do not possess the right key to its most original parts. Thus we are persuaded that if that eminent critic was right in correcting Harnack for having, like many others, undervalued the great importance of eschatology in the discourses of Jesus, he went to the other extreme in reducing all or nearly all of Jesus' doctrine to the announcement of the advent of the Kingdom of God. And yet Jesus, unlike the writers of most of the Jewish and Christian apocalypses, never attempted any description of this kingdom. On the contrary, the points on which He lays marked stress, and develops most, in all His exhortations, are the conditions of salvation. He is for ever telling His hearers in the most insistent fashion what they must do or leave undone in order to enter the Kingdom of God. This forms the chief subject of His teaching, and He reiterates it in every way and with a clearness of diction which leaves nothing to be desired. It is, too, the most original portion of the Gospel, and in it we can best enter into Jesus' thought. Doubtless this was the reason which led Him explicitly to compare His mission with that of Jonah, the typical preacher of repentance. The prediction of the coming Kingdom of God usually serves only as a point of departure for the exposition of all that relates to this cardinal feature of the Gospel.

If the statement of the essential conditions of salvation largely predominates in Jesus' authentic teaching, these features stand out, moreover, by reason of their superior, permanent qualities. We have but to recall all those traits which show that

1

Loisy, L'Evangile et l'Eglise, pp. 33 et seq.; Synoptiques, i, pp. 225 et seq. Cf. Piepenbring, Harnack et Loisy.

Matt. xii, 39, 41; Luke xi, 30-I.

godliness consists in purity of the heart and not of the hands or of the cup; in deeds of love and devotion, not in outward observances; in dedication to the service of one's fellows, especially those who are suffering, not in withdrawal from the world; in pity for those who have fallen, not in Pharisaic selfsufficiency; in qualities which are simply human, not in an exaggeration of piety; in virtues which embrace the whole of life and are the concern of all men, not in ritual acts in exceptional circumstances. By virtue of this Jesus soared above the excessively conventional Judaism of His times and administered a mortal blow to the superficial ritualism of the ancient world in general. By virtue of this He became a real reformer in the religious sphere, and His beneficent influence on the hearts of men will never cease. since His noblest exhortations and precepts are but the expression of His personal thoughts and feelings, they enable us to estimate aright His exalted spiritual standard and bear witness to the ideal intensity and depth of His inner life.

And

The expectation of the speedy end of the world and the advent of the Kingdom of God had already inspired the prophets of old, and especially the writers of the Jewish apocalypses, though it had not produced the sublime standard of the Gospel ethics. Let us take the Johannine revelation as an example. No book in the Bible is more influenced by eschatology than this. Why then do we find in it an entirely different spirit from that of Jesus' Gospel the ardent desire for vengeance on the enemies of the Christian faith, an extreme delight in scenes of carnage and bloodshed, so many other exaggerated features which are neither evangelical nor edifying? It is because

eschatology per se is absolutely unable to yield good thoughts and noble sentiments. To produce such, there must be á pure and generous spirit, uninfluenced in its action by the prospect of another world to come. To sum up, we may say therefore that the eschatology of Jesus only affected the form of His teaching, and a part of that teaching only. As for its essential foundation (to which Loisy himself at times draws attention), it was the result of His own inner life. In our opinion the great omission of the distinguished Parisian professor in this matter seems to be that he has not realized the importance of the personal factor as an element of Jesus' influence. He has directed his attention too exclusively to the consideration of the external circumstances of Jesus' ministry, but has not realized its deeper source.

Synoptiques, i, pp 232-4.

CHAPTER IV

THE GOD OF THE GOSPELS

I. THE TEACHING OF JESUS.

SINCE the concept of a deity is the cardinal point and specially characteristic feature of all religions, it is the same with the Christian God. For that reason the exposition of Jesus' doctrine usually starts with the idea of the Heavenly Father which looms so largely throughout the Gospels and appears to be the basis and foundation of a great reform in religious thought. We have not proceeded thus, however, because our earlier chapters have shewn that in the first place it was Jesus' aim to proclaim the near approach of the Kingdom of God and to set forth the conditions of salvation which must be fulfilled in order to enter it and be saved. Another reason, too, has influenced us in this matter. It is that Our Lord, dominated by the expectation of the speedy end of the world, did not prosecute a religious or ecclesiastical reform properly so-called (as people so long have imagined and in many circles continue to imagine), but that any such reform was simply the outcome of His lofty ideals and conduct. We have shewn that from the very beginning it was not His intention to amend the Old Testament, though this belief was

long held, and still obtains credence. If He actually did become a great and true reformer, then, it was without any express desire of being such. We shall see, moreover, that with respect to the concept of the Heavenly Father, our Gospels require certain emendations.

For the better appreciation of Jesus' part in the conception of God, let us recall the principal features of this conception among the Israelites and in the very heart of Judaism. To Ancient Israel its extremely exclusive God Jahweh had at the same time a popular and anthropomorphic character, whilst it was the greater prophets alone who subsequently imparted a more ideally ethical and universal aspect to the conception of Him. In later Judaism, on the other hand, the idea of God grew ever more theoretical, transcendental and speculative. So pronounced was this transcendental trend that man was considered incapable of really comprehending God and expressing what He actually was. Consequently men no longer even uttered the name of Jahweh, and usually spoke of God in the most abstract terms. They went so far as to believe that God could not enter into direct relation with the world and mankind save by means of intermediaries alone, by His Spirit, His Name, His Glory, His Word, His Wisdom, all of which they personified.3

In face of such an abstract and speculative current of thought, the popular preaching of Jesus forms a 1 Vide infra, chap. i, § 3.

2 Piepenbring, Théologie, §§ 8, 9, 27; ibid., Histoire, pp. 240-9, 303-5.

3 Bousset, pp. 347-67, 394-409; Holtzmann, Theologie, i, pp. 52-7, 68-74; Felten, ii, pp. 29-42; Bertholet, pp. 359-73, 393-5.