avoid the I.[2] But for a speaker to use the third person in reference to himself, is only admissible, if he would be understood, when the designation he employs is precise, and inapplicable to any other person present, as when a father or a king uses his appropriate title of himself; or when, if the designation be not precise, its relation is made clear by a demonstrative pronoun, which limitation is eminently indispensable if an individual speak of himself under the universal designation man. We grant that occasionally a gesture might supply the place of the demonstrative pronoun; but that Jesus in every instance of his using this habitual expression had recourse to some visible explanatory sign, or that the Evangelists would not, in that case, have supplied [[282]]its necessary absence from a written document by some demonstrative addition, is inconceivable. If both Jesus and the Evangelists held such an elucidation superfluous, they must have seen in the expression itself the key to its precise application. Some are of opinion that Jesus intended by it to point himself out as the ideal man—man in the noblest sense of the word;[3] but this is a modern theory, not an historical inference, for there is no trace of such an interpretation of the expression in the time of Jesus,[4] and it would be more easy to show, as others have attempted, that the appellation, Son of Man, so frequently used by Jesus, had reference to his lowly and despised condition.[5] Apart however from the objection that this acceptation also would require the addition of the demonstrative pronoun, though it might be adapted to many passages, as [Matt. viii. 20]; [John i. 51], there are others (such as [Matt. xvii. 22], where Jesus, foretelling his violent death, designates himself ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) which demand the contrast of high dignity with an ignominious fate. So in [Matt. x. 23], the assurance given to the commissioned disciples that before they had gone over the cities of Israel the Son of Man would come, could have no weight unless this expression denoted a person of importance; and that such was its significance is proved by a comparison of [Matt. xvi. 28], where there is also a mention of an ἔρχεσθαι, a coming of the Son of man, but with the addition ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ. As this addition can only refer to the messianic kingdom, the υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου must be the Messiah.