abolishing it. Again, if from His attitude with regard to fasting and to keeping the Sabbath, we are inclined to draw radical conclusions, we seem to be exceeding His views. According to Mark, He does not appear to have rejected fasting entirely, but to have declared that His disciples would fast later, when their Master had been taken from them. If we follow Matthew, He would seem to have condemned the ostentation with which the Pharisees, for reasons of vanity, were accustomed to fast, just as He criticized a similar fault of theirs with regard to prayer and almsgiving." One saying (though certainly of doubtful authenticity) is attributed to Him, according to which He would have held strictly to the observance of the Sabbath, when it did not clash with a higher duty.3 It is of more consequence and also safer to affirm that He appealed to precedent and to the authority of the Old Testament 4 to justify the liberty He allowed Himself in this respect. In the same way He proceeded to justify His action in putting an end to the trading near the Temple.5 Besides, He appeals to the Scriptures here. When occasion serves He seems even to approve of the offering of sacrifices.7 On the other hand, He is made to say that God, as the words of the prophet declare, desires mercy and not sacrifice. If He restricts liberty of divorce, contravening the legal ordinance above-mentioned, He amends it by the statements in the Book of 1 Mark ii, 20. This text seems to be of doubtful origin. See Loisy's Commentary. • Matt. vi, 16-18 and 1-6. 4 Mark ii, 25-6. 6 Mark ix, 13; xii, 10, 36. 8 Matt. ix, 13; xii, 7. Cf. Hos. vi, 6. 3 Matt. xxiv, 20. 5 Mark xi, 17. 7 Matt. v, 23-4. Genesis relating to the first pair of human beings.1 His forbidding the taking of oaths and His abolition of the law of retaliation can scarcely be cited either as proof that Jesus sets His own authority above that of the Scriptures. Until the very end of His ministry He seems to have shewn Himself full of veneration for the Temple, though the words from which this may be seen are not His own.2 It may even have been the prophetic words 3 which inspired Him to take such strong measures to combat the desecration of the sanctuary through the trading practised there. Perhaps He, too, may have paid the yearly tax due to the Temple.4 On the eve of His death He must have celebrated the Jewish Passover with His disciples,5 and if He did predict the fall of the Temple, it was only in connection with the announcement of the destruction of our world, and according to ancient prophecy." From what we have just seen it appears that Jesus upheld the Divine authority of the Old Testament. There is not a single passage in the Gospels which authorizes us to believe that He actually adopted a consciously critical attitude with regard to the Sacred Writings of His nation. If at times He should seem to do so, it is but seeming only, and to account for this we must always remember that Jesus was a simple layman, that He had made no special study of the subject, and that Biblical criticism, moreover, was unknown in His days. Down to our own times I Mark x, 6-9. Cf. Gen. i, 27; ii, 24. Matt. xxiii, 16-21. 3 Mark xi, 15-17. Cf. Jer. vii, 11; Is. lvi, 7. • Mark xiii, 1 et seq. Cf. Micah iii, 12; Jer. xxvi, 18. not only an enormous majority of ordinary believers, both Jews and Christians, but most of the theologians too, have paid little attention to the many divergences of opinion which the Bible contains. To them it appeared to be one indivisible whole, thoroughly consistent in all respects. At the same time, too, every individual believer found in it his own personal point of view. We need but think of Luther, to whom the Bible chiefly taught the doctrine of justification by faith and by pardoning grace. Before his day, St. Paul had relied upon the Old Testament for the support of all those theological theses which nobody before him had discovered in it, and which a really historical study would fail to find there. Thus, too, in the eyes of Jesus and His more immediate disciples, the whole of the Law and the Prophets could be reduced to the great commandment to love God above all and one's neighbour as one's self, or again, to the precept to do unto others as we would that they should do unto us. Jesus used the Scriptures in His arguments with the scribes and Pharisees, evidently without taking into account that they, too, relied upon them for effective support of their own views." In any case, His attitude in this respect was an essentially conservative one, and it has been transmitted to the whole of the Early Church. One very important Old Testament influence upon Jesus is seen in an idea which is frequently affirmed in the Synoptic Gospels, as well as in texts from ancient sources. This idea is that salvation is to be I Mark xii, 28-31; Luke x, 25-8; Matt. xxii, 36-40; vii, 12. Cf. Weinel, pp. 79–81. • Mark vii, 5-13. Cf. Wernle, Anfänge, pp. 59-61. the reward of faithful conduct, and hence we have the promise that treasure is laid up in Heaven for the faithful. These conceptions are indissolubly bound up with the authentic Gospel because, as we shall see, it is categorically affirmed there, many times over, that the establishment of the Kingdom of God will be preceded by the judgment-day, when everyone must appear before God, and render an account of his conduct and obtain salvation or else be condemned to perdition, according to what that conduct has been during his life on earth. Evidently we have to reconcile this cardinal point with the conception of the compassionate and pardoning love of God, which is just as explicitly announced in the Gospels. Moreover, Jesus' vehement denunciation of the mercenary self-seeking Pharisaism best proves that the ordinary popular eudæmonism was thoroughly displeasing to Him.3 On the other hand, we must not lose sight of the fact (as is so frequently the case) that both in the Scriptures and in other Jewish writings we have incontrovertible precedents which declare the pitying love of God for sinners. Of the God of Israel it is said that He is " merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." 4 Let us in particular call to mind the words Matt. v, 3-12, 20; vi, 1 et seq., 16 et seq.; vii, 13-27; xviii, 7-9; xx, 1-16; xxiv, 45-51; XXV, 14-16; Mark ix, 41-8; x, 21, 28–31 and parallel passages; Luke vi, 23–35, 46–9; xii, 42-4; xiii, 6-9; xiv, 12-14; xvi, 19-31; xix, 11-25. * Matt. vi, 20; Luke xii, 33. 3 Cf. Holtzmann, Theologie, i, pp. 258-65; Weinel, § 18-21; Wernle, Jesus, pp. 67-75. 4 Ex. xxxiv, 6-7. of the Psalmist, "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide; neither will He keep His anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgression from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.”ı Whilst the apostle Paul and many others after him have perceived but one single aspect of the Hebrew Bible, the wrath of God and the severity of the judgment revealed there, Jesus recognized everywhere, in the Scriptures and in Nature alike, the expression of God's Fatherly love, because He Himself experienced this love in His heart. 2 And we must not imagine, either, that this point of view was exceptional or rare in Judaism. On the contrary,, we find that it occurs again and again, especially in the Psalter, which, moreover, formed an important part of Jesus' spiritual sustenance. The book of Jonah, too, makes it clear that God is ready to pardon men, without distinction of persons, provided only that they repent of their sins.3 Both there and in the verses already quoted we find the thoughts which underlie the parable of the Prodigal Son, that sublime illustration of Jesus' conception of 1 Ps. ciii, 8-13. • The following are passages in which God's pardoning love is specially noted: Ps. xxv, 6, 11; xxx, 6; xxxii, 5; li; lxv, 4; lxxxvi, 5; cxxx, 3-4; Micah vii, 18-20; Ecclesiasticus ii, 11; 1, 22; li, 3, 8. See, too, Bousset, pp. 438 et seq.; Bertholet, pp. 236– 46. 3 Bertholet, pp. 154-5. |