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The tradition with which we have to do is indeed-and that is the difficulty-anything else but a dry historical narrative about ordinary, daily occurrences. It is, even in its most primitive elements, penetrated with the miraculous; from the baptism of Jesus to the empty grave (Mk), not to say from the supernatural birth to the breaking of the seals of the tomb (Mt), what occurs naturally is interwoven with a series of miracles. And we still stand to-day, as in the days of [the old controversy between] supernaturalism and rationalism [i.e. the stage of historical criticism prior to Strauss] before the question: how are these two elements related to each other? This is the question of questions is the supernatural only a stratum loosely superimposed and easily removed, or is it bed-rock? In other words, has a story not indeed commonplace but heroic been heightened into the divine, being gradually covered by legend with miracle growths? Or is it originally a history of the gods which, in order that it might be made convincing and credible, has been given the necessary setting in space and time and a measurably historical embodiment? . . . Of what avail is it to separate the earlier from the later strata, since the miraculous, though moderated, still reaches into the very earliest stratum? . . . There is, so it seems, no choice for one who does not occupy the standpoint of supernaturalism. These stories together with their entire setting must be rejected as legendary or recourse must be had to naturalistic explanation. . . . It is however too simple a solution to reject the setting because of the miracle. A solution must be found in which the non-miraculous traits will receive just treatment. To many this seems impossible. . . . But he who has the duty of really interpreting the sources cannot rest satisfied with this.

Weiss himself takes refuge in the naturalistic interpretation of Paulus. The Gospel narratives of miracles in many instances have their origin in misunderstood natural phenomena. But he supplements this theory especially in

extremely accurate reproduction of carefully guarded words of Jesus. Rather these lived only in so far as they touched the important and burning questions of the community. Where however such contact existed, where a word of Jesus was of significance for the questions of the community, there it became not so much dead capital but like a shoot that puts forth buds; it was enlarged, new thoughts derived from it, new regions illumined by it. And what the community, under the impression of an original word of Jesus, thus won in new insight, this circulated frequently again as a word of Jesus. The boundary between the original possession and the new acquisition was fluctuating; and even then it was often no longer possible to separate the original from the later accretion."

the matter of Jesus' healing activity by the help of modern psychology. He concludes, after illustrating his method:28

But all these attempts proceed on the assumption that the Gospel tradition is rooted in history, that it grew in the soil of the history of Jesus, that it goes back to the eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus and is chronologically so near it that historical reminiscences may be reckoned with.

The "line of demarcation between the historical and the unhistorical" in the Gospels can, as Strauss said, be drawn only with difficulty and with little precision. The separation of the trustworthy from the untrustworthy elements cannot be made on purely literary grounds if the miraculous be untrustworthy-for this extends back into the earliest sources

-or on purely historical grounds if only the miraculous is untrustworthy-for the evidence is the same as that which accredits the non-miraculous. For "one who does not occupy the standpoint of supernaturalism" there seem to be but two alternatives; complete rejection of the natural with the supernatural elements, or acceptance of the natural and a historically arbitrary rejection of the supernatural or the equivalent —a naturalistic interpretation of it. The evidence from the phenomenal sphere of historical criticism seems to Weiss to require the choice of the latter. The issue of principle, however, remains. But Weiss like Strauss-though probably for different reasons, as Strauss is explicit in grounding his point of view upon the Hegelian philosophy—has chosen the negative and is shut up to the partial theory.

There are then these three views which may be designated the positive, the partial, and the negative or as they are sometimes called-the conservative or traditional, the liberal, and the radical. The fundamental issue between the positive on the one hand and the partial and negative on the other is the supernatural; that between the partial and the negative is the purely natural elements in the Gospels, the one maintaining their validity in isolation from the supernatural elements, the other insisting that the union of the two

"Op. cit., p. 125.

invalidates both. And each of these views is concerned with the genetic problem. The positive offers an adequate solution if its premise is true; the partial is beset with the difficulty of separating the historical from the unhistorical; the partial and the negative have in common the task of discovering the forces which were productive of the unhistorical which, according to the one, constitutes part of, and according to the other, the whole of the content of the Gospels.

THE GENETIC PRINCIPLE

Apart from the fundamental issue of principle, the genetic principle seeks to explain historically the origin of the unhistorical elements in the Gospels however these may be defined. It is an evident fact that the Gospels are Christian documents. They were written by Christians and for Christians. They had their origin in a community constituted by its common faith. It is therefore possible that the faith and life of the community may have influenced the Gospel story. The particular form of this influence may be differently conceived; but in general this faith and the influence it may have exerted on Gospel tradition is the genetic principle which the partial and the negative theories share in the explanation of the unhistorical elements in the Gospels. The two views differ in regard to the origin and essential content of this faith, but they are agreed in maintaining for it a creative influence in the production of the Gospel story. The partial theory, finding a substantial element of natural occurrences in the Gospels which is historically trustworthy, seeks the explanation of the origin of primitive Christian faith in a human Jesus, a religious teacher of some distinction, who possibly claimed for himself the vocation of Messiah but who was subject by nature to and did not transcend the limitations of humanity. The negative theory discovers no historical elements in the Gospels and explains the origin of Christian faith in the distinctive quality attributed to its object. This was never

mere humanity subsequently transformed by apotheosis into deity but from the first deity incarnate in human form. To it this quality however shows that the object of Christian faith is mythological, for such an object can never have existed. The natural occurrences recorded in the Gospels, the historical setting of the earthly life of such a mythological person, are but the background upon which the story is sketched and the person himself simply a personification. The positive theory holds that each of these views is right in its central affirmation and wrong in what it denies. It maintains that Jesus was, as the Gospels witness, a true man --but not a mere man; and that in Him a divine person was incarnate-but not as a mythological personification.

The genetic principle is differently named; it manifests itself in a number of ways; and its application to the Gospels yields a variety of results. In the older Rationalism prior to Strauss it was conscious or unconscious deception which, in the Romantic movement, took the form of Essene influence. In Strauss it was the mythical theory, the unhistorical elements in the Gospels having their origin in an unconscious fiction which grew as legend in the Christian community but was chiefly mythical, not in the sense of a history of the gods but as the clothing of a fact in an idea. This process was stimulated and informed chiefly by Old Testament Messianic prophecy. In the Tübingen school the party factions of the early Church were held to have affected the form and content of the Gospels, Matthew being the Gospel of the Jewish Christian party, Luke of the Pauline, Mark representing a later stage, and John the final synthesis of opposing elements in a higher unity. This tendency criticism moreover was combined with an allegorizing interpretation of the Gospels.29 Weizsäcker30 distinguishes a creative from a reproductive element. Schmiedel31 finds

29

20 Cf. Weinel, Ist das "liberale" Jesusbild wiederlegt? 1910, p. 9. Das apostolische Zeitalter, 1892, p. 393.

31

Encyclopedia Biblica, ii. p. 1872; cf. Warfield, PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1913, pp. 195 ff.

in conformity to faith grounds of suspicion of invention, that being held certainly historical which is in contravention of Christian faith. Menzies32 enumerates an aetiological, an apologetic, and a devotional motive. Bowen33 names it "Messianisation"; and Bacon34 has developed the theory of "pragmatic values". Others discover traces of ecstatic elements in Jesus Himself and account for His influence in terms of an abnormal, psycho-pathological constitution.35 Representatives of the negative view have recourse either to the creative literary activity of an individual36— the original Evangelist-under the ethico-religious influences and tendencies of the Graeco-Roman world of the second century, or to mythological impulse having its origin

The Earliest Gospel, 1901, pp. 15 ff. Menzies says (ibid., p. 19): "But if we allow that the Gospel tradition was not made up of pure reminiscence, but was modified by the impulse to find in the life of Christ explanations of Church arrangements, by the interest of defending the Christian position, and by the desire for edification, are we driven to the conclusion that the tradition was an entirely unhistorical formation, and that it is not based on actual reminiscences at all? Such a conclusion would be most illogical. . . . The simple fact of the earlier account is surrounded in the later with a veil of wonder; details which might appear too rustic and plain are omitted; the figure of the Saviour is raised more and more above the earth; the story is made always more edifying, more impressive. These phenomena, of which the study of the Synoptic Gospels shows manifold instances, do not point to the conclusion that the facts on which tradition operated were themselves invented. On the contrary the facts were often too real for the tradition to use. They did not at first quite suit the purpose of the Christian community, but had to be changed in the unconscious process of transmission before they could be used."

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13 The Resurrection in the New Testament, 1911, pp. 402 ff. Similarly also W. Haupt (op. cit., p. 149): "Pious faith let rays from the glory of the returning Christ fall on suitable places in the earthly life of Jesus and thus created certain points at least that made clearly evident the Messiahship of its Lord. The few reminiscences of the deeds of Jesus that were retained were Messianically illumined; there began the process of a gradual Messianization of the life of Jesus." Journal of Biblical Literature, 1910, pp. 41 ff.

35

Cf. Schweitzer, Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu, 1913; "The Sanity of the Eschatological Jesus" in the Expositor, 1913, 6, pp. 328 ff., 439 ff., 554 ff.; Holtzmann, Lehrbuch d. neutest. Theologie, 1911, pp. 412 f., n. I.

Bruno Bauer, Kritik d. evang. Geschichte, etc.

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