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that everything else in the seventh chapter of Daniel is symbolic-the sea, for example, and the brutal monsters which arise out of it-it is at least plausible to argue that much of what is spectacular in Jesus' words about the sudden and glorious advent of the Son of Man is symbolical also. We are as likely to misunderstand Him if we read in a legal or prosaic spirit, pressing the literal meaning of every term, as if we exaggerate the symbol till no palpable fact remains. But whatever the true method of interpretation may be, it cannot be questioned that in His own mind Jesus was identified with that mysterious and transcendent Person through whom the kingdom of God at last comes in glory. If we knew nothing of Jesus but this, it might well seem disconcerting: He could be represented with much plausibility as the victim of a fanatical delusion. But the mind of Jesus about Himself, in relation to God and to the establishment of His kingdom, has already come before us in a great variety of aspects, and forbids any such conclusion. That mind, it is not too much to say, is throughout consistent with itself, and in harmony with the place claimed by Jesus in the prophecies of His glorious Coming. It is not fanatical, and there is no shadow of unreality about it; the unique place He assumes, the unique authority He claims to exercise, vindicate themselves in the mind. and conscience of man. It is not only in its glorious consummation that the kingdom is identified with Him; it is identified with Him all through His career. The attitude which He requires of men is involved in this fact, and it is always the same. When He speaks of His Advent in glory and of the manner in which the destiny of men is then decided for ever by their relation to Himself, He only concentrates into one tremendous expression what is the burden of His self-revelation from beginning to end.

So far as it has been carried, the results of our investi

gation are, we venture to assert, entirely favourable to the catholic Christian attitude to Jesus. The investigation has been strictly limited to the oldest accessible authorities -the source common to Matthew and Luke, with one or two references at the outset to Mark; and the conclusion is all the more important. We do not say that it vindicates any particular Christology-Arian, Athanasian, or Kenotic; or even any of the Christological types represented in the apostolic writings. But it does what is infinitely more important. It demonstrates-the word is not too strongthat Jesus was not, in His own consciousness of Himself, merely one man more in the world, though one who (as it happened) knew God better than others; He was not simply a prophet like those who had gone before; He was not a Jew who like all other Jews saw the will of God in the Old Testament, but believed Himself to possess a better way of doing it than the other teachers of the time; He was not 'the ideal religious subject,' the inspiring pattern of man's true attitude to God. He was more than all this, and in some respects very different from all this. 'The whole literature,' we may say-borrowing for application to the earliest evangelic records what Professor Cairns has observed of the New Testament in general'the whole literature is inspired by the conviction, not simply that something new has been discovered, but that something new has happened." When Christ is in the world it is another world; there is a Person in it to whom our attitude must be other than it is to men in general, just because He is and reveals Himself to be other. 'Men there have been who felt themselves able to say "I know," and who died like Him for their convictions. But He was able to say "I am." I am that to which prophecy has pointed, and was able to feel Himself worthy to be that.'

› Christianity in the Modern World, p. 147.
2 G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. p. 548.

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This is indeed the vital point of difference between the Old Testament and the New, the foundation on which alone Christianity can rest as a faith specifically distinct from that of the Old Testament. It is so far from being the truth that the Son has no place in the gospel as it was preached by Jesus, that the gospel, even as preached by Jesus, is constituted by the presence of the Son in the world, and the place given to Him in religion. There is no Christianity except through a particular attitude of the soul to Jesus, and that attitude of the soul to Jesus is demanded at every point, in every relation, and in every mode, tacit and explicit, by Jesus Himself. Christianity is what it is through the presence in it of the Mediator, and it is not only in the faith of Christians but in the mind of Jesus Himself that the character of Mediator is claimed. It is a character, happily, which can be recognised without raising either physical questions, or metaphysical-without asking, not to speak of answering, the questions to which the creed makers and the authors of Christologies have devoted their powers; but to recognise it means that Jesus becomes the object of our faith. We trust in Him, commit ourselves to Him, believe in God through Him, and are conscious when we do so that we have reached the final truth of things.

Up to this point, we have examined mainly discourses of Jesus as recorded in Q, and have based our argument on the words of Jesus Himself. But while speech is in some ways the most adequate expression of mind, a man may reveal what he is, and what he conceives himself to be, by action, which is more speaking even than words. It has already been noticed that the second of the early witnesses to Jesus-the Gospel according to Mark-contains few discourses of Jesus: it is a picture of His life rather than a record of His words. It is, however, a very early picture, and there can be no doubt that it circulated

in the Christian churches, whether in documentary form, or through the labours of catechists, contemporaneously with the source we have already scrutinised. Whether there was any closer connexion between the two it is perhaps impossible to tell. Scholars have come to no convincing conclusion. Wellhausen thinks Mark the earlier, and that where the other source departs from Mark we see traces of the progressive Christianising of the record—that is, of its lapsing from the mind of Jesus, who was not a Christian but a Jew, to the mind of the later church about Jesus; Weiss, after the studies of a lifetime, persists in the belief that Mark is the later of the two, and in many essential respects was dependent on the other.' Whether the theory of successive editions of Mark would enable criticism to find a way of reconciling these contrary opinions is a doubtful question, but hardly of importance in this connexion. To all intents and purposes, except those of literary criticism, Mark and Q are contemporary witnesses to Jesus: each of them tells us what was believed about Him in the church not far from A.D. 70, and the only thing that is of interest is whether or not they concur in their testimony. This will appear as we proceed.

Mark opens with a title or superscription which cannot be ignored: 'the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.' As these words show, he has a conception of Jesus and of the meaning of His life, death and resurrection; and it is in the light of this conception that he interprets the facts. Jesus is to him the Messiah, and

Weiss has succeeded in convincing Harnack that Mark was acquainted with Q, though Harnack thinks this important result may have to be limited to this intent, that Mark at least knew the circle in which Q (or great parts of Q), before being fixed in writing, existed in a fixed oral form which was practically the same. See note on p. 176 above. This limitation, however, really means that Harnack is not convinced by Weiss's arguments, so as to accept Weiss's view of the literary relations of Mark and Q; it is Harnack's recognition of the fact that a larger part must be given to oral tradition, as well as to documents, in explaining the composition of our gospels.

the story of His life, when read out in its religious significance, is gospel or glad tidings. It was not possible for him to tell the story otherwise than he has done, for this is the truth of Jesus as it has been apprehended by him. No doubt a life of Jesus could have been written by one who never became a believer-by an agent, for example, of the Jewish or of the Roman government-who observed Him from the outside, as it were, without sympathy, and without being drawn into unison with His mind and purpose; but it would not follow that such a life would be truer than the representation of Jesus made by a believer. On the contrary, the very things that in a great spiritual life are most real and most significant would baffle the supposed impartial observer; he would either be unconscious of them, or they would mock his power of description and comprehension. Only a person responsive to the kind of influence Jesus exerted is qualified to convey a true impression of what He was. It may be quite natural for him, in trying to convey such an impression, to set the facts with which he has to deal in a certain light; but just in proportion as he reverences Jesus-just in proportion as he believes in Him and calls Him Lordwill it be unnatural for him to distort facts or to invent them.

MARK'S HISTORY THE HISTORY OF THE SON OF GOD

That the story of Mark is the story of the Christ, of One whose consciousness from first to last is that of the Messianic King through whom the reign of God is to be established, is shown by the fact that like the source. already examined Mark begins with the Baptism and the Temptation of Jesus. He has no interest in anything that precedes; he brings Jesus on the stage in the hour in which His divine sonship is proclaimed, and it is in this character that he conceives Him living and

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