The "isolation" of the great passage in Matthew and Luke, as to its essential content, is thus made out only by a thoroughgoing process of elimination running through the whole story of the Gospels. Every page of the Gospels testifies, in fact, to Jesus' consciousness of a unique relation to God and to men; and an examination of His teaching in whatever part or whatever context confirms the judgment of von Dobschütz that "Jesus implicitly stands everywhere in the centre of His gospel. The 'I am He,' which is recognized as the leading motive of the Fourth Gospel, runs through all His words also in the Synoptics."[35] The self-revelation of Jesus and the great invitation of Matthew xi. 25-30 may be the climax of Synoptic teaching as to the relation of Jesus alike to the Father and to mankind (unless the words of the risen Christ, Matt. xxviii. 18-20, are so regarded), but the passage is no alien or intrusive element in its context. If it is the high point of Synoptic teaching, it is the capstone of a pyramid firmly and broadly supported by the whole Synoptic narrative.
Carlyle has said that the greatness of a character is measured by the contrasts it exhibits. The words of Jesus we have been studying, taken in their entirety and in their context, show the contrasts between knowledge and humility, between power and humility, and, when the woes on the cities are contrasted with the invitation, "Come unto me," between sternness and tenderness. When Socrates was told by the oracle that he was the wisest of men, he was in perplexity for a time, but finally decided that he was wise because he recognized his own ignorance. In His knowledge of the Father and in the mystery of His own person, Jesus places Himself on an equality with God. Yet this knowledge did not "puff up." There was no need with Jesus as with Peter for the moment of spiritual insight to be followed by a rebuke for presumption; nor did He need like Paul, because of the greatness of the revelation, to have the thorn in the flesh lest He be exalted above measure. These contrasts, not found in any other historical character, are a self-authenticating feature of the words of Jesus. All of His actions, in fact, and all of His attitudes towards men, whether they were friends or foes, and all His words, whether of compassion, forgiveness, warning or indignation, were those of a "Prince and a Saviour," a Prince in majesty and power and a Saviour in pity. Both deeds and words showed that union of qualities which it would be impossible to invent, "the self-assertion of the great example of humility."
IV. The Dilemma of Historical Criticism
An indirect evidence of transcendent elements in the consciousness of Jesus, and of the essential harmony between His teaching and that of Paul, is furnished by the increasingly skeptical tendency of liberal criticism and the complete skepticism in which that criticism has culminated. We must discount, say the extreme Liberal critics in effect, the Ascension and Resurrection narratives, because they were written under the belief that Jesus was the exalted Son of God. We must discount the Passion narrative because dominated by the belief that Jesus was and claimed to be the Messiah; we must discount the miracles, and must take from the Gospel page everything that indicates that Jesus claimed divine prerogatives, or Messianic honours, or used titles such as "the Christ," "the Son of God," "Lord," or even "the Son of Man," because these betray the dogmatic views of the Church. But why not go further with the "mythical" school and discount the whole narrative because written under the prepossession that Jesus was an historical character? If the faith of the Church—"the enemy of history"—has been able to create those features in the portrait of Christ which have been regarded as significant for religion during the ages of Christendom, why cannot its creative activity have extended to the historical foundation? Why could it not have created its portrait of Jesus out of nothing, or at least out of the social strivings and religious needs and practices of a syncretic age?
The mythical hypothesis, it is clear, is not a mere eccentricity of criticism. It is more than an effort of youthful audacity in scholarship striving to gain public attention. It is the natural, if not the inevitable, outcome of the direction in which criticism, discarding more and more of the Gospel narrative, and deserting more and more, it may be said, the sure ground of historical evidence, has been moving. The method of a progressive reduction of the sources and elimination of unacceptable material has been only pushed by the Radicals to an extreme. The Radicals, avowedly basing themselves on the Liberals, contend that the latter have stopped at an untenable half-way position. Thus Drews says that since the days of Strauss doubts of the historical existence of Jesus have never been lulled to rest;[36] and Reinach, avoiding Drews' extreme, yet declares that "it is contrary to every sound method to compose, as Renan did, a life of Jesus, eliminating the marvellous elements of the Gospel story. It is no more possible to make real history with myths than to make bread with the pollen of flowers."[37] It was thought that an irreducible minimum had been reached in Schmiedel's famous nine "foundation-pillars" for a scientific life of Christ,[38] but even these are shattered by the modern critical artillery.[39]
When Schmiedel finds the bed-rock of historical truth in a few expressions or incidents which run counter to the general intention of the Gospel writers, it is open to W. B. Smith to base an elaborate argument upon a single phrase or even word "the things concerning Jesus," or "the Jesus," Acts xviii. 25; xxviii. 21, etc., in favour of a pre-Christian Jesus-cult.[40] And when Bousset with the Gospels before him confesses that we cannot know certainly why Jesus was put to death, it is open for Frazer and Reinach to transform the Crucifixion into a sort of Haman-and-Mordecai play;[41] or even for J. M. Robertson, criticizing Frazer, to say that the capital error of the latter is in the postulate that Jesus existed at all.[42] It must be confessed that there is a facile descent from the "reduced Christianity" of the extreme Liberals to the reductio ad absurdum of the Radicals, and that the difference between them is often one of degree rather than of principle. The astringents used to remove the brilliant colours of miracle and transcendence have proved so strong as to destroy the portrait they were intended to restore. By proposing the dilemma, A miraculous Christ or a mythical Christ, the Radicals have shown the difficulty of drawing the picture of an historical Jesus from which the transcendent elements have been removed. It should be noticed further that the "historical" Jesus who is left has a diminishing importance for religion, and even for ethics. When Jesus is reduced to the level of mere humanity, that humanity is apt to be of an inferior order. He accepts the title and rôle of Messiah unwillingly, as a burden and under compulsion from His followers, or under the strong delusion that, defeated in His earthly mission, He would immediately come in glory. In either case there is an element of weakness, whether intellectual or moral, in His character; He cannot be the supreme example and moral leader of humanity. Or else, relieved of the Messianic burden in the imagination of the critic, He becomes a "warrior for the truth,"[43] a sort of Galilean Socrates, the wisest and best of men, but with no clear outlines in His personality and no distinctive traits in His message.
Whether the Founder of the Christian religion be pictured as "merely a pious preacher of morality in the sense of present day liberalism,"[44] or a "psychopathic anomaly," obsessed with the idea that He was the Messiah, the picture is not convincing to the historian any more than it is consoling to the Christian. In neither picture can the Christ of the Gospels or the Christ of Christian experience be recognized. Matters are not mended when extremes meet, and Jesus is pictured as at once the sunny and serene Galilean pietist, and the rapt ecstatic obsessed by the thought of His own immediate and glorious return—a deluded enthusiast who saw life steadily and saw it whole. If the representation is not that of a moral or mental weakling, below the level of the normal in clearness of outlook upon life or in sincerity and decision of character, we are left with a largely imaginary figure, from which most of the concrete features have been removed. We do not know what manner of man He was, nor, it must be acknowledged, does it matter very much for religion whether He was at all; for with the increasing vagueness in the historical portrait of Jesus, there comes inevitably a weakening of His influence as a teacher whether of religion or morals.
His gospel, in the first place, was never intended to become universal, since the Gentile mission is attributed to the influence of later ecclesiastical ideas. But is not the content of Jesus' religious teaching, the Fatherhood of God and the value of the soul, unaffected by any views which are held as to His Person? Tendencies are observable in modern thought which are not reassuring upon this point; and, in fact, the history of thought shows that theism, apart from the support of Christian doctrine, is apt to pass into a pantheistic mysticism or a semi-deistic naturalism. The Fatherhood of God may be regarded as too anthropomorphic a conception, and a semi-pantheistic "all-Father" may be substituted for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Strauss, while he is the classical example, is not alone in this passage from Liberal Christianity to a more complete skepticism which gives up theistic belief. It is not surprising that in certain circles the expression "Christian pantheism" is now heard, and that a sympathetic attitude towards pantheism should be shown by the Liberal critic. Thus J. Weiss says: "Pantheism may, indeed, have its limitations and defects, yet, without doubt, it lies very near to our time, inspired as it is by both scientific and artistic ideas. Why should we not recognize this form of religious life alongside of other forms, in case it finds vital expression in emotion and action?"[45]
On the other hand, the theistic content of Jesus' teaching is immeasurably strengthened when enforced by His divine authority, and read in the light of His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. As Drews remarks: "The chief obstacle to a monistic religion and attitude is the belief irreconcilable with reason or history, in the historical reality of a 'unique,' ideal, and unsurpassable redeemer."[46] Certainly the assurance that God is a loving Father and that we are His children, said to be the essence of Christianity, is wonderfully safeguarded and buttressed by the doctrines, or facts, of an Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Christ.
Whatever happens to the Christian doctrines and the Christian history, many will declare that the ethical teaching of Jesus will remain, and will continue to exercise its empire over the lives of men. But such an inference finds little support in present conditions. An aggressive militarism maintains that each nation should be free to develop its own religious ideas, and chides Strauss with half-way measures in holding to Christian ethics while discarding Christian doctrines and miracles. A militant feminism which objects to the marriage service, and a militant socialism which sees in the family the main support of the right of private property, will not, if they have their way, leave the marriage relation unaffected. Jesus taught, we are reminded, in a pre-scientific and a pre-Darwinian age. His teaching, in fact, whatever its acknowledged excellence and importance, was but a phase, and that not the final phase, of moral evolution. His teaching, as many hold, was only an Interimsethik, not intended to be the norm for all men and all time. There is no assurance that even the character of Christ will remain undimmed in splendour, and undiminished in power of appeal, for there is no evidence for sinlessness, except evidence which is rejected on the ground of exaggeration or idealization in the case of miracles, and other claims implying the supernatural. Christian ethics doubtless makes an appeal of its own, but apart from the support of Christology its supremacy is by no means assured. If we go back to the moral teaching or to the example of Jesus alone, there will be no teaching with authority, no divine Teacher who is the Truth, and no regenerative power of the Spirit behind the teaching. The power of Christ's example lies in the union of humility and authority. "Take Christ's difference from us out of Christianity and His identity with us loses all its glorious power." If their Lord and Master washes the disciples' feet, the example comes with the force of a divine command: "Ye ought also to wash one another's feet." It is not merely a beautiful act to be admired (or perhaps by some to be despised); it is a divine imperative to be obeyed.