appears to be derived from sources which we can identify as likely to be well informed; much of it was stereotyped and committed to writing at a comparatively early date; it reflects throughout a vivid and accurate local colour; lastly, each of the separate streams into which the tradition can be analysed presents what is substantially the same portrait of the same Figure-a sufficient indication that they are all, generally speaking, faithful renderings of the one original. When we come, however, to consider points of detail a distinction must be drawn between the tradition of the words and that of the deeds. The Oriental mind is trained to commit to memory and accurately reproduce the words of the religious teacher. It was so in the schools of the Rabbis, it is so to-day in Cairo or Constantinople. And though the Disciples cannot be regarded as a "school" in this sense (indeed, even the Rabbinic schools had not as yet achieved the formal method and organisation of later times), it is probable that the sayings of our Lord were remembered with far greater accuracy than would have been possible to modern minds accustomed to have recourse at once to writing. Nor must we forget that He was a master of expression, and the memory more easily retains the exact wording of a striking phrase than the minor detail of a striking scene. Moreover, the unconscious reaching after the effective, which inevitably influences a twice-told tale, has less scope where what is repeated is already expressed in an arresting way. On the other hand, as regards His deeds, it must be recognised that the case is otherwise. The Gospels were written mainly for practical and devotional purposes; their authors had not the same interests as a modern scientific historian. Hence many facts which would have been of the greatest interest to us, though known to these writers, are left unrecorded. Moreover, they are largely indifferent to that correct chrono logical sequence of events which is deemed essential by us moderns. All who study at all closely the combination of parallelisms and divergences in the first three Gospels, which constitute the Synoptic Problem so-called, are struck at once by the numerous omissions and re-arrangements made by Matthew and Luke in reproducing Mark's stories; and we cannot suppose that Mark in his turn would have dealt otherwise than they did with his sources of information, whether these were written or oral.1 Moreover, the faculty of accurately observing facts and of clearly distinguishing between what is actually observed and what is merely inferred therefrom, an essential characteristic of the modern scientific habit of mind, comes only from a careful training which found no place in ancient education. Every one is familiar with the fact that even to-day, and that not only among the uneducated, a good story, as we say, loses nothing in the telling. The narrator has his mind. fixed only on the main point and how he may present that in the most effective and telling way. Thus quite unconsciously he emphasises one detail and overlooks another, and is quite unaware that he has altered the balance of the facts, until he is confronted in the witness-box with the cross-examining counsel or questioned in the study by a scientific observer. A minute comparison of the text of Mark with those passages in Matthew and Luke which are derived from him, in several instances shows this tendency actually at work. And if the tendency could operate even after the tradition had been reduced to writing, it is obvious that its operation must be allowed for in our estimate of St. Mark, our earliest and principal authority for the Life, especially since the author was admittedly not an eye-witness, and was writing perhaps 1 Cf. my essay on the "Literary Evolution of the Gospels," in the Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem (edited by Dr. Sanday), for a fuller account of the influences which determined the composition of the Gospels. some thirty-five or forty years after the events he records. It is also obvious that the tendency would operate more especially in stories which have already in them a strong element of dramatic interest, such as the miracles. For instance, had the events underlying the famous story of the Gadarene swine been reported by a trained scientific observer, we may readily believe that some facts would have been added and others differently presented, the vital significance of which was unrealised by one who explained what he noticed on the theory of possession by demons and their migration. Nevertheless the realism and naturalness of St. Mark's representation, and in particular the candour and simplicity with which he records incidents implying something of human limitation in the Master, or of human infirmity in the Twelve-incidents which even in the other Synoptics are toned down, ignored, or explained away, and lastly, a convergence of smaller indications which cannot be here enumerated, make it evident that the tendencies noted have only operated to a limited extent, and that the element of deliberate or conscious misrepresentation is entirely absent. One final caveat must be entered. Christ is reflected to us only through what His disciples remembered and recorded of Him, and what we can infer from that. But what great man have his followers completely understood? Christ is greater than His disciples, greater therefore than the earliest records of Him. The later records show a tendency to magnify and idealise. The historian must note and allow for this, but he should beware lest in allowing for that which has exalted he overlook that which has impaired the picture. In all transcending genius there is an element which eludes analysis and soars beyond the analogies of our experience of lesser men. And if, as has been said, in the last resort every great man is a 1 Cf. op. cit. p. 223; also Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, 2nd ed., p. 117 ff. Great Unknown, how much more must this be true of Others abide our question-Thou art free! APOCALYPTIC ESCHATOLOGY AND THE MESSIANIC HOPE Prophets of Israel confident alike in the righteousness and might of their God, and in the consequent necessity that He would ultimately vindicate His people (or rather the godly "remnant" of them), in the darkest hours of danger from without and misgovernment within had confidently proclaimed a greater, better, happier age to come. Plato's ideal State, and modern pictures of Utopia and the Millennium, normally picture the ideal state of society as a highly organised system based on a more or less republican constitution. But the prophets of early Israel were familiar only with the simplest political, industrial, and military organisation, and were entirely without experience, either in their own case or their neighbours', of any form of state other than monarchical. Dreamers in such a stage of civilisation would most naturally picture their Utopia, their ideal state, as an ideal monarchy; for patriarchal monarchy was the only form of state they knew. For an ideal monarchy the principal requisite is an ideal king. Hence the hopes of many of the prophets centre on the figure of such a king-"a shoot from the stock of Jesse," a uniquely gifted "Son of David," who would restore the traditional glories of David's reign-to whom the name Messiah or Christ came later on to be applied. But the house of David failed to produce this king; and the nation went into exile, it returned again, it waited century after century still subject to the foreign yoke, still with its promised destiny unfulfilled. In the time of Isaiah it had not seemed beyond the bounds of possibility that a greater David, with some assistance of a not unprecedented kind from the God of battles, should repel Assyrian aggression and then proceed to reform abuses at home. But the Babylonian had taken the place of the Assyrian, the Persian of the Babylonian, and the Macedonian of the Persian, soon the Roman replaced the Macedonian. Each power was succeeded by one of greater military strength than its predecessor. What son of David could cope with this? And Antiochus Epiphanes, a monarch of the Syrian Macedonian house, did what the others never did: he tried to stamp out the religion of the nation. This at last it was felt must stir up the vengeance of the Lord of Hosts, and seeing that the armies of Israel were no more, "with His own right hand will He get Him the victory.' Thus the prophetic hope takes on a new shape. Israel is to be restored, not by the valour of a uniquely endowed sovereign of David's line, but by the direct catastrophic interference of God Himself.' Not only is the nature of the Messianic hope changed, the form of its literary expression changes also, and from the persecution of Antiochus dates the rise and prevalence of Apocalyptic with its characteristic Eschatology. The vivid directness of the ancient prophet is replaced by a complicated symbolism, to our modern taste fantastic and bizarre, influenced somewhat, it is thought, by Babylonian and Persian models. 1 Direct Divine action of a kind is no doubt contemplated in some of the earlier prophets, but it is conceived on a smaller scale and in far less catastrophic terms. 2 Strictly speaking Apocalyptic (= Revelation) is the name given to this type of literature on account of its form, i.e. revelation through visions expressed in a particular kind of symbolism. Eschatology is a name which more properly attaches to its matter, the description of the "Last Things," the end of the present world-order. The words, however, are often used as if they were synonymous. |