CHAPTER VIII
THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS
Two of the contentions of the modern school of comparative religion have so far been examined. It has been shown that neither the group of Pauline conceptions which centers around the new birth (or, as Paul calls it, the new creation) nor the Pauline teaching about the sacraments was derived from the mystery religions. The third element of Paulinism which is thought to have come from pagan religion is found in the Pauline conception of Christ and of the work of Christ in redemption. This contention is connected especially with the name of Bousset[222], who is, however, supported in essentials by a considerable number of contemporary scholars. The hypothesis of Bousset is intimately connected with those hypotheses which have already been examined. A complete treatment of it at this point would therefore involve repetition. But it may here be set forth at least in a somewhat systematic, though still in a merely summary, way.
According to Bousset, the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem regarded Jesus chiefly as the Son of Man—the mysterious person, mentioned in the Jewish apocalypses, who was finally to come with the clouds of heaven and be the instrument in ushering in the Kingdom of God. Bousset is doubtful whether or no the title Son of Man was ever assumed by Jesus Himself, and regards the settlement of this question as lying beyond the scope of his book. But the tendency of the book is decidedly toward a radical denial of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. And at this point the cautious investigator, even if his presuppositions are the same as Bousset's own, may well be inclined to take alarm. The method which is here pursued seems to be leading logically to the elimination from the pages of history of the whole Gospel picture of Jesus, or rather to the use of that picture in the reconstruction not of the historical Jesus, but only of the belief of the Christian community. Of course Bousset does not push matters to such lengths; he is by no means inclined to follow W. B. Smith and Drews in denying the historicity of Jesus. But the reader of the first part of the "Kyrios Christos" has an uneasy feeling that if any of the Gospel picture still escapes the keen edge of Bousset's criticism, it is only by accident. Many of those incidents in the Gospel narrative, many of those elements in the Gospel teaching, which have been considered most characteristic of the historical Jesus have here been removed. There seems to be no particular reason why the rest should remain; for the elements that remain are quite similar to the elements that have been made to go. No mark of authenticity seems to be proof against the skepticism of this latest historian. Bousset thus illustrates the difficulty of separating the natural from the supernatural in the Gospel picture of Jesus. When the process of separation begins, it is difficult to bring it to a halt; the wheat is in danger of being rooted up with the tares. Bousset has dealt a severe blow to the prestige of the liberal reconstruction of Jesus. By the recent developments in his thinking he has shown by his own example that the liberal reconstruction is in a state of unstable equilibrium. It is always in danger of giving way to radical denial either of the historicity of Jesus or of the historicity of the Messianic consciousness. Such radicalism is faced by insuperable difficulties. Perhaps, then, there is something wrong with the critical method from which the radicalism always tends to result.
But it is necessary now to examine a little more closely the belief of the primitive Jerusalem Church. That belief, Bousset maintains, did not involve any conception of Jesus as "Lord." The title "Lord," he says, was not applied to Jesus on Palestinian ground, and Jesus was not regarded by the early Jerusalem Church as the object of faith. The piety of the primitive Church was thus exclusively eschatological; Jesus was expected to return in glory from heaven, but meanwhile He was regarded as separated from His disciples. He was the heavenly "Son of Man," to come with the clouds of heaven, not the "Lord" now present in the Church.