1

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS

THE
Psychology of Jesus
A STUDT OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF HIS SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

BY
Albert Wellman Hitchcock, Ph. D. (Clark)

boston
CHICAGO

Copyright, 1907, by
Frank K. Sanders

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. UJSJL.

DelicaUB to
CENTRAL CHURCH
WORCESTER
MASSACHUSETTS

PREFACE
The standpoint from which this study is made
is rather that of a layman than of a theologian,
and the treatment of questions of theology is
fuller and simpler in some places on that account.
Each age must get at the truth through the
forms of thought given into its keeping. Out of
the inherited words and the old methods of
approach, the student gathers up the essential
truth in every sphere and recasts it in the newer
and more familiar shapes of his day. The study
of the psychological development of Jesus was
assured from the time when in 1863 H. Holz-
mann asserted that Jesus did not claim to be the
Messiah until after the episode at Csesarea
Philippi. The battle-ground of criticism has
been chosen in the realm of psychology of late,
and scholarship is divided upon the question
whether we are justified in treating the Gospels
as of such historic value as to afford material
for a psychology of Jesus. Our day and race
do not judge historic accuracy in the same way
that the first century and the writers of Palestine

viii PREFACE
estimated it. We demand objectivity where
they were often satisfied with purely subjective
experiences; and our prosaic, matter-of-fact
minds do not always appreciate the poetic at
mosphere through which the Semites saw things,
and in which they wrote. This failure is the chief
cause of the absurd multiplication of the sects
of Protestantism.
Men of small literary culture, enthusiastic in
advocating a new faith, could hardly be expected
to escape subjective bias and the trend of the
times. And yet, beneath all recognizable current
influences without and within, an assured kernel
remains in the Gospels which brings to us an
outline sketch of one dominant character in un
mistakable originality and power. Making all
due allowances for Oriental imagination and the
zeal of eager partizans; for disagreements among
the evangelists due to their various points of view,
and the historic conceptions which they share
with writers like Livy and Tacitus, we are war
ranted in a careful and critical endeavor to
trace the development and inner life of the man
whose personality was the compelling power be
hind their lives as well as their narrative, and
whose teachings are the chief treasure of the
civilized world. There is none too much ma
terial, and it is none too well arranged, for a

PREFACE ix
Psychology of Jesus; but surely there is enough
to afford us ground for study.
This is an age of psychological approach in all
biography. Facts are dead until they are brought
into living contact with a person, and made to
take their places as contributory to his person
ality. We do not know a person until we have
gained access to him on this inner side. How
he acted, and how he reacted to experience, how
he grew, and what his point of view was at
successive stages of his life, what influences his
experiences had upon him, and what the pre
dominant motives were which ruled his spirit —
these are the considerations raised in studying a
life. If there was no life of Christ, apart from the
Gospels, until modern times, the multiplication
of such attempts at biography within the last
fifty years is proof of the value found in them.
These lives of Christ make use of a genetic order
more or less clearly traced in the Gospel story,
but nowhere in English, at least, has any one
given a thorough study of the psychological
development of Jesus Christ. The nearest ap
proach to it is in a book by a German scholar
(Baldensperger's Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu)
which has recently appeared in a new edition
and which has earned a high place in the litera-

x PREFACE
ture of the New Testament student. A fertile
field of suggestion and vision is opened by the
psychological approach for the study and the
understanding of this fascinating personality
as it is pictured in the Gospels.
If Jesus was perfectly human, then we must
conclude with Frederic Denison Maurice that
he was therefore divine. H the race is in any
true sense the offspring of God, as both Old and
New Testament declare, then a perfect human
being is divine. I find the character of Jesus
such that he is rendered exceptional among men
by his finer quality. It is therefore with a free
hand that this study is undertaken, on the purely
human basis. To apply the common methods
of study to Jesus is not rendered impossible,
even if he be all that the New Testament claims
for him. A normal person, developed psy
chologically to fullest spiritual being, would not
be removed from the action of ordinary psy
chological laws. He would not acquire knowl
edge otherwise than as his fellows do, nor would
he become an authority upon matters he never
studied. His mind would be keen, and his
intuitions acute and accurate, but he would live
like other men and grow according to genetic
laws. The story which is more revered and loved

PREFACE xi
than any other told by the lips of man; the life
which opens our eyes to the fuller meanings of
life as no other has done; the character which
has moved the world upward more than any
other — story, life, character, cannot be ac
counted for as the creation of imagination, how
ever strongly the person of Jesus may have acted
to draw the myths and fancies of the centuries
and the races after him. Jesus is not merely an
ideal of our highest dreams; he came to be that
because he was a character in history first. As
such a character he must be studied, in all rever
ence, and yet with perfect frankness, that we may
read between the lines the processes by which he
came "unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
The writer would express his great debt to the
Rev. T. T. Munger, D.D., of New Haven, Con
necticut, and Prof. F. C. Porter, D.D., of Yale
University, who have given valuable criticism
of the manuscript, and to President G. Stanley
Hall, LL.D. of Clark University, under the
inspiration of whose instruction and friendly
interest the task has been completed.

INTRODUCTION
The author of this volume was suddenly
removed by an untimely death, leaving a family
and a church to mourn his loss. He had just
received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
from Clark University, and this book in manu
script form had been accepted as his thesis. It
is now printed as he intended, but by his widow,
and without his final revision. Some fifteen
years ago, when he was a student in Germany,
the idea of a psychology of Jesus was first sug
gested to his mind by Baldensperger's Selbst-
bewusstsein Jesu. It has since grown with his
growth, and in it are incorporated not only many
of the best results of an unusually rich pastoral
life, but also of diligent reading and study.
Two prominent lines of thought seem to have
dominated his work: first, the progressive
realism of how much Jesus owed to the best
thought of his own time and to the teachings of
the Hebrew schools of his own century and of
that immediately preceding; and, secondly, the
naturalness of Jesus' life and development.

xiv INTRODUCTION
The one, while it made Jesus not less sublime,
showed him to be less isolated and more con
nected with the best tendencies of his own age
of which he was the culmination. The other
made him seem sane, normal, and less dependent
upon the supernatural in claiming the reverence
of the children of men. What he did and said
were all human, but they were phenomena of
altitude directly in the line of man's highest
development, only indefinitely farther along and
higher up than any others had yet attained,
although not hopelessly beyond the possibilities
of the higher superman that is to be, if optimism
is true and if evolution is to continue. The
supernatural birth was an honor, a diploma
summa cum laude that his followers sometime
after his death conferred upon him, not with
deliberate purpose but by the deep instinct that
animates the folk soul, so that it is to us a precious
and standing memento of the affection and
respect he inspired in those who wrought under
his influence and in his spirit. So the resurrec
tion, which the author briefly treats in Chapter XI,
was chiefly a psychic or spiritual truth not less
but more valid and precious as a pledge of im
mortality than if it were merely a crass carcous
reanimation. So of miracles: "Once men be
lieved in Christ because they believed in

INTRODUCTION xv
miracles. Now, they believe the miracles because
they believe in Christ" (p. 195). This too will
only illustrate the operations of higher laws of
the moral order and are supernatural, as mind
and will are. "Law and not its infraction is the
sign of God's presence," even though the law
may not be known. He was certainly a mar
velous physician, using the therapeutics of his
age with superlative efficiency. Our author was
profoundly impressed, as are a few other of the
most progressive minds of to-day, with the con
viction that the mind has a vastly greater power
over the body than the world has ever yet be
lieved and that the ministrations of religion may
with great propriety begin with hygiene, bodily
and spiritual. The historicity of the three resur
rections which the Gospels report Jesus to have
effected, the author could possibly resign with
no sense of essential loss (pp. 211-13). The
temptations are veracious records of the typical
struggles of great souls between selfish and
altruistic plans of life. Love, service of God and
man are the substance of the record of both
Jesus' words and deeds. Old forms of belief
are deciduous and fall away of themselves when
new and higher types of faith and deeper in
sights arise. It is worse than folly to destroy
them, for the pedagogy of nature provides that

xvi INTRODUCTION
they shall quietly lapse from consciousness when
higher principles appear. This book is a wit
ness of the tendency now more and more apparent
to get behind tradition and all the records and
reconstruct the ideal of Jesus' life and deeds.
The world needs and is slowly evolving a psy
chology of the evangelists and of Jesus himself.
His great achievements of conscious Messianity,
of divine Sonship, and of conceiving and found
ing a kingdom of God in the world are all in
accord with the principles of a psychology vaster
and higher than any that has yet been wrought
out or even conceived by any of the experts now
so very actively cultivating that department.
He is a way more than a goal ; his method of ful
filling by ever deeper explanation rather than
by destroying, will make him normative for the
world till there is a higher and stronger faculty
in the soul than love, a loftier object for it to
cleave to than God, or a nobler object to serve
than mankind.
G. Stanley Hall.
March, 16, 1908.

CONTENTS

PART I
THE ENVIRONMENT OF JESUS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Literature Behind the Life of Jesus . . 3
II The Theology of the Jews  27
UI The World-view: Jewish, Greek and Roman . 56
IV The Social Atmosphere of Palestine ... 73

PART II
THE DEVELOPMENT OP JESTTS
V The Youth of Jesus  89
VI The Temptation  117
VII The Kingdom of God, According to Jesus . . 130
VHI The Messianic Titles, as Jesus Used Them . . 143
IX Jesus as a Teacher  167
X The Miracles and the Attitude of Jesus Toward
Them  194
XI The Death and Resurrection of Jesus as He Re
garded Them  218
XII The Psychological Approach to Jesus . . . 246

PART I
THE ENVIRONMENT OF JESUS

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS

CHAPTER I
the literature behind the like of jesus
Or the two forces which seem to determine
life, Heredity and Environment, the latter may
be more accurately traced and more exactly esti
mated. No study of the psychological develop
ment of Jesus can be undertaken without a
careful examination of the elements engaged,
however meagerly, in the shaping of his mental life
and the equipment of his spirit for the work he
did. Atmospheres are not easily measured, and
spiritual forces cannot be traced back, like streams,
with certainty to their sources, but no human
being can exist in utter indifference to his sur
roundings nor be impervious to the influences
which work upon him in his youth. It cannot be
that Jesus, so intensely human in his make-up,
so delicately poised and responsive as he was in
the midst of friends and foes alike, grew to man
hood without imbibing much from the intimate
3

4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
environment of his home, his race, and the wider
social forces which played upon him. We are
not only warranted, but compelled, to ask what
these influences were. In the first part of this
study the task will be to discover the nature of
the mental, moral, and physical environment of
Jesus, and to set it forth accordingly.
The Old Testament is the first source of in
formation as to the background of the life of
Jesus. Under the devoted nurture of the scribes,
the sacred books were not only cherished but dis
cussed and commented upon in every word and
letter. The Law in particular was expanded and
refined until it was applied with nicest casuistry
to every possible event, and wherever it proved
inconvenient as a "regula fidei," it was handled
so as to obviate difficulties and enable its devotees
to evade awkward situations. The Hebrew
Scriptures were read in every synagogue, and
interpreted in the dialect of the people, each
Sabbath day. They were studied in the schools,
and no books were so familiar to the average
child as these. The Old Testament, as arranged
by the scribes, was classified as Law, Prophets,
and Sacred Writings, and was given veneration
in that order in a descending scale. The legal
traditions, later gathered into the Mishna and
Talmud, existed side by side with the Scriptures,

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 5
as a code of current practise. This oral law was
called Halacha, or "The Way"; and Hillel was
regarded as the first to organize it into a system.
Haggada, "utterance," or "narrative," was the
designation of all non-legal traditions, the free
and various expositions of Scripture which had not
the authority of the Halacha, and had to do with
thoughts and fancies, not with rules for conduct.
There was great literary activity among the
Jews. The Pseudepigraphical literature was
growing out of the efforts to readjust the form of
Old Testament history to the new conditions in
which the nation found itself in religious matters,
during the last Jewish and the first Christian
century, and to prepare for the future. Enoch,
Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Solomon, Isaiah,
Baruch, and Ezra were thus honored in being
made to speak to the needy hearts. Not all of
these writings appeared under assumed names,
nor were they all apocalyptic in content, but they
shared these two characteristics quite generally.
The sixteen Apocryphal Books of the Old
Testament are similar to these in their origin,
but different in the style of their composition.
They are in part imitations or supplements of
the older books, rather than modern adaptations;
in part histories of their own time. They form
a body of national literature arising after the age

6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
of canonical utterance, and, like the Pseudepi-
graphs, some of them pass under respected names
of antiquity, although the apocalyptic element
is generally wanting. While they come nearer
to the historical parts of the Old Testament, they
lack the prophetic power that lifts to the heights
of great Messianic hopes. A German writer has
called them the golden ring which weds the Old
and the New Testaments.
The source of the Apocalyptic literature was
the Jewish religious nature; and veneration for
the canonical Scriptures determined the form.
The age after the captivity was barren of great
spirits. Originality and inspiration were gone.
"There is no more any prophet; neither is there
among us any that knoweth how long" (Psalm
74: 9; I Mace. 4: 46; 9: 27; 14: 41). Good men
were desperate as regards their day. Pessimism
was the prevalent mood. The need of spiritual
comfort and hope was keenly felt, but was pointed
backward, to what had been, for its satisfaction.
Hence grew the reverence for the words of those
who had spoken as inspired by God, and hence
the growing wall about the canon.1 Schools of
students of the Law and the Prophets began to
write books, expounding and expanding their
precious legacy. From the same tendency sprang
» Schultz, Alttest. Theol., p. 371.

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 7
books which addressed the present age as the
hero or father whose name they bore might
have spoken, had he been in the writers' place.
They represented a transcendent God and a
people hopeless of better things in the present,
but bound at last to recover themselves and to
become supreme. When the Haggada drew out
into long dissertations the words of Scripture, or
turned them by a quibble or an argument of
casuistry, the result was not so different in outer
form from the books bearing the name of a
prophet or a holy man in whose spirit they were
supposed to speak. There was no hesitancy
about issuing books under other men's names,
for most Jewish writers, except the prophets,
working in honor of God and the Church, wrote
anonymously, and literary proprietorship in the
modern sense was unknown. Probably the first
readers did not think of the books written under
the name of Enoch or Baruch or Ezra as actually
emanating from the worthy named. No thought
of deceit entered, on either side. As Dillmann
observes, it was only a step further than the
classical authors went in putting long speeches
into the mouths of their heroes. Only as time
passed and places changed did there arise any
danger that the assumed would be confused with
the real utterances of the ancients.

8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Since a religious need called forth these pro
ductions, their chief motives are religious instruc
tion, warning, encouragement, and comfort.
They have been styled " Tracts for Bad Times."
The form yielded itself naturally to these purposes,
and furnished a starting-point and an aim; the
former, in the character of the one assumed to
speak; the latter, in the Messianic hope. The
apocalyptic motif begins with the Day of Jehovah,
which was in an earlier time the day of conquest
foretold of all the prophets, when Jehovah
would scatter the enemies of the nation. More
and more the Day became a time of vengeance,
and only a pious remnant was to escape. The
fancy of the apocalyptic writers was set free to
depict, with every embellishment of Oriental
symbolism run riot, the idea of this awful Day.
It seems, as Mathews suggests,1 as if a people
forbidden to set forth their dreams in stone or
color were driven, under tutelage of the familiar
animal myths of Babylon, to paint in words the
wildest visions of their fancy. Under such forms
the Hope lived and flourished. Daniel and
Revelation represent this literature in the Bible.
A chronological classification would be the
most satisfactory for our purpose, were it not
so difficult of attainment. Baldensperger has
1 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament.

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 9
attempted it, but with much uncertainty. Pro
fessor Charles has done the same, and his work
marks progress in the study of their contents;
but the careless handling of the facts most sig
nificant for us by early Christian readers makes
it difficult to estimate the value of these books,
and lessens the significance of their dates.1 It
seems better to present the material in classes
according to form of composition, and then to
indicate their chronological contribution to the
Messianic Hope. They can be arranged under
three divisions : —
(1) Prophetic matter, including Apocalypses
and Testaments.
(2) Historical Books, which work over his
torical material, and
(3) Lyrical and Oracle Poems.
Some such division is followed by both Dill
mann and Zockler.
The Apocalypses are in the style of the old
Prophets, from the standpoint of those who held
prediction to be the great and peculiar gift of
prophets, and who believed that to the lucky
solver of its riddles the prophetic Scripture would
yield secrets of all the future. Consequently,
mingled with practical comfort and hope, there
is much that is vague and mysterious. A new
1 Encyclopedia Biblia, Article Apoc. Lit.

10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
idea of God, the world and human life was born
in the Apocalypse. Vision is the favorite vehicle
to carry one into the future and onward to the
consummation; and so characteristic of the age
is this tendency that it appears in other than the
Apocalyptic Books.
1. Prophetic Matter. — The largest and
most important book of this class is the Ethiopic
Enoch, which includes, according to Dillmann,
fragments of an Apocalypse of Noah. The one
hundred and eight chapters are divided into sec
tions which betray widely differing dates, from
before 170 b.c. (chaps. 1 to 36), to as late as
64 B.C. (parts of 37-70).1
Enoch gives us the full system of the compiler's
philosophy, — natural, mental and spiritual. It
is a cycle rather than a book. It treats of the
fall of the angels and its consequences, narrates
parables of the Kingdom of the Messiah, enters
the realm of astronomy and physics, and carries
us in vision to the future consummation, ending
with warnings of Enoch, addressed to his descend
ants. The text has been treated with a free hand
by Christians, and is occasionally interpolated.
There is an earnest Old Testament spirit per
vading the whole, as the thoughts of the Messiah
and his kingdom and the secrets of the seen and
1 Charles.

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 11
the unseen world are revealed. The key-note is
judgment. There is close relationship to the
book of Daniel. The Son of man is described
in similar language, but here (chaps. 37-70) the
term is undoubtedly applied to a person, the
Messiah, rather than to the people of Israel.
The aim is particularistic, — to rid the readers
of personal faults, rather than national, like the
aim of Daniel. It is Pharisaic, rather than
Sadducaic or worldly. The righteous and the
sinners are the two classes. A union of Daniel's
metaphysical picture and the material promises
of the prophets is attempted. A new type of
Messiah, appearing first in judgment at the
consummation, was thus produced. Preexist-
ent, as were Moses, the ceremonial implements,
and the law, the Messiah is revealed to men
and has power over their fate. He is addressed
in prayer. He is called Son of man, the Elect,
the Anointed, the Righteous. His principal
function is that of Judge; and in the judgment
he is to sit on the throne of God. The resurrec
tion and judgment are the grand climax of all
things, a poetically conceived event falling be
tween the earth and heaven, between this
age and the age to come. The fate of all
men is fixed at the day of judgment. The
expected punishment is in quenchless fire. Re-

12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
wards are in some parts of the book purely
physical, as a life of five hundred years, one
thousand children, and a peaceful death at last.
Fields are to be marvelously fruitful, and joy
and gladness will reign. The heathen will be
converted, Jerusalem is to be the center of the
world, and the empire of the Jewish king will
become universal. The Messiah in one vision
is symbolized as a white bull, but he is given no
duties of judge or general; he merely receives
the kingdom from the hand of God (chaps.
83-90). The whole collection lacks unity.
There is no one mastering idea in it. The changes
are rung upon these four conceptions: a
divine deliverance, a day of judgment, punish
ment of the wicked in fire, and resurrection
of the righteous. There was in part a cutting
loose from the earthly-political ideal, to go over
to the supernatural. Yet by no means was there
an approach to the conception of an inner spiritual
kingdom in the hearts of men. Baldensperger
styles the author " a Jewish Dante " ; but he was
without the great Italian's genius, and devoid
of his inspiration in a nobler theme. Professor
Charles has cited over one hundred passages
where he finds contact between Enoch and the
New Testament. Two of these appear in the
Gospels, where Jesus tells the Sadducees that

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 13
the angels do not marry, and where the evil spirits
are represented as beseeching Jesus not to tor
ment them before their time.
The Assumptio Mosis is " an apocalyptic bird's-
eye view of Moses over Israel's history,"1 and
some parts indicate the date to be as late as from
6 a.d. to 30 a.d. It seems to have emanated from
one devoted to the hope of his nation, a Pharisee
who protests against Sadducees or against Zealots,
and it belongs to a high spiritual trend of apoca
lypse. No Messiah is mentioned, but the ten
tribes are to return and the theocratic kingdom
will be set up. God will punish his enemies in
Gehenna, and the Remnant will be glorious.
Under the name of Moses many books appeared,
in both Jewish and Christian literature.
Fourth Ezra (2 Esdras 3 : 14) is an important
apocalypse written perhaps thirty years after
the destruction of Jerusalem. It contains strik
ing points of likeness to St. Paul in regard to the
significance of Adam, the power of sin in human
nature, and the impotency of the law. The
apocalypse of Baruch is perhaps a composite
work, written in Hebrew chiefly about 90 a.d.,
and comes to us only in Syriac. Schiirer finds in
it attempt to answer the question, "How is the
calamity of Israel and the impunity of its oppres-
1 Dillmann.

14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
sors possible and conceivable ? " It treats of the
resurrection in a way that calls to mind the words
of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
Ascensio Isaice, a composite, combines Jewish
and Christian authorship, and began to appear
early in the first Christian century, in Greek.
The Visio Isaice, a Christian apocalypse of the
end of the century, represents Christ descending
through the seven heavens to liberate captives
of death in Hades and then ascending to the
throne of God. It employs the title "The Be
loved" of the Messiah as it is used of Israel in
Deut. 33: 12; Isa. 44: 2, etc.
Of Testaments, we have still a Testamentum
Duodecim Patriarchorum, written in Hebrew and
preserved to us in Greek and other versions.
It is the work of two or more Jews and dates
from about 130 B.C. to the early Christian
decades, after which it was fully and frequently
changed by additions and interpolations of a
Christian character.
2. Historical Books. — Here we have illus
tration and application of the Old Testament
historic narrative in various parts, with frequent
use of legends and fairy tales for this purpose.
Sometimes exegesis, and sometimes mere narra
tive, affords the groundwork. The purpose is
prophetic, to give comfort and hope, so that there

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 15
is close relationship to the apocalypses. Little
Genesis or Jubilees is the most interesting book
of this class, presenting in haggadic fashion the
history of the time from creation to Moses, in
fifty periods of forty-nine years each. It shows
a dependence upon Enoch, and ignorance of the
destruction of Jerusalem. It must fall very near
or just before the time of Christ. It is the work
of a Pharisee in Palestine. It is anti-Roman,
and seeks to ground the nation's cultus in the
earliest age of history. It is of interest, as
Baldensperger says, more because of the pious
Jewish outlook on the world at the beginning
of our era which it gives, than because of specific
Messianic expressions. Ronsch calls it a "For
mula concordia? filiorum Israel," in a time when
the temptation was strong to leave the old faith.
It declares that God will gather the people, build
among them his sanctuary, and dwell with them.
3. Lyrical Poems and Oracles. — The
Sibylline Oracles in twelve books and fragments,
probably of Alexandrian origin, are of varying
age and interest. They were compiled in the
sixth century and originally numbered fourteen.
The third book, which interests us most, is dated
from 168 B.C. to 124 B.C. and is the work of an
Alexandrian Jew. Other books date from 30 to
200 a.d., and are mostly from Christian hands.

16 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
These Oracles did not have much formative in
fluence in Palestine at an early date, because of
their Alexandrian origin and essentially Greek
character. The work aimed to oppose the
Gentiles rather than to proclaim the Messiah.
The form it assumed was popular among the
Romans, who held certain sibylline oracles in
very high esteem. This fact gave unusual cur
rency to these books, and a certain fictitious
value. The most striking lines of the Oracles
are the following: —
" Kai t6t d-w 7/eXtoto 6eos ire'fj.'f/ei paa-iKqa
$s irao-av yatav 7rai5ffet to\£[loio kclkoTo
60s p.lv &pa Kreivas oh d' optaa incTa TeXtotras.
oijde ye rats tStats fiovXcus rdde irdvra iroi-fio-ei.
dXXa 0eoi/ fj.eyd\oio iridyo-as Sdyixaaiv eVflXcus."
— Ill, 652-656.
ai/Tij yap p.eyd\oio 6eoC Kplcris -qSe Kai apxtf." — Ill, 783.
"And then from heaven God shall send a King,
Who shall restrain all lands from evil war,
Destroying some, with others keeping oath,
Nor of his counsel shall he do all this,
Obeying wise decrees of the great God."
"For this is now God's judgment and behest."
The Psalter Solomonis sprang from the highest
spiritual level of the pious Jew, and approaches
the spirit of the canonical Old Testament litera-

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 17
ture more closely than anything else of that
period. Eighteen in number, these psalms are
all devout prayers addressed to God as the only
true King. They are of Pharisaic origin, and
it is possible that they were used in the synagogue
service. They bear certain marks which indicate
their origin as between 63 and 48 B.C. In them
the Christian can find true reverence and devo
tion. They reflect an unholy political usurpation
on the one side, and on the other a strong ex
pression of earnest longing for the kingdom of
God (2: 36; 5: 22; 17: 1, 38). Fulfilment of the
Messianic promises is expected (7: 9; 11: 16);
the Anointed, the promised Son of David, is
anticipated (17 : 23 ; 18 : 6) and Xptoros is the very
word employed. The tone of high religious hope
is sustained throughout, which fact led to the
incorporation of these psalms in a few manu
scripts of the Greek Bible. A comparison of
them with the so-called Maccabean Psalms of
our Psalter, such as 44, 74, 79, 83, gives a reason
for following Calvin, Hitzig, Schiirer and others
in the opinion that many psalms were written
in these years of inter-Testamental silence, and
that here, too, one might find proof of the ten
dencies of the age to turn from a far-off God of
glory to a gracious God of the Covenant and the
theophanies of the Fathers.

18 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
In these Scriptures, most of them originating
before the Christian era, we have an unconscious
exhibition of the Jewish thought of the time on
religion. To understand these books one must
associate them with their model and father, the
Book of Daniel. To understand that and its
train, one must recall the history of the people
about the beginning of the second century B.C.
Successful for a time in their struggles against
oppressors, there seemed great promise of a reali
zation of the nation's hopes, and this literature
began as an expression of them, but continued
even when the struggle became desperate.
Thus far we have considered only that thought
which preceded and surrounded Jesus. The
best authorities, however, for his life and thought
are his contemporaries. But how much have
they given us of fact and reliable incident? The
Gospels are still under searching criticism. The
strongest opponent to those who reject the major
part of the text as unhistorical and untrust
worthy is the character of Jesus himself which
the Gospels have pictured. If the early tradi
tion was now and then in error, and the writers
blundered here and there, they did succeed in
preserving for us a most artistic result, and a
priceless treasure. One must admit the validity
of the criticism which discovers a certain homi-

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 19
letic tendency in the Gospels. Events are
applied and expanded, teachings are explained
and turns of expression or of thought are given,
which the writers, however careful and exact,
would naturally adopt because they had a per
sonal interest in what they wrote. Moreover,
the oldest of the Gospels, that of Mark, has least
of this element, and the latest of them, the Fourth
Gospel, has most of it, as one would naturally
expect. Jesus was doubtless often misunder
stood by his hearers, and by those who gathered
and edited the Gospels, which were written to
serve the practical purpose of awakening and
confirming faith. Are they for this reason less
exact as historical records, or are they the more
accurate? They dealt with the inner life of
Jesus as the most important matter in the world
to the writers. This supreme interest ought to
have made them more faithful witnesses to the
essential and spiritual content of the gospel they
cherished. They betray the Hebrew mode of
thought, the Aramaic dialect, and the atmosphere
of Greek thought in part, through which media
we look back at the whole history and the Person
who dominates it all.
A discerning and cultured English scholar
has lately written:1 "Whatever doubt men may
1 From a College Window, by A. C. Benson, p. 346.

20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
feel as to the literal accuracy of these records in
matters of fact, however much it may be held
that the relation of incidents was colored by the
popular belief of the time in the possibility of
miraculous manifestations, yet the words and
sayings of Christ emerge from the narrative,
though in places it seems as though they had been
imperfectly apprehended, as containing and ex
pressing thoughts quite outside the range of the
minds that recorded them; and thus possess an
authenticity which is confirmed and proved by
the immature mental grasp of those who com
piled the records, in a way in which it would not
have been proved if the compilers had been
obviously men of mental acuteness and far-
reaching philosophical grasp."
Mark excels in vivid narrative and his Gospel
is commonly thought to present an orderly
scheme of the life of Jesus. Matthew reports
the teaching of Jesus, and evidently writes with
Jewish readers in mind, in part after an Aramaic
written tradition. Luke comes next to these in
time, and closely follows the same tradition, with
intent to give a more chronological account.1
John belongs to the second stage of thought and
interest concerning Jesus and his message. The
Fourth Gospel is not to be rejected as a witness,
1 Luke 1 : 1-1.

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 21
but stands rather as an interpreter of truth than
as an authority for the "ipsissima verba" of
history. It does not purport to be primarily a
historical work, but is frankly doctrinal from the
first. In general, reliance can be placed upon
the accuracy of Mark, Matthew, and Luke in
that order, with added assurance through agree
ment among them.
Jesus applies prophecy to himself only four
times, according to the Gospels, — once in Mark
(12: 10, 11), and three times in Luke (4: 18,19;
20: 17; 22: 37). He does not plainly say in any
one of these allusions that the passage, or indeed
any Old Testament prophecy, had original
reference to himself. Dr. Macfarland in his
recent book x finds explicit denial of such use in
the passages Mark 12 : 36, 37 and Matthew 11 : 10.
If I fail to find denial there, I fail also to find
demonstrable claims of prophetic endorsement
made by Jesus for himself as Messiah. His use
of quotations seems rather to be either on the
basis of the scribal custom, to meet his hearers'
needs, or else as a purely spiritual assistance in
making an impression for good.
The witness of other New Testament books
to the thought-forms of the age and the course
of events, especially the Acts and the epistles,
1 Jesus and the Prophets.

22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
has not been overlooked. The reaction of St.
Paul against the traditional training he had
received is one of the best expositions of the
theology of his day and people.
It may not be amiss to print here one of
the psalms of Solomon, in a translation from the
Greek which generally follows that of Ryle and
James, but preserves the future tense of the
verbs where their rendering uses the historic
tenses. This psalm contains the fullest and
finest exposition anywhere to be found in Jewish
writings of the conception of the Messiah which
we may assume to have been most widely current
in the time of Christ.
Psalm of Solomon, XVII
1. O Lord, thou art our King, henceforth and
forevermore, for in thee O God our soul exulteth.
2. And what is the time of man's life upon
the earth? Even according to the measure of
his time, so is his hope in it.
3. But as for us, we will hope in God, our
Saviour, for the might of our God endureth for
ever with mercy.
4. And the kingdom of our God forever, over
nations in judgment.
5. Thou O Lord didst choose David king
over Israel and didst swear unto him concern
ing his seed forever, that his kingdom should
not fail before thee.

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 23
6. But in our sins, sinners rose up against us;
they fell upon us and thrust us out; they to whom
thou gavest no promise plundered us with vio
lence. 7. And they esteemed not thy glorious name
in praise; they set a kingdom above their own
excellence. 8. They laid waste the throne of David in a
tumultuous shout of triumph. But thou O God
didst cast them down and remove their seed from
the earth.
9. When there arose against them a man a
stranger to our race.
10. According to their sins shalt thou reward
them O God! May it befall them according
to their works.
15. In that he was an alien, the adversary
wrought insolence, and his heart was alien from
our God.
16. And all things whatsoever he did in Jeru
salem, just so the Gentiles do in their cities unto
their gods.
18. They that loved the assemblies of the
saints fled from them; they were scattered as
the sparrows from their nest.

20. Over all the earth were they scattered,
and driven by lawless men. For the heaven
ceased to drop rain on the earth.
21. Because there was none among them

24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
who did righteousness and judgment, from their
ruler to the least of the people, they were alto
gether sinful.
22. The king was a transgressor and the judge
was disobedient and the people were sinful.
23. Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them
their king, the son of David in the time when
thou O God knowest, that he may reign over
Israel thy servant.
24. And gird him with strength that he may
break in pieces them that rule unjustly.
25. Purge Jerusalem from the nations that
trample her down in destruction, with wisdom
and with righteousness.
26. Thrust out the sinners from the inheri
tance to annihilate the haughtiness of the sinful,
as a potter's vessel with a rod of iron, to break
in pieces all their substance.
27. To destroy the ungodly nations with the
word of his mouth, so that at his rebuke the
nations may flee before him and to convict
sinners in the word of their heart.
s- 28. And he shall gather together a holy people
whom he shall lead in righteousness; and shall
judge the tribes of the people that hath been
sanctified by the Lord his God.
29. And he shall not suffer iniquity to lodge
in the midst of them; and none that knoweth
evil shall dwell with them.
30. For he shall know them well that they
all are sons of their God, and shall divide them
according to their tribes upon the earth.
31. And the sojourner and the foreigner shall

LITERATURE BEHIND LIFE OF JESUS 25
no more dwell with them. He shall judge the
peoples and the nations in the wisdom of his
righteousness. Selah.
32. And he shall possess the peoples of the
nations to serve him beneath his yoke; and he
shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen of the
whole earth.
33. And he shall purge Jerusalem in holiness
as in the days of old.
34. That the nations may come from the
ends of the earth to see his glory, bringing as
gifts her exhausted sons,
35. And to see the glory of the Lord where
with God hath glorified her. And he shall be
a righteous king and taught of God over them.
36. And there shall be no unrighteousness in
his days in the midst of them, for all shall be
holy and their king shall be the Lord.
37. For he shall not put his trust in horse and
rider and bow, nor shall he multiply unto him
self gold and silver for war, nor by ships shall he
gather hopes for the day of battle.
38. The Lord himself is his king, the hope
of him that is strong in the hope of God. And
he shall have mercy upon all the nations before
him in fear.
39. For he shall smite the earth with the word
of his mouth forever.
40. He shall bless the people of the Lord
with wisdom, with gladness.
41. And he is pure from sin, to rule a great
people, to rebuke princes and overthrow sinners
by the might of his word.

26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
42. And he shall not faint in his days, resting
upon his God ; for God shall cause him to be mighty
with the holy spirit, and wise in the counsel of un
derstanding, with strength and righteousness.
43. And the blessing of the Lord is with him
in strength, and his hope in the Lord shall not
weaken. 44. And who can avail anything against him?
He is mighty in his deeds and strong in the fear
of God,
45. Shepherding the flock of the Lord in faith
and righteousness; and he shall suffer none
among them to faint in their pasture.
46. In holiness shall he lead them all, and
there shall be no pride among them to cause
any to be oppressed.
47. This is the majesty of the king of Israel,
which God knew to elevate him over Israel, to
instruct him.
48. His words shall be purified above fine
gold, yea above the choicest gold.
In the congregation will he judge among the
peoples, the tribe of the sanctified.
49. His words shall be as the words of the holy
ones in the midst of the sanctified people.
50. Blessed are they coming into being in
those days to behold the good things of Israel
when God shall bring to pass in the gathering
of the tribes together.
51. May God hasten his mercy toward Israel!
may he deliver us from the defilement of unhal
lowed enemies.
The Lord he is our King forever and ever.

CHAPTER II
the theology of the jews
Whatever the facts may be as to the person
and the development of Jesus we cannot under
stand him or his teachings until we form some
conception of the thought-forms and instruments
of expression current in the world into which he
came and to the use of which he was of necessity
confined. An exhaustive study of Hebrew
thought is neither necessary nor possible in
pursuing the task of this book. But the Jewish
theology, especially its Messianic conceptions,
in so far as it seems to condition at least the
expression, if not the form, of the Christian con
sciousness, must be known to the student of the
mind of Christ.
Two dominant principles controlled Jewish
religious thought throughout the period forma
tive for the New Testament. They sprang from
the popular attitude toward the Law and the
popular need of a Deliverer; and thus they repre
sent the ancient schools of the priests and the
prophets. A new conception of God which
27

28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
governed the religious attitude of Judaism be
came almost universal. The emphasis upon the
Law, itself springing from and intended to carry
out the national idea of God's supremacy, soon
began to draw attention to the Law itself and
away from God. The means superseded the
end, the channel the source. An absence of
great spirits to inspire and point the nation to
God as King, the difficulties and oppression
experienced in the State, the disheartening strife
within their own numbers, where the more
religious lost control and the very place and
instruments of worship were in impious hands,
resulted in a practical substitution of the Law
for the living presence of God.1 He was always
the Creator, to the Jews. He was ever exalted.
But the old prophets and poets of Israel had
brought him near, into daily life. Now there
were no such leaders; their places were filled by
the growing school of scribes, who studied the
Scriptures and extolled the Law. To them, too,
God was exalted, and because he was so lofty in
his being he was not involved in the low affairs
of daily history and life. He had given to Israel
1 " God stands in connection with a man in so far as the
man is in connection with the Thorah. This forms the bond
of union between God and men." — Weber, Die Lehren des
Talmud, p. 47.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 29
a law by which his will was made manifest.
That the scribes declared is all they need.1 Their
duty is to the Law, not to God in any personal
relation, for God is transcendent. The only
worthy part of the Old Testament is the Law;
had it not been for sin the remainder had never
been given to men. It is a perfect revelation for
eternity (Baruch 4: l). God has fixed his will
for men there, and to it men must account. So
the study of the Law is man's highest calling.
God himself sits in a white robe and studies the
Thorah many hours of the day. Such a God,
unrelated to men save by closed decrees, cannot
even be named. He is the Holy, blessed be His
Name, the Place (Q1P£), the Eternal. His
true name is secret (Enoch 69: 14 ff.); it dare not
be pronounced by profane lips (Weber, p. 144;
Baldensperger, p. 40).
Such an idea of God must have rested upon
the consciences of the people like a constant
haunting terror. The men who made study of
the Law were ever in doubt and dispute them
selves as to when and how the various rules they
set in and about it might be broken. Nothing
but uncertainty could prevail as to one's status
1 "To learn the Thorah and to fulfill the Thorah are the
two chief ends of life for the pious Israelite." — Weber, Die
Lehren des Talmud, p. 28.

30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
before God. But that condition was intolerable.
There must be some way of approach to God.
There must be an avenue of escape. It was
sought through intermediate beings, hypostatized
Wisdom (Prov. 1: 20 and 8: Iff.; Enoch 42: 1,
6), Memra, Metatron, Schechina, etc.1 The aim
was "to help the God of Judaism in his need."
Because their God was so very far removed,
angels were brought in to fill the space between
him and his children to whom he was not a father.
So angelology flourished in high development
in those days, as we see in Daniel, Enoch (39 : 12),
Jubilees, and in Ezekiel and Zechariah.2 The
Apocrypha and the post-exilic psalms reveal the
same belief, and picture God as acting through
his spiritual servants. Paul's epistles bear traces
of this belief also (Gal. 4: 3, 9; Col. 2: 8, 20.)
The second temple had not the power of the first
in representing to the people the dwelling-place
of God. They no longer saw his presence in
offering and sacred furniture, and sought the
absent Deity in distant speculation. But this
was not enough. It gave no escape; rather the
way was prolonged and the difficulties grew with
the distance.
i Weber, p. 172; Edersheim, I, p. 47; II, p. 660.
2 Ezekiel 3: 12, 14; 8: 2ff.; 11: 24; 43: 5; Zechariah 1: 9,
13, 14, 19; 2: 3; 4: 1, etc.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 31
The other principle underlying Jewish religious
thought was the great heart-center of the nation's
history, the Messianic Hope. Legalism and the
Hope, these controlled religious thought and life;
the one negative, the other positive; the one
attracting about it the lawyers and theorists,
the men of influence and of power, the other
strong in a latent force among the people, opera
tive in them because they stood on Jewish ground,
because they sought not theory but life. But
how reconcile the two, the lofty God and the
present Messiah ?
There were two ways : — one in asserting the
medium of a forerunner, on the basis of such
comforting passages as those in Malachi; the
other in vague but splendid representations of a
new national life, a judgment, and after that a
Messianic reign, when men shall have been so
prepared that they can stand before the Son of
God. One way seemed more closely allied to
the teaching of the prophets and looked for some
thing similar to their work. The other took a
step further and pictured in rich fancy the glory
and greatness of the one coming on the clouds
of heaven, typifying the Messiah who would
judge them and all the earth, and reign over
them. Immortality was asserted, and hope thus
afforded to those whose death prevented their

32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
eyes from seeing that day. This picture of
Daniel's is taken up by Enoch and carried out;
the Son of man becomes the Messiah, not only
in type but in reality, and reigns in glory over all
true and faithful souls, alive or risen from the
dead. The heavenly court of Daniel fitted well the
regal idea of God. And yet the softening of the
prospect through the age to come gave great
relief. Enoch sought to make this view prac
tical to his readers by combining with it the
promises of the old Prophets which they craved.
The Psalms of Solomon took their stand still
firmer upon the ground of this expectation.
Thus there was a double line of influence in the
age, — one that of extreme legalism, the other
a revolt against it in the popular heart, which
found expression here and there in spiritual
psalms, in apocalypse, and even in the restless
and impatient schemes of Zealots and revolu
tionists. We must review these ideas and others
which make up the theology that was current
when Jesus lived, and which must have had
their influence, positive or negative, upon him.
God was so infinitely above the world and so
ineffably pure that he held no relation with the
creation save through intermediates. He dwelt

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 33
apart in a heaven of everlasting happiness and
feasting. Man could win his approval only
through the keeping of the Law, which was the
revelation of his will. The two most important
duties of a religious man were, first to preserve
ceremonial purity (John 18: 28; Matt. 23: 25),
and second, to observe all fasts and feasts and
ceremonies prescribed by the Law or by its
accumulated tradition. Not morals, but cere
monial, became the expression of religion. To
meet God one must segregate himself from his
fellows, not deal lovingly with them. The man
who kept the Law was pleasing unto God, what
ever his spirit or his conduct toward men.
Angels were deputed to fill in the vast chasm
between a God who was too holy to approach
his creation and his creatures on the earth.
The ancient polytheistic and animistic beliefs
in ministering spirits which serve God had never
wholly disappeared among the Jews. The He
brew word for angels (D^S^btt, messengers) is
not their only designation; they are elsewhere
termed sons of God, gods, powers, heroes, holy
ones, and the heavenly host. They partake
of the nature of fire (Ps. 104: 4), and are in
numerable. "Holy is the Lord of spirits,"
Enoch says (39: 12), "he filleth the earth with
spirits." Names are assigned to various indi-

34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
viduals among them. Tobit (12: 15) mentions
seven archangels, and Enoch (20) names six:
Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraquael,
Gabriel; and Jeremiel is added in other passages.
Tobit's archangels present the prayers of the
saints, and go in before the glory of the Holy One
like the seven counselors of the Persian king.
There are references to them in 1 Thess. 4: 16;
1 Tim. 5: 21; Jude 29; Rev. 4: 5; 8: 2. Many
other names are given here and there, and ranks
are assigned to them. Uriel (TiK, light) is the
regent of heaven and its starry hosts (Enoch
20: 2; 33: 3); Raphael is the angel of healing
(Tobit 3: 17; Enoch 40: 9); Michael is the guar
dian angel of Israel (Enoch 10: 13, 21); Gabriel
is given first place in the Mohammedan angel
ology; Jeremiel rules the spirits of the dead
(Enoch 20; 4 Es. 4: 36); Sandalphon stood on
the earth, but his head arose a journey of five
hundred years beyond the living creatures, where
he made crowns for the Creator; Sagsagel taught
the Sacred Name to Moses, and beheld his death
on Nebo.
These ranks and orders of ministering spirits
betray a Persian influence. They did the work
of creation; they built the ark of the covenant;
they dwelt in all natural forces, thunder and
lightning, storm and wind, and hail; in springs,

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 35
plants, animals; they gave the Law to Moses,
guarded the wealth deposited in the temple, acted
as guardians of the good, and carried their souls
at death to Abraham's bosom. New Testament
references to them are fairly numerous, but
do not approach those of the rabbinic lore
in frequency (Matt. 13: 39 ff.; 16: 27; 18: 10;
24: 31; 25:31; Mark 8: 38; 12:25; 13: 32; Luke
16 : 22).
Progress in the doctrine was rapid, from the
close of the canon until the time of Christ. A
new angel was said to be created to discharge
every commandment of God. "There is not a
stalk of grass upon earth," said the rabbis, "but
it has its angel in heaven." The four chief
angels, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael and Uriel
stood about the throne.
Evil spirits also existed for the Jew, in an
organized kingdom of darkness, under the reign
of Mastenia, Satan, Belial, Beelzebub, Azazel,
the Devil, the Tempter, the Tormentor, or the
Prince of Darkness, as their king was called.
There are unnumbered hosts prepared to do his
bidding, the " powers of the air," the " powers of
darkness." They wander about, often in dry
and desolate places. They cause disease like
rabies, angina pectoris, asthma, croup, leprosy,
and possess themselves of both body and spirit.

36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
They may be exorcised by him to whom God
gives the power, through the agencies of prayer
and touch. The origin of these evil spirits is
traced to the union of the sons of God and the
daughters of men (Gen. 6). Physical evil crept
into the world through these fallen angels. Be
lief in demons is older than belief in the devil,
for it sprang from the earliest animism and sur
vived everywhere 1 in the age of Jesus, even in
the Pauline epistles, as well as the Gospels.
The hidden realms of beneficent and malevo
lent beings all about them gave the Jews a con
stant sense of the supernatural. It seemed to
be ever on the point of breaking through into
their own experience in signs and miracles.
Whatever was not understood was explained by
reference to this mysterious sphere.
In the Jewish thought of righteousness a
national rather than an individual asset was
postulated. It began in political emancipation,
and after that repentance was a necessary ele
ment. Here, if anywhere, came in the prophetic
idea of the presence of God and vital religious
feeling. The best of the spiritual leaders taught
a faith in the moral supremacy of God, subject
ing the world to himself, and believed that
1 Enoch 7: 8; 65: 69; Jubilees 10: 11; Josephus Ant. VIII,
46 f.; War, VII, 180 f.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 37
through the reign of righteousness blessings were
to come upon all.
Sin was recognized, as it always has been by
religious minds, as the antithesis of the best,
against which the soul must struggle. Man was
considered a free moral agent, but two unavoid
able sources of corruption lay deep within each
life. These were, first, the body itself, which
was from the ground, and essentially evil; and
secondly, the historic and hereditary taint derived
from the Fall. The task of all was to make
good conquer evil, through obedience to the Law
of God. Through the Tempter, man became
mortal, and since then goodness is harder to
acquire and therefore more meritorious. Guilt,
but not sin, is handed down from father to
son. The Talmud teaches that some men are sin
less, even after the Fall, because they keep the
whole Law. A child cannot sin. Sin is univer
sal only in the sense that all men are potentially
under evil influence. Physical evil is the punish
ment of sin. Death is the result of the Fall,
though it is sometimes referred to natural causes,
or even to foreordination. The soul is pre-
existent, as all good things are in Jewish thought.
It is compelled to enter the body, even against
its will. At death the soul will return to the

38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
upper world. It should therefore be kept pure,
if possible, in the body.
According to the Midrash Tanchuma, seven
things existed before the world was : — the throne
of God, the law, the temple, the patriarchs,
Israel, the name of Messiah, and repentance.
Sometimes paradise and hell are added; some
times they are substituted for the patriarchs and
Israel in the list. Elsewhere these are spoken of
not as preexisting, but merely as prearranged.
Immortality was not by any means the univer
sal faith of the Jews. As the Old Testament in
many places fails to declare definitely for any
thing more than a sort of unconscious, pallid life
beyond the grave, and gives us no settled doctrine
of the future of the soul, so the Jews lacked a
fixed eschatology. Some held to a transcendental
view of the coming Kingdom, and a resurrection
of the dead to participate in it; others denied
both articles of belief. On the other hand, the
Hellenistic ideas of immortality, based in phil
osophy, attained considerable influence. Thus
there were three tendencies in respect to immor
tality : — that which followed the book of Daniel,
connecting the new faith with the future King
dom; that which fell under Greek philosophical
influence, coming in upon the Jews from Alex
andria; and that which pinned its faith to the

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 39
earthly kingdom and denied both immortality
and resurrection.
The Kingdom was the central and common
factor in all shades of belief. Israel, to all the
Jews, was itself the Kingdom of God. He had
chosen the nation, as the prophets taught. He
had covenanted with them. The sufferings of
past years and centuries was the discipline from
which should emerge a nation purified and fit
to be the people of God. Their loss of inde
pendence was a great strain upon this faith, and
the rise of the world-powers around them dazed
and discouraged them. But their thought was
enlarged and deepened. They held fast to this
ancestral faith, and persisted in expecting a re
establishment of a dynasty and a power on the
earth all their own. At present they could only
dream; for the future there was hope.
They made a sharp distinction between present
and future, earth and heaven. God is there,
not here, and his place on earth has been usurped.
The lower Israel sank in the scale, the keener
was this distinction made. No gradual change
could ever bring things out as they should be,
but sudden cataclysms must occur to set things
right. God alone can restore the Kingdom to
Israel in his good time. The only thing a man
can do is to practise righteousness and keep the

40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Law assiduously. He can help things along by
repentance for past and present lapses and trans
gressions, but into the midst of the saddest moral
degradation the powers of heaven must come to
bring the Kingdom in.
This expected triumph of the Jews involved
an earthly realm, to be world-wide in its extent,
and promised all earthly bliss for the faithful,
but punishment and desolation unspeakable for
the unfaithful Israelite as for the nations in their
pride. It had a decided tinge of vengeance in
it, often luridly portrayed. Since it was to come
from heaven,1 where in one sense it already
existed, the popular phrase was "The kingdom
of heaven " rather than " The kingdom of God."
Political and religious hopes were merged in
extricably. This tendency of thought prepared the Jew
for the Greek transcendentalism of Alexandria.
The Hebrew mind traveled from the thought
of a divine revelation to which it always clung,
downward toward earth, which it found so
hostile to God and all goodness, and asked an
explanation of matter and life. The Greek mind
1 The origin of the phrase " kingdom of heaven " is probably
not in the apocalyptic localizing of the kingdom directly, but,
as Schiirer points out, in the use of heaven for God, according
to Jewish veneration for the name. Note this practise in
Daniel and 1 Maccabees.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 41
reversed the process, seeking for divine revelation
as a solution of the problem of human thinking
which it did not trust. Instead of endless
speculation, the Greek demanded an immediate
knowledge, through vision or ecstasy. The conse
quent transcendentalism led to essential dualism.
Matter and spirit took their places over against
each other. Matter was the eternally formless
stuff from which God made the world. It was
the source of evil, as the Persians taught. Sal
vation was sought through knowledge, by which
they meant a mystical vision and spiritual
sympathy. Ignorance thus, as well as matter, be
comes a source of sin. Thus a more individual
istic movement began under Greek influences
than was possible in the stiff nationalism of the
Palestinian faith. But even then no man was
sure of the favor of God save by his doing
prescribed things, and no man ever knew exactly
where he stood in the reckoning. Pride and
grave uncertainty went hand in hand. Contrary
to the rabbis, these new teachers held that man
is by nature sinful, and did not rest back upon
the Fall in accounting for sin. They imputed
free will to the soul, and taught that this choice
was exercised even when the soul came into the
body it was to inhabit.
The most significant doctrine for us in ap-

42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
proaching the study of the spiritual development
of Jesus is that of the Messiah. It might be
treated as part of the doctrine of the Kingdom,
with which it is indivisibly united, but it has
secured a field and form of expression all its own.
In New Testament times it was developing
rapidly, both generally and in definite content.
It was the abiding kernel of the Hope which had
warmed the hearts of a discouraged and well-
nigh desperate people for four hundred years.
Utopias are always interesting, and a natural
history of the Utopias of literature would be a
readable book. These dreams of ideal condi
tions are born not in times of plenty and pros
perity like our own, but under the pinch of want,
or in the woes of oppression. When people
cannot get what they need, when their state is
impoverished and their liberties are curtailed,
they resort to dreams, and imagination builds
them houses for a season. Thus Plato's Republic,
More's Utopia, and Bacon's Atlantis sprang into
being. The eternal Hope of Israel produced its
fairest flowers when the nation suffered most
and the need was greatest for the comfort and
reenforcement of the individual soul. Thus,
too, it chances that with dreams of their own
betterment join visions of a vengeance upon their
foes which is almost as sweet to them as their

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 43
joy, by the satisfaction of the sense of justice
which it brings. Many a helpful and uplifting
psalm is spoiled for us by this fly in its precious
ointment, and the vindictive, even brutal words
seem foreign to the noble spirit that appeals to
our religious sense. Yet both parts belong to
the people who produced these psalms, and both
elements have a place as obverse and reverse in
the Messianic Hope of the Jews. On the one
side vengeance is assured upon their enemies;
on the other the nation is to be supreme.
The Jews, in the time of our Lord, were con
trolled largely in their Messianic expectation by
what they had inherited. The mediate gifts of
prophecy and the first temple had been over
shadowed and displaced in the hands of its
mediators, their fathers, so that the life of it was
gone. A spiritless age, when no prophet appeared,
led to writing in the name and after the method
of the older prophets, by men who felt within
them conviction of truth, or longing to comfort
the dejected. Another development was seen
in scribism, from the time of Ezra on. He was
both priest and scribe. Gradually, the subject
of the Law and its teaching became the possession
of a class of learned scholars who held no priestly
office. They assumed or won a place of author
ity in all questions of interpretation, and in their

44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
zeal at protecting and applying the Law they
magnified it as the only hope of the nation. So
the class called D^BID, ypafn.fw.Teii, vofuKot, vo/xoSi-
Sao-KaXot, arose, winning highest respect of the
people, and the title, later in our New Testament
age, of "'Si . These men were zealous Israelites,
and naturally shaped the religious life of the
people. By choice most of them were Pharisees.
For the laity, for the priest, the sacred Book and
the sacred Letter became ever more uniquely
authoritative.1 "Ethic and Theology were swal
lowed up in Jurisprudence."2
After two centuries of effort to attenuate per
sonal faith and to translate the spiritual into
legalism, we cannot expect to find the purest and
the best spirit of the Davidic Psalms, combined
with the noblest product of later prophecy, in
the popular conception of the time of Christ.
On the other hand, it is equally an error to deny
all expectation of a personal Messiah. The
books that were then popular combine the wheat
and the chaff, and we cannot be untrue to his
tory, as it is surely not untrue to human nature,
if we claim that the craving for the living truth
made them read and treasure these books. The
general idea of God was a colorless one. He
1 Ewald in Schultz. 2 Schiirer.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 45
was cold, unmindful, pitiless. But the very per
fection of the transcendental led to the union
with it of something else by the people. It must
always be so. The Huguenots in a godless land
and even at the licentious court of the Regent
Duke of Orleans; the Puritans by the side of the
Cavaliers of Charles I; John Wesley's protest
against dead dogmatism and proclamation of
free grace; to say nothing of the brightness in
the "Dark Ages" kindled by the Orders which
had lighted their torches at the altar of God's
love, — every new start in the progress of re
ligion and of truth can be seen to develop from
darkness and opposition. So the fact of spirit
ual life among the Jews (proved by such writings
as we have cited, climaxed in the Psalms of
Solomon) necessitates an expression of itself
somewhere among the people whose history had
always been governed by "one far-off, divine
event" looked for through the ages. It is im
possible to conceive of all Messianic expectation
as having died out among them. "It was by
no means a religiously torpid age; on the con
trary, there is reason to believe that there was a
well-defined feeling of discontentment in the
best minds; — a desire for something purer and
higher than had yet been attained."1 At the
i Toy, p. 417.

46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
same time it is equally impossible that the hope
they entertain could be free from the many de
fects and formative influences of their national
and personal training.
The Law had usurped the place of sacrifice,
of temple and of God to such a degree that it
dominated the religion of the day in many minds.
God was represented by it. The temple, accord
ing to the Talmud (Jer. Taanith 65), did not
contain many things that the tabernacle and
Solomon's temple held. Among the missing was
the Holy Spirit, even in the gorgeous building
of Herod. At least they were not sure of God's
presence in the temple (Enoch 89: 73; Psalms
of Solomon 1: 8; 2: 3; 8: 12, 26). Josephus
(Ant. iii, 8, 9) declares that the stones in the
high priest's breastplate ceased to shine during
his official services about 100 B.C. Yet the
temple was by no means forsaken. The warm
spiritual piety of the Psalms and the Prophets
never wholly forsook it. It was "his Father's
House" to the ideal Jewish youth. Twenty-
nine years later, the popular reverence for it was
great enough to make an accusation of threatening
to destroy it a charge sufficiently grave to justify
sentence of death. And ten years later still, a
mass of people of all ages fairly besieged the
Governor Petronius for forty days, petitioning

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 47
him not to desecrate the sacred building with
the statue of Caligula the emperor.
The oldest Rabbinical books set the Thorah at
a higher worth than this temple. And the
multiplication of synagogues proves the tendency
among leaders to substitute for the centralized
system a dependence on the Thorah; for worship,
moral observance; for the cultus, faithful study
of the scribal deliverances and interpretations.
Essenism, in its revolt against the temple sacri
fices and ritual, was only a symptom of wide
spread discontent. Hellenism had come into
the nation with its philosophy, and Rome with
its idolatry and power. The former brought
assurances of immortality of the soul, the latter
drove the Jew further on in his conception of the
exaltation of Jahveh. The Pharisee was the
only faithful follower of Law and God, and of
a hope which made a resurrection possible and
assured him of a new age and a Kingdom to come,
because it was written in the book in heaven.
All history is but an unfolding of what God has
fixed there (Daniel 10: 21; 12: 1; Enoch 39: 2;
81: 1).
This religious hope called for those things
which the present denied to the religious nature.
They may be gathered about two centers: —
(l) God's presence, on earth, in wisdom, in

48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
the temple, in communion with men, in his
Son. (2) The Kingdom of God, in his Son, in know
ing him here, in judgment, in the teleology of a
Messianic age.
Herod the king was troubled at the birth of
one expected by Wise-men, and chief priests and
scribes could tell him, in the wisdom of their lore,
where the Anointed should be born. An aged
Simeon and Anna in the temple were waiting
for the consolation of Israel, with an audience
of " all them that were looking for the redemption
of Jerusalem," to whom to speak of the "light
for the unveiling of the Gentiles, and the glory of
thy people Israel." The same expectation is
found in the preaching of John, whose disap
pointment in a course of action so un-Messianic
as was Jesus' life speaks plainly of the character
of his hope. The anxious mother would never
have brought her sons to ask for them places in
the Master's kingdom, if she had not had natural
and definite ideas as to that which she asked,
gained from other sources than her sons' accounts
of the Master's teaching.
But we have other proofs in the rising of
Theudas the enthusiast and of Judas of Galilee,
mentioned by the Pharisee Gamaliel (Acts
5: 33 ff.) and by Josephus as well. From pa-

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 49
triotic Galilee some had gone forth, earnest men,
lovers of country, feeling that the time had come
for throwing off the foreign yoke. The pro
phetic great sorrow and tribulation seemed to
many a heart to have been upon them, and the
only reason for delay in bringing out the concealed
Messiah seemed the inactivity of the people.
A personal Messiah was expected. Josephus
assigns the title to Vespasian, in his double
oracle. Herod thought to win the Messiah's
crown by building the temple, as the prophecies
of Zechariah suggest that the temple-builder
will be the nation's deliverer. One cannot fail
to endorse the opinion of Hausrath, that this
expectation of a personal Messiah is the basis of
the presentation of the New Testament history.1
(Matt. 11: 2; 17: 10; 27: 11; Luke 2: 25-38;
Matt. 15: 22; Luke 24: 2-7; compare Acts 1:6;
Luke 3: 15). "It is not a wonder," says Haus
rath (p. 184), "that Jesus came as Messiah, but
that he came just now."
The conception of a personal Messiah was,
in some respects, the hardest one for the age.
It was in things and states, not in personal repre
sentation of God as King, that the main hope
lay. So the conception of a Forerunner was
frequent, from Malachi (3: 1-5) to Sirach (48: 9 ff.)
1 Hausrath, I, p. 181.

50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
and 1 Maccabees (45: 46; 14: 41), to which the
apocalyptic representation in Daniel fitted ad
mirably. But the correlation of Forerunner and
Messiah was rarely if ever completed in one
mind. Some held to the one, some to the other.
Even in Samaria there was religious excitement
under a certain Goet (Josephus xviii, 4, 1), at
about the time of the preaching of John the
Baptist (compare 2 Mace. 2: 4-8, where such
activity as Goet's in restoring old relics is assigned
to the Messiah). John the Baptist carried the
teaching of Enoch and the schools of the scribes
into action. Leaving promises, he laid founda
tions for the Kingdom, and offered a definite
outlet for the faith of the age. The Kingdom
ceased to be a matter of distant visions, and be
came a near and present reality. The Samari
tans confused the Kingdom with the restoration
of physical conditions; the Jews still expected
to use force of arms; John alone taught a King
dom of ethical fitness and spiritual renewal.
A saying of the schools, possibly after Christ,
but normative of the thought, ran as follows:
"If all Israel would together repent for a single
day, the redemption by Messiah would ensue."
There was a section of the more seriously minded
among the people who looked for a Messiah of
superhuman nature, but even they expected that

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 51
he would use his divine powers to overthrow
the Roman might and establish a kingdom on
earth. Wendt x has analyzed the Hope into three
separate phases : expectation of a Messianic
King; a conception of the personal salvation of
individual pious men; and an emphasis upon the
ethico-religious character of the expected con
dition of salvation. Zockler affirms that the
Messianic was bounded by a narrow circle among
the people, that with the masses it was a side
issue, or latent. One can readily grant his
assertion, but at the same time add the convic
tion that it was latent as the magnetism of the
magnet is latent, only waiting for an exciting
cause to respond. "This ardent hope with re
spect to the nation, which existed in all true
Jewish hearts, was directed into a more definite
channel when they believed in a Messiah, and
all the beliefs involved in or suggested by the
vaguer hope naturally came to be connected
more or less directly with the Messiah and his
time. They may thus, not unfitly, themselves
be called Messianic. The figure of the Messiah
looms on the view of the Jewish people, gradually
gathering more and more distinctness, against
the background of such anticipations as these."2
1 Inhalt der Lehre Jesus, II, 132. 2 Stanton.

52 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
The old prophetic expectation was treated
much as the later Catholic Church treated the
chiliasm of the apostolic eschatological expecta
tion; yet there was an earnest inner looking for
relief of heart and life, just as there has always
been an optimism in the Christian Church that
looks for ultimate conquest by the life-power of
Christ. Our analysis of the Hope of the age results in
the emphasis of two elements of power, — a
national and a personal. The national element
was dim, far off, general in its form, of many
phases; and through long postponement of its
satisfaction had developed into the vagueness of
apocalyptic visions. Yet there was earnestness
and reality in it, for in time of greatest oppression
it grew brightest and found more frequent
expression. Historically, it was a continuation
of the promises of the prophets.
It is also evident, alike in the apocalyptic
literature and in the New Testament, that there
was a more personal, religious, ethical side to the
Hope of the Jews. The long waiting and the
fearful suffering had operated to focus in a
Deliverer the religious faith of many. How
could the Jews of the second Christian century
have come into possession of such a strong and
definite personal hope, if they had not received

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 53
it, at least in germ, from their predecessors of the
time of Christ?
This purely personal element was a reaction
against the legalism of the scribes and its en
tailed notions of God and of the relation of man
to him. It grew and found force among the
people, fed on the Psalms, on the Prophets, and
on all elements of religious hope which came to
it, whether from Semite or from Greek. It
sought an avenue to God, a representative of
him, a communion with him. It found utter
ance in the Maccabean Psalms of our canon,
in the Psalms of Solomon, and in the restless,
crying needs of the people seeking John and
Jesus. To sum up the Messianic doctrine briefly, its
chief points were these: The present is a time
of evil, for Satan rules, and we must suffer pain,
disease, and death at his hands. Judgment will
surely come, when the enemies of Israel will all
be punished. The Gentiles will be extinguished
utterly, or at least subdued. Then the age of
joy and gladness will come in, the gift of God
through that great catastrophe by which God
will ascend his throne of judgment. The new
kingdom then will appear, the Kingdom of
heaven. It is limited by some writers to four
hundred years, by others one thousand years,

54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
until God assumes the rule of all men. The
righteous, it was generally believed, would rise
from the dead and enter into the joys of this
Jewish kingdom on the earth. The transition
to the new age was to be with fearful birth-pangs.
Usually a personal Messiah was expected, al
though mention of him is often obscure. He was
to be especially set apart, and was even super
natural in character. Here and there the com
ing of Elijah as his forerunner was proclaimed.
Justin Martyr alludes to a tradition that the
Messiah would not know his own mission, as
Saul and David did not know theirs, until he was
anointed by Elijah.1 He was to be hidden until
suddenly revealed by Elijah. An ideal man, a
prophet, he was to be sinless and pure. Thus
the two ages, this, and the age to come, were dis
tinguished in the program of the theologians;
and the hardships of the present were resolved
in the glory of the prospect set before the pious
souls. Judaism as it ebbed away in its latter days and
evaporated under the hot sun of oppression, de
feat, and its own zealous legalism, left a residuum
of real value, which indeed was destined to pro
vide Christianity with its richest treasure. This
legacy was provided under three fundamental
1 Dialogue c. Trypho., Sec. 8.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEWS 55
forms of thought: First, the Hebrew system
gave us a settled idea of God the Creator, behind
and beneath all things, a sovereign power.
Secondly, we have received from this source a
system of morals which, if it was negative, was
strict, and if it insisted too strongly upon good
works, did not want inner spirit and the true
requirements of a righteous life. Thirdly, Judaism
handed on the beginnings of a doctrine of the
resurrection, not only for the race in apocalyptic
vision, but also for the individual, because of
this wider expectation. It was the religion of
hope, and therefore it was bound itself to rise
again to newness of life in Christianity.

CHAPTER III
the world-view: Jewish, greek and roman
The Jews of the days of Jesus were dispersed
over the entire Roman world. Those in Pales
tine held closely to the ideas and prejudices of
their ancestors. With a tenacity born of racial
spirit, and bred by generations of strictest re
ligious training, protected by the hard shell of
their peculiar ceremonial and their extreme
veneration for the Law, they looked out upon
the world from their little ancestral valley of the
Jordan and the surrounding hills with the same
vision that their fathers had had for five hundred
years. The growth of world-powers about them,
the trampling down of their country by contend
ing armies, the tossing to and fro of their little
province as a slight and despised pawn in the
greater game of nations, — all this experience
tended to shut them in more securely than ever,
and to increase to hatred their religious disdain
of all Gentiles. They were convinced that the
world was made for them; that they were the
Chosen of God, who in his own good time would
56

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 57
restore to them their lost autonomy, and entrust
to them the government of the world after he
had sufficiently punished all their enemies.
With a national consciousness so severe, so
audacious, so insurmountable and indestructible,
the Jews had very definite notions about things.
They despised and hated Greek and Roman
alike. Upon all their civilization they looked
down with contempt. They were often engaged
in quarrels with their neighbors, the Samaritans,
who were enough like them to excite their bitter
ness. Those of their own number who in any
way betrayed the nation's pride or compromised
with the world about them, or forgot the rites
of their religion or sold themselves to the foreigner
for gold, were looked upon with holy horror and
were outcasts everywhere. The strictest sect,
the Pharisees, having in their hands the educa
tional forces of the synagogues scattered every
where among the people, impressed the Law
upon each plastic mind and hunted any heresy
with keenest scent. Religion was a form of
patriotism, institutional in method and formal
in content. The temper of the Jewish mind
was ethical rather than speculative, and practical
rather than philosophical. The production of
well-wrought epigrams and striking phrases,
rather than reasoned systems, was in accord with

58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
the inheritance of a people whose literature
included no distinctly philosophical book, and
whose language possessed no word equivalent
to the Greek 6 koct/xos.1
After more than seventy-five years of attempted
union of civil and religious leadership in the per
son of the high priest, upon the death of Alex
ander Jannseus in 78 B.C., a new instrument of
government appeared in the Sanhedrin. It was
an ecclesiastical body, and was early tempered
to the Pharisaic standards. At that time the
severity of the Pharisees forced most of the
people of a broader culture into sympathy with
the Sadducees, and laid the foundations for years
of bitter opposition between the two parties. In
63 B.C., Pompey took Jerusalem for Rome with
dreadful slaughter. In 40 B.C., Herod was estab
lished by the will of Rome as king, and pro
ceeded to destroy every sign of the Asmonean
family which had been claimants of the ecclesias
tical and civil power for more than one hundred
and twenty-five years.
Upon these people, of such stormy history,
so hard to conquer, so unable to realize when they
were defeated, the Greek and the Roman in turn
looked with contempt as keen as that which the
Jew felt for his Gentile overlord. Everywhere
1 Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 162.

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 59
society was divided into two parts by race pecu
liarities. Thrown upon their own resources,
herding together, compelled to rely upon their
countrymen for everything, and avoiding all close
contact with the foreigner, the Jews were a
peculiar people to the Romans, who could not
understand their temper or appreciate their better
qualities. There was a middle wall of partition
between Jew and Gentile in actual practise
higher than that prescribed by the Law.
In spite of their segregation the Jews did
receive much from others. It was an age of
syncretism in religion which none could resist.
"At no other time perhaps," writes Harnack,
" in the history of religion, and in no other people,
were the most extreme antitheses so closely asso
ciated under the binding influence of religion."
They looked upon matter as evil in itself, as the
Persians were wont to do. They had adopted a
dualism that ran through life, and divided not
only the visible but the invisible, and even the
world to come. They had begun to work out a
doctrine of immortality for the righteous. They
had also adopted a scheme of angelology, partly
at least of Persian origin, and peopled the earth
with spirits good and bad. Through these un
seen but ever-present attendants, they accounted
for the unaccountable, and were ready to explain

60 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
disaster as a sign of bad spirits at work upon
them or about them.
There were two forms of Messianism among
them. One was transcendental, and exhausted
itself in writing and reading apocalypse. The
other was revolutionary, and with short patience
was seeking to hurry on the crisis. The upper
classes, having suffered less, and being better
trained in thought, were given to transcendental
ism; but the poor, the oppressed, the ignorant
and suffering were ready for the torch and vio
lence against the foreigner who lorded it over
them. Small chance had they of success, but
thus they expressed their Hope.
One common cause for restlessness was the
generally accepted belief that theirs was an age
of transition between the futile past and a future
big with promise. The prophetic forecast of
the Kingdom belonged to the nation as a whole.
Only those who had gone over to the Greek
influence altogether, failed to cherish this an
cestral Hope. It warmed the hearts of the
common people and became a watchword with
the pious everywhere. It was a favorite topic
of speculation with the rabbis and the scribes.
It filled and vitalized the imaginative pages of
the writers of Apocalyptic literature. It was the
theme of the loftiest poetry of the day. It was

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 61
almost an obsession of the people, and whenever
their lot was hardest to bear this demand upon
the future was made with renewed intensity.
"The religion of a given race at a given time
is relative to the mental attitude of that time."1
We must therefore seek to estimate the main
currents of the mental life of the dominant races
in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era,
in order that we may understand the atmosphere
which one born there would breathe. We must
look not only to the immediate Jewish environ
ment, but also to the forceful influences of Greece
and Rome which penetrated every nook and
cranny of the land. Philo had not hesitated to
lay hands upon the treasures of Greek philosophy,
Platonic and Stoic alike, and to wed them to the
scriptures of his people, so that every Hellenizing
Jew was becoming familiar with the resultant
teaching. Jewish thought was not a stranger
to Greek forms, as is proved in the writings of
the Sibyl and the Septuagint. The Jew of the
Dispersion, who had inherited no philosophy,
was striving to adjust his theology to the current
dualism of the Platonic school or the monism
of the Stoics. The practical Romans and the
metaphysical Greeks influenced the Hebrews by
indirection more than by immediate contact,
1 Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888.

62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
but none the less deserve consideration as factors
in the making of the medium in which Jesus
grew. Rome was at her highest in power, and her
best in expression of it, when the first Christian
century dawned. She ruled the world, and saw
the influence of her civilization dominating life
upon three continents. The world was a Roman
world. Greek culture and Roman law were
amalgamated in social institutions, and prevailed
in the state. Happiness of the individual was
the universal end. Egoism ruled, and even
those who followed Plato in his doctrine that the
only happiness rests in virtue, and that the
highest good lies in God, dropped to a very com
mon egoism in concrete action. The school of
Aristotle, more practical, was no less egoistic;
and the Stoic taught the virtue of a safe ritual
within the soul itself, where no appeal to outer
things could reach. The high-minded teaching
of Epicurus was open to interpretation which
made it a system of palliation for wrong-doing
and defense of personal weakness. He formu
lated a scheme of morals which should guarantee
a happy life, and noble men like Lucretius sought
to realize it. His far successors lowered the
standard of happiness which he set. Under
shelter of his name, and using his theory that vir-

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 63
tue is of no value save as it contributes to an
agreeable life, they forgot that true pleasure must
be for the whole life, not in the enjoyment of the
hour, — for the soul, not for the body, — and
gave themselves up to sensual delights and im
moralities. The fifth philosophic school, the
New Academy, set as its standard of right that
which is considered honorable. Decorum, not
inner worth, was their aim, and whatever left a
man unblamed by his fellows was virtuous.
There was no inclusive idea of humanity, but
instead of it, each man saw the immediate rela
tion of the various classes and conditions to him
self. Self-interest, as Epictetus was wont to say,
became the father, brother, country, god of men.
Cicero confessed, "We have neither true right,
nor true justice; we have only a shadow, a feeble
reflection."1 No man existed apart from the
state, of which he was a part and to which he
owed everything. The Greek and Roman de
fined all other men as "barbarians," not quite
on the level of their humanity, but nearer that of
the slave, who by nature was inferior. A deep
and settled contempt for all who were not Greek
or Roman pervaded the age. Men like Cicero
regarded every foreigner as an enemy. Indeed,
the Latin word for stranger means a foe. No
i Schmidt, The Social Results of Early Christianity, p. 108.

64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
idea of one human race was found in their phil
osophy. Aristotle's idea, that only those with
property enough not to be obliged to work de
serve the title of citizen, was generally held; and
the consequent aristocrary of wealth, the most
dangerous and unworthy aristocracy possible,
was in power. Humility, meekness, self-sacrifice,
were regarded with contempt. No friendship was
thought worth while which did not prove advan
tageous, and it rarely lasted through time of need.
Roman society was indifferent to the traits we
associate with high sentiment and fine character.
It was self-centered and mean. Woman was
oppressed and considered inferior to man. Mar
riage was regarded rather as a duty to the state
than a matter of personal preference or affection.
Public morals were in a general decay. Even
Vespasian and Marcus Aurelius were not ashamed
to maintain their concubines before the world.
Thus woman was debased in her most sacred
self, and made the tool of the lustful impulses
of the sex in power. A pure and loyal wife was
a rarity in Rome, and even women of noble
families caused their names to be enrolled among
the courtezans that they might escape punish
ment for their amours. In spite of legislation
and imperial edicts, woman sank to lower depths
and marriage became a farce.

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 65
Plato and Aristotle both taught that it was not
worth while for the state to rear deformed or puny
children, and advised the poor to practise abor
tion rather than load undesired infants upon the
public. Education was planned to fit the child
to serve the state. Plato suggested that all
children of aristocratic families should be given
over to public nurses and their identity lost to
their parents. Boys were trained for politics and
girls for lives of submission. As parents grew
dissolute, children were neglected, left to incom
petent and corrupting servants, or sent to public
schools, where they were subject to few ennobling
influences and no moral restraints. No boy
could learn a trade, for that would lower him in
popular esteem. Artisans of every kind were
held in disdain. All money-getting occupations,
excepting the professions or great commercial
enterprises, were rejected as unworthy of citizens
and fit only for slaves. In consequence those
who were compelled to work hated it. Slaves
were considered to be of a lower order of being
and a natural necessity. They did most of
the work. A mass of turbulent, dissatisfied '
people filled Rome and grew poor in the midst ,
of its luxury. They had no place of refuge in
sickness, and no charity was open to them in
distress.

66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
These conditions extended to the provinces,
and there the experiences of Rome were re
peated. Human life was cheap and often sold
for a holiday. Man had fallen miserably into
a false philosophy and an inhuman practise.
He needed_to be rescued and given a new ideal,
abetter philosophy, and a kindlier spirit. Coarse
ness, crueltyTpassion, and vanity were character
istic of men in personal relations, and the pillars
/ of society tottered in their places. Greed and
luxury had brought their inevitable degeneracy,
with ennui from surfeit.1 The cruelties of the
arena, and the butcheries of pagan captives to
make sport for the crowd, were popular with
rich and poor alike. One honors those Saxon
prisoners who, when condemned to fight each
other before a crowd, were found to have taken
their own lives.
Here and there a nobler mind saw with indig
nation the trend of society. Tacitus mourned
over his Annals, Lucretius wrote his high phil
osophies in the style of the ancient Greeks, and
Juvenal composed his mordant satires on the
times; while Seneca the Stoic wrote his moral
treatises and Cicero speculated "On the Nature
of the Gods." Popular religions and established
rites of sacrifice indicated human need of expres-
1 Seneca, De Ira, II, 8. De Brev. Bit., 16.

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 67
sion for the spiritual sense, but their influence
ended in a moral impotence.
It is doubtful if the Greeks, recognized by St.
Paul as "very religious," surpassed the Romans,
who gathered together all the "shreds and
patches" of religion that the world produced,
and developed a deep and general superstition.
" Never did the religious life of man offer a more \
bewildering multiplication and variety."1 As a '
measure of safety, they undertook to treat all
gods alike, and thus, offending none, to aid
their chances of good fortune. Such an eclecti
cism could issue only in doubt. As usual when
doubt prevails, faith in the miraculous was wide
spread. The social changes that brought new
and uncultivated people, even slaves, into wealth
and position, maintained in them the ancient
faiths upon which they relied as safeguards for
their new possessions. But the active principle
of their religion was fear, lest somehow harm
come upon them from some unpropitiated source.
The confusion of a divided worship led to loss/
of clear vision of duty and to dissatisfaction of .
soul. The mean and unworthy character of the '
gods, which men had multiplied after the image
of their own natures, brought disillusion to the
thoughtful, and encouraged them in practical
iDill, Roman Life, p. 384.

68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
' irreligion or atheism. Nothing was assured
beyond the grave, and each chose the way by
which he thought to get the most out of life.
The gods themselves would not do otherwise.
They even throve on lust and were honored in
debauchery. The best men of Rome were
impatient of divinities in whom they could not
believe. The intelligent classes felt a contempt
for the ever-present augurs and their oracles.1
Lucretius declared that religion was the cause
of all evils, but he gave man nothing to take its
place. Cicero thought that the ancient faith
should be preserved, as a necessity in governing
the people, but he saw its doom impending.
When emperors were apotheosized, and a man
like Domitian spoke of himself in his decrees
as "lord and god," worship could be nothing
more than tradition, and piety was dead. Then
men had recourse in their need to every super
stition and religious nostrum of the world, —
magic, soothsayers' arts, theosophy, and every
foreign faith. Augustus consulted star-readers
from the East, and Nero was a slave to supersti
tion. The forum was crowded full of gods
whom no one could respect or trust, and religion
was as nearly snuffed out as a fundamental
passion of the human heart can be. Tacitus
» Cicero, De Div., II, 24.

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 69
says the emperor Tiberius admitted that the
remedy could be found, not in outer additions
to the number of their gods, nor by the elabora
tion of ritual, nor through any outer mechanism,
but only in the soul of man itself.
The Greek mind was more free to speculate
than the Roman. The inheritance of the one
had been a legacy of ideas, independent of a
state they had not maintained; of the other a
legacy of deeds intimately bound up with the
state. The growing appreciation of personality
for the individual and for God influenced the
Greek toward the thought of an ordered uni
verse. The Stoics standing on their one world-
stuff debated with the Platonic dualists, and both
made monotheism familiar, whether God were
producing the world by his own self-evolution
or creating it by his causal thought. There was
much more culture of an intellectual sort among
the Greeks than among the Romans. They
were devoted to rhetoric and its practise in
public speech, and provided the majority of
teachers in the schools of Rome. There was
little or no original thinking, but a constant
drawing upon the ancient sources for material.
In consequence, there was less of affirmation,
and a tendency to rest content in old positions
or to deny them altogether.

70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
There was an ethical struggle against the
evident decline in social life and in religion, and
the issue was often carried to asceticism. This
same trend affected theological thought to make
it more monotheistic, and God was conceived
as himself an ethical being. The popular mental
exercise was metaphysical, and philosophy was
current everywhere to a remarkable extent.
Greek ethics rested on the reason, while Hebrew
thinking derived its ethical sanction from revela
tion. There was a general search for new religious
values, and a certain expectancy of better things
to come. While the Roman treated religion as
a matter of the state, and had little sympathy
with those who found the highest personal
interest in it, the Greek had a keener perception
of the inner worth of faith. He sought religion
for itself rather than as a means to political ends.
The Greek education, carried on in schools at
Athens, Rome, Alexandria, and in all larger
Greek and Roman cities, attracted multitudes,
even from among the poor. Teachers were held
in high regard and amassed fortunes by the
practise of their profession.
Justin Martyr was willing to enroll at least
two of the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus and
Socrates, as Christians. Plato's doctrine of

WORLD-VIEW: JEWISH, GREEK, ROMAN 71
ideas, among which the soul found a fitting
home, and the ethical idealism which he taught,
commended him to thoughtful Jews. His con
trast between the ideal and the reality, and his
insistence that man must conquer the world in
himself, appealed to their way of thinking.
Platonic ethics, founded upon the reason, and
finding an intrinsic worth in goodness, did not
seem so far away from the revealed ethics of the
Law. Likewise Stoicism made its worth felt
by those who had been reared in the Old Testa
ment wisdom. They agreed with it that virtue
or righteousness is itself the highest good, and
that the only happy man is the righteous man.
They too found in God a wise Providence, of
perfect moral character, and in the soul a power
of survival which death could not destroy. Alex
andrian Judaism developed the Logos doctrine,
of a spirit of wisdom with God, mediating for
him the creative task, in which philosophical
monism and Jewish theism seem to unite. Philo '
enthusiastically joined Greek philosophy and .
Hebrew theology, bridged the gulf between the
Infinite and the world by his "Ideas," the chief
of which were the angel guardians about the
throne of God, and of these the greatest was the
Logos. Philo dipped his brush in every pigment,

72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Platonic, Stoic, Hebrew, and painted his pictures
with the free hand of an impressionist. Man's
soul was a prisoner in an evil body, joined to God
by faith, and vision of him is the highest mortal
experience. He insisted upon a deeper religious
life than can be attained through formal offerings
or keeping of the Law, and brought the warmth
of the Greek spirit into the cold formalism of the
Jewish faith, to vitalize it and lift the members
of his race into the immediate presence and
fellowship of God. No direct influence of Philo
upon Jesus can be proved, or even thought of,
but the service he rendered in preparing for the
acceptance of the teachings of Christ at a later
day requires that he be included in this discussion,
and his work illustrates how intimately blended
the thought-life of the day had come to be.
Out from the heart of such a civilization, in
which the Roman was submerged in things and
monopolized by the State, the Greek was seeking
to adjust his old philosophies to new conditions,
and the Jew was hiding his prophetic treasure
in a priestly napkin, came forth Jesus Christ.
He heard each voice as it spoke the message of
the people to his eager heart, and in himself he
gave the answer to them all; the Way for the
Roman, the Truth for the Greek, the Life for
the Jew.

CHAPTER TV
THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE INTO WHICH JESUS
CAME
The social atmosphere of Palestine was con
trolled by three main influences, emanating from
the education of Jewish youth, from political
and religious parties, and from Greek and Roman
thought and institutions in the land. But be
neath all was the ever-present Messianism. It
could not brook the cool, collected, and patient
waiting for something cataclysmic to occur,
which the Pharisee counseled, but felt impelled
to move, and to originate the Kingdom and its
better state so painfully delayed. The radicals
always demand a chance to act. This element
in the population had no taste for apocalypses
and their idle, futile dreams. Carlyle's eternal
conjugation of the verb To Do was more to its
mind. Just as the more educated classes in
Russia wait and hope and frown on revolution,
passing good resolutions of loyalty in their meet
ings, and even in the Zemstvo, while the peasant,
the ignorant man who was not so long ago a
serf, will not wait, but demands ever more, and
73

74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
enforces his demands by strikes, by forceful
revolution, fire and blood; so there were two
sections of society in those old days among the
Jews. The lower, poorer party broke out now
and then in action under some impromptu leader,
who was quickly given his reward of martyrdom
by the powers that be. There was less chance
of success than there is for the muzhik, but the
burning hope was in their hearts. That is one
reason why the common people heard the words
of Jesus gladly. He spoke of present relief, not
of future glory, and he spoke directly to their
hearts. Outbreaks of greater or lesser moment
frequently occurred all down the years, from the
Maccabees to the time of Christ. Pharisee and
Zealot, each of these classes was stirred by the
Messianic Hope, — but the one to sedition, the
other to submission. The common people vented
their impatience and asserted their religious zeal
through these local and limited, but not infrequent,
attempts, in ways inadequate and pathetically
abortive, to realize something of their God-
promised Hope. The other people, the thinking
people, trained by the Pharisees, read and wrote
apocalypses, which transported them from the
evil present to the time when all would be well.
They took a profane delight in calling down
anathemas upon the heads of their enemies whom

SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF PALESTINE 75
they dared not touch, whom indeed they were
assured they did not need to touch, for they must
see to it only that they themselves were ready for
the good gift when God gave it, which he surely
would do soon. Lifted above the oppressive
conditions of the poor, not constrained to rebel
lion by actual physical distress, they looked down
upon the seditious acts of their poor neighbors
with condemnation, as Josephus tells us now
and then. Both inheritances from the ancient
Hope must have affected the mind of Jesus, and
made him more appreciative of the need, and
more sympathetic with each, than either class
could be with the other.
Education meant much to the Hebrew. It
was a religious duty. The school was hard by
or within the very walls of the synagogue. The
earliest lessons of a child were given him from
Deuteronomy (6: 4, 5; 7: 7). Scripture stories
and selections from the poetry of the Psalms
followed. David and Moses and the patriarchs,
— all were made familiar to every child. From
the age of six until twelve every boy was ex
pected to attend the synagogue school and to
recite his catechism on the Sabbath. Thus he
became a "Son of the Commandment." But
in the synagogue the Thorah was the real lesson
book. " We take most pains of all," said Josephus,

76 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
"with the instruction of children, and esteem
the observation of the laws and the piety cor
responding with them the most important affair
of our whole life." Josephus boasts of his
own minute knowledge of the Law at the age
of fourteen. Books of the Scriptures were fre
quently in possession of private individuals, and
writing as well as reading was no rare accom
plishment.1 Occasionally a family owned, as a
precious heirloom, a roll of the Law or the Prophets
or of Psalmody, and used it for home reading
with veneration.
There were three main parties developed in
the chance of the religious situation, but one of
these was so divided as to make practically four.
These were the Pharisees, with their lesser
division, or related group, the Essenes; the
Zealots and the Sadducees. This last group
was more political than religious, busying itself
with the perquisites of ecclesiasticism and caring
little for the faith. It was the aristocratic party,
of little principle, with "laissez-faire" as its
motto, courting the favor of the foreigner, and
affecting all his culture. Of them there need be
said no more, save that they had absolutely
nothing in common with Jesus, and he finally
died at their hands. 1 Schiirer.

SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF PALESTINE 77
The Pharisees were the religious people of the
day. But their bent was scholastic rather than
social, individualistic more than universal, legal
and not definitely spiritual, because of this
legalistic practise. Yet here if anywhere was
the hope for Israel, and doubtless to this party,
if to any, Jesus would belong. They had pos
session of the schools, and ruled the synagogues,
which were their refuge over against the Sad-
ducean perversion of the temple. They held
that the Jews were a peculiar possession of God,
and that they in turn possessed him uniquely
as their King. The "Shemoneh Esreh," recited
daily by the faithful, includes these words: "Be
King over us, Thou alone, O God." It was the
duty of the people to drive out the Roman when
they could. The Gentile had a right for a time
to rule, but the time was short. A universal
kingdom would soon come, in which the tables
would be turned, and the Hebrew would ad
minister affairs under guidance of a King to
come from the skies to supernatural power and
authority. A judgment would precede, like that
which John preached. Once more would the
Gentiles make assault upon the Messiah, but
in vain, for they would be surely overthrown
forever. The Essenes were not a distinct party, but a

78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
purist sect of the Pharisees. They formed a
monastic brotherhood, and their name prob
ably means The Pious. They wore white gar
ments, they made a cult of ceremonial purity
and went about ministering to the poor and sick
and needy. They were extremely liberal in
their attitude toward the Law and the ritual of
the temple. Their legalism was of another sort.
They prayed at dawn for the coming of the
Judge, and regarded the glory of the setting sun
with awe as typical of paradise for which they
strove. They had many customs, like their
grouping of teacher and disciples, their common
purse, their common religious meal, their abound
ing service to the sick, which Jesus afterward
practised with his followers. If they did not
influence him in these externals, and they were
themselves influenced by Greek thought through
the neighboring cities of Decapolis or the Thera-
peutse of Alexandria, then Jesus himself may
have come more or less under these same Greek
influences also. But the spirit and tendency of
the Essenes were far from being in harmony with
Jesus. They separated themselves from the
world, to live in some chapter-house in town or
country, on the ground that contact with life was
contaminating. Refuges and monasteries in the
desert were their final habitation. Their spirit

SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF PALESTINE 79
was overmastered and smothered by their cult
of purity.
The Zealots, as their name implies, were the
party of action, the opportunists who sought
continually for a chance by force to bring about
a better state of things and liberate the nation
from a galling yoke. They were well watched,
and their numbers were never very large. They
are more important as representing an element
in the national status than for anything they did.
They appeared at an attempt to tax the people
when Judea became a Roman province in 6 a.d.
under a procurator. Then came forth one Judas
of Gaulonitis, a Galilean, according to Josephus
(War II, 8: 1. Ant. 8: 1, 6), who organized
this party of revolt against the foreign power
(Ant. xviii : 1 ; 1, 6). A strong socialistic spirit of
the masses against the classes characterized all
the history of the party. They burned the houses
of the rich, even the archives of the state, and
tried to destroy all evidence of debt, that they
might start anew. They caused the death of
many men of wealth, and several high priests.
They were a sort of religious nihilists, and the
idealism of the members naturally oozed away,
although they insisted upon their party cries of " No
King but God," and " A new and worthy state,"
with the prophets for their comforters and guides.

80 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
John the Baptist may possibly have been an
inconsistent Essene, reacting against the ex
tremes of his party, and preaching independently
the message given him, of the Kingdom near at
hand and repentance that must prepare for it.
A popular preacher in the neighborhood of
Nazareth, even if he were not a relative, as the
Gospels of the infancy declare, nor an acquaint
ance, as the Fourth Gospel implies, John surely
would attract Jesus to his mission on the banks
of the Jordan among the crowds which flocked
from every side to hear his prophet's cry.
One other influence could not fail to reach
even up to Nazareth among the hills, and must
have stared in the face every pious Jew when
ever he went down to his annual feasts in Jeru
salem. The foreigner was in power everywhere.
The usurper had erected his fortresses in every
commanding spot, and even overtowered the
temple on its sacred hill. The Greek culture was
maintained in all the cities, and the men of affairs
dealt with Greeks and Romans more than with
Jews in foreign trade. Hellenist influences per
vaded the country. Greek was spoken in every
place where foreigners gathered, and every coin that
passed a Hebrew hand — denarius, drachma, tal-
anton — was marked in Greek letters, until every
intelligent man knew something of the language

SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF PALESTINE 81
spoken by all foreign Jews so familiarly when they
came home to attend the festivals of their religion.
The name of their Supreme Council, and fre
quently that of the High Priest, was Greek. The
touch of Hellenic culture was a broadening in
fluence which no mind alert and open could have
failed to feel and gather up for future use. Those
Greeks who sought Jesus at the feast may not
have needed the Greek-named disciples, Andrew
and Philip, to act as interpreters for them when
they wanted to hold speech with him.1
The Greek cities in Palestine were administered
according to Greek ideas, through magistrates and
senates, as independent commonwealths. Herod
and others after him also built towns here and
there inhabited by Gentiles, like Sebaste, Csesarea,
Gaba in Galilee, and Esbonitis in Perea. These
were Herod's outer defenses, and centers of Greek
influence over the people. Even in Jerusalem he
built a theater and amphitheater. All this empha
sized the hatred for the Gentile in the Jewish heart,
while it gradually and inevitably altered opinion
and made familiar what was once repulsive.
The rabbis laid down the law, but convenience,
necessity, and time became a sterner law to break
down their barriers. The Jew might avoid the
Greek cities as plague-spots, but he could not
i John 12: 20 ff.

82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
shut out a certain atmosphere which came in on
every breeze that blew from Alexandria, where
so many Jews were congregated, nor could the
influence of theaters, statues, and paintings be
altogether withstood, even while they were an
abomination in Jewish eyes. The Greek lan
guage was spoken upon the streets of every Jewish
town of any size, and more or less of contact with
Greeks and Romans in trade was unavoidable.
The Septuagint was the version of the Old Tes
tament generally in use, if we may judge from
the quotations found in the New Testament.
It was alike more common, cheaper to buy, and
even more easily understood than the ancient
Hebrew version. In the court of the Gentiles
in the temple at Jerusalem, upon the well-
wrought marble screen which ran across the court,
a sign was placed in both Latin and Greek,
instructing strangers concerning the proprieties
of the place. There were many Greek words,
especially those connected with trade, which
crept into the Aramaic dialect. The Hebrew
had no term corresponding to many philosophical
ideas, nor even to the word <pi\ocro<pia itself.
When words were naturalized among them,
ideas could not remain outside.
It was a period of literary activity. Lost
works by Jason of Cyrene, the Stoic philosopher

SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF PALESTINE 83
Poseidonius, by Assinios Polio, Strabo, Hipsy-
crates, Dellius, Ptolemaus, Nicolaus of Damascus,
who was a friend of Herod's and an Aristotelian
who wrote much, especially in history, — lost
books by all of these appeared about this time.
Justus of Tiberias, a Jew who had imbibed
Greek culture like Josephus, wrote works which
it would be a great help for us to know.
Philo, son of a wealthy Jewish merchant in
Alexandria, was born a score of years before
Jesus, in the center of the Jewish world in fact,
as Jerusalem was the center in ideal. He com
bined the Platonic ideas of God as transcendent,
with the Stoic ideas of immanence, "the One
and the All," and tried to lead the Greek and
Roman world across the bridge thus formed
into the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures. His
influence upon his own people was probably
stronger than that upon the outside world, and
centuries of Christian development were largely
tinctured by his thought and method of inter
pretation. Josephus, born in Jerusalem fifty or sixty
years later, of a priestly race, and carefully edu
cated according to the standard of the Jews,
was himself at fourteen an instructor in the Law.
At sixteen he went into the schools of the Phari
sees, Sadducees and Essenes, and then withdrew

84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
for three years to the desert for meditation and
the hermit life. At twenty-six he went to Rome
and gained the favor of the empress, through
whom he found the way to riches. Drawn into
the war of 66, he became a commander of Galilee.
Later on he wrote his Apologia in Rome, where
he was a favorite, and took the family name of
Vespasian, Flavius. He wrote the Jewish War
in seven books, probably at command of Titus.
The Antiquities were in twenty books, and
narrated the history of the Jews down to 66 a.d.,
for Greek and Roman readers, that he might
commend his people to their favor. Of the
period 4 B.C. to 41 a.d. he knew but little. His
work Contra Appian is an apology for his people
and his faith. In it he slights the Messianic
Hope, perhaps because it had been a cause of
uprisings against Rome.
Jesus, then, was born into a home of syna
gogue-bred Pharisaism, where he was trained
in all that made a pious, law-abiding Jew. He
was given a chance for education in the Thorah,
in reading and writing, at least, and he may have
caught a smattering of Greek.
Three great roads within sight of the hilltops
about his home were channels of all the life and
motion of the stream of the world's interests.
Opposite to the place where Jesus often climbed,

SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF PALESTINE 85
he saw the Jerusalem highway with its annual
throng of pilgrims, and the merchants going up
and down from Egypt. Damascus sent her
caravans across the hill on which he stood. The
highway between Acre and Decapolis was not
far away, with its soldiery and royalty, its travel
of wealth and a display which could not fail to
attract the eye of a village lad at play, whose
imagination never slept. From childhood he
grew up with knowledge of the foreigner and his
wealth and power. Even as a boy he was in
some slight touch with the great, busy, teeming
world.1 Religiously, he felt the impact of two Messianic
movements alive and active among the people.
One was ignorant, spasmodic, violent, badly led
and unorganized. The other was carefully sys
tematized, had a large and growing literature,
and held to inaction under the law as the only
possible duty, while the will of God required
them to wait until his times were ripe, a crisis
which could not long be postponed. A thought
ful youth would ponder these things, and develop
his own ideas. One who loved the companion
ship of nature would think them out alone with
God beneath the Syrian stars or on the hilltops
where his country spread far and wide before
1 George Adam Smith, Historical Geography, pp. 433-4.

86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
him, and all her history lay open to his eye
like a book. The movements of the poor, un-
shepherded people would move his sensitive soul
and fill it with yearnings unutterable. The
policy of helpless waiting for God to act, putting
off all initiative upon him, would stir the blood
of an earnest patriot. Thus Jesus grew and
ripened in his mind, and developed purposes
and dreamed dreams, and was prepared for the
coming of a great experience to his soul in the
preaching of John the Baptist.

PART II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUS

CHAPTER V
THE YOUTH OF JESUS
The birth of Jesus has been surrounded for
centuries by the most natural and fitting halo
of mystery and poetic imagination. No event
in history invites the dreaming fancy or the in
terpreting thought of the ages as this one of the
birth of a child who in his life and death revealed
to mankind more of the true nature of God and
man than all other persons or things have ever
done. When those who believed in him began
to organize their faith and to proclaim the gospel
he had committed to their care, their hearts were
filled with a great affection, and their minds with
the overpowering truths of the incarnation, as
they had learned them from their Master in life
and in death. For he being dead yet spake to
them, in those fresh revelations and heartening
experiences by which they were assured of his
resurrection and his presence with them forever
in the spirit.
Up to the death of Jesus his disciples thought
of him as a man like themselves, only grown to a
89

90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
nobler stature. Even when confessing their
highest faith in him, they dared to rebuke him
for what they regarded as errors in his judgment
or lapses in his spirit (Matt. 16: 22). They
never looked upon him as in any sensuous fashion
apart from themselves, but rather they became
attached to him by the closest human ties, and
went about with him as the followers and friends
of any rabbi might attend him, only with far
more personal attachment and devotion.
The oldest of the Gospels, St. Mark, gives us
no hint of any other than a natural birth of Jesus,
but speaks of his family and his home in Naza
reth in a way to preclude any current knowledge
of his having been miraculously born. On the
contrary, there was a plainly marked tradition
that he was born of the lineage of David on his
father's side, and this tradition appears in each
of the Gospels, even in the genealogies of the first
and third. As late as when John 6: 42 was
written, the author did not hesitate to put into
the lips of the people such confident words as
these: "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know?"
The earliest testimony regarding Jesus comes
to us from St. Paul. In Romans 1:3, 4, he
wrote of Jesus, "Born of the seed of David
according to the flesh, who was declared to be the

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 91
Son of God with power, according to the spirit
of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."
Again (Romans 9: 5) Christ is of the Israel
ites, like the fathers, "as concerning the flesh."
In all the strength of his desire to elevate Christ
and set him high upon the throne of power,
surely Paul would have used any story of a super
natural birth that he might hear from the dis
ciples with whom he associated. In Gal. 4: 4
he writes again of Jesus as "Born of a woman,
born under the law," — expressions which would
hardly have been used if Paul had heard of a
supernatural birth.
Even where the fact of the virgin birth would
have added greatest weight to argument, in the
Acts, as in 3: 22 ff. and 10: 37 ff., no mention
whatever is made of it. The argument from
silence is never a wholly satisfactory one, but if
it ever serves, it does here, especially when in the
instances alluded to it is confirmed by the utter
silence of Jesus himself upon the subject of his
birth. Had he been conscious of such a mirac
ulous origin, how could he have been afflicted
with temptations, or overborne by sorrows, or
cast down by the thickening of the fogs about
his path? How could he have failed to estab
lish his Sonship, both for his own peace of mind
and as an unanswerable argument against his

92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
enemies, by allusion to the one event against
which no mind in that day would have held out ?
In accordance with what I take to be the widest
and earliest tradition, then, I assume that Jesus
was born of a mother named Mary, in the home
of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth, his father,
who died while Jesus was still young. It was not
unlike similar homes that stand to-day, along
the rambling streets of Syrian towns, of one or
two rooms; low and meanly furnished, wherein
all the household arts are practised and all the
family live together, with little privacy and no
comfort. The boys all learned a trade, and in
the school which in the days of Jesus was placed
hard by the synagogue, they learned to read and
to familiarize themselves with certain portions
of the Scriptures. In the synagogue they gath
ered on the Sabbath week after week and heard
the Law and the Prophets read from the rolls kept
in the sacred chest and handed out to the lead
ing men or chance visitors from abroad that they
might read the lesson of the day.
The village of Nazareth is situated in its deep
and quiet valley among the ridges above Jezreel,
and commands a noble view from the height of
land behind the town. Far to the north rise the
snowy peaks of Hermon, and Tabor opposite
guards the fertile Jordan valley below. West-

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 93
ward stands the long and forest-covered reach of
Carmel, stretching away to the sea, and below
it lies the fertile valley, as rich in historic asso
ciations to a Jewish child as in its fields of grain
and its olive trees. "You see thirty miles in
three directions."1 The great road to Jerusalem
and Egypt lay opposite across the valley. A
journey of three hours brought one to the rich
and populous city of Sepphoris. The princely
Roman residence stood beside the blue sea of
Galilee about a half day's walk from Nazareth.
The most flourishing Roman port of entry was
twenty miles away. But to reach the holy city,
Jerusalem, one must travel for three days.
Nazareth had doubtless as many inhabitants as
now, which number five or six thousand. It
appears to have been regarded with disfavor,
almost with scorn, although no reason can be
found for such a prejudice.
In this quiet corner of Galilee Jesus grew,
familiar with the stress of poverty and the grind
of toil, and developed by hard work in physical
strength and health. His parents took the poor
man's gift to offer in the temple when in pious
fashion they brought their baby boy to be con
secrated and set apart as a member of the Hebrew
1 George Adam Smith, the Historical Geography of the
Holy Land, p. 433.

94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
race. They were poor, but they bore the lineage
of kings. The family tradition held fast to the
records handed down from of old to prove that
in Joseph's veins flowed the blood of David's
line. Jesus had brothers and sisters, and with
them he, perhaps the eldest, worked to help his
father, and later to keep his mother from the too
heavy burdens of a large and dependent family.
The discipline of regular toil, of bearing burdens,
of sacrifice for others, was his in fullest measure.
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy," Words-
Worth says. But he suggests that it is soon lost
in the growing boy, and earthly experiences take
its place. How much of heaven did Jesus re
tain, and did he ever lose the consciousness of
heaven as the birthplace of his soul? Surely we
are dealing with a genuine boy as we seek to
trace the growth of this child of Nazareth, but
unfortunately we are compelled to reconstruct
his experiences and character from the history
of the man, itself all too brief. He must have
based his later consciousness of Messiahship
upon a strong and normal self-consciousness, or,
as Beyschlag has pointed out, he would haVe
adopted the current Messianic conceptions of
his age.
Education is learning to fear aright, the Greek
philosopher maintained. It was during these

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 95
youthful days that Jesus learned what to fear
and what to trust. His home life must have
taught him the confidence of love, and given him
a concept of fatherhood which made the fear of
God no terror-stirring sentiment in his breast,
for he early learned to call God Father. Ideal
ized and monopolized by the exigencies of the
great spiritual need in those who were denied
an entrance through a human Christ to the
human heart of God, the character of Mary,
his mother, has been set before the world as the
embodiment of gentle and noble womanhood.
The few allusions to her in the Gospels suggest
that Jesus did not inherit qualities from her
which in any way hindered the growth in him of
love and the perfecting of the law of kindness
in his heart. Sons naturally inherit from the
mother in their make-up, and in this ideal mater
nity the law was not broken.
The first evidence we have of growing charac
ter in Jesus is in Luke 2 : 40 : " And the child grew,
and waxed strong, becoming full of wisdom:
and the grace of God was upon him." Although
a part of the disputed Gospel of the infancy,
the fact of its naturalness leads me to use the
passage. It is similar in its first statement to
that concerning John the Baptist in the pre
ceding chapter. In fact, the phrase iv t<S irvevfuxTi

96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
is added there, which is not weaker than the
TrXrfpovfmiov cro^Cq. here. We are told that he devel
oped like other children, and that he learned by
degrees not only the common things of life, but,
to take the o-cxpia. in its Hebrew sense, the fear
of God and the high things of religion. There
is a suggestion of a spirit open to good, seeking
after light and truth, of a child-nature simple
and pure, of which it can be said "the grace of
God was upon him " as we speak of such a child
to-day. We know something of the character of the
brother of Jesus, James the pillar apostle of the
church in Jerusalem, and we can infer from his
more commonplace mind of what sort the train
ing was to which both were subject in their home
in Nazareth. James was an orthodox Jew, of
the strictest sect of the Pharisees, punctilious
and formal. He had been taught from the
Thorah in the synagogue school. Writing as
well as reading was not beyond the reach of these
village boys. It was possible to read in private
also the manuscripts to which they listened at
the public services of the synagogue. Thus the
law and the prophets were more or less familiar
to these boys in Nazareth. One with the eager
mind of Jesus must have been peculiarly attracted
to these ancient documents of the faith of his

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 97
fathers, and every occasion to listen or to study
must have been improved by him.
In addition to Law and Prophets, he surely
breathed the atmosphere of the Book of Daniel,
with its mysterious symbolism and its striking
stories. What child could resist it? What
earnest soul at that time could fail to revel in the
rewards that came to the young princes of his
own blood in their heroic ventures for their
religion and their God? Through that door
Jesus entered the region of apocalyptic, in which
his people for five generations had found their
highest encouragement. By it they expressed
their loftiest hopes, and they maintained intact
all that was left to them of the old sense of a
living inspiration and a future realization of all
that the past had promised but not fulfilled.
There the Messianic vision was forever chang
ing, forever growing, in its content, and yet
never fixing upon any definite and settled form.
Messianism was in full possession of the mind
of the Pharisaic element when Jesus was a school
boy in Nazareth. The Pharisees had control
of the schools and synagogues, and the children
were instructed in their way. They were pa
triots, and they felt themselves the only repre
sentatives of the true faith in the midst of a
crooked and time-serving generation. The

98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
prayer they taught every child and expected
every pious Jew to say thrice each day reveals
what may have fallen very often from the lips of
Jesus. We have it in the form given to it before
110 a.d., under the title "Shemoneh Esreh" or
"Eighteen Supplications." One more has been
added since the name was given to the prayer.
A few of the petitions are as follows :*
Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God and the
God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the great God,
the mighty and tremendous, the Most High God,
who bestowest gracious favors and createst
all things, and rememberest the piety of the
patriarchs, and wilt bring a redeemer to their
posterity, for the sake of Thy name in love. O
King, who bringest help and healing and art a
shield. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the shield
of Abraham.
Thou art mighty forever, O Lord; Thou re-
storest life to the dead, Thou art mighty to save;
who sustainest the living with beneficence,
quickenest the dead with great mercy, support
ing the fallen and healing the sick, and setting
at liberty those who are bound, and upholding
Thy faithfulness unto those who sleep in the
dust. Who is like unto Thee, Lord, the Al
mighty One; or who can be compared unto
Thee, O King, who killest and makest alive
1 The Jewish people in the Times of Jesus Christ, Schiirer,
Div. II, Vol. II, p. 85 ff.

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 99
again, and causest help to spring forth? And
faithful art Thou to quicken the dead. Blessed
art Thou, O Lord, who restorest the dead.
Sound with the great trumpet to announce our
freedom; and set up a standard to collect our
captives, and gather us together from the four
corners of the earth. Blessed art Thou, O Lord,
who gatherest the outcasts of Thy people Israel.
O restore our judges as formerly, and our
counsellors as at the beginning; and remove
from us sorrow and sighing; and reign over us,
Thou O Lord alone, in grace and mercy; and
justify us. Blessed art Thou, O Lord the King,
for Thou lovest Righteousness and justice.
The offspring of David Thy servant speedily
cause to flourish, and let his horn be exalted in
Thy salvation; for Thy salvation do we hope
daily. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who causest
the horn of salvation to flourish.
We praise Thee, for Thou art the Lord our
God and the God of our fathers for ever and
ever; the Rock of our life, the Shield of our sal
vation, Thou art for ever and ever. We will
render thanks unto Thee, and declare Thy
praise, for our lives which are delivered into Thy
hand, and for our souls which are deposited with
Thee, and for Thy miracles which daily are
with us; and for Thy wonders and Thy goodness,
which are at all times, evening and morning and
at noon. Thou art good, for Thy mercies fail
not, and compassionate, for Thy loving-kindness
never ceaseth; our hopes are for ever in Thee.
And for all this praised and extolled be thy Name,

100 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
our King, for ever and ever. And all that live
shall give thanks unto Thee for ever, Selah, and
shall praise Thy name in truth; the God of our
salvation and our aid for ever. Selah. Blessed
art Thou, O Lord, for all-bountiful is Thy name,
and unto thee it becometh us to give thanks.
Great salvation bring over Israel Thy people
for ever, for Thou art King, Lord of all salvation.
Praised be Thou, Lord, for Thou blessest Thy
people Israel with salvation.
Jesus probably did not read any of the Apoca
lyptic Books, but he heard these things dis
cussed in the gatherings of the pious leaders of
the synagogue, or in Jerusalem. The literature
of the New Testament is permeated with them.
Charles has discovered about one hundred pas
sages where the New Testament reminds him of
the book of Enoch alone. The words attributed
to Jesus in the Gospels are by no means foreign
to the apocalyptic thought and utterance, as
where he speaks of final judgment, the woes to
come, the coming of the Son of man, rewards and
punishment, evil spirits, angels.
This is the atmosphere in which the young
man of Nazareth grew. How much of the
teaching of the synagogue and school and cur
rent discussion did he absorb and accept without
a question ? That we cannot tell, but it seems
probable that all the mere furniture of thought-

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 101
forms and current ideas concerning theology on
its speculative side were adopted by him natu
rally, while he changed the content of every form
and filled with new meaning all the ideas so
commonly handled about him. Nothing essen
tial did he accept, we may be certain, merely
because it was so taught. From the beginning,
this child, who grew into a man of such extraor
dinary insight and strength of mind, must have
found the well of pure religious feeling in him
self so copious and so refreshing that the flow of
it outward met and overmatched the inward
currents of ideas and forms of thought. He took
out of the teaching of home and school what he
could appropriate, and left the rest, as every
child does, but what he took was, we can con
ceive, the spiritual and the eternal, while the
temporary and peculiar was adopted only as a
vehicle for service, not as a fixed standard of
truth. The Gospels tell us of his journey with his
parents to Jerusalem at his twelfth year, to be
come a citizen and to take his place in the reli
gious system of his race. There is no reason for
rejecting the tradition in all its beauty and
natural simplicity. Jesus was an adolescent,
and the eager curiosity of that period, and its
love of argument, were his. The boy was so

102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
enamored of the temple and the atmosphere of
religion, and a mighty interest in spiritual things
so possessed his mind, that he forgot his duty to
his parents and the time appointed for return to
Nazareth. With unfailing energy, the magnet
of his people's religious center held him fast,
and for many hours, all day long, he listened to
the men who discussed the Scriptures and ex
pounded the Law, and asked them questions
which they may have found it difficult to answer
in the way of their profession. In their turn they
questioned him, and "all that heard him were
astonished at his understanding and answers."
His parents were naturally amazed, for how
could they know that a son of theirs would dare
to sit among the rabbis and actually discuss
their sacred books, which it was for them to
obey without a word? And when the mother-
heart, both apologetic to the learned men and
mindful of her own great anxiety, spoke a word
of chiding to her son, he made answer out of his
new world of thought and satisfied religious
sentiment, as if in greatest surprise that they did
not realize that there was only one place in all
the world where they might have known he
would be, engrossed in the things of his Father,
— in his Father's house. They did not under
stand what he meant by calling God his Father

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 103
in this intimate, personal fashion. They had
not realized until now how deep was the religious
life that they had fostered in their son. With
them he had not had much speech about these
high things. Their simple minds and the
parental range of topics had precluded that.
From this time forward a new interest in the
sacred books was doubtless apparent in Jesus,
and while he went down with them from the
temple, "and came to Nazareth, and was sub
ject unto them, and increased in wisdom and
stature, and in favor with God and man," there
was something different in the boy from that
day. The normal, universal change which we
call conversion had come to him,1 and with
fullest effect because it was in no way hampered
or resisted. His parents watched him with a
growing awe, and into their love for him a new
tenderness came, as he discharged so perfectly
the household duties which fell to his hand.
Their dreams of the future took on shapes of
large place and influential leadership, no doubt,
for their thoughtful boy who was so full of the
sense of God, and who entered with such earnest-
'" Religion has no other function than to make this change
complete, and the whole of morality may be well defined as
life in the interest of the race, for love of God and love of man
are one and inseparable." Hall, Adolescence, Vol. H, p. 304.

104 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
ness into every religious service. How should
he be educated ? How could they train him for a
learned profession ? When Joseph died and left
the burden of support of the family upon Mary
and Jesus, the possibility of such a course was
removed, and Mary must have resigned herself
to the thought that her son could never be more
than her husband had been, a worker in wood in
their own quiet village. But Jesus, growing into
young manhood, fulfilled every duty and absorbed
all goodness presented to him, shaped his thoughts
and broadened his sympathies, and gave himself
in his quiet life to meditation and prayer, to the
discipline of service and the weighing of truth
as he found it. It never served to detract from
his perfect relation to his Father when Jesus
found that things were hidden from his ken.
Rather in the exercise of faith did he prove the
perfection of the relation he professed.
Jesus may be styled with justice the typical
adolescent. His pure race-inheritance and his
simple life assured to him a probable period of
growth slow enough and long enough to attain
to all his powers of body and of mind without
stunting or premature development. He had
time to gain a full, well-rounded individuation.
The physical passions, held in check, transferred
their forces to the growth of soul within him; and

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 105
his psychic life was enriched by the freedom he
enjoyed from all false and exhausting stimula
tion of the nerves through the senses.1
No sympathetic modern student can accept
the conceptions of medieval or even of most
modern art as to the physical appearance of Jesus.
He was a workman, and had a workman's body,
large and strong. He was a leader of men, not
an ascetic nor an apologetic weakling. He
appealed to men and women, both, with power.
He could not have been an effeminate person,
but must have had elements of manly beauty,
in spite of the inferences often improperly drawn
from the prophetic words regarding Israel in
Isaiah (53: 2). li he was "a man of sorrows"
it was because he ministered to sorrow every
where the antidote of a joyous, sunny nature
that dwelt in serenity and exalted peace. His
will was strong, compelling men and shaping
circumstances. He had that lavishness of sense
which implies great capacity for pleasure or for
pain, for joy or for sorrow, with the eager spon
taneity of thought which belongs to such a nature.
1 " True religion is normally the slowest because the most
comprehensive kind of growth, and the entire ephebic decade
is not too long and is well spent if altruism or love of all that
is divine and human comes to assured supremacy over self
before it is ended. Later adolescence merges the lower into
the higher social self." — Hall, Adolescence, Vol. II, p. 304.

106 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
This afforded him quick sympathies, ready in
sight, and power to teach and lead.
Two influences were always strong in shaping
the character of the Nazarene. He had a de
voted mother, to whom he held the closest rela
tion even to the end. She was a deeply religious
and mystical nature, cherishing in her heart all
that occurred of unusual significance in the
history of her boy (Luke 2: 5l). John Milton
assumes to interpret her influence as remembered
by her son:
"These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving
By words at times cast forth, inward rejoiced,
And said to me apart, 'High are thy thoughts,
O son: but nourish them and let them soar
To what height sacred virtue and true worth
Can raise them, though above example high.' "
The feminine virtues of patience and steadfast
endurance she instilled into his mind, with the
grace of gentleness and the active principle of
love. The habit of prayer and the household
faith and knowledge of the Law doubtless grew
up about her centralizing and inspiring presence.
Boys should normally inherit from their mothers.
Consciousness of the fact has had something to
do with the reverence paid to Mary by the ages
of Christian practise and Christian aspiration.
Another formative influence in the shaping of

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 107
the character of Jesus lay in nature, spread about
him everywhere where the hand of man had not
covered it deep with his contrivances. The
Hebrew mind was peculiarly susceptible to nature.
The Psalms are almost like a collection of nature
songs and hymns and lyrics. All that is ma
jestic in mountain, sea and forest, in the deep
and populous skies and the majestic storm, in
sun and star, in light and darkness, — all finds an
appreciation in the Psalms. Job revels in the
larger aspects of it. Jerusalem is praised for
the beauty of her situation, the joy of the whole
earth, with the mountains round about her.
Nazareth, itself probably not preeminent for
beauty, lay in a region of fertile fields and sunny
hills, of varied landscape and far glimpses of
mountains and plains and the valley of the
Jordan. Every sensitive soul, awake to the
voices of the spirit, knows how full of significance
all nature is. In silence the soul drinks it in,
and alone upon the hilltops or basking in the
sun, long dreams come flocking to the growing
boy upon which his imagination feeds. He gains
the power of sympathy with nature where there
is nothing that can come between him and its
fresh, close touch, until he comes by a sort of
absorption to know her secrets and to be con
fident in her presence and to be refreshed by her

108 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
strong grasp. In those days of his early youth
Jesus learned the way to nature, and began that
communion which becomes one of the greatest
comforts to the weary heart and the doorway into
the upper rooms of life where God sits serene
and approachable, whatever may occur below
and without. Jesus traveled that road frequently
throughout the close, crowded days of his active
ministry, and gathered to his soul refreshment
in the fields where he walked alone with God,
or on the mountainsides in prayer. He must
have known for a long time
"The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature's unhoused lyceum."
"Himself to Nature's heart so near,
That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear."
The influence of nature upon all religious
souls is deep and constant. Not only to get away
from men, but also to be in touch with the liv
ing cloak of the earth which seems to lie close
about God, the "religious" have been inclined
to live apart in country places and usually amid
great beauty or under the spell of vastness and
grandeur, by the sea or among desert sands or in
the mountains. Amos, the, prophet, brought
something of the spirit of the landscape and its

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 109
effect upon his soul to Bethel when he made his
solemn protest against the royal luxury and the
license of them that forget God. Nature pic
tures stand out like illustrations all through his
prophecies. Elijah found his home on Carmel,
whose rugged rocks comport with his character.
Ezekiel owes much to the river Chebar by which
he dwelt, and the psalmists reveled in nature's
every mood.
The baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist was
a crisis in his life second to none hitherto. His
yearning spirit, searching everywhere for food,
assimilating all that came to him of nourishment
wherever found, rejecting whatever was not
according to experience, and using with perfect
freedom all that might serve as a temporary
vehicle of thought or emotion, went out to the
various teachers and preachers who came into
Galilee or whom he found in his annual visits at
the time of feasts in Jerusalem. Little did he
find that was new or stimulating in them or their
message. It was without authority, hollow, dry
and formal. He gives evidence of some com
munication with the Essenes, as with the Phari
sees, but the one as much as the other missed the
real content of life, and failed to stir his soul.
In his constant spiritual alertness, the teaching
of John the Baptist drew him to the great preacher

110 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
of repentance by the Jordan. How long he
listened to him, what relations were established
between them of sympathy or possibly of blood,
as the tradition brought down to us in the Fourth
Gospel suggests, we can never know. There is
evidence of acquaintance given in the description
of the act when he too was baptized and took
up as his own the message of repentance. Here
was one soul that spoke from deeper human needs
than the scribes. Here was one who understood
him better than any one else had ever done. The
realities of life were spiritual to him also. They
found so much in common that it became a ques
tion with John whether his disciple was not rather
his master. Jesus gave himself to the cult un
reservedly, however, and insisted that he should
be baptized by John as every other convinced
follower was. It was his opportunity, long
awaited, to attach himself to an active movement
and make known the purpose long ripening in
his heart, to serve the nation and the world.
His family did not suspect his high calling, and
later even tried to dissuade him from it; but it
was the beginning of life to him, after a long
preparation (Mark 3: 21, 31).
What the rite of baptism meant to him can be
understood only as we learn what it meant to the
average Jew, and then judge what it must mean

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 111
to one so full of the spirit of life as Jesus was.
Baptism was no new rite among his people.
The purifying bath of the entire body in a run
ning stream, or at least in cold water, was the
recognized form for ending ceremonial unclean
ness.1 This symbolic action had become in
itself of value as a restoration to covenant rights.
The proselyte had to submit to baptism as a con
dition of Jewish recognition. The Pharisees,
in accordance with their common way of treat
ing the Law, had accommodated the symbol and
reduced it to a pouring of water over the hands
before eating.2 The general significance of bap
tism was one of ceremonial purification, and full
or fresh participation in the covenant relations
of Israel with God. It was a symbol used even
with dishes and furniture (Mark 7: 4), and was
exceedingly common to the Jew.
John the Baptist evidently was not content
with the hollow form of baptism. He meant
something more by it than ceremonial cleansing
from any possible stain of touch or forbidden
association according to the Law. He meant
an inner purification, a change of spirit, a renewal
of relations with God in the very heart of man.
Only he who wanted that and would agree to
'Num. 19: llff.; 31: 19; Isa. 1: 16; Zech. 13: 1 and
Ezek. 36: 25ff. "Mark. 7: 3; Luke 11: 38.

112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
seek for it was welcomed to his baptism. The
rite of John looked backward to an unworthy
past. The emphasis he put upon repentance as
its prime condition met the needs of every sinful
soul. Did it meet the need of Jesus? Was he
too needing to repent? Or did he submit himself
as one who welcomed any spiritual propaganda,
who saw in John and his message the very voice he
had been longing for ? Jesus surely, if he was the
youth we have described, had no need of repent
ance. He attached himself to John irresistibly,
inevitably, as to the one lofty and effective spirit
ual cause among the people. If he had already
in his heart a great desire to tell men what he
had found in his personal experience with God,
as he surely must have had, then John became to
him the sure and necessary preparer of his way,
to fit men everywhere to hear his message of a
life of sonship to God, and baptism was the
significant door of entrance into the new relation.
With unerring judgment Jesus made himself
a part of the current popular movement, and in
no great humility, but rather in deepest devotion
and with lofty enthusiasm, he entered into the
waters and received baptism at the hands of
John. But that very act decided him that he
could never adopt such a symbol as his own
peculiar deed. He never himself baptized. The

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 113
rite he did adopt, to be administered by others,
not by himself, lest he seem to be another John
and his mission that of a prophet, marking all
with his own peculiar ceremony. He took the
rite and universalized it, as he did so many other
formal acts, and gave it to his disciples for its
spiritual, not its ceremonial, significance. He
added to it elements that lifted it out of the place
to which John had elevated it, and made Chris
tian baptism significant of a process of the Holy
Spirit. That fact has its bearings upon the
question what it meant for Jesus to be baptized
by John. With him it looked forward rather
than backward, upward rather than downward,
and away from self to God.
This act of Jesus was not taken without con
templation. He made it a step toward larger
things beyond. Did he remember that conse
cration to the kingly office was effected by his
people with the baptismal act (1 Sam. 16: 13),
and through it gather to himself new power in a
deeper consciousness that he was the Son of God ?
He did not mean to join himself to John as a
follower of his. They had doubtless talked of
that before, and John was reconciled to have
this man, whom he felt to be so much more truly
fitted for service to the nation than he could be,
increase while he decreased. He gave his dis-

114 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
ciples up to him when they were ready for the
higher leadership, and only kept about him those
for whom his message seemed better adapted
as a preparation for the fuller gospel of his
friend. But even he was not prepared for the
exaltation in which Jesus received the rite. The
novitiate was taken out of himself, and wrapt in
vision which he afterward described as seeing
heaven opened and hearing a voice calling him
the beloved Son of God. At the same time
Jesus saw in his vision as it were a dove bearing
the gift of the Holy Spirit of God, to rest upon
him forevermore. Many great men have had
these intense psychoses at times of unusual
excitement. Evidently the consecration of his
future life was involved in that ceremony of his
baptism, and increased its significance mightily
to him. He did not tell his disciples about his
visions in order to gain authority over them, but
only in the intimate sharing with them of his
deepest experiences..
Mark had a more subtle understanding of the
growth of the self-consciousness of Jesus than the
early Church in the dogmatic stress of reflection
could acquire. Mark was right in discovering
the beginning of the Messiahship of Jesus at the
baptism, rather than at the ascension where the
writer of Acts (2: 36) conceives it to originate.

THE YOUTH OF JESUS 115
Jesus knew himself from this time on, not in
ecstatic rapture, but in sound, sane ways, and in
profound conviction, as the Son of God, par
excellence. Here was the turning-point of his
life. A new field, untried, untrodden by any
other foot, as much beyond that in which John
had done so much to arouse the people as
John was above all other voices of the day,
awaited him, and he faced it alone with God.
Is it strange that he saw visions and showed him
self exalted in his spirit? Thus he passed on
from John, led by forces stronger than himself,
up to the wilderness, to meet and wrestle with
the pressing practical questions of his future
way. These are the materials for growth which the
mind and spirit of Jesus found, and which
served to feed his soul with the ideals of the
Messianic office. He did not reach his conscious
ness of the call of God by pure thinking, nor did
he search out the Old Testament ideals and
adjust his life to them. Had he tried to reason
out the matter in logical course, he would have
adopted totally different methods, and the result
would have been a repetition of the failures that
are forgotten. Logic told him that he was not,
and could never be, the Messiah, nor anything
more than a religious reformer like John. His

116 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
faith in his mission sprang from deeper depths,
and was the very current of his life.1 It was
faith in himself and in God. He himself must
unfold as God gave him opportunity; and in per
fect confidence, seeing only a little way ahead,
he entered upon his career.
'Matt. 11: 28ff.; 12: 28; Mark 1: 10; 3: 27; Luke 4:
18ff.; 10: 18f; 11: 20; 12: 10.

CHAPTER VI
THE TEMPTATION
Whatever his preparation had been for the
Messianic role when he came to the baptism of
John, one thing Jesus did not once think to
realize, and that was the common conception of
an apocalyptic Messiah. His studies of Scrip
ture, his discussion of the current Pharisaic ideal,
must have led him to formulate definite ideas
about that. His entire temper of mind and
his attitude toward life determined his course
with reference to the more violent and drastic
phases of that popular dream. He surely did
have at some time a definite belief in his Messi
anic mission; even students of the school of
Strauss and Renan agree that this is indisputable.
He called men to share with him a new ethico-
religious sonship to God, and that call on Jewish
lips involved a Messianic consciousness. His
office he recognized, expanded, and exalted, or
the entire gospel story is misleading.
The Temptation is typical of experiences which
must have extended through weeks and months
117

118 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
when he was facing the question of the formula
tion of his ideals and the adoption of methods
for realizing them. He must have come to the
conviction, long before, that he was a chosen
messenger of God, and in subjecting himself to
the baptism of John he became convinced that
he was the true Messiah. The familiar symbols
of the dove and the voice, more familiar to a
Jew in such a connection than to us, are what we
might expect him to employ in speaking of his
call. The current ideas of the method of ful
filling such a calling as God opened up to him
were diverse and far from clear in their expression.
He had spent thirty years of life in coming up to
this hour, in meditation and study and observa
tion, and the quiet practise of a life of gentle
godliness. He had lived much alone. He had
found the comfort of nature. He knew how to
enter into the closest fellowship with his Father
in the unsullied environment of his handiwork.
Now the greatness of his task confronts him, and
he feels his need of counsel and support. For
this the Spirit drives him into the wilderness.
Some such retreat every great soul must make
now and then, where he can recall the past and
sift it through the narrower present view, and
thus produce the material from which the future
must be built. " The secret of man is the secret

THE TEMPTATION 119
of the Messiah," the schoolmen used to say.
The spirit drives us all into the wilderness. A
sojourn there belongs to human conflict. It has
a place in normal human experience. Not only
for the sorrows and disappointments and the
doubts and uncertainties of life, but also in the
hour of success and under highest stimulus of
opportunity, the soul must stand aside and get
its poise and seek a perspective of its tasks. And
most of all when the privilege before one is a
moral opportunity, there must be this chance to
withdraw from the real into the ideal, from the
practical into the underlying principles, from
the strife and commotion of doing into the calm
ness and assurance of being. But before this
can be reached, the soul must fight its battle with
the Tempter, and hold undiminished its full
supply of moral energy and moral purpose. He
who does that will find at length that angels
come and minister unto him.
Every great religious leader has had his time
of temptation when he has retreated into the
wilderness and fought his battle through alone
with God. Zaruthustra was tempted by the
evil spirit which besought him to renounce the
good law, and so gain power over the nations.
Buddha won his confidence thus, and so did
Mohammed. Confucius spent three years in

120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
isolation before his life-work began. The im
mense consequences hanging on the fate of a single
man, and upon the method of his activity as a
teacher of religion, would drive any son of God
apart for a season. The experience of Jesus in
the wilderness was normal and significant. The
intensity of the spirit of the teacher will always be
the gage of the power of his struggle in the spirit,
as he clears his mind and prepares his entire
being for the work before him. The clarity of his
vision of God will likewise regulate the momen-
tousness of the conflict into which he will enter.
This retreat of Jesus served him somewhat as
the sojourn of Saul of Tarsus in Arabia served
him a few years later. It was a period of read
justment. It was a time for measuring the past
and gathering its permanent values, as well as
a season for making plans for future action. It
gave to Jesus an opportunity similar to that pro
vided by so many primitive peoples in the search
for a totem, on which errand every boy is sent
before he enters into manhood and undertakes
the serious business of his life in the tribe. The
guardian spirit who is to preside over his des
tinies comes to the youth in solitude. He fasts, he
prays, he lives in nature's full simplicity until he
knows the form in which God will walk with him.1
1 See Hall, Adolescence, Vol. II, chap. XIII.

THE TEMPTATION 121
The need is as deep as religion. It is common
to all men, as religion is. But not all respond to
the need and seek to satisfy it. A nature of such
depth and capacity for spiritual emotion as that
which Jesus possessed could not fail to seek, not
indeed a totem, but that for which the totem stood
to minds less trained in the knowledge of God —
the complete sense of the cooperation of God
himself with him in all the momentous under
takings upon which he was about to enter.
Jesus was subject to mental visions through
out his life. Not only at his baptism, but in the
wilderness, on the Mount of Transfiguration, in
Gethsemane, and in every crisis of his life he
saw with the inner eye the realities of his faith
and held communion with God. He frequently
retreated into quiet valleys among the mountains
or upon lonely peaks, and beside the sea, to bring
his mind into the atmosphere of heaven. He
was often agitated under wrath or in performing
miracles, as if in touch with unseen forces which
stirred within him. But always and everywhere
these forces were ordered under his control, and
prepared him for fuller power by their touch
with his soul. Calm and full of peace, he drew
assurance from his conflicts and entered deeper
into the fellowship with God with every struggle.
He was true to his humanity in such experiences,

122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
but never commonplace in the way in which he
grew by them. There was no study of incanta
tions or exorcismal formulas in his mind, such
as the Persian cult required in long fasts, nor
anything like the assault upon Gautama by the
three daughters of the demon, Craving, Dis
content, and Lust. His struggle was with his
own spiritual self.
The replies of Jesus to the three temptations
as preserved to us reveal his attitude toward the
work before him.1 These temptations represent
the three phases of Messianism as it confronted
him, and therefore the very questions that he
had to meet. The first temptation stands for
the demand of selfish materialism, like that of
the Roman rabble later on when they called for
bread and amusement. It was the demand upon
God of privilege as the right of his Son. It
echoed the Jewish call for an immediate and ma
terial provision against suffering and want. It
was the intense and insistent demand of the hu
man being in him, bidding him live for himself,
and justifying that course by his high office.
And it came to him in the insinuating phrase of
1 "The whole temptation in the wilderness is simply a
victory of the moral consciousness over the religion of physical
prodigy." — A. Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Re
ligion, p. 73.

THE TEMPTATION 123
possible doubt. It suggested that he ought to
be independent of God his Father, as the
Messiah. It suggested that he ought to have
privileges which other men do not enjoy. Thus
this temptation placed before him his relations
to both God and man, as well as to nature in
which he walked. Should he isolate himself?
Should he fail in that perfect dependence in which
he had learned to live with his Father? Should
he let any use of his power and position come in
between him and the men he so longed to con
vince of the reasonableness of his life as the
normal life? Should he permit himself to take
a place outside of nature, and over against it,
by commanding it to serve him exceptionally?
To each of these suggestions he had one answer.
Had he allowed a selfish thought to come in be
tween himself and God, then his strength would
have departed from him. Had he removed him
self from the fullest identity with mankind, he
could never have been their Elder Brother. Had
he taken a place over against nature, as a sovereign
Lord whose least caprice it must serve, he could
never have found it the same House of God for
his jaded soul that it had been in the past, nor
would he ever have been able to lay such con
fident hands upon its forces in his ministry as he
so often did. Jesus rose above the physical and

124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
dwelt serenely in the spiritual realm, where even
the inconveniences of the body were remote to
him. He kept faith with God and man, and
held himself unswervingly to the simplicity of
his human life. The apocalyptic visions of his
people warranted another course, but he yielded
not an inch along their path. He would not take
even his body into his own keeping, but left him
self altogether in the hands of God. His trust
was in his Father, and with serenity and peace
he waited upon the spiritual interests involved
in his opening career.
With that quick suggestion of opposites so
often noticed by all who carry on the strife after
higher things, the second temptation jumps to
the spiritual ground upon which the victory has
been won. As the story is told in St. Matthew,
he is urged to take a short cut to power, and to
gratify at the same time both the popular desire
for a sensation, and his own great faith in God.
To cast himself down from the temple top would
convince the crowd. It would compel them to
believe on him and satisfy some of the expected
requirements of the typical Messiah. Many had
said that he would come suddenly. What could
be more startling than such a coming as that into
public view? And many too had prophesied
that he would be a supernatural person from

THE TEMPTATION 125
heaven. Could there be a better launching of
his projected Messiahship than this spectacular
appearance? Again there was the noble test of
faith in the eternal care of the Father. Such a
casting of himself upon his mercies could not fail
to show how closely he was bound to God.
Just these relations to both God and man, and
to his own self, he could not assume. To de
mand of God a merely arbitrary supervision of
his destiny, like that, was sure to break forever
the closer bond that bound him to his Father.
To make himself not one of the simple sons
of man, but an exceptional, wonder-breathing
character, aloof, awesome, inhuman, was to
make impossible forever the close relations of
human brotherhood and moral sympathy by
which he knew already that his Kingdom must
come. Such a coming would preclude the
possibility of his ever teaching men the way of
love, and bringing them into sonship like his own
to the common Father. He sought not to con
vince the senses, but the consciences, of men.
He had no desire to set himself above them, but
every interest in keeping as close as possible to
common human beings. To cut himself off from
humanity was not his way of ascent to divinity,
but to live a perfect human life. He could no
more adopt the spectacular method of so much

126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
of the apocalyptic speculations than he could
serve his appetite and deliver himself from in
convenience through his new and absorbing con
sciousness of power.
There was another common demand of the
people upon their Messianic ideal. They felt
the shame of their national dependence and the
bitterness of political subjection to people whom
they despised and looked upon as usurpers of
their rights. The Messiah they looked for was
to deliver them by a stretched-out arm. He
was to bear the sword. Worldly power alone
could deliver Israel, and armies well equipped
must follow the Davidic king. They knew some
thing of world powers. If Israel were to subju
gate them all, even if she were to avenge herself
of the Roman tyranny, she must be like Rome.
The earthly powers must serve the heavenly King.
This conception Jesus steadfastly refused to
consider. A Kingdom indeed he will establish,
but it shall not be of the earth, nor shall its might
be that of arms. It shall be world-wide in ex
tent, but it shall not depend upon the sword for
its propagation. To adopt the current plan of a
warring Messiah would be to fall down and
worship Satan himself. He will maintain at all
hazards, even though he does not know how he
will come out, the lofty ideals of his heart, and

THE TEMPTATION 127
pursue the even tenor of his way, even though it
seems unreasonable and unattractive to the
average man. He faces the old with a selective
scrutiny that will not pass one single feature that
fails to stand his spiritual test, and fills in, with
confidence in the final outcome, the new and
difficult personal features of his own cherished
ideal. Rejecting all compromise, it was " Christ
or Mohammed," and only one of those alter
natives attracted him.
Thus Jesus won his right to a richer faith and
a higher place in the world of heroic natures.
Thus he conquered in the fight with custom and
prejudice and current opinion, even before he
had met them in the concrete and individual
forms through which they were destined to troop
past him on his way and challenge his every
deed and word. This great soul was reenforced
by his temptations, as is every soul who conquers
in such an hour. He was brought into closer
touch with God, as is every man who stands firm
for that which he feels is right, even at great cost.
Failure, I suppose, was not thought possible by
Jesus in those hours, for he had all the fresh
enthusiasm and confidence of youth and victory.
And with a high courage and buoyant heart he
went down from his forty days to begin with
men the labors to which he had given his life.

128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
The temptation was not a time of heart-search
ing as to the genuineness of his Messianic calling,
but a time for determining the method of apply
ing the powers he knew were his. Should he
work for himself, or for God and man? For
immediate results, or for final destiny? With
moral and spiritual forces alone, or with use of
the material resources of his Father? Should
his own great gifts of mysterious psychic power
serve his own interests at any time, or only those
of God? These are the questions he asked,
and to these he found an answer.
Each of the temptations had to do with the
natural longing of an earnest heart for results.
How could a spirit on fire with passion wait in
definitely for the response to his plain and urgent
proclamation? He came as a sower of good
seed. He naturally wanted to see the harvest,
or at least the springing grain. But the patience
of a perfect faith, and the long-suffering of a soul
satisfied with the expenditure of itself, were neces
sary to his future work. These he acquired in
those days of struggle with the temptations of
opportunism, — opportunism of the body, in
use of divine power for physical ends; oppor
tunism of sense, in casting himself down from
the pinnacle of the temple; opportunism of politi
cal supremacy, in using worldly means to reach

THE TEMPTATION 129
heavenly ends. He came to know the things
the Son of God could never permit himself to do.
He progressed far along the way of a new con
ception of the Messianic calling as it must be
worked out in its detail. He had always been
sure that it must be a moral, not a political,
office; he came to see how the end determines
the means. He caught a glimpse of the con
stant thwarting of the popular will which he was
to experience. Yet he did not lose hope. From
the wilderness he went back to his place among
men with rare confidence in himself and his
mission, to proclaim the Kingdom of God as
close at hand, a personal and inner realization
of the divine law. He hoped and believed that
men would see as he did, and accept his teaching
soon, and join him in the joyous labors of estab
lishing the Kingdom on the earth.

CHAPTER VII
THE KINGDOM OF GOD ACCORDING TO JESUS
Jesus used both of the expressions " The King
dom of God" and "The Kingdom of heaven,"
probably, with preference for the latter, to avoid
using the name of God according to the common
practise of the day. The Old Testament use
of the term, meaning a present political kingdom,
and the apocalyptic use of it as of one to come,
mark the two extremes of current faith. John
preached a future but imminent kingdom on the
earth. The ordinary Jewish Messianic faith
implied conquest and world-power, but the term
Kingdom of heaven referred to an abstract reign
of God.
Jesus did not swing to either extreme, but used
the words of both the present and the future, of
the concrete as well as the abstract, though never »
of a political kingdom. He saw a real kingdom
here on earth, but it extended far on into the
future. He taught what was true in apocalyptic
visions, and used the poetic, symbolic expressions
of that literature, when he could gain attention
130

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 131
and not be misunderstood; and he also taught
the gradual approach of an earthly Kingdom
already begun in the hearts of men. He was
neither exclusively ethical in his conceptions
nor wholly eschatological; he was both. His
prime teaching was, The Kingdom is within you.
Whether the preposition is translated "within"
or "among," the same spiritual interpretation
must be placed upon it. In human hearts made
true and obedient to love, in lives of service in
his name, the signs of the Kingdom's presence
might be seen. He was intensely ethical in his
idea. Such a Kingdom could not come all at
once, nor apart from human aid ; it was absolutely
dependent upon human effort and cooperation,
and like the mustard seed, the leaven, the grow
ing grain in the field, it must have time for its
completion. So he taught, now that the King
dom is to come, now that it is here; and both
were true. But there is no sign that an earthly,
political monarchy was ever thought of by him
after the struggle when he resisted all such temp
tation in favor of his nobler, inner Kingdom in
the hearts of men. He spoke in pictures, and
with an immediate personal purpose, in almost
every word of his preserved to us.
The leading factor in his gospel was ethical,
not apocalyptic. He never separated the ethical

132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
from the apocalyptic, nor the eschatological from
the ethical. Religion and morals he united in
spite of man's endeavor to put them asunder.
They are mutually inclusive. He knew of no
religion minus morality, nor of morals minus
religion. He would endorse Paul's phrase, " The
kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but right
eousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
His Kingdom was not of this world, because it
was not political. It was emphatically of this
world in the sense that it must flourish here.
And everywhere where human souls exist will
be the place of his Kingdom. The leaven of his
spirit he believed would transform the world in
time. The Kingdom, to him, was more the
family, than the empire, of God.
Fifty-three times in the Gospel of Matthew,
sixteen times in Mark, thirty-nine times in Luke,
and five times in John, allusion, more or less
full, is made to the Kingdom of heaven or of
God. The two terms are used synonymously.
There was a long program adopted by the rabbis
to be followed out in introducing the Kingdom.
The final bitterness, the coming of Elijah, fol
lowed by the Messiah; the final conquest of their
enemies, Jerusalem reinstated as a world capital,
the Dispersion organized, a glorious day in
Palestine, the world restored; the general resur-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 133
rection, the last judgment and the final and
eternal salvation and punishment, — this was
what they taught, according to Schiirer.1 This
ordered way Jesus did not treasure. He called
John, the forerunner, "Elijah" (Matt. 11: 14;
17: 12), but the plans of earthly conquest he
changed into spiritual experiences. He did teach
that the old, present age was about to collapse,
but his assertions deal with unendurable con
ditions on the ethical side. There was a certain
tinge of other-worldliness in some of his utter
ances (Mark 13: 24 ff.), but he steadfastly refused
to indulge in the mathematics of eschatology.2
The transformation of the world and the coming
of the Kingdom were one event, not two, and
he was confessedly ignorant of the time. He
promised blessedness and peace to all who would
practise the laws of the Kingdom, and this high
estate was to begin at once for all who would
enter in. Righteousness and love must ever
secure the blessedness of which he spoke and
which characterized the Kingdom he proclaimed.
He taught, not a social philosophy, but the prac
tical and personal bearing of individuals in a
state where the purest social philosophy might
be formulated upon an ethico-religious basis.
Philosophies never originate movements; move-
» n. 126ff. 2 Matt. 25: 19; Luke 20: 9; 21: 8, 24.

134 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
ments give rise to philosophies. Jesus sought to
set men to living right, and that was the essential
thing. Thus he instituted the highest morals of
the world and set the purest standards of conduct.
He did not attempt to lay down rules, nor to
enter into any casuistry, although multitudes
have tried to make out a cast-iron Christian sys
tem, and to fit the peculiar glove of circumstances
in his age upon the hand of each succeeding
generation. Entrance to the Kingdom Jesus founa a narrow
gate, through which all who came in must pass
one at a time, not en masse. He was intensely
individualistic in his conceptions, in spite of the
fact that he was founding a new order of society.
He began with the raw material, and made sure
of that first. He worked from within outward,
and so joined himself to nature's ways. Not
war and violence, but peace and rest; not a
political kingdom, but a true life fit for eternity,
— this is what he sought for from the first.
First the blade, then the ear, and only after the
long summer came the full corn. The leaven
worked unseen and slowly from within, as the
seed of the farmer grew.
The brotherhood idea was not wanting in the
mind of Jesus. The children of the common
Father were to be united in following him, and

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 135
in the working out of his overmastering passion
for mankind. This fellowship was bound at
length to transform the world and to establish
a wholly new society, whose law should be love
and service. The Ritschlian theology is war
ranted in its sociological thinking, and has
developed a needed phase of the teaching of Jesus
for our day. His method was that of nature, by
the inspiration of a new life. "He deposited
in it a new principle; but he left in it many
obscurities, abandoning to time and to the force
of events the task of bringing out the consequences
and clearing up confusions."1
The eschatological language which Jesus used
cannot have meant to him what it meant to cur
rent Judaism; but like all of his teaching, it was
intended for the ear attuned to his spiritual
message. Interpreted wholly as referring to the
individual experience, and the Kingdom within,
the events and processes, the portents and seasons,
all may find a counterpart. To assert that he
spoke these words in the voice of his day, is to
make impossible the entire drift of his teachings
about the Kingdom. He saw the sudden com
ing of the inner Kingdom as a constant possi
bility in human hearts, but his gaze was not
1 Sabatier, Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 188,
189.

136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
fixed upon the clouds in wrapt expectancy. If
he used the " little apocalypse " in Mark (13 : 7-9a,
14-20, 24-27, 30) he cannot possibly have failed
to adapt it to his dominant purpose and to apply
it to the Kingdom he had taught and hoped to
establish then and there. A sudden transfor
mation would never bring the Kingdom of Good
Will which Jesus announced. Its one essential
was the inner progress of grace, which must
have time.
Jesus did not contemplate an organization
apart from the Jewish faith in which he was
born, but rather an outgrowth from it in vital
incarnation of the deepest spirit of that faith.
He did gather the Twelve with evident intent to
leave to them the work of inoculating others
with the virtue of his spirit. He warned them
of the hatred and persecution into which they
would be brought 1 and joined that expectation
to his own sufferings and death. He spoke
doom upon the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles
alike2 but did not think of having his words
magnified to a prophecy of earthly catastrophe.
The Fourth Gospel, written later than the
others, in the maturer conceptions of a tried
faith, sets forth the idea of a slower process in the
1 Matt. 10: 24 ff.; Luke 12: 49-53; Mark 10: 37-39.
2 Luke 10: 13-15; 11: 29-31, 49-51.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 137
growth of the Kingdom, and indeed substitutes
for the Jewish idea of the Kingdom the Greek
idea of eternal life, which is so closely synony
mous with it. We cannot doubt that this more
modern formulation of the spirit of the teaching
of Jesus represents for us the content of the mind
of Christ.
There was a great contrast between the teach
ing of Jesus as to the Kingdom and that of the
rabbis. "This new conception was a startling
one. Whereas prophets, priests, and apocalyp-
tists had thought of the ultimate earthly state of
blessedness as a moral and political reconstruc
tion of the nation, — political independence and
perfection of national obedience to the Law, —
Jesus made the essence of the new life to be the
purity of the individual soul. The Deliverer,
who had always been conceived of as a temporal
king, he held to be a teacher, sent from God to
show men the spirit of the divine Law."1
He announced principles which tended to
abrogate the ceremonial, to abolish outward dis
tinctions, and to lead to the conclusion that all
men stood in the same relation to God. He had
to use modes of expression current at that time
and always, for his sacred theme. This makes
the outer parallels between his teaching and that
1 Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 415.

138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
of the rabbis here peculiarly numerous. Yet
nowhere are they farther apart. For instance, in
the Beatitudes, he took what seem to be common
terms of expression for the blessings of their
outer Messianic age, and showed the inner, truest
meanings for the poor in spirit, the hungry and
those thirsting after righteousness.
When Hillel says, "My humility is my great
ness, and my greatness my humility," he reveals
in saying it how wide a contrast lies between his
spirit and the true humility of Jesus. The title
"Kingdom of heaven" was a Jewish one; it was
taken from its narrowness and made as broad
as the heavens by the new Teacher. They
taught one to expect a deliverance from Rome;
Jesus, a salvation from sin. They taught right-
ousness of form as a condition of entering the
Kingdom; he a spiritual, inner righteousness
which was to be a badge of membership — ethi
cal, not physical holiness, was what he sought.
Nowhere is the contrast better shown than in St.
Paul's discussion of the Law in Romans and
Galatians. Law left him in bondage and un
certainty, even despair. From it, Christ Jesus
rescued him; and he saw the necessity — so over
shadowing is this phase of his experience — of
relating all Christ's life and death to this great
deliverance, and of reasoning out a theory how

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 139
it was done. Out of overwhelming fear he came
to joy and peace; from beggarly elements to the
inheritance incorruptible. The Kingdom was a
future picture to the expectant Jews. Jesus
made it present, immediate. At first he said it
was at hand, and later that it was beginning
already.1 Thus it became the touchstone by
which all earthly relations were changed to an
atmosphere of peace and joy constantly about
believers. No earthly advantage was included
in it, — but there was assurance of eternal life.
And that life was newly conceived, for it was
spiritualized and made more definite. Resur
rection was relieved of its speculative tinge and
became an object of faith and necessary religious
hope. The Kingdom was not external, not
political, not limited to the nation even, not
mediate in relation to God, nor was it dependent
on a legal formalism, nor put off to a vague
future. It was inner, spiritual; directly related
to God, universal, of grace, not law, — under a
Messiah who stood among them.
The Sermon on the Mount certainly has a
normative relation to thought regarding the
Kingdom, and deserves its titles of code, Magna
Charta, etc. "The temporary design of our
Lord in the beatitudes," says Tholuck, "was to
i Matt. 12: 28; Luke 11: 20.

140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
crush the hope of external felicity, which was all
that the people expected from the Messiah."1
The complete sermon he calls a delineation of
the moral law of Christianity in its general out
lines. So sure was the Council of Trent 2 that
Christ gave a new law that it anathematized
any one who taught otherwise. It was new as
all his mission was new, — a spiritual develop
ment of that which men were fast petrifying into
hard formalism. And it was a present King
dom,3 which St. John had a perfect right to in
terpret in terms of present spiritual life.
Admission to this Kingdom was not by legal
ism, nor by potitical fitness, not by the accumu
lated righteousness of others, nor by catastrophe.
It was by repentance, showing openness of spirit
to God, who could thus alone fill the soul, — by
poverty of spirit. Theirs is the Kingdom of God.
A reward is added, as a matter of abundant
grace, and victory over the great enemy Satan is
a matter of course. Righteousness, or a perfect
fulfilling of the will of God, is an essential part
of the Kingdom. Fulfilment of the Law is to
be the kernel, but in spirit, not in form. The
1 Sermon on Mount, 1, 97.
2 Sixth Session, 21st Canon.
'Matt. 11: 12; 12: 28; 16: 19; Luke 16: 16; 17: 20; 21:
Mark 12: 34.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 141
result of the strife of love to fulfil all is the
Kingdom. The work of the Messiah, as well as the Mes
siah's self, must be different in such a Kingdom
from that of the expected Messiah of the day.
And because of this difference, he must be a
prophet, a teacher of spiritual truth. Jesus often
styles himself so.1 Thus he began his ministry.
Nowhere, perhaps, is there greater contrast
between the teaching of the rabbis and that of
Jesus than in the doctrines regarding sin and
sinners and forgiveness. The former said little
about sin, save the formal neglect of the Law.
To Jesus, sin is the great rival power against
Righteousness, which is the soul of the Kingdom.
To it, then, Jesus must have peculiar relation.
He is the embodiment of deliverance from it, and
of forgiveness. "All other systems know of no
welcome till the sinner has ceased to sin. He
must first be a penitent, then he will find wel
come. Christ welcomes him to God, and so
makes him penitent."2
And as this power is universal, so the work of
Christ in forgiveness must be; the spiritual nature
of the Kingdom is the ground for the relation to
sin and for the universal rule of the Messiah.
» Mark 6: 4; Matt. 10: 40, 41; 15: 24; 21: 3, 4.
2 Edersheim.

142 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
There comes in also the interpretation of Isaiah
53, of the Messiah, which, if not utterly new with
Jesus, was at least adopted and vitalized by his
gentle spirit.
So Jesus taught men to pray to God as to their
Father. He introduced them to a Kingdom
already in process of becoming, whose reign is
not by Law but by Love. He showed them how
human nature was the ground for it, not Judaism,
and how the true Messiah must come to teach,
to comfort and to suffer for sin, and rise from the
death inflicted by the powers of evil to a life of
constant spiritual service of his Father's children.
Upon these three foundation stones he was con
tent to rest the superstructure of his mission: the
revelation of God as the personal Father of men;
the saving grace of the Father's love; and the
saving righteousness of a responsive, filial affec
tion.

CHAPTER VIII
THE MESSIANIC TITLES AS JESUS USED THEM
For several years the battle has been waged
around the titles which are assigned to Jesus in
the Gospels. So sharp has it become that the
latest writer in America in this field 1 has frankly
confessed that the whole question of the person
of Jesus rests upon the interpretation given to
the title "Son of man," which he is assumed in
the Gospels to have used of himself.
The philological argument as stated by Well
hausen and his school is based upon the proba
bility that Jesus, if he used any such phrase as
6 utos tov avOpunrov stands for in the Greek, must
have employed the common Aramaic words
"Bar nasha." In Aramaic the phrase must
mean man, generically, or be an indefinite, but
never can it be a title. The translators of an
early Aramaic tradition into Greek were misled
into the baldest literalism, and rendered this
idiomatic expression word for word, 6 mos tov av
Opunrov, instead of according to its real meaning.
¦ Schmidt, The Prophet of Nazareth, p. 131.
143

144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
This reinterpretation the scholar then applies
to every case in which his criticism finds the
Greek phrase employed with probability of his
toricity, and demonstrates that the meaning
assumed for the Aramaic expression fits all de
mands of the text. This done, the conclusion is
drawn that Jesus never made a claim that he
was the Messiah, and that he never dreamed of
such a thing, but even definitely and persistently
denied such a mission and refused such a title.
Let us examine first the philological argument,
and then the application of it to the gospel.
It is probable that Jesus did speak Aramaic,
although he may easily have known and prob
ably did know Hebrew, and may have had some
acquaintance with Greek. The Greek names
among his earliest followers suggest that he
moved in a society not altogether removed from
Greek influences.1 Assuming that he spoke his
gospel to Aramaic-speaking people, however, the
tradition which brought it down to us would nat
urally have an original Aramaic form, although
with constant and increasing tendency to as
sume a Greek expression of it also. As the
Church spread far and wide from Jerusalem in
1 The conjecture of Sanday and Driver that Jesus may
have used the phrase first in Greek while addressing Gali
leans in that tongue cannot be proved to be even probable.

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 145
the days of Paul, this Greek tradition became a
necessity, and assumed a fixed form, alongside
the Aramaic tradition, which must have been
dear to the Jewish Christians in every church,
even in Rome. There must have been constant
and careful comparison between the two, and
even sharp criticism of the Greek tradition by
those who held fast to the seemingly older and
more accurate Aramaic wording. In every
critical expression, and highly significant word,
especially touching the person of Jesus and his
Messianic mission, the Jewish members of those
early churches would have been keen to detect
any radical departure from their personal and
cherished Aramaic accounts. The facts estab
lished in the Acts and in the epistles of St. Paul,
even if we confine ourselves to the five epistles
which are generally conceded to belong to him,
all indicate that there was a sharp rivalry between
the two elements in the new Church which would
guarantee that the gospel as rendered into Greek
should be a strict and reliable rendering of the
meaning as well as the words of Jesus as he must
have expressed himself in the Aramaic.
If this reasoning is fair, then it is unfair to
assume that we can translate the Greek back
into Aramaic, declare that Jesus used the very
expression we employ, and then assert that this

146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Aramaic phrase does not mean at all what the
Greek phrase does from which we translated it.
Shall we conclude that the original Greek tra
dition, worked out in the midst of hot and bitter
conflict, by slow degrees, not in a cool scholarly
atmosphere with a lexicon and grammar over
night, was mistaken in its rendering of a simple
and commonplace expression into a highly im
portant and critical title which no Jew on the
other side could detect and no leader like Peter
or Paul could correct? Or is it a more natural
inference that the modern scholar, however well
equipped with lexicons and texts — and his
equipment in reality is both meager and difficult
to interpret — has failed to reconstruct the text
exactly as it stood in the Aramaic tradition ? Is it
a matter after all of the letter, or of the idea ? If
the latter is the important thing, the philological
argument hardly suffices to overthrow it alone.
The dogmatism of criticism is no more worthy
to rank as argument than the dogmatism of
faith. To declare that Jesus cannot have used
the phrase "Bar nasha" as a title is to beg
the question. To assert that Jesus must have
used this particular phrase is also an assumption
that we can hardly make, in the paucity of our
knowledge of the dialect he spoke. And to pro
nounce it settled that Jesus never called himself

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 147
Son of man, upon such evidence, is to assume
that possibilities are probabilities and proba
bilities certainties. There is abundant evidence
in the undisputed epistles of St. Paul that he and
those to whom he wrote had very definite con
victions about the Messianic office of Jesus, and
that they never doubted that he recognized him
self as the Messiah, difficult as that was for the
Greek and the Roman to accept.
When it comes to applying the assumed
Aramaic phrase "Bar nasha" to all the passages
which the latest criticism leaves unassailed, the
demonstration of the precariousness of the con
clusions reached by Wellhausen and Schmidt is
complete. These passages are, according to
Schmidt,1 Matt. 8:20; 9:6; 11:19; 12:8; 12:32a;
20: 18, with 17: 22 left in doubt. Three passages
occur also in Luke (the first, third, and fifth), the
others in the Synoptic tradition. The first pas
sage reads, "The foxes have holes, and the birds
of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath
not where to lay his head." This was said in
reply to the ardent profession of a certain scribe
who in his enthusiasm over the healing of many
sick people, declared, " Master, I will follow thee
whithersoever thou goest." To substitute the pro
posed translation of " Bar nasha " here, making
ipp. 121-125.

148 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Jesus say in reply, "A man hath not where to lay
his head," with no reference to himself or the
risk incurred in following him, is to rob the pas
sage of sense and pertinence. The second refer
ence is to the story of the man sick of the palsy,
where Jesus replies to the criticism of the scribes,
"That ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, . . . Arise,
take up thy bed." Apply the generic meaning
to Son of man, and the sense is materially altered,
not only for the verse but for the entire passage.
He would not prove by his healing the man that
any man who came along could forgive sins.
He meant evidently to imply that since he could
heal an apparently incurable disease, he could
do what seemed to them a part of the same act,
since they believed disease was a sign of guilt,
namely, forgive his sins. In dealing with this
passage Schmidt (p. 197) passes quickly from
the real issue, the forgiving of sins, to the declara
tion of forgiveness, the assurance that sins are
forgiven, namely by God. Of course man may
make that proclamation, but to forgive is a divine
prerogative, and the whole meaning hinges upon
that understanding. Did Jesus merely tell the
man that God forgave him, and in doing so ex
plain to the lookers-on that any man could do
that? Or did he actually presume to forgive

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 149
the man himself, with an assumption of divine
prerogative? There can be no doubt that the
latter is the true meaning, and it is sustained by
the phrase " on earth," as if he, in earthly form,
must do what God in heaven was pleased to do.
The proposed rendering of " Bar nasha " evidently
does not meet the needs of the passage.
The third reference is to Matt. 11 : 19. There
Jesus makes his characteristic contrast between
the coming of John Baptist and the bearing of
the Son of man who came eating and drinking.
To assume that he said that man in general came
eating and drinking, and that they said, " Behold
a man gluttonous, and a winebibber," would be
hard to accept; but when one tries to make the
rest of the passage, "a friend of publicans and
sinners," fit in with the generic meaning of Son
of man, it is simply impossible to accept that
interpretation. It would be to make the words
both irrelevant and untrue. The average man
was precisely not a friend of publicans and
sinners. The favorite application of the proposed new
meaning of Son of man by the Wellhausen school
is to Matt. 12: 8, in the matter of Sabbath ob
servance. It seems plausible in itself that Jesus
may have meant that as the Sabbath is made for
man, so man is lord of the Sabbath. But there

150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
are objections even here. That merely repeats
what he has said; he does not follow up his refer
ences to David and the priests, whose acts were
hallowed by their office; "one greater than the
temple" cannot refer to a man as such. And
Jesus never so far abrogated the sacred institu
tions as to set the average man as lord above any
one of them. He could not have used such a
term in this connection.
The fifth passage which has stood the tests of
critical examination is Matt. 12: 32a. "And
whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of
man, it shall be forgiven him." Here the mean
ing might be established with the proposed
interpretation, so that the contrast would be be
tween speech against a man and speech against
God; but the connection indicates clearly that
there is no such contrast in the mind of Jesus,
if he is correctly reported. The words follow,
and reply to, the criticism of his casting out devils.
The argument is this : " If you will, criticize me,
and call me what you choose; but do not insult
the Spirit of God."
Schmidt does not deny the originality of Matt.
17: 22, but remarks that 20: 18 seems more
probable, as if the thought which appears in each
could not be repeated. Taking up the latter
reference, where Jesus announces that "the Son

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 151
of man shall be betrayed " when they shall come
into Jerusalem, it is manifest that a substitu
tion of the generic meaning for the phrase does
not satisfy either the declaration itself or the
passage. The first and third passages contain a pro
verbial expression, probably often repeated, as
such expressions always are, and as teachers
among the Jews were accustomed to reiterate
important truths. They lose at once their point,
and hence their use, in the proposed interpreta
tion. The second and fourth citations are from
arguments where the entire application hinges
upon the reference to Jesus himself. The fifth
is a rebuke and the sixth a warning, neither of
which can stand if "Son of man" must mean
only "a man." It needs no further application
of the " Bar nasha " theory to prove that it is not
satisfactory for one who retains the words in their
Greek connection or who desires to make such
sense of the passages where they occur as war
rants the use of them. Doubtless the effort to
find the Aramaic words which Jesus spoke is a
fruitful and commendable venture of criticism;
but it must be conducted with full appreciation
of the value of the Greek as a vehicle of thought,
and of the ability of those who brought down the
Greek tradition to express in it, at least as carefully

152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
as we can in Aramaic, the exact shade of meaning
which Jesus had in mind. The question raised
in the " Bar nasha " discussion is not merely one
of analytical criticism, but also one of common
sense and constructive thinking. As long as the
common interpretation according to the Greek
tradition is so fully borne out by the sense of
the passages, both those which Schmidt accepts
as "originals" and much more those which he
rejects, it is easier to believe that Jesus did use
some expression corresponding to "The Son of
man" as a title for himself.
What did Jesus mean by the title ? Evidently,
as it appears in two connections, he had two dis-
stinct but related purposes in employing it. If,
as it is natural to infer, he took the words from
Dan. 7 : 13, he must have put into them something
of the meaning of that passage. To that "Son
of man" coming on the clouds, there was given
"dominion, and glory, and a kingdom." This
idea Jesus did not express in the earlier use of
the title, however much it had to do with his
choice of it. He could not afford to risk the
misunderstandings that would have been involved.
For this fuller meaning he had to prepare the
minds of his hearers to appreciate his idea of a
dominion and his ideal of a kingdom. Hence
we find him using the title "Son of man" with

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 153
an almost opposite meaning. Into his every
thought of glory and throughout all his speech
about the Kingdom, he shot the idea of spiritual
superiority based upon self-forgetfulness and a
devoted service. Nowhere is there a more charac
teristic word of his preserved than this : x " The
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, and to give his life a ransom for
many." A careful classification of all passages
where the title appears, not including parallels,
shows that in ten the suggestion of humiliation
and suffering is present; in eleven either a mere
pronominal use appears in place of the first per
sonal pronoun, or else an idea of administering
to human need; and in eighteen the apocalyptic
element predominates. Sixteen of the eighteen
apocalyptic passages belong after the confession
of Peter at Csesarea Philippi, and of the two be
fore that event Matt. 10: 23 belongs to the
charge given to the Twelve before they were
sent out to preach, and Matt. 13 : 41 is an explana
tion of a parable which may well be considered
to have been supplied by the writer. The ten
passages, in which the idea of humiliation and
suffering predominates, all occur after the crisis
referred to above; and of the eleven other, less
formal, more pronominal uses of the title, six
'Matt. 20: 28; Mark 10: 45.

154 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
appear in the text before and five after that
event. The parallel passages in other Gospels
sometimes use the bare "I" or "me." The
inference may be drawn that the earlier use of
the title by Jesus was of this more general, mys
tical order, to conceal his thought rather than to
reveal anything about himself. His use changed
with his purpose, and he must have felt all re
straint removed when at last the disciples recog
nized his Messianic mission and his Messianic
character, so that he could employ the title with
immediate reference to the passage in Daniel,
which could not have been unfamiliar to his
synagogue-bred followers. But the popular con
ception as to the Messiah, which even his most
intimate followers shared, he had to correct; and
therefore we find the contrasted use of the exalted
phrase, to guard against misunderstandings and
to secure that sense of the humility of true great
ness which Jesus taught, and the losing of self in
service which he never failed to emphasize as the
characteristic activity of his Kingdom. Fiebig 1
is right in his reasoning that Jesus used the title
at first to mystify.
However, when his disciples made their great
discovery and confessed their faith in him as the
Messiah, he rapidly developed the two ideas
1 Der Menschensohn, Jesu Selbstbezeichniss.

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 155
which the phrase held for him into a full-orbed
truth. The same process is reflected in the
Fourth Gospel also, which deals almost entirely
with the last days of Jesus, and unites both
meanings of the title Son of man upon the lips of
Jesus. It suggests likewise (12: 34) the uncer
tainty and confusion in the popular mind regard
ing the title. "Who is this Son of man?" they
ask. They were not accustomed to employ the
phrase as a Messianic title. It was not common.
It is found only in a portion of Enoch and in
4th Esdras, and it is possible that these should
not be assigned to a date before Christ. Jesus
originated the new and striking use of the Daniel
phrase, probably, at least as far as he himself is
concerned, and appropriated to himself as the
conscious leader of the nation the term describ
ing the nation in that familiar passage. With
his active mind seeking everywhere for food to
satisfy his eager spirit in his quest for opportunity
to serve and lead, he could not have heard those
words in Daniel 7: 13, 14 without applying them
to himself. He was so bound up with the nation,
his whole life-purpose was so exactly that of the
theocracy, that the words seemed to him written
expressly to formulate his mission. However the
rabbis read them, he was not accustomed to
submit his intellect to their wills nor to shape

156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
his thought by theirs. As the words in Isaiah
(61 : 1-3) were taken by him in the synagogue at
Nazareth in perfect good faith as pointing to him
and his life-work, so he saw in the Son of man
passage what doubtless no others saw, a peculiar
personal connection with himself and with his
mission. He may not have realized at first how
difficult it would be for others to see that con
nection, but he made the better use of the title
because of that fact, while he trained his disciples
in perception of the fuller truth respecting himself.
The other title which the Gospels employ of
Jesus appears in the form " Son of God," and also
in that of "The Son." In the Synoptics the
former is found twenty-seven times and the latter
nine times. The Fourth Gospel has "The Son
of God" ten times, "The Son" fourteen times,
and "The only-begotten Son" twice, "Thy
Son " once. Jesus is seldom represented as using
the longer title, but commonly employs the
words "The Son." A more metaphysical mean
ing is evidently attached to the words in the
latest Gospel, not only in the phrase "only -be
gotten " but everywhere.
The title was a recognized title of the Messiah,
as derived from Old Testament references to the
theocratic king,1 and to the people themselves
1 2 Sam. 7: 14; Ps. 2: 7; 89: 26, 27.

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 157
collectively.1 It was used with such a meaning
in Matt. 16 : 16 ; Mark 14:61; John 11 : 27; 20 : 31.
It was Messianic, however, not because of its
primary meaning, but secondarily, because the
theocratic king or the nation was so called.
There was also a certain apocalyptic flavor
about it. The king was the representative of
God, and partook of his sanctity.2 There was
no warmth in it upon the popular tongue, for the
current idea of God was of one too remote to make
a close personal relation between even the Messiah
and God one of affection and intimacy. It meant,
rather, belonging to God, and that an ethical
relationship, worked out by the spiritually-
minded, was beginning to appear.3
Was this title used by Jesus, or did he permit
it to be used of him? And if so what did he
mean by it? The current critical analysis by
way of the Aramaic renders the phrase in that
dialect "Bar Elaha" and denies the use of it by
'Ex.4: 22; Deut. 1: 31; 8: 5; 32: 6; Jer. 23: 5; Hos.
11:1. 2 The idea was wide-spread among Gentiles, as realized in
both mythical and historic characters. Egyptian kings were
long considered incarnations, and sacrifice and prayers were
offered to them. Babyloman kings were called divine. The
East influenced Rome to worship the emperor, even while
he lived.
» Ps. Sol. 7: 30; 18: 4; 4 Esdras 6: 58.

158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Jesus anywhere. But the Gospels are so agreed
in the tradition that it is difficult to prove that
position. It is true that Philo laid foundations
for the fullest development of the Christian doc
trine of the Son of God when he called the Logos
"The perfect Son" and "The first-born Son of
God," but it is not at all impossible that the idea
was associated with Jesus in his ministry, and
especially at his death.
The term appears in the Synoptics in five con
nections as follows:
(l) In the Gospel of the infancy, the angel
of the annunciation predicts that Jesus will be
the Son of God by miraculous physical birth;
an idea not advanced anywhere else, either by
Jesus or of him. In the genealogy also as it
appears in Luke, he is declared Son of God
through Adam. This reasoning appears nowhere
else. Neither of these presentations seems to
have had the least influence with Jesus, if indeed
he knew of them.
(2) Voices from heaven came to his ear twice
at great crises of his experience, declaring him to
be the well-beloved Son of God, and twice dur
ing his temptation the suggestion came to him,
in the form of an insinuation that he might not
be God's Son. These subjective experiences
must have been narrated to the disciples by

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 159
Jesus himself. There is no other way for account
ing for them. The consciousness that he bore a
close personal relationship to God had long been
his, and had set him apart and become the chief
joy and inspiration of his life. What could be
more natural than that Jesus should have heard
these voices of good and of evil, reenforcing or
attacking the heart of his belief, where his great
est strength lay and his hopes for the future?
The dress of the story, objectifying these spiritual
experiences, has been justified, if indeed it needs
justification, by the common approval given to it
through the ages. What our day and race would
tell in less vivid form, and without these striking
pictures, is set before the reader in a way to make
it real for all ages, and simple for all who read
for spirit and not for letter.
(3) Demoniacs are represented as crying out
in the presence of Jesus and proclaiming him
the Son of God. The current theories regarding
them assigned to these afflicted persons a clair
voyant sort of discernment. We tend to look
upon them as afflicted with mental maladies
which sometimes offer just such clairvoyant
phenomena, and we can therefore the easier
appreciate the powers assigned to them by the
Jews. But while their testimony becomes of no
worth to us as proof of the fact declared, it is of

160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
value as a reflection of popular opinion in the
midst of which they lived, and which had im
pressed upon them either a longing for or a dread
of cure.
(4) The disciples are represented as using the
title Son of God only twice, when they were
especially startled by Jesus as he appeared to
them in the storm upon the sea at night, and
when Peter made his great confession at Csesarea
Philippi. They seem to have had so intimate
a friendship with Jesus that he never permitted
them to feel that he was in any sense removed
from them afar off, or exalted above them. His
entire gospel was one of salvation by friendship,
and he made it operative in them by his warm
human love and his close companionship. The
conception of uniqueness of his Sonship to God
is apparent. It was no ethical relationship that
enabled him to come to them upon the sea, nor
was it any mere general term of human or racial
meanings which Peter employed, but rather a
title reserved for the Messiah.
(5) At the trial and death of Jesus most of the
passages containing this title appear. When
the high priest challenged Jesus whether he was
the Son of God, Mark doubtless gives in his reply,
" I am, " the key to the rather enigmatical answers
given in the other Synoptics. Jesus claimed the

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 161
honorable title. The passers by his cross and the
chief priests agree in charging him with this to
them presumptuous sin. The centurion's decla
ration, spoken from the standpoint of a Roman
soldier, only classes Jesus in his opinion with all
heroes. These are all the passages where the entire
phrase appears. The shortened form of it,
"The Son," is found nine times, in five passages,
or if parallels are not counted, in three. Each
one is in the mouth of Jesus. They are as fol
lows: "All things have been delivered unto
me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son,
save the Father; neither doth any know the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
willeth to reveal him."1 "But of that day and
hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only."2
The third is the baptismal formula as given in
Matthew from the lips of the risen Jesus, which
appears to be of too late an origin to be counted
among the historic passages upon which we can
rely. Concerning the other two, it may be said that
they express a sense of unique and intimate
relationship with God, not of a metaphysical
'Matt. 11: 27; Luke 10: 22.
2 Matt. 24: 36; Mark 13: 32.

162 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
sort, but of a sort that lifted him above the com
mon human appreciation of God, while it did not
give him omniscience or even the fullest share
in the knowledge of his own future and of the
things that concerned his Kingdom. Such an
intimacy is the matured conception that resulted
from the experience which the growing boy had
in the temple when his parents sought him sor
rowing; and in amazement at their failure to
realize where he would be, he said, " Knew ye not
that I must be in the things of my Father?"
It is probable, then, that Jesus used the terms
Father and Son, of God and himself, very freely
all through his life. He did not indicate any
where by their use an idea of physical genera
tion through a miraculous conception, nor did
he give to the terms a metaphysical content such
as they undoubtedly afterward came to hold,
under the influences of a growing doctrinal appre
hension of the gospel. He seems to have used
these terms of relationship first to express his
sense of a close and constant dependence upon
God, and to have filled them with warmth of a
fresh and vital affection. As he grew up into
the consciousness of his mission, as the teacher
and leader of his people, to a fuller and more
spiritual conception of religion, he saw that these
terms expressed precisely the relationship in

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 163
which every true child of God should stand with
Him. Hence he emphasized the ethical content
of sonship, and declared in the beatitude that the
peacemakers shall be called the children of God.
Still he used the term Son of God as peculiarly
adapted to express his own private relationship
to the Father, not only because of the perfection
of his ethical life and the fulness of his love, but
also doubtless because of a certain official accent
in the title Son of God which was hereditary in
the nation as the characteristic of both the Israel
itish people and the ideal king who was to realize
in higher, spiritual fruition, the kingdom of which
prophets and saints had dreamed so long. He
taught a universal Fatherhood of God, by the
birds the Father feeds, and the flowers his love
clothes.1 "If ye then, being evil," said he,
"know how to give good gifts unto your chil
dren, how much more shall your Father who
is in heaven give good things to them that ask
him?" As in every phase of his development, he did
not find this idea in his environment or in the
ancient history of his people and adopt it as his
own. He found it first within his own soul, and
nourished it there until its rich and overflowing
life drew to itself the more formal and less per-
'Matt. 6: 26-32.

164 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
sonai phases of sonship in king and nation, and
thus the whole was spiritualized for him and made
one. This is apparent in the parables which
involve the idea of sonship to God. In the
parable of The Vineyard, if the Jewish folk, not
the Messiah, is the "beloved Son," king and
nation were as one; and in that of The Wed
ding Feast he is the "king's son," without a
doubt. One other title is given to Jesus in Mark
(10: 47) by blind Bartimseus who was rebuked
for calling him "Thou son of David." When
he came near to Jesus, he addressed him as
Rabboni, thus placing him upon the same level
with the teachers who healed in their streets,
and making the other title of no worth. This
story is paralleled in Matthew (20: 30, 31) by
the account of the healing of two blind men who
also address Jesus as "son of David." The
same title is found in the mouth of the Canaan
itish woman,1 and may account for his strange
answer, in which we feel there is so little of the
gentle, service-seeking, compassionate Jesus. The
woman, choosing a distinctively Jewish title, set
herself over against him and alienated him from
the beginning, in spite of her prayer and her
deep desire for the cure of her child. That may
'Matt. 15: 22.

THE MESSIANIC TITLES 165
suggest also why she vexed the disciples, with her
racial antipathy. Jesus held back his gift of
healing until "she came and worshipped him,
saying, Lord, help me," and even humbled her
pride enough for her to apply his drastic figure
to herself and strip herself of all that stood
between her heart and him.
The shout of the multitude and of children
along the way from Bethphage to Jerusalem 1
at the triumphal entry proclaimed him, " Son of
David," and to the indignant rebuke of the
scribes Jesus replied by a quotation from the
Eighth Psalm, so as to imply his full approval
of the song they sang. Jesus also used the title
to confound the Pharisees as to the Messiah.2
From these and parallel passages it may be in
ferred that Jesus did not set any value upon this
title. It was too much in keeping with the politi
cal and material aspirations of the Jews. It
would have brought him into difficulty had he
employed it freely. He never used it himself
of himself, as far as we know, nor did he seek to
guard it against assault as of significance for his
cause. The Fourth Gospel, of inestimable value in
bringing to us knowledge of the developing
thought concerning Jesus, is too remote in its
' Matt. 81: 9, 15. 2 Matt. 22: 42.

166 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
final form, and is too subject to the Philonic
philosophy, to be trustworthy in tracing out the
earliest tradition and the actual use of words
and phrases by our Lord, especially the title
Son of God.

CHAPTER IX
JESUS AS A TEACHER
Jesus left no written words, but his teaching
was engraved upon human hearts. It was
therefore always vitalized, and if we have not
received as much as would have been our portion
had he committed his thoughts to writing, we
have a purer and more characteristic tradition
than any written words could have conveyed.
Nor have we any system of thought which we can
ascribe to Jesus. He was not a maker of theolo
gies nor a foimulator of doctrines. His mind
was so absorbed with the immediate needs of the
men and women before and around him that he
poured out his messages to them in the most
vital and simple expression of his mind. His
thought was clear but not organized into a sys
tem. It was both universal and profound, but
poured into the molds at hand in common
speech and familiar thought. It was not philo
sophically novel, for that would have savored of
the schools, but all he said was characterized by
a certain pregnancy which preserved his sayings
167

168 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
in men's minds. He did not try to convince the
reason so much as to move the heart of man
through the reason. His aim was always fixed
upon the life rather than upon the intellect.
No teacher ever made so profound an impression
upon the world. Yet no one of the world's great
teachers left so little of his own words, or seemed
so careless of the form of his thought. He
taught most truly by his life, and his words were
in a sense casual and non-essential. Neverthe
less in them lies truth not yet extracted, and sug
gestion of form and method of greatest value.
The Gospels have preserved for us some samples
of his teaching, to which we must give heed. We
shall examine the content of his mind first, and
then seek out the method of his teaching.
I. The Content of the Mind of Christ
We have the mind of Christ reflected to us
from the occasional and very scrappy remnants
of his teachings preserved by the early disciples
and written out at length in the four Gospels.
Although the medium through which they have
passed must have discolored and altered them
in many ways, there is so much of distinct and
harmonious character to them that we can be
reasonably assured that we have a considerable
body of teachings which can be relied upon to

JESUS AS A TEACHER 169
give us knowledge of the thought of Jesus upon
many sides. We shall consider his attitude
toward God, toward the Kingdom, toward man,
toward nature, and toward current thought and
opinion. 1. His attitude toward God. — The Father
hood of God was the organic principle of his
teaching. He had learned it in the experiences
of his life, and by this truth he had been led into
all other truth. Out of it were generated by
natural processes his idea of the Kingdom, of
man's place in the world, and of the world itself,
God was his Father and the Father of all men.
" My Father, and your Father, " he said, with the
same assurance that entered into the words, " My
God, and your God," to one who knew but one
God.1 Kinship with God and his fatherly care
were the basal factors in his faith and in his
message of love and confidence. He did not
stop in any metaphysical union, but carried his
relation out into the ethics of daily life. He
himself was the Son of God, and all men ought
to be.2 God bears only a good will toward all,
and calls them into his companionship (Matt.
5: 44-48).
The Old Testament gave Jesus abundant
'Matt. 5: 16, 44, 45; 6: 26; 11: 27; 23: 9; Mark 1: 11;
11: 25. 2 Luke 15: 19; Matt. 5: 45; Johnl: 12.

170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
foundation for this thought.1 It lay there un
developed and unappreciated until he took it up
and through his experience made it dominant
in his life and teaching. The common thought
of his own day had so far removed God from
human contact or interest that there was no idea
of a vital relationship between the race and its
Creator. To overthrow this settled conviction
and supplant it with the glowing affection and
close attachment of a family connection, was the
bold and innovating purpose of Jesus. Only
the utmost confidence in his own status with
the Father could have enabled him to venture
upon so revolutionary a course. Only the vital
truth in his message made it possible of any
realization. And he did not compromise in his
interpretation of Fatherhood. It was a true
love-relation, seeking the response of love.
Obedience as the sign of response, and the com
munion with the Father in exalted harmony,
must follow. He did not in the least decrease
the exaltation of God as supreme in his holiness,
but he opened up to man the chance of sharing
in the nobility of his character.
2. The attitude of Jesus toward the Kingdom.
— The idea of the Kingdom in the mind of Jesus
depended closely upon his idea of God and his
' Isa. 63: 16; Mai. 1: 6; Hos. 2: 1; Jer. 31: 9, 20.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 171
personal relation to the Father, out from which
all his more formal teachings flowed. It is safe
to say that these were characteristic ideas : (a) It
was not a political but a spiritual Kingdom.
His nation had always clung to the political ideal
as essential to the spiritual. It was characteristic
of Jesus that he turned the other way, and used
the political only as a servant of the inner state.
He defined each clearly, and differentiated them
in his mind. "The Kingdom of God is within
you," he told his followers, and himself relied
upon no chance of earthly power or organized
force. (6) He probably used the current phrase
"kingdom of heaven" in the sense that it was of a
heavenly character and belonged to the sphere
of thought where God rules supreme, (c) He
united in one conception the apocalyptic message
of a future Kingdom and the demand for imme
diate relief of those who waited for the consola
tions of Israel, producing a new and larger realm
of immediate presence in that unbounded world
of spiritual existence, which to him was not
separated from life here, but was continuous
with, and indivisible from, our earthly life.
(d) Thus he was not exclusively eschatological,
nor was he entirely ethical in his teachings about
the Kingdom. He was both. He was eschato
logical in looking to the future for the realization

172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
in its majesty of his ideal, and he was ethical in
his insistence upon the principles, the practise
of which was to bring the Kingdom in on earth.
Neither the fifth chapter of Matthew nor the
thirteenth chapter of Mark can be set apart alone
as representative. Both belong in his picture
of the ideal Kingdom. But both must be inter
preted from his spiritual standpoint, and seen
through the medium of his close touch with his
Father in perfect love. Neither one can be
taken literally, for both have their poetic ele
ments, (e) This Kingdom was to grow from
small beginnings, and was to become universal.
He began his ministry preaching, not himself,
but the Kingdom. He is reported by Mark
as bringing "The gospel of the kingdom of
God."1 He recognized a preparation for it in
the past, a consecution in history in which
he and his message were to be but a link.
"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God is at hand : repent ye, and believe the s
gospel."2 To this end he demanded a moral
preparation in repentance, and a special life-
relation to it in a committing faith that was to
ally all conduct with it henceforth. Most of his
teaching was an expounding of this new and
startling idea, with exhortation to men to enter
'Mark 1: 14. 2Mark 1: 15.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 173
into that for which they had long waited. Here
he joined himself most closely to his people and
current aspirations, while lifting thought and
stimulating ideas and touching life as the old
Jewish notion had failed to do.
3. His attitude toward man. — Jesus recog
nized and emphasized the value of man as no
other teacher has ever done. He looked upon
all men as at least potentially the children of
God. As such they were beyond price.1 A
single soul is worth the whole world.2 Matter
cannot stand in comparison with him, nor all
good things.3 For this reason rebellion against
God, the refusal of the divine rights of the soul
through sin, is a most terrible thing.4 It was his
especial mission to rescue such as were thus being
lost, and to restore them to their Father's house.
He was called the friend of publicans and sinners.5.
He never seems to have despaired of any man.
There was always hope for the worst and the
weakest of them. Society he did not divide up
into two classes distinct from each other, the one
class good, the other evil. In fact, he discovered
that those most open to his appeals were precisely
those who were usually condemned as " sinners,"
' Mark 8: 36, 37; Matt. 16: 26. * Matt. 5: 21, 22.
2 Luke 9: 25. » Matt. 11: 19.
3 Matt. 6: 25; Luke 12: 15-21.

174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
and the most impervious to truth as he taught it
were those who prided themselves upon being
among the good. He called all sorts to him,
and treated all alike /fts needing the spirit which
he inculcated with his truth. Little children he
would in no wise shut out 1 and all men, he taught,
were to be assumed to be immortal, because they
were made in the spiritual image of God.2 He
spoke to the heart rather than to the intellect,
and in full simplicity for the common man. As
to his psychology, he assumed that of his day
to be correct enough. Life belongs to the
psyche which is separate from but resident
within the body, which man at all hazards must
preserve and improve, for it is eternal/ The
two words life and psyche seem practically
synonymous. The spiritual nature he signified
by the term heart. It is an inclusive word for
reason, feeling, and will. The divine power in
man is sometimes represented by the Greek
word pneuma.4 Jesus held that, after this life,
departed spirits are conscious, and he spoke of the
current belief in two separate abodes of the dead
several times without contradiction or change.5
' Mark 9: 37; 10: 14, 15. 2 Mark 12: 18 ff.
3 Matt. 6: 25; 10: 28; Luke 12: 19, 20.
1 Mark 14: 38; Luke 23: 46; John 4: 23 ff.
6 Matt. 25; Luke 16: 22 ff.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 175
4. His attitude toward nature. — Like every
seer, Jesus had a peculiarly close sympathy with
nature. Amos reflects the spirit and life of his
barren hill-country above the Dead Sea in his
prophecies, Isaiah feels the pulse of nature beat
ing with his own, and Ezekiel takes on something
of the tone of his surroundings by the river
Chebar. Above them all, Jesus found an affinity
subtle and refined but very real, in every aspect
of nature that presented itself to him. He had
the poetic instinct by which he saw the hand of
God made manifest in passing seasons and all
the phenomena of life. He heard the silent
voices of winds and waters, and the music of the
stars. He was himself a part of all that happened,
and identified himself with the ongoings of the
majestic course of the year. He loved nature
because of its beauty and strength. He was a
keen observer. Little things did not escape his
eye. The fields and the hills were familiar to
him. He was not born or reared in city walls,
but out beneath the skies in the free air of heaven.
All nature was a revelation to his soul. In
every vital process God appeared to him. " Your
heavenly Father feedeth them," he said of the
sparrows. In a lily in the grass he found proof
of the goodness of God and his love of beauty
for its own sake. He first understood that

176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
"beauty is its own excuse for being," because it
is a joy and a delight to God and to his open-
eyed children. It may be that Jesus came
nearer to our modern conception of animate
nature than his contemporaries, for it seemed
all instinct with his Father's spirit and alive with
his fostering care. It gave him spiritual re
freshment, when he escaped from men and all
that man had made, to spend hours or entire
nights alone with God in the midst of his fresh
creation, separated from him only by the thin
garment of living things. He had considered
the lilies, and like them had learned to receive
what God gave and to grow thereby, rejecting
the useless and harmful while he assimilated
the nourishing and the wholesome.
Jesus added nothing to our knowledge of the
natural world. His attitude could not have been
that of the scientist. He looked not so much at
things as through them. He sought not the
method of their being but the message they
brought from the Creator. He did not get
caught in the modern problems of the overplus
of blossoms, and note how nature ravins red in
tooth and claw. He saw the kindlier side of
life, and felt the sacredness of growth, a testi
mony to the worth of man whom all things
serve. For to him nature was never an end in

JESUS AS A TEACHER 177
itself, but ever a means of higher life. The
Greeks fell into the habit of adoring the inani
mate thing of beauty. Jesus always beheld in it
a way into the temple's holier presence, which
unseen must be adored. Man was always
above nature, and God over all. Nature was
to be used for the good of man, and he was to
find in it the simplest book of God's love.
Anything like the modern conception of
natural law was far from the mind of Jesus.
He saw an immediate connection of God with
life and all creative forces, and believed that God
could and did act directly upon and in .nature to
produce effects. The idea of the times was,
that God controlled all things through his min
istering spirits, and Jesus gives no sign of having
departed from it, excepting that he eliminated
angelic mediaries and brought God and the
world together. As a faithful Son he acted in
accordance with this belief, and expected that
God would work for and with him in nature,
in accordance with the divine wisdom and for
the highest interests of men. Whatever was
mysterious he referred to the working of God
immediately, or possibly to the baleful operations
of evil spirits seeking to antagonize God and
do harm to men. Any other conception as to
natural forces would have been incomprehensible

178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
to his followers, and indeed was incomprehensible
even after Christianity had been established on
the earth for many centuries. Yet the simple
faith of Jesus in the constant presence and activity
of his Father in all things was really very close
to the modern Christian pantheism so widely
held throughout the world. The outcome of a
reasoned faith in harmony with modern science
turns back to the point of view of Him who said,
"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."
5. His attitude toward current thought and
opinions. — Jesus was a child of his time and
race, as far as mental equipment is concerned.
He never claimed any superior intelligence, as
to history or science or any of the realms of
scholarship. His mind was acute and active.
But he did not set himself up as an authority
upon any debated questions of the schools. He
was a master in religion, and never hesitated to
stand as such in the province of the soul and all
its interests. He openly confessed that to him
as to others the minor matters of time and things
were concealed, while he gave his undivided
attention to the affairs of eternity. The current
views he would have adopted as a matter of
necessity, that he might not be excluded from
intercourse with his neighbors. Toward the
state and all questions of law he adopted the rule

JESUS AS A TEACHER 179
of obedience, save where, as in the exactions of
the scribes, law transgressed the rights of his
free conscience. So superior was he in mind to
the petty quibbles about forms and details, that
he had no eye for them, and with amazement
and pity realized how large they bulked in the
minds of many of his generation who tithed mint
and anise and cummin. Questions of Jewish
history he had no time to investigate, but adopted
current theories. H he ever heard the question
raised as to who wrote the Jewish Scriptures, he
did not attempt to discuss it, for what had that
to do with his mission in the world? Will any
one be saved or lost by their belief as to the
authors of a book? He spoke, like every one
else, according to the current opinion. We do
not know of a single simply intellectual issue
raised by Jesus, nor of one single opinion of his
upon subjects in the field of pure intellect. He
was single-minded in his prosecution of a greater
mission. When he spoke incidentally of "the
Book of Moses " J or prefaced a quotation with
the words "David himself said,"2 he gave no
authority for quoting him in a modern discussion
as to authorship of certain books. So too in his
reference to Jonah,3 to Satan,4 and evil spirits,5
' Mark 12: 26. * Matt. 4: 10.
2 Mark 12 : 36. « Matt. 12 : 43-45.
3 Matt. 12: 41, 42; Luke 11: 29-32.

180 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
and many other matters of changing opinion
without importance to the soul of man. Physical
science, literary criticism, theology even, were not
matters of great concern with Jesus. They did
not present themselves as questions for solution
to his mind, or else he felt them to be of such
minor import that he did not pronounce upon
them. " He spoke in pictures, not in syllogisms." 1
When we come to the sphere of religion, in
which Jesus may with all reverence be called a
genius, he did not hesitate to differ widely from
his times and all times. He connected himself
closely with the prophets of the Old Testament,
and developed prophetic spirit in distinction from
priestly offices. He did not have much patience
with the ritual of the temple or the requirements
of the law. And he took advanced ground upon
certain current issues. He denied the efficacy
of fasting as his formal countrymen practised
it.2 He could not endure the tyranny of the
institutionalism which made the Sabbath a
barren, inhuman day.3 The nice discrimination
between clean and unclean, according to estab
lished laws of great complexity, he would not
tolerate.4 And as to sacrifice, which many
' Muirhead.
2 Mark 2: 18, 19; Matt. 6: 16-18.
3 Matt. 12: 12; Mark 2: 23ff. * Mark 7: 15-19.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 181
Christian scholars have made the nearest point
of contact of the Jewish with the Christian faith,
Jesus repudiated it as an unwarranted rite,
wherever mercy and righteousness and the
sacrifice of a humble and contrite heart were
wanting, and useless when these were present.1
He was strikingly original in his religious teach
ings, because he was so simple and so sure that
his positions were true and ample. The an
tagonism of institutionalism was inevitable for
one so individualistic and spiritual, but he was as
simple in the statement of his faith as in its con
tent, and as bold in proclaiming it as he was
assured that it was ultimate, and came from
God directly to his soul. At first his utterances,
falling upon the ears of the common people
whose hearts were tender, and in Galilee where
the priest had no such firm control, did not rouse
so much opposition as at a later day when priest
and Pharisee confronted him. "The common
people heard him gladly." The institutions and
their defenders were scandalized at the bare sim
plicity of his teaching, and fought him for their life.
II. The Method of His Teaching
His intimate consciousness of God made Jesus
keen for truth everywhere and always. He
1 Matt. 9: 13; 12: 7; Mark 12: 28-34.

182 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
dwelt in the real, and reality was essential to all
his thinking. Hence his teaching was not so
much negative as positive. The entire teaching
of his people was based upon the method of
negation. "Thou shalt not" was the sum and
substance of it. Jesus based his message upon
the positive side of truth, which is the method of
robustness, as negation is the act of a weakened
intellect.1 He was not attempting to exclude,
but to include. He came not to destroy, but to
fulfil, both the partial law of negation and the
wide reaches of life. He spoke as one who knew
whereof he spoke. He was convinced that he
uttered the will of God in all purity and vital
completeness. Hence he had to speak positively
and with authority.
He seems to have employed several forms of
speech in teaching, which have their significance
in the study of his development, and also give
hints of pedagogical values. He adopted the
long-tried methods of the wise rabbis, of sen
tentious sayings and epigrammatic expressions
that possess a bur-like propensity to stick to the
mind. He often resorted to paradox and hyper
bole to make men think. One common phrase
he used in introducing a lesson or sermon was,
1 "A man is usually right in his affirmations, and wrong
in his negations." — P. D. Maurice.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 183
" What think ye ? " Again, he taught by his own
outward act, as in the washing of his disciples'
feet, or by the action of others which he had in
duced or singled out as a lesson for them. Many
of his miracles were lessons taught in this graphic
style, parables in deed. But the most striking
method of teaching he employed was that of
parables. Here again he adopted a common
method of his people, but so far did he excel them
all, that he stands out preeminent among the
teachers of the world as a maker of parables to
serve as vehicles of truth. Nothing is more cer
tain in all tradition than that we have the orig
inals of at least many of the parables attributed
to him in the Gospels. Through them we ap
proach with assurance the inner life and the
actual mind of Christ.
What pedagogical art did Jesus practise, if
indeed he was either consciously or unconsciously
seeking to employ the best methods in his teach
ing ? From the fact that the world's best teachers
have never ceased to revert to him, and still find
in his meager lessons preserved to us a mine of
information and suggestion regarding their art
and craft, it seems impossible to deny that Jesus
did, either consciously or unconsciously, use the
greatest skill in his work. His country was over
run with Pharisees, who sought with unquench-

184 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
able zeal to establish schools of the law in every
town and village, and in every tongue and dia
lect. They had made teaching their special
vocation for two hundred years. Like the
Jesuits in the sixteenth century in Europe, they
were masters of the art according to their pur
poses. Jesus came in contact with them from
his youth. He studied their ways more and more
as he grew into consciousness that in him the
truth was planted which his people needed to
hear. When at last he began his task after his
baptism, it is at least probable that he had given
much careful thought to the manner of putting
truth. He began where his hearers stood, in
the popular idea of the Kingdom. In truth, his
first gospel seems a mere echo of that of John
the Baptist. And he used the forceful, striking
))method of epigram to shoot his truth like arrows
into the minds and hearts of his hearers. Mat
thew evidently had the proper ear for words, and
a mind for word-values, which has made him the
channel through which have come down to us so
many of the pointed sayings of Jesus, and Mark's
sketchy style is peculiarly adapted to these
word-pictures. Crisp phrases startled sluggish
) minds and jostled them out of the ruts of tra
dition. They are the most marked character
istic of the earlier teaching of Jesus, as far as we

JESUS AS A TEACHER 185
are warranted in arranging what we have in
sequence of time. He had first the task of awak
ing the minds and reaching the hearts of his
hearers; then he could give them instruction.
Had he begun with the stories of his Kingdom,
they would have been wasted upon ears that
heard not, and eyes that saw not would have
failed to take in the pictures he spread before
them. The parables came later in the ministry of
Jesus. They are called the vehicles for con
veying to the people "the mysteries of the king
dom."1 They are frequently introduced with
the phrase "The kingdom of heaven is." They
were useful only to those who had some insight
into truth as Jesus saw it. At the same time they
embody truth in such a way that it abides and
often unfolds itself gradually, even when the
mind has retained them long for their simple
interest or beauty.
Quite as striking to modern students as his
words is the reticence of Jesus. We have at
best only partial glimpses of his teaching, but
this silence when one would expect speech seems
a part of his method rather than a lack of correct
and full reporting. He had an evident purpose
in restraining speech concerning himself from
'Matt. 13: 11.

186 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
the first. He kept his person in the background,
and set forth the Kingdom, with the purpose to
gain contact with current thinking and to lead
the people from the known and general to the
unknown and particular. He cautioned those
he healed against telling of the cure.1 All such
cautions and precautions cease at the event which
brought out the apostles' confession in Peter's
words at Csesarea Philippi. From that day on
there was no further need of secrecy. His entire
relation to the apostles and to the people and to
his mission changed.
This reticence of his was not due to any feel
ing of the inadequacy of the Messianic title to
express what he felt within his soul. It was
rather to avoid misconceptions based upon the
popular ideal of a marvelous king sent full-
grown from heaven with bloody sword and mighty
mien to conquer Rome and establish judgment
on the earth. So easily inflamed was the pub
lic temper that it would have been easy to pre
cipitate an insurrection which he could neither
control nor approve. He had to create an at
mosphere first of all. The difficulty he had in
establishing his own disciple-group in the new
ideas after Csesarea Philippi is evidence enough
to show how needful his tact of silence was.
1 Mark 1: 44; 3: 12; 5: 43; 7: 36; 8: 26, 30.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 187
Teaching by action was more in evidence
toward the end of his ministry than earlier,
because by that time his spirit was better under
stood, and it was possible to interpret his deeds
in the light of experience. The triumphal entry
into Jerusalem was doubtless a pedagogical act,
although it was in no sense a bid for popular
action in rescuing him and his doomed cause
from defeat. He emphasized in it the very
characteristics which he had been insisting upon
as essential features of the Messianic Kingdom.
Peace, not war; humility, not pride; gentleness,
not force; joy, not grief; and above all, the
spiritual over against the earthly life; these
things he suggested graphically as he rode into
the city. The cleansing of the temple was not
done for its own sake so much as to teach men
one more great lesson of reverence and right
relation to God, with sweeping condemnation
of the materialism which turns everything holy
or profane to gain. Not that Jesus in the least
degree was a "poseur" and a calculating actor
or planner of dramatic situations. Such an
attitude toward life was the farthest possible
from his mind. It was all full of intense mean
ing, and everything had ultimate spiritual bear
ings. He related all things to his one end of
accomplishing the introduction of the Kingdom

188 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
on the earth into the hearts of men. Thus
every opportunity to speak or act for the enforce
ment of his message he was obliged to employ.
To this extent his method was pedagogical, and
the enduring success of his short ministry and
exceedingly brief and scrappy literary remains
is due to this dominant purpose and the working
of it out with all the skill he could muster.
There is a sense in which Jesus was rhetorical
in his delivery of the message he gave. He was
a man of supreme eloquence. Whatever would
make his presentation of the gospel more effec
tive, whether by beauty or by force or by
simplicity, which is the soul of eloquence, he care
fully cultivated or instinctively adopted with the
unerring insight of genius. "Never man spake
like this man," we may be sure. His public
speech must have been both winning and im
pressive. He courted beauty in it, and dressed
it with living pictures from all familiar sights
around him. The gift of nature to his language,
and the drapery of his thought gathered from
landscapes and common life, are remarkable.
He had a rich fancy which he did not restrain
unduly. He had also an acute judgment, which
he exercised to the full. With what masterly
skill did he select themes and illustrations for
his auditors! He was bold in denunciation and

JESUS AS A TEACHER 189
tender in sympathy, quick in apprehension and
strong in reassurance. Out of his own heart he
appealed to other hearts of like experience.
The life he lived can be painted from the revela
tions he makes in his words to others. And all
is kept steadily within the range of reality by his
perfect sanity and his constant reference to the
familiar as a gateway into the things beyond.
The peasant life of Galilee affords him a rich
sphere for his thought to work in. The little
house of one room where the lamp set upon the
overturned measure gives the evening light;
the fields without clothed in the beauty of grass
and flowers; the birds of the air, the lilies of the
field, the seed of the sower, and the entire round
of homely duties of farm and house; little children,
merchants, soldiers, priests, every phase of life,
and every rank and order of society he touched
with his light and enlightening touch. The con
trast has been made by Bossuet between the
illustrations used by Paul and those of Jesus, to
indicate the contrast in mind between the two.
The one called upon the common experience of
common men and women and even children, in
a fine simplicity which makes his teaching live
forever. The other relied upon temple and
forum, the teaching of the schools and the ab
struse methods of the theologians, so that it is

190 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
difficult to understand where he is expressing
what to him is universal truth, and where he is
illustrating a passing phase of it; and the doctrine
of Paul does not serve the same purpose as the
teaching of Jesus which it was intended to explain.
Jesus manifested greatest courage in his teach
ing. He attacked with boldness1 the oppressor
and the false teacher, wherever he met them or
uncovered their work. With the very spirit of
Amos and Jeremiah he impeached them for pre
tense, formalism, self-content, and perversion of
office for selfish ends. At the same time he
manifested greatest compassion for the multitude
and identified himself with those he sought to
help. He was nearer to the popular tradition
than to the tradition of the schools, nearer to
those who lived by heart than to those whose pride
of life was in their mental culture. Yet he was
not a teacher with any conscious principles of
pedagogy, committed to a system laid down in a
treatise. He was too spontaneous for that, and
his words were too free and his thought was too
unsystematic. He was a prophet, and out of
his own experience he taught, as his own genius
gave him utterance.
Many of the most characteristic words pre
served to us, naturally enough, were first spoken
to individuals. He was ever accessible to those

JESUS AS A TEACHER 191
who needed him. And yet none of these private
conversations is exhausted in its first application,
but contains vital elements which make it still
serviceable. He was so eager to meet each per
sonal need that he established types of experi
ence which are universally repeated, and his
treatment is equally salutary for all. Ethics
has been called the practise of the universal.
The ethical quality in the teaching of Jesus gave
it breadth and permanence. "The universal
applicability of the gospel," said Paulsen,1 "pro
ceeds from the fact that it is not a philosophical
nor a theological system. Systems pass away,
. . . but great poems are as eternal as their sub
ject, human life itself."
Something must be said about the use of
words by Jesus, for he had a high regard for
language as a revelation, and evidently employed
words with care. Every idle word, he taught,
must be accounted for unto God, "for by thy
words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words
thou shalt be condemned." " Out of the abun
dance of the heart the mouth speaketh."2 "Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall
not pass away." The man who hears and does
according to the words of Jesus shall be likened
to a wise man building upon a rock.3 He
'Ethik, p. 72. 2Matt. 12: 34 ff. 3Matt. 7: 24 ff.

192 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
declared that he alone was the Teacher over
them, and all they were brethren.1 The Fourth
Gospel has seven such references to his words
as significant and of the greatest import.2 He
insisted that his followers simplify their conversa
tion,3 and he set them an example in the sincerity
and the clarity of his speech, which made the
people say of him that he did not put the truth
as did the scribes, but with a certain authority
born of conviction and increased by a common
human basis felt by all.
The parables of Jesus were stories drawn from
nature, either human or physical, in which he
took up a common incident or fact and developed
out of it a truth that is a rule of life; or else they
were drawn from his teeming fancy where he
wrought with artistic skill and higher realism,
according to his purpose or necessity. In the
parables was the consummation of his art, and
the deepest revelation of his soul. They con
tain the teaching which he regarded to be of
utmost importance, his maturest thought.
Parables like those of the Prodigal Son and the
Good Samaritan are richer in both human and
theological significance than even the ethical
'Matt. 23: 8.
2 John 6: 68; 8: 31, 51; 12: 48; 14: 23, 24; 15: 3.
3 Matt. 5: 37.

JESUS AS A TEACHER 193
beauties of the Sermon on the Mount. But Jesus
had a pedagogical motive in the order in which
he used them. First he sought conduct, later
life itself. His earlier teaching was taken up
with the facts of the Kingdom, while there was
more in his later discourse concerning his person
and the idea of God. But everywhere there was
a simplicity which is innocent of craft or system,
and which led Pascal to say, " Jesus Christ speaks
the greatest things so simply that it seems as if
he had never thought upon them."1
The contribution to the world made by Jesus
as a teacher is large and real, but who can state
it in set phrases or measure it by any known
canons of the schools ? The substance of it can
not be found in aphorisms, beatitudes, or parables,
but in the Teacher himself. It has furnished
every educational reformer from Comenius to
Pestalozzi with the essence of his new appeal for
a larger use of personality and a fuller consecra
tion of the spiritual forces needed in the teacher's
art. If Jesus brought no new truths to flash
upon the world their brilliant light, nor any
novel methods, he reached the hearts and lives
of his disciples, and by them the life of all man
kind, through the high example and the moving
passion of his life and death.
' Pensees et Lettres, II, 319.

CHAPTER X
THE MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS
A universe harmoniously ordered under law
is the glory of the thought of our day. Science
lays down such a conception as fundamental,
and religion is prepared to agree with science.
For it is the tendency of modern Christianity
to regard the universe as the cosmic revelation
of God who is immanent therein. There is no
warfare between science and religion. They
look out from different standpoints upon the
same scene and interpret the same phenomena
with different purpose. The one finds in nature
the immanent God at work; the other investigates
the ways of his working. One seeks the cause ; the
other deals with methods. A man can there
fore be scientist and Christian, for he can pro
nounce both the word God and the term Nature,
and each will supplement the other in his thought.
The orthodox division of the world into natural
and supernatural can no longer be maintained.
A new and better orthodoxy has been established,
in which we recognize all things as constituting
194

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 195
not a dualism, but a Universe. This generation
will not be satisfied with a treatment of the
person of Jesus which leaves him possessed of
two natures, and makes of him a curiosity. Nor
can we think of his ministry as filled with actions
which are unaccountable and other-worldly. As
he takes his place in history, so he takes his place
in humanity, and must be known and analyzed
as we know any other character. But this is not
by any means to reduce our conception of the
universe to a crass materialism, nor to deny a
genuine divinity to Jesus Christ. On the con
trary, it is the sublimation of the spiritual with
which the universe is instinct, and of which it
is all and everywhere the expression; it is the
assertion of a divine life in the race, in every
member of it, but extraordinary in Jesus Christ.
Once men believed in Christ because they be
lieved in miracles. Now, they believe the mir
acles because they believe in Christ. They find
miracles the natural expression of an extraor
dinary Person, harmonizing action in the physical
world with that in the moral realm. Miracles
are no longer thought of as contradictions or
interruptions of natural processes from without,
but rather as the working out in nature of higher
and permanent laws of reason and the moral
order. They are not to be treated on the physi-

196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
cal plane, but in the sphere of personality, which
always transcends nature. They belong to free
dom and the will, not to necessity and matter.
"A miracle," said Hume, "is no contradiction to
the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect
supposed to be produced by the introduction of
a new cause." And Christianity insists upon
causation as originating in a person. Wherever
persons appear in the natural order, a free acting
agent appears, with power to introduce new
causes. And these causes must be measured by
the personality introduced. "Given, in short,
the Person of Christ," wrote Fairbairn,1 "and it
is more natural that he should, than that he should
not, work miracles; they become the proper and
spontaneous manifestations, the organic outcome
or revelation, of his actual or realized being.
Our supernatural was his natural; what we call
his miracles were but the moral expressions of
his energy, as nature is but the manifested activity,
of the immanent God."
The psychological faculty may claim as its
peculiar lot the entire realm of miracle. It is
the result of exceptional personality coming into
contact with nature. Thomas Hill Green of
Oxford declared that the self-conscious will "is
not natural in the ordinary sense of the term."
' Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 153.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 197
It is no interruption of the uniformity of events
to have this free will acting in nature to change
and traverse and direct its forces. And given a
perfect human will, in full harmony with God,
then the action of this will cannot be an inter
ference with natural law and the orderly sequence
of events, even when this will brings to pass
exceptional occurrences. It does not seem un
scientific, therefore, to admit the possibility of
miracles in the life of Jesus, as effects in nature
which neither physical forces nor ordinary men
are adequate to bring about. There was normally
about him a spontaneous activity in the use of
psychical powers which must have produced
results that seemed to his contemporaries to be
supernatural, as they indeed were preternatural,
because he was a man developed to the height of
his humanity. His followers came thus to think
that Jesus could do anything, as a child believes
that his father can mend any broken toy or re
store an outworn tool or heal all wounds.
We must deliver the character of Jesus at all
costs from the magical role which it was natural
and indeed necessary for his disciples and their
successors to assign to him, but which he seems
to have refused to assume for himself. They saw
such a character as the only possible part to be
played by one who was the Son of God, the

198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
Messiah, and consequently they painted every
possible element in his activity in supernatural
colors. We, on the contrary, realize that law,
not its infraction, is the sign of God's presence,
and we are driven to the task of bringing all the
reported miracles of Jesus into orderly relation
to laws, either known, or unknown but postu
lated. The necessity is forced upon us by the
very laws of thought and the prevailing temper
of our times. This process is not a lessening
of spiritual quality, but an extension of it to re
gions where it was shut out by assumptions which
were wedded forever to mystery and the unrelated,
but which must give place to related knowledge.
Let us ask first what idea Jesus had as to him
self with regard to any unusual powers; what he
conceived his relationship to be to God; and
what attitude he took toward miracles. After
examining the miracles he is reported to have
wrought, we can draw our conclusions as to his
relation to the extraordinary occurrences which
undoubtedly took place during his ministry.
1. The idea of Jesus as to himself. — Jesus
always regarded himself as superior in his official
ministry to the prophets. Jonah or Solomon
were not comparable to him; he was greater than
these.1 He was conscious of being greater
= Matt. 11: 41, 42; Luke 11: 31, 32.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 199
than the temple or the law or any institution of
men. He gave himself generously to his dis
ciples always, but there was a certain restraint
and claim of superiority which they felt,1 as ap
pears not only in the Synoptists but even more
in John.2 He declared himself superior also to
Satan,3 whose power he disestablished on earth
and overthrew. He always assumed a peculiar
intimacy with God as his portion,4 and lived in
constant communion with him.5 The Gospel
of John abounds in references to this God-
consciousness of Jesus. There it is developed into
a metaphysical union, but in the earlier Gospels
the groundwork for it is laid in the simple narra
tive of his withdrawal into solitude for prayer.6
" And he spake a parable unto them to this end,
that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.7
It was the inmost support of his life. The cry
upon the cross, "My God, why hast thou for
saken me?" expressed the very worst possible
condition of life for him, and meant indeed the
loss of life, because his forces drew constantly
'Matt. 10: 24, 25; 23: 10; Luke 6: 40.
2 John 13: 12-16.
3 Matt. 12: 26; Mark 3: 23-27.
* Matt. 11: 27; Luke 10: 22.
» Mark 1: 35; 6: 46; 14: 32-42.
6 Luke 3: 21; 5: 16; 6: 12; 9: 18, 28; 11: 1.
7 Luke 18:1.

200 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
upon God. He undertook his mission as the
elect of God, and felt himself the representa
tive of the Father without whom he could do
nothing. 2. The idea of Jesus as to the power of God in
him. — God was as real, and as personal, to
Jesus, as his mother Mary was in the humble
home in Nazareth. As a child he "must be
about his Father's business," and as a man he
had no other occupation.. With his conception
that things were immediately in the hands of his
Father, he must have felt every possibility sug
gested in the Temptation, and in his mind he
cherished the sense of supernatural power. No
system of natural laws or -fixed processes stood
between him and the immediate activity of his
Father. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I
work." 1 So at one were they in purpose and
in power that his disciples are warranted in put
ting into his lips such bold words as these: "I
and my Father are one."2 He assured his cap
tors in the last hours that they should see him
sitting on the right hand of power.3 It was the
place he was conscious of occupying continually,
even here on earth.
3. The idea of Jesus as to miracles. — That
Jesus held the current opinion regarding miracles
'John 5: 17. 2 John 10: 30. 3Mark 14: 62.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 201
as attendant upon the Messiah and characteristic
of his coming is probable. But his own nature
was too fine in quality and too spiritual in its
grasp to permit him to rely upon any super
natural signs to prove his identity or to win
followers. That was settled at the beginning,
in his struggle pictured in the Temptation.
When men called for signs he rebuked them,
and declared the request to be based upon false
assumptions.1 His only "sign" was preaching
like Jonah's. That was a greater work in his
sight than all his miracles, and he named it as
the climax in his reply to the disciples of John
when their master sent them to reassure his faith.2
He absolutely refused to use whatever miracu
lous power he had to establish himself in au
thority over the popular credulity.
Again, he could not exert the same influence
always upon others, nor accomplish the same
results always. He could not do mighty works
in Nazareth, for instance, because of unbelief.
Psychical conditions must be favorable to the
exercise of his gifts.3 Now and then, as in Luke
5: 17, behind the text arises the assumption that
there were times when the power of the Lord
was not present to heal.
'Matt. 16: 1-4; Mark 8: llff; Luke 11: 29.
2 Luke 7: 22. 3 Matt. 13: 58; Mark 6: 5 ff.

202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
In another passage,1 Jesus suggested that the
working of a miracle was for him a harder thing
to do than to forgive the sins of a man. He
found it, as it were, less an object of his ministry,
a by-product aside from the main course of his
life and thought. Yet there was a certain spon
taneity of his miraculous action, as if it were the
natural outlet of his sympathy and love.
Healing Jesus certainly did in wonderful ways.
It was a part of the profession of the rabbi to heal
the sick. It was a matter of spiritual rather
than physical treatment, for the Jews believed
that disease frequently, if not always, was a result
of sin, or a punishment for it.2 The demons all
about were constantly bringing in disease, and
he who could remove sin could deliver from
sickness; he who could drive out demons was
able to release the possessed. The Greek &u/*o-
viov occurs about sixty times in the New Testa
ment. The belief in such creatures had wide
currency in the two centuries adjacent to the
birth of Christ, through Parsee and Greek in
fluence. We can form no adequate idea of the
important part played by them in the religious
life of the times. Evidently Luke saw in the
power of Jesus to cast out demons 8 a chief sign
' Luke 5 : 23. 2 See Chapter II, p. 41 .
'Luke 13: 32; 11:20.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 203
of his Messiahship. It was believed that the
entire kingdom of evil was made subject to him,1
and the devil and his angels were to be destroyed.2
Jesus himself looked upon Satan and his demons
as holding in usurpation a portion of his realm
from which he must cast them out.3 When he
found the seventy returning with joy to report
their mastery of evil spirits, he beheld Satan
fallen as lightning from his throne.4
It was a common practise by exorcism to cast
out demons. Josephus 5 reports that Solomon
composed incantations for relieving disease, and
forms of exorcism for casting out demons. He
adds, " Even to the present day this mode of cure
prevails among us to a very great extent." Jesus
admitted that the Pharisees cast out devils,6 and
that certain ones who were not of his own follow
ing did so in his name. But his own cures seem
to have surprised the people, because they were
so free from the exorcist's art and practise. He
preached and healed, in a broad ministry to
suffering humanity. His emphasis was always
upon sin and the cure of it, even in the report of
his ministry as given by those who saw the
material first; but wherever he found men
' Luke 10: 18ff. 2 Mark 1: 24; Matt. 8: 29.
3 Luke 11: 20. * Luke 10: 18.
s Ant. VIII, 2, 5; Bel. Jud. VII, 6, 3. 6 Matt. 12: 27.

204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
afflicted with disease, he seems to have lavished
his curing ministry upon them in compassion.
The cases of demoniacal possession narrated in
the Gospels all appear to be cases which we
would class as psychical or physical. They
were diseased minds, which we treat under the
names insanity, epilepsy, etc. Sometimes posses
sion and the speaking with tongues appear like
types of alternate personality.
Over these unfortunates Jesus had a peculiar
power. He commanded the demons to speak
or not to speak; he ordered the paralyzed to
arise; the blind to open their eyes; the deaf ears
to open; and the evil spirits to depart from those
who were supposed to be tormented by them.
Under the spell of his personality the patient
sufferers were relieved, and restored to their
right minds. No wonder that the writer of Acts
10: 38 summed up the activity of Jesus in these
words: "Who went about doing good, and heal
ing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God
was with him." It was hardly necessary for
"the imagination of the faithful" to "deck the
form of Christ with a rich garland of miracle."1
He did himself weave such a garland, and the
gratitude of those who were healed by him
adorned his name with it. Myth and legend
1 Pfleiderer.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 205
have done their inevitable work in the Gospels,
as in all history of exceptional personalities, and
it is in no way discreditable to the New Testa
ment, nor derogatory to the character of Jesus,
to confess it. Not this, but the fact that there
is so little of the legendary and mythical element
in the Gospels, is the striking characteristic of
the story of Jesus. He did not set so high a
value upon the miracle as a sign as his age did.
He never yielded to the temptation to degenerate
in the use of it. No self-service, no special
privileges, no short-circuiting in his life's mo
mentous task, did he once allow. There are few
miracles of Jesus, and there are none of the
lurid and flamboyant tales which cluster around
the names of St. Augustine and St. Francis and
many another lesser follower of the Nazarene.
Of the former, four hundred miracles are told;
of the latter, twelve hundred. In 1906, Father
Seraphim was canonized in Russia and accredited
with no less than ninety-four miracles. Of Jesus,
thirty-six at the utmost are named. The re
straint of the Gospels is in contrast to the theology
that places Jesus in an atmosphere of magic and
sets the miraculous at the forefront of his career
as the strongest proof of his divine mission to the
race. Everywhere the works he did were actuated

206 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
by emotions of pity and love. His powers were
exerted to help his preaching of the gospel of
salvation from sin, and to relieve necessity or
suffering. Even the three instances in which he
is said to have raised the dead to life are
told with a restraint and simplicity almost as
remarkable as the incidents themselves. These
facts cannot be overlooked in estimating the
miraculous activity of Jesus, but they give the
miracles a certain standing apart, where each
must be judged by itself according to the evi
dence. There are four Greek words in the Gospels
for miracles, o-rj/xaa, ripara, OavfiAxria, Suva/nets;
signs, wonders, wonderful things, and mighty
works. Jesus regarded miracles in this last
sense, and the power to work them he never
doubted as his inheritance from God. The
other words convey a meaning more common in
the Old Testament and in the sphere of the
current Messianic thought. It was not pleasing
to Jesus, to say the least,1 and it may have been
really painful,2 to have the emphasis so univer
sally placed upon that portion of his ministry
which was subordinate in his mind, and wholly
incidental. Mighty works are ascribed alike to
'Matt. 12: 39; 16: 4: John 4: 48; 10: 38; 14: 11.
2 Mark 8: 12.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 207
Jesus and to John,1 and indeed to any one who
seemed to use power for service in healing.2 It
was therefore not a Messianic qualification, but
rather a more common rabbinic service which
Jesus rendered in his mighty works. He de
pended upon conditions,3 and knew that virtue
had gone out of him when he healed.' He made
his mighty works to serve as an appeal to re
pentance, like his preaching.5 Rejecting the
idea of proving his divinity by miracles, or of
attracting attention to himself by them, he speaks
of signs and wonders generally when using
apocalyptic material,8 and possibly also in the
Fourth Gospel with reference to his resurrection,7
although this passage is misplaced in time and
misinterpreted as referring to his body.
The miracles of Jesus may be classified as
miracles of healing, of mercy and of instruction.
The science of medicine was not yet born, but
was a crude empiricism, mingled intimately with
cruder superstitions. Death was not considered
insurmountable, but physical resurrection had
become a popular hope in connection with the
apocalyptic Messianic expectation.
' Matt. 13: 54; 14: 2. 6 Matt. 11: 20ff.
2 Matt. 7: 22; Mark 9: 39. 6 Luke 21: 11.
3Matt. 13: 58: Mark 6: 5. 7 John 2: 18, 19.
4 Mark 5: 30.

208 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
The old attempt to trace the miracles to an
origin in parables has been revived of late, but
it proves too much, in an age when science
recognizes that there are many laws of natural
life and personal touch with other persons and
with nature which we have not yet mastered.
Parabolic and other pedagogic accretions gath
ered about them, but there can be no doubt that
Jesus healed the sick. An event which is a
miracle to one person need not necessarily be
one to another who has more knowledge or a
wider experience. Hobbes in The Leviathan
(chapter 27) pointed that out long ago. The
very acts which Jesus performed, set in our day
and surroundings, would not seem to any one
miraculous, but rather as Jesus himself regarded
them, mighty works of a mighty soul; wrought
according to laws of personality not yet wholly
known, but destined to be formulated and
brought into common use.
The miracles of mercy, like the turning of
water into wine, the calming of the storm, the
feeding of the multitude and the raising of the
dead, all lie in the realm of psychological possi
bility, and can be explained more easily as the
work of a noble soul through suggestion and
personal psychoses than as the twisting of para
bolic sayings about the highly magnified per-

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 209
sonality of Jesus. Latitude must be given, of
course, for the interpretation the age put upon
events, and for an inevitable transference of accent
from the realm of psychology to that of external
occurrences. For the cure which we would
account for as a matter of psychological influence,
or the experience which we believe to be mediated
through personality in the realm of mind, the
Jews could not help objectifying and explaining
according to the current faith in occult spiritual
interruptions into nature. Here is the origin of
legend, which becomes a magnifying-glass through
which events grow with remarkable precision.
The miracles of instruction are numerous and
suggestive of the pedagogic interest of Jesus.
The withered fig-tree is one such, and others are
the healing of the Syrophenician woman's
daughter, and the boy at the foot of the Mount
of Transfiguration. The stilling of the storm *
and the walking on the water, if they were mi
raculous at all, and not mere psychical illusions,
belong in this class, with the draught of fishes
near Bethsaida. The raising of Lazarus, told
by only one evangelist, and he the farthest
removed from the event in time, yet has close
relations with the resurrection story, and may be
of pedagogic interest in the scheme of the teach-
'See J. Weiss, Das alteste Evangelium, p. 184 ff.

210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
ing of Jesus. Here if anywhere we find myth
and legend, alleviating the pain of loss and the
dread of death under the resurrection faith.
Of the entire thirty-six miracles narrated of
Jesus, eight only are not miracles of healing,
if we include under that head the raising of
Lazarus and the widow's son at Nain. Of these
eight, two may be, and probably are, duplicates
of one occurrence, — the feeding of the multi
tude. That event, together with the turning of
water into wine, the calming of the storm, and
the walking on the water, is probably explicable
upon a purely psychological basis, and has
attached to itself certain parabolic interests of
an allegorical suggestion. The miraculous draft
of fishes, and the cursing of the fig-tree
are explicable on the ground of the extremely
acute and sensitive perception of nature that
belonged to the make-up of Jesus, and the story
of the stater is a way of telling how at his sug
gestion Peter returned for a day to his craft to
earn the required tax. Thus it is possible to
bring all the miracles attributed to Jesus into
two classes, — his cures of sickness, even unto
seeming death, and the acuteness of his psychical
forces, which gave him great influence over men,
which also gave him unusual sympathy with and
penetration of nature.

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 211
As to the three narratives, the raising of Jairus'
daughter from the dead in the Synoptists,1 the
raising of the widow's son at Nain in Luke,2 and
the raising of Lazarus in John,3 it is distinctly
reported in the first and the last instance that
Jesus pronounced the seeming death to be sleep.4
To be sure the wailers beside the maid's couch
"laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was
dead," and the Fourth Gospel is careful to ex
plain the words as spoken of the death of Lazarus,
and to add the words from Jesus' lips, "Lazarus
is dead." This is enough to raise the question
whether Jesus, by his keen insight and his in
tense sympathy with life, did not appreciate a
distinction between actual dissolution and an
apparent death which was rather related to coma
or suspended animation, and which would result
in death if the subject were not delivered from
it. Even in this day we do not know what death
is, and the wisest men use words to conceal their
ignorance regarding it, while the gruesome his
tory of mistakes in this region, which were dis
covered when too late, reveals to us how wide the
field is, and how liable it was to be entered by
'Matt. 9: 18-26; Mark 5: 22-43; Luke 8: 41-56.
2 Luke 7: 11-15.
3 John 11: 1-44, assuming this to be literally true.
« Luke 8: 52; John 11: 11.

212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
one whose apperception mass, in all that con
cerned life, was so acute as that of Jesus was.
Until we have defined life and know more about
death, we cannot say that Jesus could not have
rescued these three persons from certain and
premature doom.
Whether or no Jesus believed that he actually
raised the dead, it seems certain that his con
temporaries believed it, and so countless mul
titudes since have believed. In our modern
thought of nature and natural law, there are two
possible attitudes to be taken toward these three
narratives, and they comport with the two posi
tions open to us regarding the resurrection of
Jesus himself. The first suits the mind of a
conservative temper, and finds its refuge in the
midst of the chaos now existing in thought upon
matter and concerning death. What is matter?
Mere pencils of force? An electrical phenome
non? A figment of the mind? And what is
death? How absolute is it? Two persons are
rescued from the water, both apparently dead.
Restoratives are applied, and skilful manipula
tion of the bodies is resorted to. After hours,
one lives, the other shows no signs of life. What
is the difference? What was the difference
when they were taken out of the water, both
apparently drowned? Where does death begin?

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 213
— in the ovum ? and where does it end ? There
is no definite answer to these questions yet, and
until there is, no man has a scientific right to say
that Jesus did not raise the dead to life again.
The second open door leads to a complete
denial of the narratives as unauthentic romances,
growing out of a mighty faith and a great affec
tion, eager to glorify Jesus Christ. Or, they are
regarded as spiritual parables, not intended to be
taken literally by the writers, but gradually trans
ferred from the didactic to the historical realm.
The first attitude relies upon the historicity
of the narratives, and commits to the realm of
the psychology of Jesus the phenomena, awaiting
further light. The second, while denying his
toricity, accounts for the stories through the
psychology of the race, as evidenced in history
and tradition.
A spontaneous practise of self-expression, not
a carefully studied and practised art, was that of
Jesus, for we cannot conceive of one of his spirit
and bearing going to Egypt, as his Jewish de
tractors said of him, to learn the necromancer's
skill. It came to him as a gift from heaven,
and was used under the direct influence of his
Father whose will he ever sought to do. This
atmosphere of spirituality rested over all his
works, and kept them subordinate to the real

214 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
purpose of his life in teaching and inspiring men
for the Kingdom of heaven. Not once did he
do what people from Herod down demanded of
him constantly; he would not perform great
wonders for the gratification of curiosity or for
the establishment of his claims by marvels.
Differentiated from the necromancers of the East
alike in purpose and in practise, he did what he
didJrom a truly moral and religious motive, in a
spirit as reverent and as ethically sound as that
in which he taught the truth he believed.
Throughout this discussion of the miracles, I
have tried to transfer the emphasis from the
deed to the doer, from the marvelousness of
events to the graciousness of Christ. There is
no more significant index of the right attitude
for the student to take toward the miraculous
element in the Scriptures than can be found in
the story of the Temptation. In that experience,
as in every exercise of the personal power of
Jesus, the one thing at stake is not his, or our, or
another's attitude toward nature, or divinity, or
theories of natural law, but the personality of the
historic Christ. Given such a person, and un
usual mental powers are assured. Given such a
ministry, and unusual events will follow. To
reverse the order, and go backward from effect to
cause, arguing from the Gospel narrative the deity

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 215
of Jesus because he exercised divine functions in
interference with the natural order, is not a safe
course to follow. The divinity Jesus himself
would not serve by his exceptional powers we
surely are not called upon to establish by them.
The harmony he always maintained with his
Father we have no right to break, in our attempt
to set him on his Father's throne.
Every child demands a marvel. He swims in
a mysterious sea of life upon whose shores he is
bound to build castles and see giants and fairies
at their tasks. It is well if the child grows to
maturity without drawing off this sea and leav
ing life one arid, desert plain. If reason is to
delve and ditch and drain life of all sense of
infinity, it will leave us poor indeed. If reason,
in the limited sense of the term, undertakes to
pass every idea of the soul through its alembic,
humanity cannot escape from a life of mechanics,
in a house of logical artifice. We need the
atmosphere of the mysterious, like the moisture
in the air, to soften lines and lend beauty to the
landscape. We need the fine humility that climbs
hand in hand with reason to the heights, whence
larger horizons ever stretch and where the life
that now is takes its place as a very small section
of the life that has been and is yet to be. We
cannot get on a single day without the sense of

216 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
the Infinite about us, the symbols of which alone
are made plain to our best thought, while the
reality ever reaches on beyond our ken. While
we are bound to search out a cause in every
effect, and to explain whatever we find, if we can,
there lies a vast realm, even life itself, the First
Cause, and all the origin, course, and destiny of
life, beyond our finite reach, eternal and secure.
We can no more dispense with the miraculous
to-day than past ages could, nor so long as chil
dren remain childlike can we venture to remove
these wonder-stories from the Bible. They are
not to us of the twentieth century just what they
were to those of the first Christian decades, of
course, nor even what they were to the medieval
world. But they serve a purpose still, and always
will, for him who has any imagination and eyes
to see things invisible. Is it not true that the
childlike heart, retained in maturity, still finds
satisfaction in the atmosphere of mystery that
envelops even the things our hands have handled
and our microscopes explored, until a larger faith
than that of childhood supersedes the crude
unbelief that once broke it down ? This is the his
tory of many minds as they pass from faith, un
questioning and open to all impressions, to doubt
and uncertainty, then on to unbelief; until a
larger experience and a clearer vision bring them

MIRACLES AND ATTITUDE OF JESUS 217
back again, not indeed to the childish faith, but
to a stronger, broader, richer, and more vital
trust in an immanent and beneficent Creator,
working his will constantly on every hand. Such
a faith makes room for miracles, properly de
fined; it even requires them, as the mind explores
the vast uncharted region where God touches
humanity. Thus every act of God not under
stood is classed, until men learn the law by which
it is accomplished, in nature or in the human
mind. But should the time ever come when all
the laws of the activities of God are fully under
stood, even then the same sense of an eternal
outreach beyond will possess the mind, and the
experience of mystery will arise from the very
excess of light.

CHAPTER XI
THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS AS HE
REGARDED THEM
The earliest Gospel, that of Paul, declares a
well-established doctrine of the death of Jesus,
as "for our sins," and adds "according to the
scriptures " (1 Cor. 15 : 3). He must have found
such a belief grounded in Old Testament quota
tion, when he became a member of the Christian
society. This does not afford time for a my-
thopeic theory to grow. It requires an earlier
origin of the belief in the death of Christ as a
means of deliverance from sin, and in the resur
rection as an incentive to new life and the hope
of the world. That origin we find in the teach
ing of Jesus himself, toward the end of his life,
given in suggestion and warning, in emotional
appeal and sober statement of fact, but never in
formulated doctrine or systematic creed. He
left those to the men who came after him, and
minds are still wondering over the material fur
nished in his word and deed. Wendt J believes
' Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, II, 239 ff.
218

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 219
that Paul "remodeled" the thought of Jesus as
to death so as to make it efficacious for the for
giveness of sins, which Jesus did not teach. The
text of the Gospels suggests another point of view,
and affords ground for the belief that Jesus grew
through experience into a fuller and clearer
appreciation of the nearness and the meaning of
his death.
From the first his gentle, cheerful, confident
nature, full of the sunshine of life, respondent to
the beauty of the world and the needs of man,
met with indifference, misunderstanding, and
opposition. It could not be otherwise than that
these experiences should make him wonder what
the end would be. He made no progress in
winning the nation; on the contrary, antagonism
grew. His first successes were followed by dis
couraging loss of influence, even with the people,
but especially with their leaders. He and his
disciples were "as sheep in the midst of wolves"
(Matt. 10: 16). Only a blind optimism could
fail to see whither these influences would inev
itably lead. He knew the history of the prophets,
he beheld the persecution of John, and he per
ceived the spirit of the men about him. What
could keep him from speculation upon violence
and death as his own speedy fate? "This was
a condition it needed no inspiration to draw;

220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
all it needed was an intelligence able to measure
moral forces opposed, to calculate the moment
when those who were determined not to suffer
public defeat would make material force the
final arbiter of the dispute."1 How was he to
reconcile this fate before him with the growing
conviction in his soul that he was the Messiah
of his people?
The Gospels contain a series of teachings than
which none are more characteristic of Jesus or
more undoubtedly genuine, in which he exalts
the idea of self-sacrifice, and commends it as
the law of his life and of all high living. "He
that findeth his life shall lose it" (Matt. 10: 39)
did not mean some light experience, but the
courageous facing of death itself. He doubtless
recognized it as his not distant end, before he
had walked long with his disciples. A certain
feeling of pressure led him to hasten his visits
to the cities and towns of Galilee (Mark 1 : 37, 38),
as if he realized that the time was short. When
the disciples of John and of the Pharisees made
common cause and came to him asking why he
did not require his followers to fast, his answer
implied that days were coming when for sorrow
they would fast (Mark 2: 19, 20). This fore
boding began very early in his ministry, and grew
' Fairbairn, The Expositor, 1896, p. 284.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 221
apace with the misunderstanding and opposition
which he faced. He knew that love is always
bought with pain and sold at last in death. It
was one of the elemental facts in his thinking
and his life. Suffering never seems a stranger
to his consciousness. Did he not recognize that
by it depth and greatness come to men? Be
cause he was the Son of God, resignation of the
glories of the world and a share in life's bitterness
became his portion. The reconciliation of this
new conception with the popular ideal, held by
his disciples, was his greatest intellectual task,
while he wore his life away in friction with resist
ing humanity. Only his unconquerable opti
mism, based in the love of God, kept him true
and full of hope, as he became more and more
convinced that before him stood the cross, and
that victory must come through suffering.
Jesus did not often speak definitely of his own
death, and never until after the experience at
Csesarea Philippi, when he began to prepare his
followers for seeming defeat. Probably the dim
outline of disaster did not shape itself definitely
enough in his fancy for him to say much about it
earlier. The arrival of this crisis, when at length
the disciples recognized his office and the exalta
tion of his person, reacted upon his own thinking,
and gave him a perspective he had not known

222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
before. They confess that he is the Messiah,
the Son of the living God. Understanding that
fact, they must know that he is still " Son of man,"
and bound to die. More than that, his death
becomes a function of the Messianic office, and
is pregnant with new meanings. "From that
time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples,
that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer
many things of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the
third day" (Matt. 16: 21). This was an abso
lutely new and contradictory idea to the Jews,
but so was his whole scheme of an inner kingdom.
The two ideas, a suffering Messiah and a spiritual
kingdom, were dependent each upon the other.
His earlier exhortation became a test of disciple
ship : " If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me" (Matt. 16: 24).
A test it proved among the Twelve. They
were not prepared for such radical application
of the oft-repeated epigram about saving life by
losing it. The glory of their ripened conviction
about the Messiah was upon them. They could
not easily give up the thought of power and privi
lege through intimacy with the coming King.
They all felt in their hearts the echo of Peter's
words of rebuke to the despondent element in

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 223
their Master; and Mark's picture of their estrange
ment from him (Mark 10 : 32) represents the fail
ure of their adjustment of inherited judgments
to the new spirit and teaching of Jesus. His
greatest lesson was unfolded in his death. It
opened the eyes of the half-blind disciples. It
was a key to much that they had failed to under
stand. It became the mysterious center from
which radiated influences that quickened mul
titudes with its truth that life reaches its full
estate only when it is sacrificed, and that in his
constant self-giving Jesus had fulfilled all that
was true in the ancient sacrificial system of his
people. Many a Jew perceived that Jesus had
realized the dreams of apocalyptic vision, and
out of every nation have come those who find his
higher law of sacrifice, in giving themselves, the
satisfaction of the need that built the altars of
the world.
The Gospel of Mark reports further sayings
of Jesus as to his death as follows (9: 9, 10):
he charged the three descending the Mount of
Transfiguration with him not to report their
vision until he was risen from the dead. "And
they kept that saying with themselves, ques
tioning one with another what the rising from
the dead should mean." He combined with a
reference to John's death a hint of his own suf-

224 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
ferings (9: 12). Again (9: 31, 32), "they under
stood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him."
He explicitly set forth before the amazed and
fearful disciples (10: 32-34) the sad facts he
faced, as they journeyed toward Jerusalem. In
spite of his lessons, he had to challenge the pre
sumption of James and John (10: 35-40) by
assuring them that they would share his woes,
but that he could not give them seats of power.
And he formulated again in striking phrase the
old truth (10: 45), "For even the Son of man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give his life a ransom for many." The
word ransom (Xvrpov) indicates a price paid for
deliverance from bondage, and here for the first
time Jesus speaks of his death as a voluntary
self-sacrifice, which if the words are his own, and
not a Pauline touch, makes a decided advance in
his teaching.
In Mark 12 we find the parable of The Wicked
Husbandmen. The remark is added that the
Pharisees "knew that he had spoken the parable
against them." The "little apocalypse" in
chapter 13, as if in response to the question of
the disciples, "When shall these things be?"
only infers the death of Jesus. Here first appears
a word about his coming again as the Son of man
" in the clouds with great power and glory," and

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 225
he adds with greatest emphasis: "This genera
tion shall not pass, till all these things be done,"
as if confining his prophecy to the immediate
future. Since Jesus nowhere uses the language
of apocalyptic or of politics without giving it
the most spiritual and figurative meaning, he
must be interpreted here as speaking of disaster
and deliverance soon to come. He had in mind
experiences of a definitely personal and religious
sort. He reveals the same method in the parable
(13: 34) of the man taking a far journey and
bidding his servants watch for his return, — a
touch that suggests the common attitude of faith
at the time when the Gospel was written, and
which may be shaded by local color.
The .next reference to his death reported in
Mark is at the feast in the house of Simon the
leper, when Jesus said of the poured-out nard,
"She is come aforehand to anoint my body to
the burying," — a striking insistence upon the
imminence of the end. The Passover supper
follows with the reported words, "This is my
body," " This is my blood," following the sorrow
ful saying, " The Son of man indeed goeth, as it
is written of him," — which is the first reference
to prophecy in connection with his death in the
mouth of Jesus. From this time on, every word
he utters has its relation to the impending doom.

226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
"I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine,
until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom
of God" (14: 25). "All ye shall be offended
because of me this night : for it is written, I will
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scat
tered. But after that I am risen, I will go before
you into Galilee" (14: 27, 28). The prayer of
Gethsemane reveals the attitude of human dread
rising to divine assurance (14: 36). At the trial,
when asked by the high priest, "Art thou the
Christ?" he replies, "I am: and ye shall see
the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power,
and coming in the clouds of heaven" (14: 61, 62).
These are all the words about his death put by
Mark upon the lips of Jesus. They begin with
the confession at Csesarea Philippi, in a general
warning which the disciples utterly refuse to
hear, and continue to grow more definite and
detailed with every chapter until the day of
doom, when for the first time he gives his friends
notice of what to expect, and when.
In Matthew no definite allusion is made to
the death of Jesus until (12: 40) the passage about
Jonah which is interpreted of the Son of man
remaining three days and three nights in the
grave. But this explanation is not given in
the parallel passage in Luke (11: 30) nor in the
repetition of the comparison in Matthew (16: 4).

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 227
Moreover, it appears to be interpolated here
between verse 39 and verse 41, as an interruption
of the allusion to Jonah and Nineveh. It is
probably a gloss which crept into the text from
the margin, and does not belong to the words of
Jesus. The first reference to his death in Matthew
(16: 21) immediately follows the confession at
Csesarea Philippi. Peter's rebuke of the Master
so connects itself with his confession that the new
emphasis of Jesus at this time was fixed in the
tradition. He formulated the principle from
this hour which his experience had already
worked out: "Whosoever will save his life shall
lose it " (verse 25). The next allusion follows
(17: 9) when Jesus charged his disciples to tell
no man of the transfiguration vision "until the
Son of man be risen again from the dead," and in
verse 12 he declares that the Son of man shall
suffer as Elijah (that is, John) did. Again, while
they still abode in Galilee, Jesus warned them of
the last things (17: 22, 23). In each instance, al
though resurrection is the climax of his prophecy,
the disciples were most concerned with the fact
of his passion, "and they were exceeding sorry"
(17: 23). The same palliation of their woe was
offered them on the way up to Jerusalem when
he took the Twelve apart (Matt. 20: 17-19) and

228 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
told them to what they went. The demand for
places in his kingdom (20 : 20-28) drew from him
the law of service, — "even as the Son of man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give his life a ransom for many." The
parable of The Householder (Matt. 21: 33 ff.)
was his first declaration of his expected sufferings
to the crowd, in the elusiveness of fancy, through
which many would fail to see a picture of him
self. The wail of sorrow over Jerusalem followed
(23: 37 ff.) the denunciation of the Pharisees,
and may be considered as a reference to the
imminence of his own sufferings. " Ye shall not
see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he
that cometh in the name of the Lord." The in
creasing frequency of such allusions led the dis
ciples to inquire when these things should be, and
what signs they should have of his presence
(24: 3, margin A. R. V.) in the consummation.
Then follows the apocalyptic passage (24: 4-51)
leading up to the three parables of the virgins, the
talents, and the nations, all of them apocalyptic
in their setting. After this he referred definitely
to the approaching feast as the time of his suffer
ing, and accepted the woman's alabaster cruse as
a preparation for his burial (26 : 12). He opened
the doors of his friend's house in the city with
the words "My time is at hand," and set the

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 229
simple meal before them as a memorial of his
body and a covenant of his blood. The other
details follow as in Mark.
Matthew represents Jesus as recognizing the
inevitable fate of goodness, and a universal law
of self-sacrifice, in his sufferings and death. He
also adds to that the vicarious element of good
ness ransoming others. No theory is suggested
as to how his death was to work the weal of the
kingdom, but he seeks the practical preparation
of the disciples for the shock, and these funda
mental truths are emphasized without comment.
It is doubtful if Jesus ever went further than this
in speech about his death, but it is certain that he
anticipated it with courage, and assurance of a
resurrection to eternal life and more effective
action. In Luke also there is no reference to the death
of Jesus until (9: 22) after the confession at
Csesarea Philippi. The second reference is con
nected with the Transfiguration (9: 31) where the
topic of conversation between Jesus, Moses, and
Elijah is given as his decease. Then (9: 44) he
taught the disciples what to expect at Jerusalem.
In reply to the Pharisees who had warned him
that Herod would fain kill him, he said (13 : 31 ff.)
" Go and say to that fox, Behold, I cast out
demons and perform cures to-day and to-morrow,

230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
and the third day I end my course. Neverthe
less I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow
and the day following: for it cannot be that a
prophet perish out of Jerusalem." A lament
over the city follows. In an apocalyptic passage
(17: 22 ff.) he predicts his sufferings (verse 25)
and minutely instructs the Twelve alone what they
may expect in Jerusalem (18: 31-33). On the
journey toward the city on Palm Sunday he
weeps over it (19: 41-44) and predicts its ruin.
The parable of The Wicked Husbandmen
(20: 9ff.) is spoken in the city, and a longer
apocalyptic passage (21 : 5-36). At the Passover
supper he expressed his longing to eat that feast
with them before he suffered. The other refer
ences are like those of the other Gospels. In
Luke nowhere appears a word of interpretation
or of explanation of his death, nor is direct allu
sion to his resurrection made, save in two of these
passages. The failure of his disciples to com
prehend his meaning is emphasized, and the
calamities to come upon the city are elaborated.
But nothing further than the fact of his warning
given the disciples can be found in Luke.
Jesus expressed himself remotely as to the last
things in numerous parables like those of the
sower, the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed,
the grain growing day and night, the selfish

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 231
neighbor and the unjust judge, the sleepy virgins,
the talents and the pounds, the rich man and
Lazarus, the vine-dresser and the husbandmen;
also in such words as those of the petition " Thy
kingdom come" and "The kingdom of God is
within you " (Luke 11 : 2; 17 : 21). But in none of
these does he hint at any doctrine in his mind
connecting his own sufferings with the redemption
of mankind. Three facts he held increasingly
before him: death, resurrection, and judgment.
This last function he assigned to the future (Matt.
7:21 ff.; 13:41 ff.;16: 27; 25: 31; Mark8: 38),
and it is everywhere somewhat remote. The
place of judge he refused to occupy (Luke 12: 14;
John 8: 15), and assigned the task to the Twelve
in the Kingdom to come (Matt. 19: 28; Luke
22: 30), while he did not hesitate to put himself
before them as the test by which all men shall
be tried (Matt. 10: 33, 40; 11: 28; 19: 14; 25: 40).
During his last days on earth, as he saw the
fateful end approaching, Jesus evidently gained
a new and deeper conception of his mission.
With that enlargement of his self-consciousness
his death meant more to him and became a cor
related factor in his work. He looked upon those
who were its instruments with a feeling of infinite
sorrow and pity, and pronounced his woes upon
them. He believed that his death was ordered

232 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
in the economy of God as a factor in the deliver
ance of man from sin and the establishment of
his Kingdom on the earth. His gospel was to
be preached throughout the world (Mark 13: 31;
14: 3-9). At the Last Supper, the words used
of his body and blood in each of the Synoptists
indicate a dynamic influence to be exerted upon
the disciples, whether in Mark's use of tnrep tto\\5>v
or Luke's vnep i/xuv or Matthew's more extended
Trepi iroX\S>v ets a<pto-iv afM.pTiS>v. His death is for
them, for the many, and more specifically, for
"the remission of sins."
Just what he means by these words we can see
more clearly by referring to the tradition of St.
Paul, who uses v raii/i) StaO^Krf. The last word
appears also in Mark. There is a covenant
significance in the blood poured out. As the
ancient rite of covenant required the use of blood
from a sacrifice, to be sprinkled upon the parties
involved, so blood sealed this covenant also
between God and man.
The principle of sacrificial symbolism has been
of world-wide extent, because so well suited to
primitive thought. The totem of the tribe was
the most sacred object for an offering to the gods.
Individuality is not emphasized among savages,
nor was it recognized in the Old Testament as it
is to-day. Jahveh was a national divinity to

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 233
the early Hebrews, with whom the entire tribe
must maintain covenant relations. To be cere
monially clean and attached through the nation
to Jahveh was enough. Prophets and psalmists
introduced a closer personal relation, and the
New Testament confirmed it. This idea became
the medium through which St. Paul tried to make
the meaning of the death of Jesus plain.
Hunting and pastoral people considered the
life and the blood to be identical. This belief
gave meaning to the practise of transfusion to
bind a covenant. The Semitic prohibition of
eating blood (Lev. 3: 17; 7: 26, etc.) maintained
the ancient regard for it as a symbol of life, and
focused Jewish thought upon the blood of Jesus.
It was natural that he should" speak of it himself
as a sign of the covenant he was giving his life
to establish between God and man. And the
substitution of the symbol of the wine for the
actual blood was not a weakening, it was rather
a strengthening, of the spiritual quality for which
the blood was only a sign.
Thus Jesus seized upon primitive ethnic ideas,
the simple expression of human need, and gave
them their full meaning. It was a contrast to the
old covenant between God and Israel, and at the
same time a realization of it. The completion
of the entire Mosaic system by which the Jew

234 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
had sought union with God, and the removal of
it before its fuller spiritual prototype, was in
volved in his death as Jesus understood it. As a
Jew speaking to Jews, Jesus could not fail to
emphasize this transition from the national to the
universal, from form to spirit, from the covenant
lost in ceremonial to a covenant real in life.1 For
this sacrifice he conceived himself to be the
lamb, that through him his disciples and all
men might enter into loving covenant with God.
He was not laying down his life as a substitute
for theirs, nor as an offering to appease the wrath
of God. He distinctly sought to free men from
a fear of death as retribution, through his death.
He was the paschal lamb, the means of a family
covenant with God who safely guards the home
and guides the life of every family. Jesus never
feared death, but with noble dignity faced it as
his own highest act. He referred to it only when
exalted with love and pity for mankind, and for
his disciples in particular. But the agents of his
destruction were wicked husbandmen, hypocrites
who are untrue to their prophets, traitors ; and he
mourned over the Holy City left in such hands.
1 "His thoughts about his death attached themselves to
the picture of the servant of Jahveh, whose function was
prophetic rather than priestly." — Stevens, The Christian
Doctrine of Salvation, p. 53.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 235
There is evidence of a terrific strain upon him in
Gethsemane, but no craven fear. At first he
looked upon death as an awful necessity to which
he must submit; but afterward he sought for the
soul of goodness in it. The picture of his calm
courage, "his face set as a flint," is magnificent.
The unruffled dignity and moral integrity with
which he was clothed at his trial reveal the
majesty of his spirit.
The story of the last experiences of Jesus offers
the most moving scene in all history. The
power of simple pity it arouses has never been
estimated fully as a compelling force in religion.
St. Francis is not the only person whose body
has showed the stigmata after long dwelling on
the sufferings of Christ. The Roman Catholic
Church has utilized the crucifix with acute per
ception of its power to move the human soul.
Accompanied by gratitude, pity has an immense
psychic value in religion, and the passion of
Jesus is its most sacred, its most prolific field.
Yet none can satisfy the facts by arguing that the
tragedy was arranged for any such effect, or that
pity exhausts the high emotions which the death
of Jesus is calculated to arouse in us.
Jesus never could have held, with the rabbis,
that through excess of suffering of a righteous
man a store of merit is available to cover up the

236 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
sins of others. No substitutionary ideas are
compatible with his emphasis upon individuality
and the personal justice as well as fatherly love
of God.
Death was a bitter fate for Jesus, which he
accepted as inevitable, which he reconciled with
the love and care of God through his perfect
assurance that he could not be held in the grave.
That consciousness had become as fixed a part
of his attitude toward life as his trust in the Father
hood of God. It was a part of that faith in which
he daily walked. His Jewish compeers believed
in a hazy immortality in part, and some of them
were even predicting that the just would rise to
participate in the apocalyptic kingdom. Jesus
affirmed with all confidence his faith in a future
life, both for himself and for those whom he
promised to shepherd upon earth in the spirit
and to meet in heaven.
On the second day after the body of Jesus was
laid away in the grave, out of the heavy clouds
that had settled down upon the disciples and shut
all light out and kept them disappointed, dumb,
and desperate, suddenly shone a beam of heavenly
light. Jesus was alive! Some of their number
had seen him. They were electrified by the
report. What had happened? No eye-witness
of the act of rising from the dead was ever known ;

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 237
and if there had been one, his report would be of
no more value to this age than the word of the
disciples who declared they saw and spoke with
Jesus. Something manifestly came into the
blackness of their premature night to turn it into
a new and brighter day. They knew that the
Master lived. The very rearrangement of the
days of the week is evidence of the firm convic
tion which made the first day even more sacred
than the seventh day, enshrined as that day had
been through centuries in the most exalted rev
erence. No explanation of recuperation, no hint
of aromatic spices and embalmer's arts, will avail.
To say that Jesus was resuscitated from a swoon
for a season and restored to his disciples, plunges
us into difficulties greater far than those suggested
by the simple narrative of the Gospels. The one
thing of which we are positive is this, — that Jesus
died and rose again according to the faith of the
disciples, who were so convinced of his return to
them that they knew it to be true, and joined it
to his final ascension as a historic fact as real as
any they had ever experienced.
Was the resurrection a matter of desperately
aroused psychoses in the disciples, seizing upon
the frequently reiterated teaching of Jesus that
he could not die but must rise and carry on his
work? Was it an inevitable reaction from the

238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
abyss of their disappointment? Did sudden joy
simply have to follow intense grief? If so, then
the floods of their expectancy, dammed up for
a day, broke loose with a mighty momentum, to
carry them across the depths of death. Perhaps,
as H. J. Holtzmann, V. Fritzsche and E. von
Dobschuetz assert, the empty tomb gave certainty
to the story of the women who discovered it, but
could give only one explanation for the absence
of the body of their dear dead. No thought of
the removal of the body by the owner of the tomb
could once dispute with the conviction that Jesus
had arisen from the dead.
Are the facts beneath the Gospel story psychic
rather than material? Even so, they never
could have been preserved in any other form
than that in which the evangelists have given
them to us, — as objective, material events.
That disciple group could not possibly discrimi
nate between subjective experiences and objective
facts when they came to tell of them. The narra
tive handed on from mouth to mouth and age to
age would grow, as such a story must, and losing
nothing of the essential fact would gain that
drapery which at the same time preserves the fact
and conceals its nakedness. The birth of a new
faith in the souls of the disciples would absorb
their entire being. The correlation of it with

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 239
the recent teaching of Jesus and with the inheri
tance of apocalypse and prophets would confirm
and establish it. Here was the synthesis of
truths they had tried in vain to join together,
of the present and the future, of the real and the
ideal, of the transcendent and the immanent,
of the Kingdom on earth and that in heaven. A
great reaction seized them, and from despair
they turned to jubilation. They shared in the
lofty inspiration of the prophets. All sorrow and
suffering were glorified as a dark vestibule lead
ing into the palace of joy and peace. Death
became a friend and helper, necessary for the
consummation of their lives, and of the Kingdom
which was dearer than life.
This is the note of triumph sounded every
where by St. Paul, as by the evangelists in the
closing chapters of the Gospels. The last great
enemy of man, more feared than all the rest, the
grim destroyer of hope and joy, was defeated.
The world turned its course that day toward
higher things, and through the resurrection of
Jesus, mediated through the faith of his disciples,
faced a higher end and laid hold upon its highest
joys. Is it anything to be wondered at that
the disciples reveled in an abandonment of Pen
tecostal exuberance? Whether pathological or
not, the experiences of those days are easily

240 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
accounted for, and turned as they were to the
winning of men to the faith so lately given its
death-blow, they bear witness to the reality of
the resurrection of the Lord.
The passion for a personal conscious ego sur
viving death became far more vigorous at the
birth of Christianity, and has not lessened with
the centuries. In its true value it is not a mean
self-interest of souls seeking to "get saved," but
the great affirmation of the spirit that it must
and shall go on. It is the psychological conscious
ness at its height, demanding the perfection of an
incomplete evolutionary process. The highest
reach of our humanity is in the direction of the
Infinite. The idea of immortality has been of immense
gain to the race. It has righted the overturned
sense of justice and provided for a natural rela
tionship between pleasure and goodness, pain
and wickedness. It has given a larger universe
to enlarging souls and it has afforded ground for
a theodicy unanswerable because of its extended
field of life.
The state termed death lies beyond the reach
of life, and precludes a renewal of the vital process
in the precise environment and organism, accord
ing to modern science. But the word death is
still popularly used in a loose way, as it was in

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 241
ancient times, for the apparent cessation of the
vital functions. How large the territory covered
by it is, none knows. It is a relative word, as
employed in the Bible, and the New Testament
writers never doubted the possibility of a physical
resurrection. They did not make modern dis
criminations between voluntary suspended ani
mation, like that of Indian fakirs, or the hypnotic
states or coma induced by certain diseases, and
the absolute organic change called death. There
was nothing impossible to them in the idea of a
soul returning to the body it had left and resum
ing life. This will account for the physical
demonstrations which the writers and early
readers of the New Testament required to estab
lish their faith in the resurrection of Jesus.
We must account for Christian history. It
pivots on the resurrection. St. Paul was war
ranted in his assertion, "If Christ be not
risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith
is also vain." Christianity is the religion of
eternal life. Immortality is its crown and com
pletion, without which it fails to command assent.
In one of three ways must the apostolic convic
tion as to the resurrection be accounted for. It
was a fact ocularly demonstrated, according to
laws of life and matter of which we are wholly
ignorant; or it was a fact belonging to the psychic

242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
realm, a "veridical hallucination" dependent
upon some extra-organic, supernormal stimuli;
or it was a subjective hallucination, dependent
upon some intra-organic or normal extra-organic
stimulus. Was the constantly reiterated sug
gestion of Jesus that he could not and would
not remain in the grave, coupled with the over
whelming shock of his awful death, the stimulus
to turn the scales and swing the minds of the
disciples up out of their despair into the trans
ports of joy which seized them like an obsession,
and fixed forever in their faith the fact of the
resurrection of their beloved Master and his
presence with them everywhere, not only in Jeru
salem but in their old haunts in Galilee and
throughout the world ?
In whichever direction the temper and training
of individual minds may lead them, the Gospel
narrative cannot be taken literally as it stands,
for it raises too many questions and fails to
satisfy our modern thinking. Under even the
first theory, the text is inadequate, because it
insists upon the raising of the physical body that
lay in the tomb, but treats it now as flesh and
blood to be handled and to take food, and now
as an ethereal or "astral" body that passes
through locked doors and must not be touched,
and rises into the air to be lost in the heavens.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 243
It is no disparagement to the Scriptures to
admit this, for was it not inevitable, whatever
happened, that the story should take the only
possible veridical form for its preservation ? Pre
cisely the service which the architectural device
called "entasis" rendered to the sensitive eye of
the Greek when the builders of the Parthenon
enlarged the middle diameter of each column
and lengthened frieze in order that these bodies
might not appear to be concave and so lose the
perfection of straight lines, the treatment of these
Scripture events has done for the temple of our
faith, by enlargement here and there, correcting
vision and making all parts appear right — lined
and perfect in their symmetry.
It may be maintained, as it is believed by not
a few, that through operation of laws as yet un
known to us, in that spiritual body which St. Paul
declares to be as real as is the earthly body, Jesus
did appear to his disciples, and, through the only
channel by which conviction could be assured
for them, did establish their faith in him as
the eternal Master of their lives and head of the
Kingdom he taught them to declare to all the
world. Even then, body is not the essential
element by any means, for the spirit is the true
and only basis of the Lordship of Christ. But
our humanity demands, even for spiritual con-

244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
ceptions, a form for them to occupy. Incarna
tion saves theism from dead abstractions, and it
has preserved the belief in the immortality of the
soul. Who dares to deny to the body other forms
and modes of being, in this day of electric theories
of matter, and a basic ether in which the scien
tific imagination revels with an abandon that
brings back the age of faith, and points to doors
sure to open to reveal secrets where the realms of
science and religion join. Multitudes require
some sort of an organism as an essential to their
thought of personal identity. Until we know
what matter is, their necessity must be respected.
But I would claim for others an equal right to
hold either of the other views suggested, and
expect them to profess a faith as strong in the
resurrection of our Lord, based upon these purely
psychological experiences, unknown as such to
the men and women of Galilee, but explained to
the satisfaction of an increasing number in our
day by the application of psychological principles
now known and classified. "A Christian," says
Wernle,1 "has no difficulty in accepting as the
ground of his belief in the resurrection the real
projection of Jesus into this world of sense by
means of a vision."
Nothing can dislodge Jesus Christ from his
1 Beginnings of Christianity, Vol. I, p. 115.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS 245
throne as the prince of immortal life, which was
brought to light through his gospel. He gathered
the scattered hopes and aspirations of the world
and fixed them in a new and enduring faith by
which the race has been lifted up and spurred to
its noblest endeavor. Jesus saw his death as a
sacrifice of goodness suffering for the sake of all
the good there is in men, and to it he invariably
joined a resurrection, by which goodness took
hold on life eternal. Thus the life of self-giving
was both vindicated and made perfect in God.

CHAPTER XII
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS
Unless our study has brought us to a new and
richer appreciation of Jesus Christ, it has failed
in its purpose and its possibilities. To gather
up the results, it is necessary to review and state
more fully certain points, expanding principles
and drawing inferences. Can we have a Psy
chology of Jesus ? An answer is possible in
the light of the preceding chapters. We are able
to reconstruct the self-consciousness of Jesus in
its main outlines. That will lead us to inquire
as to the secret of Jesus, and to entertain a vision
of The Universal Christ.
I. Can We Have a Psychology of Jesus?
Serious charges of inadequacy are brought
against the Gospels, and sober facts regarding
their disagreements, their faults due to a genera
tion of oral tradition, the utter want of an " ap
paratus criticus" among the evangelists, and the
inevitable influence of the subjective element
upon men who wrote with their hearts' blood.
246

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 247
Yet in spite of all, how can we escape from the
conviction that we have in the Gospels the out
lines of a character which we can fill in with
probability, if not with absolute certainty? The
farther we enter into the spirit of the apostolic
age and the clearer we apprehend the factors
determining the thought forms of that generation,
the greater will be our conviction that we can
know the Christ behind tradition and construct
anew for ourselves his inner life. Wrede has
made a most clever book,1 but he carries his
theory of the mystery of the Messiah too far, and
we are convinced with Bousset 2 that he goes too
far. He has attributed to a single motive events
and experiences which do not belong together.
There was a Messianic secret, but that does not
make it impossible that Jesus may have had a
purpose in employing it as a factor in his training
of the disciples.
li, as John Fiske suggests, the object of civi
lization is to keep mankind young by conserving
and lengthening the period of adolescence, then
Jesus fits the ideal requirement of the process,
for he took a generation to prepare for the brief
career in which he moved the world. For that
period we can describe no logical development,
1 Das Messiasgeheimniss.
2 Theologische Rundschau, Jan., 1902, pp. 347-362.

248 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
but his genetic progress can be traced, and that
is what we need in order to understand his mission
to men. One cannot so easily escape the im
pression of simple reality made by the narrative
of the four or five critical events in the history
of Jesus, — the baptism, the temptation, the con
fession at Csesarea Philippi, the transfiguration,
and the action and passion of the last week.
Tradition was hung upon these as a spider's
web upon its moorings. No matter how much
may have been filled in between, these are ren
dered absolutely necessary by Christian history
from the first. No tradition can cohere or sur
vive without some scheme of facts that belong
to the sources. These cannot be invented, how
ever much the fancy may spin about them and
between. And by these fixed points the circle
of the life of Jesus must be drawn. Wrede de
clares that mere psychologizing over the person
of Jesus is unwarranted and vain. But there is
a scientific use of the imagination in psychology
for reconstructing a man's soul and formulating
his inner life from even a few fixed facts, pre
cisely as there is a scientific use of the imagination
in zoology for reconstructing the form and life-
history of a mastodon from a few decayed bones.
tif, Our day and race do not judge historical
accuracy in the same way that the first Christian

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 249
century and the writers of Scripture in Pales
tine estimated it. We demand objectivity where
they were often satisfied with subjective expe
riences. Our prosaic, matter-of-fact minds do
not easily appreciate the poetic atmosphere
through which the Semite saw things and in
which he wrote. We forget that "The poet's
ideal is the truest truth."1 Men of small literary
culture, enthusiastic in advocating a new faith,
could hardly be expected to escape the subjective
bias and the fanciful trend of the times. In
reading the Gospels we must make allowance for
these things, while avoiding the extreme position
of men like Wrede who, in seeking to sail clear of
the Scylla of a too psychological appreciation of
Jesus, has struck on the Charybdis of making
his criticism a psychology of the evangelists.
We are safe in holding at least a hypothetical
certainty as to the truth of the picture of Jesus
drawn so consistently in the first three Gospels,
while a reverent criticism carries on its priceless
labors of testing and approval. Matthew af
fords us glimpses of a great Jewish deliverer.
Mark paints for us a true reformer of heroic
mold. Luke introduces us to a gentle, gracious
servant of good-will, ministering to the needs of
the people in a broad humanity. Each phase of
1 Hawthorne, The Great Stone Face

250 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
his life and character belongs to the historic influ
ence which gave birth to Christianity. There was
a certain universalism in the Master that gave
him a wide and stable basis for appeal to men.
At the same time let us not fail to recognize
the use of inevitable vehicles for carrying the
truth to us across the ages. "The best myth is
a deeper and broader expression of human nature
and needs than reason or history has yet attained,
and is thus the shape revelation might be ex
pected to take."1
II. The Self-consciousness of Jesus
Justice has not been done to the mentality of
Jesus, and the perfect sanity in which he touched
the world. He developed roundly, fully, and
was set symmetrically in life. His practical
wisdom appears in the way in which he met men.
He reached their minds, their hearts, and turned
the current of their lives with a steady hand and
a firm purpose. His mental activity was very
great, with the consistency of power guided to a
simple goal, and that goal uniquely his own
discovery. He grasped the meaning of history
so inclusively as to form a masterly conception
of its past and future continuity. His teaching
has an inner unity that is a far truer sign of his
' Hall, Adolescence, II, p. 332.

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 251
endowment than any ordered system would have
been. Emotionally he was well developed, as men of
power always are. The emotions become an aid
to correct judgment, and bear witness to depth
of soul when held well in leash. "Want of feel
ing," said Dr. Johnson, " is want of parts." This
Great Heart lived profoundly in his affections
and his sympathies for men, especially for those
whom he saw astray as sheep without a shepherd.
Every phase of life allured him, with his passion
to increase the abundance of living. Sin and
woe and want called him out, and yet he never
lost his joy and peace, for he was poised in wide
vision, and drank deep of the springs of hope.
His optimism was deduced from his perpetual
experience with God and his faith in the efficacy
of love as a solvent of the woes of a weary, wicked
world. His life was thus strongly motivated, and his
will, his sense of power, was irresistible. He
was so single-hearted, he knew so well whither
his life must lead, in the clear apprehension of
his Father's love and the conviction that his
opportunity with men lay in love, that he possessed
an inner power which was felt by all who knew
him. He seemed to his enemies self-confident
and self-assertive. God-intoxicated men are

252 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
liable to give that impression. But they are also
liable at last to lose themselves precisely where
Jesus found himself, in God.
After the baptism Jesus assumed certain
Messianic functions, although not in accordance
with the popular program of the day. He set
himself over against Moses as an authority
superior to that venerated name. He called him
self the bridegroom for whom people waited,
and the Son of man, and he forgave sin. He
proclaimed a greater than Jonah or Solomon or
the temple as at hand in his own person. With
a note of power he called down woes upon
Capernaum and Bethsaida where men did not
turn unto him.
He was bolder than any other teacher in his
tory. Never egotistical, his egoism was sublime.
And for all his claims he found proof in himself,
but nowhere else. He made of his inner life the
supreme test for all mankind. He ventured to
pass judgment upon all history, and to establish
himself upon the throne forever. He even set
his death into the scheme of his thought, and
made it, with an audacity almost incomprehen
sible, a factor in his success and the chief proof
of his service to men, the ground of his ultimate
appeal. Either he was guilty of immense presumption,

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 253
or else he was assured that men could not get on
without him, because he occupied an essential
place in the evolution of the race. He spoke
with an accent of authority as if he felt the power
of control over all the world. He employed no
incantations or muttered spells such as his con
temporaries used in casting evil spirits out or in
cure of other diseases. He issued commands to
deaf ears, blind eyes, weakened muscles, and the
natural forces obeyed him. He claimed authority
of personal relationship above all other, even that
of parents,1 on the ground that upon him de
pended all future welfare.2 And toward the end
of his ministry he asserted the right of supreme
control over the future of mankind.3
Over thirty times in the First Gospel he is re
ported as repeating, "Verily I say unto you,"
often placing his naked word over against the
tradition of the elders. He did not fall back upon
any prophetic formula, "Thus saith the Lord,"
but stood forth with an immediate inner con
sciousness of original authority. In the same
spirit he bade men " Follow me," and linked the
destiny of other souls to his own person.4 He
'Matt. 8:22; 10:37.
2Matt. 10: 32; 16: 24 ff.; Mark 8:34 ff.; Luke 9: 23 ff.;
12:8ff. 3Matt. 24: 30ff.; Mark 13: 26ff.; Luke 21: 27 ff.
* Matt. 10:14,40.

254 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
pronounced doom and pardon with equal as
surance, and put himself above Abraham and
Moses as an authority for the people. "He did
not preach his opinions, he preached himself."1
Yet with all his self-assertion he was the meek
and lowly Jesus, walking toward his cross. He
professed to reveal no wisdom; he merely brought
home to men the meaning of life. He knew his
limitations. He prayed to God as other men do;
he was obedient and submissive to his Father
in heaven, whose will he preferred to his own.
He did not know the times and seasons which
the apocalyptic gloried in; and at the last he felt
himself left alone even by his God. This gentle
teacher, associating with fisherfolk and beggars,
with the sick and outcast and forsaken, giving
of his time, his help, his very soul to obscure
individuals by the way, — taking little children
in his arms and making use of a title for himself
which would tend to conceal his office and place
him close to every simple man — bears a charm
of true humility that makes one expect of him
the greatness which humility never forsakes.
Thus he united a self-consciousness unique, sub
lime, with that humble spirit which mothers all
the virtues in mankind. 1 Renan.

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 255
III. The Secret of Jesus
Jesus came into Jewish and so into general
history, to assume a part in it as a reconstructor
of the old, in order that out of it, in perfectly
natural continuity, the new might proceed. But
his method was one of careful selection accord
ing to his own standards and the highest spirits
of the past. "Every great man," said Carlyle,1
"every genuine man, is by the nature of him a
son of Order, not of Disorder." He comes not
to destroy but to fulfil.
The fact that he did not altogether escape
from the thinking of his time and people is no
sign of failure in his high design. His power to
detect and assimilate truth everywhere and in all
things and all men is manifest in spite of the fact
that he tolerated many a form of thought or
speech not altogether true, and even used them;
as one uses tongs to lay the coals of his fire. But
one does not make the tongs the main thing; the
fire is the reality with which he is dealing.
This makes Jesus of importance to every age.
He has so much of truth to give that has not yet
been acquired by any age or race, that he must be
interpreted afresh to each generation and to every
people in the terms with which they are familiar,
' Lectures on Heroes, p. 272.

256 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
according to the mental atmosphere they breathe.
The manna of yesterday loses its freshness and
its savor to-day, but the same liberal hand pro
vides for the hungry still, and we must arise to
gather for our need.
Jesus did not seek the Messianic office, nor
did he crave the consciousness that possessed
him. It was thrust upon his soul. A deep con
viction seized him, and in regal spirit he arose
to bear the burden and fulfil the superhuman
task. It is impossible to appreciate his character
without this element of finality and this sense of
responsibility to all mankind, which he felt be
cause he knew that he had come into closest
touch with God. To attempt to account for"
him by the analysis of his age is to fail. Dante
and Shakespeare and Goethe cannot be accounted
for by the literature of the preceding ages or the
experiences of their own day. Each added him
self to all that had gone before or went on around
him. The same is true of Jesus in a multiplied
form. Strauss believed that the appearance of the
idea of humanity in history was and ever will be
an absolute miracle which can never be estab
lished in the regular course of events that we ex
plain by common experience. There is in every
great soul something of this intangible and inex-

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 257
plicable quality, for each of them is the partial
realization of the idea of humanity.
At the same time Jesus presented himself
everywhere as the path to glory, not as the con
summation. He insisted that he was a minister
rather than a master, and cherished his humanity
over against divinity. We can ascertain some
thing of his psychoses but we can say nothing
of his neuroses. The common factors entered
into the making of his personality — heredity,
environment, and the personal reaction to each.
The stronger the character, the larger bulks the
last factor in its making. It is the original ele
ment in man, the new creation which distin
guishes him from every brother or sister who
shares the same heredity and environment. It
is the ineluctable ego, the "quidam divinus
afflatus" which Cicero declared was found in
every man. In personality lies the secret of
Jesus. Apart from that his contribution to his
tory is merely a fragmentary ethical system.
That secret has not yet been told, and never will
be, in such terms as men use to explain the proc
esses of nature or the work of their own hands,
for it is life itself, life at its highest, life unhindered
and supreme. We are studying, not mere
neurological or pathological phenomena, but
profound spiritual experiences, expressed by the

tr

258 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
psychoses of daily life, but not accounted for
even by the man himself. "Any sincere soul
knows not what he is, . . . can of all things the least
measure — himself! What others take him for,
and what he guesses that he may be; these two
items strangely act on one another, help to
determine one another. With all men reverently
admiring him; with his own wild soul full of noble
ardors and affections, of whirlwind, chaotic dark
ness and glorious new light; a divine Universe
bursting all into godlike beauty round him, and
no man to whom the like ever had befallen,
what could he think himself to be ? ' Wuotan ? '
All men answered, 'Wuotan!'"1
The leading force in energizing human insti
tutions is always found in some heroic personality
who has impressed himself upon others and im
parted to them his enthusiasm of soul. So with
Jesus Christ and the Church. There is no way
of accounting for the organization apart from
the adequate person behind, or at the head of it.
The task for the student of Christianity is, to
avoid the shallow hero worship of romanticism
which stakes all on an individual, and at the
same time to escape the mechanical accounting
for everything that happens by the blind forces
of an evolving social life without a place for per-
' Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, p. 34.

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 259
sonality. We have reached a period when some
thing of the truth of evolutionary progress is
recognized by all Bible students, with Ferdinand
Christian Baur; and we are not so much afraid
of myth and legend as forms of expression of
truth as people were in the days of David
Frederick Strauss.1 But we need a clear-cut
idea of the personality of Jesus, as the founder
of our religion; and a new approach, neither
dogmatic nor superstitious, to him who, as
Ritschl insists, and as all Christians of every
name demonstrate in their thinking, reveals to
us who and what God is.
" Whenever men begin to set forth their Christ,
it is an ideal either of themselves or of some one
they deeply revere and love." It cannot be
otherwise. "An ideal necessarily mingles with
all conceptions of Christ," said Jowett; "why
should we object to a Christ who is necessarily
ideal? Do persons really suppose that they
know Christ as they know a living friend? Is
not Christ in the sacrament, Christ at the right
hand of God, Christ in you the hope of glory,
an ideal? Have not the disciples of Christ,
from the age of Paul onwards, been always
' "What the legend is to history, the myth is to psychology.
It becomes a deeper and truer expression of humanity than
history.'' — Dr. G. Stanley Hall.

260 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
idealizing this memory?" "How fortunate that
dogma about the actual Jesus is not possible!"
He is only partially known to us; "enough to
assist us, but not enough to constrain us," as
Jowett goes on to say. No biography of him in
the modern sense is possible, and just because
of that, the various Christ-ideals have arisen —
the grandest, noblest thing Christianity has done
for the race — and the grandest, noblest thing
about the creation of the ideal is, that it is ever
expanding as the soul of man expands. If we
had had a full biography of Jesus, this would
not have been possible. It is just because the
details of the life of Jesus are so meager that the
ideal of the Christ has grown around it, — giving
it in the first place a location and a name, and in
the second place finding for it new organs of
expression in every age, developing new powers,
and assimilating new elements of human life as
that life grows richer and deeper." 1
In seeking Jesus we do not demand to know
the data of his life which critics challenge, nor
the very words he spoke, as if this were the essen
tial factor in our faith. We look for the man,
his ideals, experiences, motives, thoughts, and
feelings, and care little for the temporary intel-
' "Why not Pace the Facts," by Dr. K. C. Anderson, The
Hibbert Journal, July, 1906, pp. 845-860.

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 261
lectual equipment with which he worked or the
minor limitations under which he dwelt. The
man's value as a man is what we need to know
and appreciate anew, for in him there is a touch
with God which lifts our humanity to its loftiest
place and makes it possible for us to understand
in human terms the very life of God. For this
the soul of man hungers and thirsts. To Jesus
it will never cease to turn with the heart's eager
questionings and unutterable longings for the
light. The Christ born in the heart is the essen
tial Christ. If the light is forever to be sifted
down to us through rich glass of great age, bear
ing mellow color and designs elaborate with
pictures from ancient stories and quaint legends,
we shall never know the reality of sunlight soft
and warm and colorless in its clear illumination,
nor shall we be able by it to see all our way.
But if we can leave the hoary seats, and pass
outside the structure which it has taken so many
ages to build, and discover for ourselves the joy
of day, then we shall be blessed indeed in Jesus
Christ. Have we only a dogmatic Christ? Is Christ
more Paul than Jesus? The psychological ap
proach brings us back to Jesus rather than back
to Christ; to the person rather than to the official;
to the teacher rather than to the theologian. It

262 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
is not a reversion to some lower, partial stage of
being, but rather a reversion to type, from which
must start true progress along the pathway in
dicated for the higher man, whence our undue
magnifying of dogma and institution, of system
and order, has caused us to swerve. We must
repeat the process instituted by Jesus when he
reached back past the scribes and drew out from
the moldy chest of rolls the prophets, and set
them before men with their message of a spiritual
religion. But we have this advantage, — which
becomes a disadvantage in the difficulty of its
art and craft, — that we seek to set a personality
rather than a principle, a character rather than
an atmosphere, before this generation. We
enjoy a sense of finality in the ideal that has sur
vived so many centuries and is still unattained,
and we turn with confidence to him who intro
duced it, expecting to discover in him the same
potency for us that has influenced so profoundly
the history of mankind.
rV. The Universal Christ
Jesus says almost nothing of himself; save that
he knows the Father and is in perfect accord
with him. In that he finds his fullest life, and
of that his consciousness consists. This is the
human at its best. The consciousness of the

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 263
God-man is the highest possible experience.
A unique and sublime personality, he went to
the common experience of the race, and sought
the solution of life in the value of feeling, which
lies beneath all life. Life is saved, not by ideas^
nor in action or passion under universal law, but
in the instinctive feelings, where it began. The
waters of the ocean must return thither again at
last for healing in its purity. Neither philosophy
within nor surrender to externals will satisfy life,
— its secret is within the deepest depths of our
being, where is the well of love. "True piety
is earthly love transcendentalized, and the saint
is the lover purified, refined, and perfected. To
have attained this insight, to have organized it
into life, cult and a Church, is the supreme claim
of Jesus upon the gratitude, reverence, and awe
of the human heart. No such saving service
has ever been rendered to our race, and we can
see no room in the future for any other to be
compared with it."1
The problem of Christianity is to focus the
strongest instincts on the highest object; and this
is a psychic, not a metaphysical adventure.
Christianity is the religion that brings the soul
to love the most worthy things. The Christian
is the man who bases life in the genetic principle,
' Hall, Adolescence, Vol. n, p. 294.

264 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
and gives sonship to God the place of honor in
his thought and life, with immortality as the
goal. Love is the causal instinct. The universe
came into being through love. An eternal evo
lution of love proceeds from the Father, so that
Rothe can say, " Love is creation," or Schopen
hauer, "Love is the wish to create." Thus the
lover himself is developed and perfected with
perfect liberty in the new law and joy of self-
realization. Jesus anticipated modern psychology
when he centered life in sentiment and under
religion the richest and the highest expression
of passion. If he came to this through reasoned
thought upon the Abrahamic covenant which
found its medium in the sex-life of the Hebrew
race, he elevated that life immeasurably and
proved himself "the master mind of all philoso
phy." If he came to it instinctively, through his
own personal experience, and only by reflection
connected it with the history of his race, still he
fulfilled that history far beyond its promise, and
took a place as leader above all the patriarchs
when he established love as the dominant force
in the upward struggle of mankind. He held in
his hand the key to all the hidden chambers
where God's most precious jewels are. Nature,
art, science, all are opened by love. Love on
the lower levels cannot see nor enter in; but love

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 265
elevated to its best is shut out by no gates or
walls. The great poets are great lovers. Far
more is due to love than was suspected. Psy
chology is just beginning to give this force its
due, as the primary creative force and the pro
gressive impulse to the culmination of creation
in man's full self-consciousness as beloved of
God, his son. For man draws nearer to divinity
as he draws from within his own soul the re
freshing streams of life and finds his power, his
authority there.
The assured certainty of Jesus, resting not on
pure thinking but deep down in the spirit, as
Wernle insists,1 gave him power as by forces
from above to which he abandoned himself. In
the new truth mediated through his experience
and his person he lost himself, and thus he was
prepared to feel the impulse of the history of his
race coming to a climax in his soul, where he
summed up all the best thought and feeling of
his people. A phylogenetic growth in him is
evident, and he focused it in his teaching of the
Kingdom. That is why he made not sin, nor
justification, nor righteousness, but the Kingdom
the center of his teaching, — a Kingdom com
posed of the sons of God who are in sympathetic
touch with the Father. Indeed, he went still
1 The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. II, p. 45.

266 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
further, and set himself before men as the ideal
member, the founder and leader of this Kingdom,
and professed to make his personal relation to
God the model for all the sons of God.
Certain modern interpreters explain the King
dom as a new social order. It was not that to
Jesus. He had no definite plan for society; he
only taught social principles. He built no insti
tutions, but furnished the motor impulse which
in time must organize itself as opportunity offers.
His Kingdom is subjective in its origin, born of
the touch of God upon his soul, but objective in
its operation, as every age requires. He was
concerned with the first principles, and trusted
to the future for their expression.
The power of a personality rich in love, large
in idealism and possessed of consequent enthu
siasm that infects all men it touches round about,
cannot be estimated easily, much less explained
either in its character or in its origin. There
lies in it something of the divine and mysterious,
too close to our human life's deepest reality to
analyze and coolly calculate. Some influences
which served to shape the expression of this per
sonality, some factors even in its make-up, we can
trace. But having done all, we cannot say that
we have explained Jesus Christ or reduced him
to the ordinary rank of heroes. We must still

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 267
acknowledge that in him is something intangible,
a quality of goodness, beauty, truth, which satis
fies our deepest instincts and renders still, as it
has always done, a racial service of inspiration
and uplift. He reassures humanity, because in
him nothing mean or low has ever yet been
found. He illuminates divinity, because all his
conduct represents to us the divine way of doing
things, and he himself declared that he inter
preted God to man as truly as man to himself.
The most precious treasure of a people is found
in its heroes. What they are the nation will
become. The most priceless possession of the
race is this Universal Hero, whose spirit has
proved so cosmopolitan as to insure an " Oriental
Christ" and an "Occidental Christ," with a
power of leadership to attract and move all
peoples. This super-man, this union of the
human and the divine, this meeting point of earth
and sky, is the evolutionary type established
as the ideal of a new order.
It has been claimed of late that Christianity
is inadequate as a world-religion, for it has
fatally neglected the elements of the Beautiful
and the True in its overzealous pursuit of the
Good. Such a criticism does not give credit to
the esthetic and the philosophical elements in the
religion of Christ. True, Jesus never placed

268 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
the three Greek essentials upon an equality in
his own life or in the life of the world. But he
left a place for the lesser qualities after he had
established in the first place that which comes
first in the life of mankind, and must come first
if the race is to survive. Ethical character is the
fundamental element in God, in the individual,
in history. Esthetics follows as a pleasing but
not essential characteristic. Intellectual satis
faction always follows moral decision, and other
wise it is a non-essential in the life of man. Jesus
established his religion on the broadest and
simplest basis, which all men share. Esthetics
depends upon gifts of sense or imagination; the
reason must be trained; but no man is left with
out a witness in himself of righteousness.
If education be conscious evolution, then it is
necessary for every advance of learning that an
ideal, a model toward which to strive, be set be
fore those who are to be trained. In the broader
equipment of the race, it is essential that the
highest ideal be kept before mankind. Evo-
mtionally this is the function of Jesus Christ.
Human thinking requires an ideal man as a
goal toward which we shall struggle upward to
our destiny. Only in such a conscious striving
can we make progress on our way.
Jesus Christ interpreted and spiritualized the

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 269
ideal of his race, and gave the world in doing so
the ideal it had sought in every Utopian dream.
He brought the natural and the spiritual into
harmony, and revealed the final destiny of the
age-long progress of life by biologic processes,
in a spiritual existence no less biologic. The
Kingdom of God will realize the final social
ideals of history, and in it shall not mankind
find satisfaction and a fitting goal ? " That ideal
figure will, and indeed must, remain unique in
our experience. It is not a philosophical pre
supposition, but history itself, which decides
whether or not there has been a highest point in
the history of humanity when its ideal became
reality." Jesus did not limit his teachings by any ties
of time or blood. He grasped fundamental
human principles, because he cross-sectioned
life where it touches God. He dealt in univer
sal. Yet he attempted no system of thought.
He simply taught with immediate reference to
present needs, and the empirical nature of his
service made his words generally applicable.
He did not pose as a world-philosopher, but he
was convinced that the cure of the sin and misery
in those to whom he ministered would suffice
for any man. The ancient faith of his nation
that their God was the God of gods and Lord

270 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS
of lords, and their salvation was for the healing
of the nations, was thus gathered up and fulfilled
in the sublime faith of Jesus that he himself was
the path-breaker of mankind.
Shall Christianity still fulfil?1 Has it a mes
sage and a mission for other world-faiths as it
had for Judaism? As the law of Moses was
sublimated to a higher reality and the promise to
Abraham was ideally realized in the new gospel,
so it may serve Buddha, Brahma, Confucius, and
Mohammed, to carry out each enduring impulse
in them, completing and unifying all in the per
son and teaching of the Master. Buddhism and
Mohammedanism are the only other missionary
religions, and so the only competitors of Chris
tianity. The highest product of the first is old
Japan, of the second is Turkey, — and history
demonstrates that these are not on the way to
realize an ultimate type of civilization. England,
Germany, America are not yet made perfect,
but he who is bold enough to deny to them the
elements out of which an ideal social state shall
grow has in him no hope of the race. If Chris
tianity will shed its shell of dogmatism, deliver
itself anew from the shackles of ecclesiasticism,
and insist upon the spirit alone behind the letter
' See Hall, Adolescence, II, p. 361 ff., for a suggestive treat
ment of this idea.

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JESUS 271
of its law of love, then it must take its place as
the supreme world-faith, the satisfaction of the
normal human heart, the realization of every
national ideal, the consummate discipline and
comfort of humanity.

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