Jesus Christ

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JESUS CHRIST.?There is no historical task which is more important than to set forth the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, and none to which it is so difficult to do justice. The importance of the theme is sufficiently attested by the fact that it is felt to be His due to reckon a new era from the date of His birth. From the point of view of Christian faith there is nothing in time worthy to be set beside the deeds and the words of One who is adored as God manifest in the flesh, and the Saviour of the world. In the perspective of universal history. His influence ranks with Greek culture and Roman law as one of the three most valuable elements in the heritage from the ancient world, while it surpasses these other factors in the spiritual quality of its effects. On the other hand, the superlative task has its peculiar difficulties. It is quite certain that a modern European makes many mistakes when trying to reproduce the conditions of the distant province of Oriental antiquity in which Jesus lived. The literary documents, moreover, are of no great compass, and are reticent or obscure in regard to many matters which are of capital interest to the modern biographer. And when erudition has done its best with the primary and auxiliary sources, the historian has still to put the heart-searching question whether he possesses the qualifications that would enable him to understand the character, the experience, and the purpose of Jesus. ?He who would worthily write the Life of Jesus Christ must have a pen dipped in the imaginative sympathy of a poet, in the prophet?s fire, in the artist?s charm and grace, and in the reverence and purity of the saint? (Stewart, The Life of Christ, 1906, p. vi.).
1. The Literary Sources
(A) Canonical
(1) The Gospels and their purpose.?It is now generally agreed that the Gospel according to Mk. is the oldest of the four. Beginning with the Baptism of Jesus, it gives a sketch of His Public Ministry, with specimens of His teaching, and carries the narrative to the morning of the Resurrection. The original conclusion has been lost, but there can be no doubt that it went on to relate at least certain Galil?an appearances of the risen Lord. This Gospel supplies most of our knowledge of the life of Jesus, but its main concern is to bring out the inner meaning and the religious value of the story. It is, in short, a history written with the purpose of demonstrating that Jesus was the expected Messiah. In proof of this it is sufficient to point out that it describes itself at the outset as setting forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mar_1:1), that the faith of the disciples culminates in Peter?s confession that He is the Christ (Mar_8:29), that the ground of His condemnation is that He claims to be ?the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? (Mar_14:61-62), and that the accusation written over His cross is ?The King of the Jews? (Mar_15:26).
The Gospel according to Mt. is now usually regarded as a second and enlarged edition of an Apostolic original. The earlier version, known as the Logia on the ground of a note of Papias (Euseb. HE iii. 39), was a collection of the Memorabilia of Jesus. As the Logia consisted mainly of the sayings of our Lord, the later editor combined it with the narrative of Mk. in order to supply a more complete picture of the Ministry, and at the same time added fresh material from independent sources. Its didactic purpose, like that of Mk., is to exhibit Jesus as the Messiah, and it supports the argument by citing numerous instances of the fulfilment in the life of Jesus of OT prediction. It is sometimes described as the Gospel of the Jewish Christians; and it appears to have addressed itself specially to the difficulties which they felt in view of the destruction of Jerusalem. Could Jesus, they may well have asked, be the Messiah, seeing that His mission had issued, not in the deliverance of Israel, but in its ruin? In answer to this the Gospel makes it plain that the overthrow of the Jewish State was a punishment which was foreseen by Jesus, and also that He had become the head of a vaster and more glorious kingdom than that of which, as Jewish patriots, they had ever dreamed (Mat_28:18-20).
The Gospel according to Luke is also dependent on Mk. for the general framework, and derives from the original Mt. a large body of the teaching. It follows a different authority from Mt. for the Nativity, and to some extent goes its own way in the history of the Passion; while ?the great interpolation? (Luk_9:51 to Luk_18:14), made in part from its special source, forms a priceless addition to the Synoptic material. Lk. approached his task in a more consciously scientific spirit than his predecessors, and recognized an obligation to supply dates, and to sketch in the political background of the biography (Luk_2:2, Luk_3:1; Luk_3:23). But for him also the main business of the historian was to emphasize the religious significance of the events, and that by exhibiting Jesus as the Saviour of the world, the Friend of sinners. He is specially interested, as the companion and disciple of St. Paul, in incidents and sayings which illustrate the graciousness and the universality of the gospel. Prominence is given to the rejection of Jesus by Nazareth and Jerusalem (Luk_4:16-30, Luk_19:41-44), and to His discovery among the Gentiles of the faith for which He sought (Luk_17:18-19). It is also characteristic that Lk. gives a full account of the beginnings of the missionary activity of the Church (Luk_10:1-20).
The author of the Fourth Gospel makes considerable use of the narratives of the Synoptists, but also suggests that their account is in important respects defective, and in certain particulars erroneous. The serious defect, from the Johannine point of view, is that they represent Galilee as the exclusive scene of the Ministry until shortly before the end, and that they know nothing of a series of visits, extending over two years, which Jesus made to Jerusalem and Jud?a in fulfilment of His mission. That there was a design to correct as well as to supplement appears from the displacement of the Cleansing of the Temple from the close to the beginning of the Ministry, and from the emphatic way in which attention is drawn to the accurate information as to the day and the hour of the Crucifixion. And still more designedly than in the earlier Gospels is the history used as the vehicle for the disclosure of the secret and the glory of the Person of Jesus. The predicate of the Messiah is reaffirmed, and as the Saviour He appears in the most sublime and tender characters, but the Prologue furnishes the key to the interpretation of His Person in a title which imports the highest conceivable dignity of origin, being, and prerogative: ?In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth? (Joh_1:1; Joh_1:14).
Trustworthiness of the Gospels.?It is impossible to proceed on the view that we possess four biographies of Jesus which, being given by inspiration, are absolutely immune from error. The means by which they were brought into shape was very different from the method of Divine dictation. The Evangelists were severely limited to the historical data which reached them by ordinary channels. They copied, abridged, and amplified earlier documents, and one document which was freely handled in this fashion by Mt. and Lk. was canonical Mk. That mistakes have been made as to matters of fact is proved by the occurrence of conflicting accounts of the same events, and by the uncertainty as to the order of events which is often palpable in Mt. and Mk., and which to some extent baffled Lk. in his attempt ?to trace the course of all things accurately.? There is also considerable diversity in the report of many of our Lord?s sayings, which compels us to conclude that the report is more or less inaccurate. Whether giving effect to their own convictions, or reproducing changes which had been made by the mind of the Church on the oral tradition, writers coloured and altered to some extent the sayings of our Lord. At the same time the Synoptics, when tested by ordinary canons, must be pronounced to be excellent authorities. They may be dated within a period of forty to fifty years after the death of Christ?Mk. about A.D. 69, Mt. and (probably) Lk. not later than A.D. 80. ?The great mass of the Synoptic Gospels had assumed its permanent shape not later than the decade A.D. 60?70, and the changes which it underwent after the great catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem were but small, and can without difficulty be recognized? (Sanday, Outlines). Further, that Gospels composed in the second generation can be trusted to have reproduced the original testimony with general accuracy may be held on two grounds. There is every reason to believe the ecclesiastical traditions that the contents of original Mt. were compiled by one of the Twelve, and that the reminiscences of Peter formed the staple of Mk. (Euseb. HE iii. 39). It is also certain that the Synoptic material was used throughout the intervening period in the Christian meetings for worship, and the memory of witnesses must thus have been in a position to ensure the continuity of the report, and to check any serious deviations from the oldest testimony. The general trustworthiness is further supported by the consideration of the originality of the Synoptic picture of Jesus and His teaching. The character of Jesus, and the acts in which it is revealed, form a whole which has the unmistakable stamp of historical reality, and forbids us to think that to any great extent it can have been the product of the collective Christian mind. Jesus, in short, is needed to explain the Church and cannot be Himself explained as the product of His own creation. It is also to be noticed that the Synoptic teaching has a clear-cut individuality of its own which shows that it has sturdily refused to blend with the Apostolic type of theology.
With the Fourth Gospel the case stands somewhat differently. If it be indeed the work of John the ?beloved disciple, its authority stands higher than all the rest. In that case the duty of the historian is to employ it as his fundamental document, and to utilize the Synoptics as auxiliary sources. In the view of the present writer the question is one of great difficulty. It is true that there is a powerful body of Patristic testimony in support of the tradition that the Fourth Gospel was composed by the Apostle Johnin Ephesus in his old age?about A.D. 95. It is also true that the Gospel solemnly stakes its credit on its right to be accepted as the narrative of an eye-witness (Joh_19:35; Joh_21:24). And its claim is strengthened by the fact that, in the judgment even of many unsympathetic witnesses, it embodies a larger or smaller amount of independent and valuable information. On the other hand, it is a serious matter that a Gospel, appearing at the close of the century, should practically recast the story of Jesus which had circulated in the Church for sixty years, and should put forward a view of the course of the Ministry which is not even suspected in the other Apostolic sources. Passing to the teaching, we find that the process which was in discoverable in the Synoptic report has here actually taken place, and that the discourses of Jesus are assimilated to a well-marked type of Apostolic doctrine. There is reason to believe that for both history and doctrine the author had at his disposal Memorabilia of Jesus, but in both cases also it would seem that he has handled his data with great freedom. The treatment of the historical matter, it may be permitted to think, is more largely topical, and the chronological framework which it provides is less reliable, than is commonly supposed. The discourses, again, have been expanded by the reporter, and cast in the moulds of his own thought, so that in them we really possess a combination of the words of Jesus of Nazareth with those of the glorified Christ speaking in the experience of a disciple. The hypothesis which seems to do justice to both sets of phenomena is that John was only the author in a similar sense to that in which Peter was the author of Mk., and Matthew of canonical Mt., and that the actual composer of the Fourth Gospel was a disciple of the second generation who was served heir to the knowledge and faith of the Apostle, and who claimed considerable powers as an executor. In view of these considerations, it is held that a sketch of the life of Jesus is properly based on the Synoptic record, and that in utilizing the Johannine additions it is desirable to take up a critical attitude in regard to the form and the chronology. There is also much to be said for expounding the teaching of Jesus on the basis of the Synoptics, and for treating the Johannine discourses as primarily a source for Apostolic doctrine. It is a different question whether the interpretation of Christ which the Fourth Gospel supplies is trustworthy, and on the value of this, its main message, two remarks may be made. It is, in the first place, substantially the same valuation of Christ which pervades the Pauline Epistles, and which has been endorsed by the saintly experience of the Christian centuries as answering to the knowledge of Christ that is given in intimate communion with the risen Lord. Moreover, the doctrine of Providence comes to the succour of a faith which may be distressed by the breakdown of the hypothesis of inerrancy. For it is a reasonable belief that God, in whose plan with the race the work of Christ was to be a decisive factor, took order that there should be given to the after world a record which should sufficiently instruct men in reply to the question, ?What think ye of Christ??
(2) The Epistles.?From the Epistles it is possible to collect the outstanding facts as to the earthly condition, the death, and the resurrection of Christ. Incidentally St. Paul shows that he could cite His teaching on a point of ethics (1Co_7:11), and give a detailed account of the institution of the Lord?s Supper (1Co_11:23 ff.). It is also significant that in allusions to the Temptation (Heb_4:15), the Agony (Heb_5:7), and the Transfiguration (2Pe_1:17), the writers can reckon on a ready understanding.
(B) Extra-Canonical Sources
(1) Christian
(a) Patristic references.?The Fathers make very trifling additions to our knowledge of the facts of the life of Jesus. There is nothing more important than the statement of Justin, that as a carpenter Jesus made ploughs and yokes (Dial. 88). More valuable are the additions to the canonical sayings of Jesus (Westcott, Introd. to the Gospels, 1895; Resch, Agrapha, 1907). Of the 70 Logia which have been claimed, Ropes pronounces 43 worthless, 13 of possible value, and 14 valuable (Die Spr?che Jesu, 1896). The following are deemed by Huck to be noteworthy (Synopse der drei ersten Evangelien, 1906):?
(1) ?Ask great things, and the small shall be added to you; and ask heavenly things, and the earthly shall be added to you? (Origen, de Orat. ? 2).
(2) ?If ye exalt not your low things, and transfer to your right hand the things on your left, ye shall not enter into my kingdom? (Acta Philippi, ch. 34).
(3) ?He who is near me is near the fire, he who is far from me is far from the kingdom? (Origen, Hom. in Jer_20:3).
(4) ?If ye kept not that which is small, who will give you that which is great?? (Clem. Rom. ii. 8).
(5) ?Be thou saved and thy soul? (Exc. e. Theod. ap. Clem. Alex. ? 2).
(6) ?Show yourselves tried bankers? (Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 28).
(7) ?Thou hast seen thy brother, thou hast seen God? ib. i. 19).
More recent additions to the material are to be found in Grenfell and Hunt, Sayings of our Lord (1897) and New Sayings of Jesus (1904).
(b) Apocryphal Gospels.?These fall into three groups according as they deal with the history of Joseph and Mary (Protevangelium of James), the Infancy (Gospel of Thomas), and Pilate (Acts of Pilate). They are worthless elaborations, with the addition of grotesque and sometimes beautiful fancies (?Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations,? vol. xvi. of the Ante-Nicene Library, 1870). Of more value are the fragments of the Gospels of the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and Peter (Hilgenfeld, NT extra canonem receptum, 1876?84; Swete, The Akhmim Fragment of the Gospel of Peter, 1903).
(2) Jewish sources.?Josephus mentions Jesus (Ant. XX. ix. 1), but the most famous passage (XVIII. iii. 3) is mainly, if not entirely, a Christian interpolation. The Jews remembered Him as charged with deceiving the people, practising magic and speaking blasphemy, and as having been crucified; but the calumnies of the Talmud as to the circumstances of His birth appear to have been comparatively late inventions (Huldricus, Sepher Toledot Jeschua, 1705; Laible, Jesus Christus im Talmud, 1900).
(3) Classical sources.?There is evidence in the classical writers for the historical existence, approximate date, and death of Jesus, but otherwise their attitude was ignorant and contemptuous (Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Suetonius, Lives of Claudius and Nero; the younger Pliny, Epp. x. 97, 98; Lucian, de Morte Peregrini; Celsus in Origen; cf. Keim, Jesus of Nazara [Eng. tr.], 1876, i. pp. 24?33).
2. Presuppositions.?It is impossible to write about Christ without giving effect to a philosophical and religious creed. The claim to be free from presuppositions commonly means that a writer assumes that the facts can be accommodated to a purely naturalistic view of history. As a fact, there is less reason to construe Christ in naturalistic terms than to revise a naturalistic philosophy in the light of ?the fact of Christ.? A recent review of the whole literature of the subject (Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 1906) shows how profoundly the treatment has always been influenced by a writer?s attitude towards ultimate questions, and how far the purely historical evidence is from being able to compel a consensus sapientium. There are, in fact, as many types of the Life of Christ as there are points of view in theology, and it may be convenient at this stage to indicate the basis from which the work has been done in the principal monographs.
Types of the Life of Christ
I. Elimination of the supernatural, from the standpoint of (1) Eighteenth Century Deism?Paulus, Das Leben Jesu, 1828; (2) Modern Pantheism?D. F. Strauss, Leben Jesu, 1835?36 (Eng. tr. 1846); (3) Philosophical Scepticism?Renan, La Vie de J?sus, 1863 (Eng. tr. 1864).
II. Reduction of the supernatural, with eclectic reservation, from the standpoint of Theism?Seeley, Ecce Homo, 1866; Hase, Die Gesch. Jesu, 1876; Keim, Die Gesch. Jesu von Nazara, 1867?72 (Eng. tr. 1873?77); O. Holtzmann, Das Leben Jesu, 1901 (Eng. tr. 1904).
Within the rationalistic school there have emerged somewhat radical differences in the conception formed of Jesus and His message. One group conceives of Him as a man who is essentially modern because the value of His ideas and of His message is perennial (Harnack, Das Wesen des Christenthums, Eng. tr. 1901); another regards Him as, above all, the spokesman of unfulfilled apocalyptic dreams (J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 1892). Bousset mediates between the two views (Jesus. 1906).
III. Reproduction of the Biblical account in general agreement with the faith of the Church?Neander, Das Leben Jesu Christi, 1837 (Eng. tr. 1848); B. Weiss, Das Leben Jesu, 1882 (Eng. tr. 1883); Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1884; Didon, Jesus Christ, 1891; Sanday, Outlines of the Life of Christ, 1906.
The books of this group have a second common feature in their acceptance of the Fourth Gospel as a valuable history. The works of Weiss and Sanday dispose of the arrogant assumption of Schweitzer (op. cit.) that competent scholarship now regards the cardinal questions as settled in a negative sense. (For a full bibliography see Schweitzer, op. cit., art. ?Jesus Christ? in PRE).
3. The Conditions in Palestine (Sch?rer, GJV [HJP ii. i. 1 ff.]).?The condition of the Jews at the birth of Christ may be summarily described as marked by political impotence and religious decadence.
(1) The political situation.?From the age of the Exile, the Jews in Palestine were subject to a foreign domination?Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Syrian, in rapid succession. Following upon a century of independence under the Maccabees, the country was incorporated in the Roman Empire as a division of the province of Syria. In certain circumstances, which have a parallel in British India, the Romans recognized a feudatory king, and it was with this status that Herod the Great reigned over Palestine. At his death in B.C. 4, his dominions were divided among his three sons; but on the deposition of Archelaus in 6 A.D., Jud?a and Samaria were placed under a Roman procurator. Herod Antipas and Philip continued to rule as vassal princes, with the title of tetrarchs, over Galilee and Itur?a respectively. The pressure of the Roman rule was felt in the stern measures which were taken to suppress any dangerous expressions of national feeling, and also in the exactions of the publicans to whom the taxes were farmed. Internal administration was largely an affair of the Jewish Church. To a highly spirited people like the Jews, with memories of former freedom and power, the loss of national independence was galling; and their natural restlessness under the foreign yoke, combined as it was with the Messianic hopes that formed a most vital element of their religion, was a source of anxiety not only to the Roman authorities but to their own leaders.
(2) The religious situation.?From the religious point of view it was a decadent age. No doubt there is a tendency to exaggerate the degradation of the world at our Lord?s coming, on the principle that the darkest hour must have preceded the dawn; and in fairness the indictment should be restricted to the statement that the age marked a serious declension from the highest level of OT religion. It had, in fact, many of the features which have re-appeared in the degenerate periods of the Christian Church. (a) One such feature was the disappearance of the prophetic man, and his replacement as a religious authority by representatives of sacred learning. As the normal condition of things in the Christian Church has been similar, it cannot in itself be judged to be symptomatic of anything worse than a silver age that the exponents of the Scriptures and of the tradition were now the chief religious guides of the people (see Scribes). Moreover, a very genuine religious originality and fervour had continued to find expression in the Apocalyptic literature of later Judaism (see Apocalyptic Literature). (b) A more decisive proof of degradation is the exaltation of the ceremonial and formal side of religion as a substitute for personal piety and righteousness of life. This tendency had its classic representatives in the Pharisees. The best of their number must have exhibited, as Josephus shows, a zeal for God and a self-denial like that of Roman Catholic saints?otherwise the veneration of the people, which Josephus shared, would be inexplicable (Ant. XVII. ii. 4); but as a class our Lord charges them with sins of covetousness and inhumanity, which gave the colour of hypocrisy to their ritualistic scruples (Mat_24:1-51; see Pharisees). (c) A further characteristic of decadence is that the religious organization tends to come in the place of God, as the object of devotion, and there appears the powerful ecclesiastic who, though he may be worldly and even sceptical, is indispensable as the symbol and protector of the sacred institution. This type was represented by the Sadducees?in their general outlook men of the world, in their doctrine sceptics with an ostensible basis of conservatism,?who filled the priestly offices, controlled the Sanhedrin, and endeavoured to maintain correct relations with their Roman masters. It can also well be believed that, as Josephus tells us, they professed an aristocratic dislike to public business, which they nevertheless dominated; and that they humoured the multitude by an occasional show of religious zeal (see Sadducees).
In this world presided over by pedants, formalists, and political ecclesiastics, the common people receive a fairly good character. Their religion was the best that then had a footing among men, and they were in earnest about it. They had been purified by the providential discipline of centuries from the last vestiges of idolatry. It is noteworthy that Jesus brings against them no such sweeping accusations of immorality and cruelty as are met with in Amos and Hosea. Their chief fault was that they were disposed to look on their religion as a means of procuring them worldly good, and that they were blind and unreceptive in regard to purely spiritual blessings. The influence which the Pharisees had over them shows that they were capable of reverencing, and eager to obey, those who seemed to them to speak for God; and their response to the preaching of John the Baptist was still more to their honour. There is evidence of a contemporary strain of self-renouncing idealism in the existence of communities which sought deliverance from the evil of the world in the austerities of an ascetic life (Jos. Ant. XVIII. i. 5; see Essenes). The Gospels introduce us to not a few men and women who impress us as exemplifying a simple and noble type of piety?nourished as they were on the religion of the OT, and waiting patiently for the salvation of God. Into a circle pervaded by this atmosphere Jesus was born.
4. Date of Christ?s Birth (cf. art. Chronology, p. 135, and in Hastings? DB).?If John began to baptize in the fifteenth year of Tiberius C?sar (Luk_3:1)?being A.D. 29?and if Jesus Was thirty years of age when He was baptized (v. 23), the traditional date fixed by Dionysius Exiguus would be approximately correct. But it is probable that the reign of Tiberius was reckoned by Lk. from his admission to joint-authority with Augustus in A.D. 11?12, so that Jesus would be thirty in A.D. 25?6, and would be born about B.C. 5. This agrees with the representation of Mt. that He was born under Herod, since Herod died B.C. 4, and a number of events of the Infancy are mentioned as occurring before his death. A reference in Joh_2:20 to the forty-six years during which the Temple had been in course of construction leads to a similar result?viz. A.D. 26 for the second year of the Ministry, and B.C. 5 for the Birth of Jesus.
5. Birth and Infancy (cf. Sweet, The Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, 1907).?Mt. and Lk. have a narrative of the Infancy, and agree in the following points?that Jesus was of David?s line, that He was miraculously conceived, that He was born in Bethlehem, and that the Holy Family permanently settled in Nazareth. The additional incidents related by Mt. are the appearance of the angel to Joseph (Mat_1:18-24), the adoration of the Magi (Mat_2:1-12), the flight into Egypt (Mat_2:13-15), the massacre at Bethlehem (Mat_2:16-18). Lk.?s supplementary matter includes the promise of the birth of John the Baptist (Mat_1:5-23), the Annunciation to Mary (Luk_1:26-38), the visit of Mary to Elisabeth (Luk_1:39-56), the birth of the Baptist (Luk_1:57-80), the census (Luk_2:1 ff.), the vision of angels (Luk_2:8-14), the adoration of the shepherds (Luk_2:15-20), the circumcision (Luk_2:21), the presentation in the Temple Luk_2:22-23).
The narratives embody two ideas which are singly impressive, and in conjunction make a profound appeal to the feelings and the imagination. The humiliation of the Saviour is emphasized by one set of events?the lowly parentage, the birth in a stable, the rage of Herod, the flight of His parents to a distant land. The other series shows Him as honoured and accredited by heaven, while earth also agrees, in the representatives of its wealth and its poverty, its wisdom and its ignorance, to do Him honour at His coming. ?A halo of miracles is formed around the central miracle, comparable to the rays of the rising sun? (Lange, Life of Christ, Eng. tr. i. 257, 258).
At this point the influence of theological standpoint makes itself acutely felt. In the ?Lives? written from the naturalistic and Unitarian standpoints, the mass of the material is described as mythical or legendary, and the only points left over for discussion are the sources of invention, and the date at which the stories were incorporated with the genuine tradition. The residuum of historical fact, according to O. Holtzmann, is that ?Jesus was born at Nazareth in Galilee, the son of Joseph and Mary, being the eldest of five brothers and several sisters, and there He grew up? (Life of Jesus, Eng. tr. p. 89). The chief grounds on which the negative case is rested may be briefly considered.
(1) The narratives of the Infancy are not a part of the original tradition, since they are known to only two of the Evangelists, and have no Biblical support outside these Gospels. To this it seems a sufficient reply that additions may have been made later from a good source, and that there were obvious reasons why some at least of the incidents should have been treated for a time with reserve.
(2) The two Gospels which deal with the Infancy discredit one another by the incompatibility of their statements. Mt., it is often said, supposes that Bethlehem was Joseph?s home from the beginning; Lk. says that he made a visit to Bethlehem on the occasion of a census. According to Mt., the birth in Bethlehem was followed by a flight into Egypt; according to Lk., they visited Jerusalem and then returned to Nazareth. But the difficulties have been exaggerated. Though it is quite possible that Mt. did not know of an original residence in Nazareth, he does not actually deny it. And although neither Evangelist may have known of the other?s history, it is quite possible, without excessive harmonistic zeal, to work the episodes of Mt. into Lk.?s scheme. ?The accounts may be combined with considerable plausibility if we suppose that Joseph and Mary remained a full year in Bethlehem, during which the presentation in the Temple took place, and that the visit of the Magi was much later than the adoration of the shepherds? (Gloag,
Introd. to the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 136, 137).
(3) The events narrated are said to be inconsistent with the indirect evidence of other portions of the Gospels. If they really occurred, why was Mary not prepared for all that followed? and why aid Jesus? brethren not believe in Him? (Mar_3:21; Mar_3:31 ff., Mat_12:46-50). In particular, the body of the Gospels contains, it is said, evidence which is inconsistent with the Virgin-birth. The difficulty is a real one, but hardly greater than the difficulty presented in the fact that the mighty works of the Ministry did not overbear doubt and disbelief in those who witnessed them.
(4) The narratives in question are also said to have had their origin in man?s illusory ideas as to the proper manner of the coming of a Divine messenger. The history of the founders of other religions?e.g. Confucius and Gautama?shows a fond predisposition to invest the birth of a Saviour or a mighty prophet with a miraculous halo; and it is suggested that similar stories were invented about Christ, with the effect of obscuring the distinctive thought and purpose of God. They are ?deforming investitures, misplaced, like courtdresses on the spirits of the just? (Martinean, Loss and Gain). There is undeniable force in this, but it will be noticed that it is an observation which would make an end, as indeed those who use it intend, of the whole miraculous element in the life. If, on the other hand, we believe that the life of Christ was supernatural, it is easily credible that the rising of the Sun was heralded, in Lange?s image, by rays of glory.
Of the events of the glorious cycle which have the joint support of Mt. and Lk. there are three which have been felt to have religious significance.
(1) The Davidic descent.?It was an article of common belief in the primitive Church that Jesus was descended from David (Rom_1:3). Mt. and Lk. supply genealogies which have the purpose of supporting the belief, but do not strengthen it prima facie, as one traces the descent through Solomon (Mat_1:6), the other through a son of David called Nathan (Luk_3:31). The favourite way of harmonizing them is to suppose that Mt. gives the descent through Joseph, Lk. through Mary, while others think that Mt. gives the list of heirs to the Davidic throne, Lk. the actual family-tree of Jesus. It may well be believed that descendants of the royal house treasured the record of their origin; and on the other hand it seems unlikely that Jesus could have been accepted as Messiah without good evidence of Davidic origin, or that a late fabrication would have been regarded as such.
(2) The Virgin-birth (cf. Gore, Dissertations on the Incarnation, 1895; Lobstein, The Virgin-Birth of Christ, Eng. tr. 1903).?The student is referred for a full statement on both sides to the works above cited, but a remark may be made on the two branches of the evidence. (a) The objections based on historical and literary grounds, as distinct from anti-dogmatic prejudice, are of considerable weight. No account of Mk.?s purpose satisfactorily explains his omission if he knew of it, and it seems incredible that, if known, it would not have been utilized in the Pauline theology. Upon this it can only be said that it may have been a fact, although it had not yet come to the knowledge of Mk. and Paul. Further, Mt. and Lk. themselves raise a grave difficulty, since the whole point of the genealogies seems to be that Jesus was descended from David through Joseph. The usual, though not quite convincing, answer is, that Jesus was legally the son of Joseph, and therefore David?s heir. It must probably be admitted that the original compilers of the genealogies shared the ignorance of the earliest Gospel, but ignorance or silence is not decisive as to a fact. (b) It has been common to exaggerate the doctrinal necessity of the tenet. It is usually held to have been necessary to preserve Jesus from the taint of original sin; but as Mary was truly His mother, an additional miracle must have been necessary to prevent the transmission of the taint through her, and this subsidiary miracle could have safeguarded the sinlessness of Jesus without the miraculous conception. Nor can it be said that it is a necessary corollary of the Eternal Sonship of Christ; since it is found in the Gospels which say nothing of His pre-existence, and is absent from the Gospel which places this in the forefront. And yet it would be rash to say that it has no value for Christian faith. The unique character of Christ, with its note of sinless perfection, cannot be explained by purely natural factors; and the doctrine of the Virgin-birth at least renders the service of affirming the operation of a supernatural causality in the constitution of that character. It must also be said that the negation is generally felt to be a phase of an anti-supernatural campaign to which the overthrow of this position means the capture of an outwork, and a point of departure for a more critical attack. It is also difficult for a Christian thinker to abandon the dogma without feeling puzzled and distressed by the alternative explanations which open up.
(3) The Birth at Bethlehem (cf. Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? 1902).?For the birth at Bethlehem we have the statement of the Gospels. Lk. seems to have investigated the point with special care, and explains the presence of Joseph and Mary at Bethlehem as due to a census which had been ordered by Augustus (Luk_2:1). It has frequently been assumed that Lk. has blundered, as Quirinius was not governor of Syria until A.D. 6, when he made an enrolment; and the impossible date to which we are thus led seems to discredit the whole combination. In defence of Lk. it is pointed out that Quirinius held a military appointment in Syria about B.C. 6 which may have been loosely described as a governorship, and that there is evidence for a twelve years? cycle in Imperial statistics which would give a first enrolment about the same date.
6. Years of Preparation (cf. Keim, vol. ii. pt. 2).?The silence of the Gospels as to the boyhood and early manhood of Jesus is broken only by the mention of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Luk_2:41 ff.). Even if it be true that none of His townsfolk believed on Him, it might have been expected that the piety of His disciples would have recovered some facts from the public memory, and that in any case the tradition would have been enriched at a later date by members of the family circle. The only possible explanation of the silence is that during the years in Nazareth Jesus did and said nothing which challenged notice. It is also evident that the silence is an indirect testimony to the credibility of the great events of the later years, as there was every reason why the tradition, had it not been bound by facts, should have invested the earlier period with supernatural surprises and glories.
(1) Education of Jesus.?Earliest in time, and probably chief in importance, was the education in the home. The Jewish Law earnestly impressed upon parents, especially upon fathers, the duty of instructing their children in the knowledge of God, His mighty acts and His laws, and also of disciplining them in religion and morality. ?We take most pains of all,? says Josephus, ?with the instruction of children, and esteem the observation of the laws, and the piety corresponding with them, the most important affairs of our whole life? (c. Apion, i. 12). ?We know the laws,? he adds, ?as well as our own name.? It was the home in Nazareth that opened to Jesus the avenues of knowledge, and first put Him in possession of the treasures of the OT. It also seems certain that in His home there was a type of family life which made fatherhood stand to Him henceforward as the highest manifestation of a love beneficent, disinterested, and all-forgiving. It is probable that Jesus had other teachers. We hear in the course of the same century of a resolution to provide teachers in every province and in every town; and before the attempt was made to secure a universal system, it was natural that tuition should be given in connexion with the synagogue to boys likely to ?profit above their equals.? Of the officers connected with the synagogue, the ruler and the elders may sometimes have done their work as a labour of love, and there is evidence that it could be laid on the chazzan as an official duty. The stated services of the synagogue, in which the chief part was the expounding of the Scriptures by any person possessed of learning or a message, must have been an event of the deepest interest to the awakening mind of Jesus. From early childhood He accompanied His parents to Jerusalem to keep the Feast?the utmost stress being laid by the Rabbis upon this as a means for the instilment of piety. It has also been well pointed out that the land of Palestine was itself a wonderful educational instrument. It was a little country, in size less than the Scottish Highlands, of which a great part could be seen from a mountain-top, and every district visited in a few days? journey; and its valleys and towns, and, above all, Jerusalem, were filled with memories which compelled the citizen to live in the story of the past, and to reflect at every stage and prospect on the mission of his people and the ways of God (Ramsay, The Education of Christ, 1902). To these has to be added the discipline of work. Jesus learned the trade of a carpenter, and appears to have practised this trade in Nazareth until He reached the threshold of middle age (Mar_6:3). It is perhaps remarkable that none of His imagery is borrowed from His handicraft. One has the feeling that the work of the husbandman and the vinedresser had more attraction for Him, and that His self-sacrifice may have begun in the workshop. The deeper preparation is suggested in the one incident which is chronicled. The point of it is that even in His boyhood Jesus thought of God as His Father, and of His house as His true sphere of work (Luk_2:49. The holy of holies in the silent years was the life of communion with God in which He knew the Divine Fatherhood to be a fact, and became conscious of standing to Him in the intimate relationship of a Son.
(2) Knowledge of Jesus.?There is no reason to suppose that Jesus studied in the Rabbinical schools. Nor is there more ground for the belief, which has been made the motive of certain ?Lives of Christ? (Venturini, Nat?rliche Gesch. des grossen Propheten von Nazareth, 1800?2), that He had acquired esoteric wisdom among the Essenes. It has also become difficult for those who take their impressions from the historical records to believe that, while in virtue of His human nature His knowledge was progressive and limited, in virtue of His Divine nature He was simultaneously omniscient. All we can say is that He possessed perfect knowledge within the sphere in which His vocation lay. The one book which He studied was the OT, and He used it continually in temptation, conflict, and suffering. He knew human nature in its littleness and greatness?the littleness that spoils the noblest characters, the greatness that survives the worst pollution and degradation. He read individual character with a swift and unerring glance. But what must chiefly have impressed the listeners were the intimacy and the certainty with which He spoke of God. In the world of nature He pointed out the tokens of His bounty and the suggestions of His care. The realm of human affairs was to Him instinct with principles which illustrated the relations of God and man. He spoke as One who saw into the very heart of God, and who knew at first hand His purpose with the world, and His love for sinful and sorrow-laden men.
7. Jesus and the Baptist.?The religious common-placeness of the age, which has been described above, was at length broken by the appearance of John the Baptist, who recalled the ancient prophets. He proclaimed the approach of the Day of the Lord, when the Messiah would take to Himself His power and reign. He rejected the idea that the Jews could claim special privileges on the ground of birth (Mat_3:9), and proclaimed that the judgment, with which His work would begin, would be searching and pitiless. Along with other Galil?ans Jesus repaired to the scene of the ministry in the lower Jordan valley, and received baptism (Mar_1:9), not, indeed, as though He needed repentance, but as a symbol and means of consecration to the work which lay before Him. The Gospels are more deeply interested in the impression made by Jesus on John, modern writers in the influence exerted by John upon Jesus. According to all the Synoptics, John proclaimed the near advent of the Messiah; according to Mt., he may have implied that Jesus was the Messiah (Mar_3:14); while the Fourth Gospel states that he explicitly pointed Him out as the Messiah to his disciples (Mar_1:29; Mar_1:36). If we suppose that Jesus held intercourse for a time with the Baptist, it is easy to believe that the stainlessness and commanding greatness of His character at least evoked from the Baptist an avowal of his own inferiority. That he went so far as to declare Him the Messiah whom he preached is a statement which it is difficult to accept literally, or as meaning more than that the school of the Baptist pointed to its consummation in the school of Christ. On the other hand, contact with the Baptist?s ministry evidently precipitated the crisis in the life of Christ. The man who re-discovered the need and the power of a prophetic mission was an instrument in bringing Jesus face to face with His prophetic task; while his proclamation of the impending advent of the Messiah must have had the character for Jesus of a call to the work for which, as the unique Son, He knew Himself to be furnished. It is evident that the act of baptism was accompanied by something decisive. According to Mk., Jesus then had a vision of the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove, and heard a voice from heaven, ?Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased? (Mar_1:10-11). This is more probable than the statement that it was a public revelation (Luk_3:21-22), or that it was the Baptist to whom the vision was vouchsafed (Joh_1:32). We shall hardly err if we suppose that Jesus spoke to the disciples of His baptism as the time when His Messianic consciousness became clear, and He received an endowment of strength for the task to which He was called.
8. The Temptation.?The view taken of the significance of the Baptism is confirmed by the narrative of the Temptation, which would naturally follow closely upon the acceptance of the Messianic vocation (Mar_1:12-13, Mat_4:1-11, Luk_4:1-13). Like the scene at the Baptism, the temptations probably came to Jesus in the form of a vision, which He afterwards described to His disciples. It has generally been agreed that the temptations must be understood as growing out of the Messianic commission, but there is wide difference of opinion as to their precise significance. The view which seems most probable to the present writer may be briefly set forth, it being premised that Luke?s order seems to answer best to the logic of the situation. Assuming that in the Baptism Jesus accepted the Messianic call, the possibilities of the ensuing ordeal of temptation were three?that He should recoil from the task, that He should misconceive it, or that, rightly apprehending it, He should adopt wrong methods. The first temptation, accordingly, may very naturally be supposed to have consisted in the suggestion that He should choose comfort rather than hardship?that He should turn back, while there was yet time, from the arduous and perilous path, and live out His days in the sheltered life of Nazareth. This He rejected on the ground that there are higher goods than comfort and security; ?man shall not live by bread alone? (Mat_4:4). The heroic course resolved on, the great question to be next faced was if He was to aim at establishing a kingdom of the political kind which the people generally expected, or a kingdom of a spiritual order. To found and maintain an earthly kingdom. He knew, meant the use of violence, craft, and other Satanic instruments; and of such means, even if the end had approved itself to Him as His vocation, He refused to make use (Mat_4:8 ff.). This decision taken, the question remained as to the way in which He was to win belief for Himself and His cause. For one with perfect trust in God it was a natural suggestion to challenge God to own Him by facing risks in which His life could be saved only through the interposition of a stupendous miracle (4:5ff.). But this He put aside as impious, and cast upon the Father the care of making His path plain, while He awaited, prudently as well as bravely, the gradual disclosure of His call to work and danger.
9. Duration of the Ministry (cf. art. Chronology above and in DB).?The Synoptics give no certain indication of the length of the period. It is argued that the incident of plucking the ears of corn (Mar_2:23) points to April or June of one year, and that at the feeding of the five thousand we are in the spring (?green grass,? Mar_6:39) of the year following; while at least another twelve months would be required for the journeys which are subsequently recorded. The chronological scheme usually adopted is based on the Fourth Gospel, which has the following notes of time:?a Passover (Joh_2:13), four months to harvest (Joh_4:35), a feast of the Jews (Joh_5:1), another Passover (Joh_6:4), the feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2), the feast of Dedication (Joh_10:22), the last Passover (Joh_11:55). The first four ?can be combined in more than one way to fit into a single year?e.g. (a) Passover?May?any lesser feast?Passover; or (b) Passover?January?Purim (February)?Passover.? ?From Joh_6:4 to Joh_11:55 the space covered is exactly a year, the autumn Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2), and the winter Feast of Dedication (Joh_10:22), being signalized in the course of it? (art. ?Chronology? in DB i. 409, 408).
It was a wide-spread opinion in Patristic times, supported by the phrase ?the acceptable year of the Lord? (Luk_4:19), that the ministry lasted only one year; and in the opinion of some modern scholars it can be maintained that even the Fourth Gospel includes its material between two Passovers (Westcott and Hort, Greek Test.; Briggs, New Light on the Life of Jesus). On the other hand, it was asserted by Iren?us (adv. H?r. ii. 22) on the ground of Joh_8:57, and of an alleged Johannine tradition, that from ten to twenty years elapsed between the Baptism and the Crucifixion. Joh_8:57 is quite inconclusive, and the best authority for the Johannine tradition must be the Gospel, the evidence of which may be summed up by saying that ?while two years must, not more than two years can, be allowed for the interval from Joh_2:13; Joh_2:23 to Joh_11:55? (art. ?Chronology? in DB).
10. Periods of the Life of Christ.?The divisions are necessarily affected by the view which is taken of the value of the chronological scheme of the Fourth Gospel.
Keim, who generally follows the guidance of the Synoptics, divides as follows:?
Preliminary period of self-recognition and decision.
1. The Galil?an spring-time, beginning in the spring of A.D. 34 [certainly much too late], and lasting for a few months. Characteristics: the optimism of Jesus, and the responsiveness of the people.
2. The Galil?an storms, extending over the summer and autumn of A.D. 34 and the spring of the following year. Scene: Galilee and the neighbouring regions. Characteristics: increasing opposition, and intensification of the polemical note in the teaching of Jesus.
3. The Messianic progress to Jerusalem, and the Messianic death at the Passover of A.D. 35. Scene: Per?a and Jerusalem (Jesus of Nazara).
The Johannine material can be combined with the Synoptic in two periods, each of which lasted about a year. The following is the scheme of Hase:?
Preliminary history.
1. The ?acceptable year of the Lord,? marked by hopefulness, active labour, and much outward success. Scene: Jud?a and Galilee. Time: from the Baptism to the Feeding of the Multitude (some months before Passover of the year A.D. 30 or 31 to shortly before Passover of the following year).
2. The year of conflict. Scene: Galilee, Per?a, Jud?a. Time: from the second to the last Passover.
3. The Passion and Resurrection. Scene: Jerusalem. Time: Passover (Gesch. Jesu).
The months between the Baptism and the first Passover may be regarded as a period with distinct characteristics, and we may distinguish (1) the year of obscurity, (2) the year of public favour, (3) the year of opposition (Stalker, Life of Jesus Christ, 1879).
The division into sub-periods has been most elaborately carried out by Dr. Sanday (Outlines of the Life of Jesus Christ).?
A. Preliminary period?from the Baptism to the call of the leading Apostles. Sources: Mat_3:1 to Mat_4:11, Mar_1:1-13, Luk_3:1 to Luk_4:13, Joh_1:6 to Joh_4:54. Scene: mainly in Jud?a, but in part also in Galilee. Time: winter A.D. 26 to a few weeks before Passover, A.D. 27.
B. First active or constructive period. Sources: Mat_4:13 to Mat_13:53, Mar_1:14 to Mar_6:13, Luk_4:14 to Luk_9:6, Joh_5:1-47. Scene: mainly in Galilee, but also partly in Jerusalem. Time: from about Pentecost, A.D. 27, to shortly before Passover, A.D. 28.
C. Middle or culminating period of the active ministry. Sources: Mat_14:1 to Mat_18:35, Mar_6:14 to Mar_9:50, Luk_9:7-50, Joh_6:1-71. Scene: Galilee. Time: Passover to shortly before Tabernacles, A.D. 28.
D. Close of the active period?the Messianic crisis in view. Sources: Mat_19:1 to Mat_20:34, Mar_10:1-52, Luk_9:51 to Luk_19:28, Joh_7:1 to Joh_11:57. Scene: Jud?a and Per?a. Time: Tabernacles, A.D. 28, to Passover, A.D. 29.
E. The Messianic crisis?the last week, passion, resurrection, ascension. Sources: Mat_21:1 to Mat_28:20, Mar_11:1 to Mar_16:8 [Mar_16:9-20], Luk_19:29 to Luk_24:52, Joh_12:1 to Joh_21:23. Scene: mainly in Jerusalem. Time: six days before Passover to ten days before Pentecost, A.D. 29.
Weiss?s scheme agrees with the above so far as regards the duration of the ministry (from 2 to 3 years), and the date of the Crucifixion (Passover, A.D. 29). His periods are: (1) the preparation, corresponding to Dr. Sanday?s ?preliminary period? down to the wedding in Cana of Galilee; (2) the seed-time, including the remainder of ?the preliminary period,? and the first active or constructive period; (3) the period of first conflicts, and (4) the period of crisis, corresponding to the ?middle or culminating period?; (5) the Jerusalem period, corresponding to the close of the active period; (6) the Passion and the subsequent events.
Useful as the above schemes of Weiss and Sanday are for arranging the subject-matter, and deserving as they are of respect for their scholarly grounding, the writer doubts if we can pretend to such exact knowledge of the course of events. Even if we assume that the Fourth Gospel gives a reliable chronological framework, it is a very precarious assumption that the Synoptic material, which is largely put together from a topical point of view, can be assigned its proper place in the scheme. Further, it is by no means clear that we are right in supposing that there was a Jud?an ministry which ran parallel with the Galil?an ministry. There is much to be said for the view that the narratives of the Fourth Gospel presuppose a situation towards the close of them inistry, and that in interweaving them with the Synoptic narratives of the Galil?an period, we anticipate the actual march of the history. The view here taken is that there was a Galil?an ministry, for which the Synoptics are almost the sole source; that this was followed for some months before the end by a Jud?an ministry, the materials of which are supplied mainly by the Fourth Gospel; and that finally the sources unite to give a picture of the Last Week, the Passion, and the Resurrection.
(A) The Galil?an Ministry.?Jesus seems to have remained with the Baptist until the latter was put in prison (Mar_1:14), when He returned to Galilee. The change of scene, which in any case was natural in view of the blow that had been struck, served to mark the distinctness of His mission from that of John. He may also have been influenced by His knowledge of the greater receptiveness of the Northern stock. The centre of His activity was the populous district, studded with prosperous towns, which lay around the Sea of Galilee. From Capernaum, in which He lived for a time (Mat_4:13, Mar_9:33), He had easy access to the other cities on the Lake, and He also appears to have made wider circuits throughout Galilee, in the course of which He preached in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luk_4:16 ff.). At the close of the period He penetrated to the regions beyond?being found on the ?borders? of Tyre and Sidon (Mar_7:24), then in the heathen district of Decapolis to the east of Jordan (Mar_7:31), afterwards in the towns of C?sarea Philippi in the dominions of the tetrarch Philip (Mar_8:27). Except for the incidental references above referred to, there is nothing to fix the duration of the Galil?an ministry; but though crowded with labours and incidents, it seems to have been comparatively short. Its importance is measured by the fact that it set the Christian gospel in circulation in the world, and laid the foundation of the Christian Church.
(1) Treatment of the materials.?In dealing with this period, the characteristic task of the historian may almost be said to begin where that of the Evangelists ends. The modern student is not only interested in chronology and in the details of the environment, but he tries to bring the course of events under the point of view of development, and to penetrate to the causes which explain the movement and the issue of the history. The Gospels, on the other hand, contribute a picture rather than a history?a picture, moreover, in which the setting is presupposed rather than described, while they leave us in ignorance of much that we should like to know about hidden forces and springs of action. It seems advisable to begin by reproducing in its salient aspects the Synoptic picture of the Galil?an ministry, based primarily on Mk., and thereafter to advert to some contributions which have been made to the better elucidation of the course of events.
(2) The picture of the Galit?an Ministry.?The principal source is the sketch in Mk., which sets forth the Ministry from the point of view of one who regarded it as the manifestation of the Messiah. The chronological order of events is necessarily mirrored to some extent, as the narrative describes a mission and its outcome; but the arrangement as well as the selection of the material is largely governed by topical considerations. The topics of Mk. may be summarized as follows:?(a) the preliminary attestation of Jesus as the Messiah; (b) the Messianic activities; (c) the opposition to Jesus, and His self-vindication; (d) the attitude of Jesus Himself to the question of His Messiahship; (e) the results of the Galil?an Ministry.
The above argument is taken over by Mt., with some change in the order of the sections, while he supplements from the older Apostolic source the meagre account given by Mk. of the contents of the teaching of Jesus. Lk. follows Mk. more closely in the sections dealing with the Galil?an ministry, but incidentally shows the uncertainty of the chronological scheme by transferring to the beginning the visit to Nazareth (Luk_4:16-30; cf. Mar_6:1-6, Mat_13:53-58), on the apparent ground that it could be regarded as in some respects a typical incident.
(a) The preliminary attestation.?The Synoptic tradition puts in the forefront certain credentials of Jesus. John the Baptist predicted His coming (Mar_1:7-8), a voice from heaven proclaimed Him to be the Son (Mar_1:11), the demons knew Him (Mar_1:23-24; cf. Mar_5:7); while the chosen few, though as yet not knowing Him for what He is, instinctively obeyed His call (Mar_1:18), and the multitude recognized in Him an extraordinary man (Mar_1:22). Apart from the references to the Baptist and the vision at the Baptism, the facts which underlay this apologetic argument were that demoniacs were peculiarly susceptible to His influence, and that upon the uncorrupted and unprejudiced heart Jesus made the impression of a commanding authority which was entitled to be obeyed.
(b) The Messianic activities.?Upon the credentials follows a description of the labours by which Jesus proceeded to carry out His plan, and which revealed Him as the Messiah. The means employed were three?to teach the nature, the blessings, and the laws of the Kingdom, to exemplify its power and its spirit in mighty works, and to call and train men who should exemplify the new righteousness, and also share and continue His labours.
(i) The ministry of teaching (cf. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, Eng. tr. 1892).?The work which lay nearest to the hand of Jesus, as the Messiah, was to preach. He needed to preach repentance, as the condition of the reception of the Kingdom; He needed to gain entrance for a true conception of its nature; and He had to legislate for the society which was to own Him as its King. It is accordingly as the Messiah prophet that He is introduced: ?Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel? (Mar_1:14-15). Following upon a similar notice (Mar_4:23), Mt. interpolates the Sermon on the Mount, in which the principles of the gospel of the Kingdom are set forth, on the one hand as a revision of the OT moral code, on the other as an antithesis to the maxims and the practice of contemporary Judaism. The meagre specimens of our Lord?s teaching which Mk. thought it sufficient for his purpose to give, are further supplemented by Mt. in his collection of the parables of the Kingdom, and by Lk. in the peculiar section which includes the parables of the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Son.
The synagogues were open, at least in the first period, to Jesus. He also taught wherever opportunity offered?in the house, on the mountain-side, from a boat moored by the shore of the Lake. To a large extent His teaching was unsystematic, being drawn forth by way of comment on some casual incident, or of a rejoinder made to a question or an objection. On other occasions,
e.g. when preaching in the synagogue, we must suppose Him to have treated of some large subject in a set discourse, but it is unlikely that any one contained more than an exposition of an OT passage (Luk_4:16 ff.), or the message of one of the parables (Mat_13:1 ff.). The grand characteristic of His manner of teaching has been described as the combination of the utmost degree of popular intelligibility with memorable pregnancy of expression (Wendt, ? 2). (a) The means by which intelligibility was attained was the copious use of the concrete example, and of the comparison of ideas. The comparison is used in three forms?the simile, the metaphor, and the parable. The parables, again, obviously fall into three classes. In one class we have a story which illustrates by a concrete example an attitude which Jesus desired to commend or to condemn (the Good Samaritan, Luk_10:30 ff.; the Pharisee and the Publican, Luk_18:10 ff.). Those of a second class draw attention to a law operating in the natural world which has its counterpart in the Kingdom of God (the Seed Growing Secretly, Mar_4:26-29; the Mustard Seed, Mar_4:30-32). in a third class there is a description of an event which has occurred in special circumstances, whether in nature or in the dealings of man with man, and the particular event is employed to illustrate some aspect of the Divine message (the Sower, Mat_13:1 ff.; the Prodigal Son, Luk_15:11 ff.). (b) The second note of the teaching of Jesus, which might perhaps be called incisiveness, is illustrated in the numerous short sayings, or aphorisms, into which He condenses a body of doctrine or precept (Mar_4:22; Mar_4:24; Mar_10:31). It is also seen in the naked, often paradoxical, fashion, in which He states a principle. The doctrine of non-resistance, e.g., He teaches in uncompromising form by means of the special instance (Mat_5:38-41), and leaves it to the disciple to discover the other considerations which cross and limit its application. The latter observation is of importance as a preservative against the errors of an excessive literalism in the interpretation of the teaching of Jesus. It is also desirable to bear in mind the rule, which is one of the gains of modern exegesis, that each of the parables of Jesus is to be regarded as the vehicle of one great lesson, and that it is illegitimate to treat it as an allegory every detail of which has been consciously filled with didactic meaning. As regards the aim of Jesus in His teaching, it might be thought self-evident that it could be nothing else than to make His message clear to His hearers. It is therefore surprising to read that the parables are spoken by Jesus with the purpose of obscuring to them that are without the truths which they reveal to the disciples??that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand? (Mar_4:10-12, Mat_13:10-15, Luk_8:9-10). That the teaching of Jesus was largely misapprehended is, of course, true, and also that it had the effect of making those worse who rejected it, but this would appear to be an instance in which the Church has misreported a tragic consequence as an original and deliberate intention.
(ii) The mighty works (cf. Bruce, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels, 1886).?The teaching ministry was accompanied from the first by acts of healing, and these were followed later by other acts involving superhuman power. The Synoptic account of the mighty works may be briefly summarized.?(1) They were very numerous, and were of different kinds. In addition to the miracles which are described in detail, there are references of a general sort which imply that Jesus? work was cast to a large extent in the form of a healing ministry (Mar_1:33-34). Some of the miracles might be understood as faith-cures wrought upon persons suffering from nervous disorders or mental derangement, but those are inextricably bound up with others which are not explained by moral therapeutics, while a third group not explained imply a supernatural control of the forces of external nature. The healing miracles may be divided as follows:?(a) cure of organic defects (the blind, Mar_10:46-52; the deaf and dumb, Mar_7:31-37); (b) disease (leprosy, Mar_1:40-45, Luk_17:11-16; fever, Mar_1:29-31; dropsy, Luk_14:1-6; paralysis, Mar_2:1-12, Mat_8:5-13); (c) death (Mar_5:22 ff., Luk_8:41). As a
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Je'sus Christ. "The life and character of Jesus Christ," says Dr. Schaff, "is the Holy of Holies in the history of the world."
I. Name. ? The name Jesus signifies saviour. It is the Greek form of Jehoshua (Joshua). The name Christ signifies anointed. Jesus was both priest and king.
Among the Jews, priests were anointed, as their inauguration to their office. 1Ch_16:22. In the New Testament, the name Christ is used as equivalent to the Hebrew, Messiah. (anointed), Joh_1:41, the name given to the long-promised Prophet and King whom the Jews had been taught by their prophets to expect. Mat_11:3; Act_19:4. The use of this name, as applied to the Lord, has always a reference to the promises of the prophets.
The name of Jesus is the proper name of our Lord, and that of Christ is added to identify him with the promised Messiah. Other names are sometimes added to the names Jesus Christ, thus, "Lord," "a king," "King of Israel," "Emmanuel," "Son of David," "chosen of God."
II. Birth. ? Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, God being his father, at Bethlehem of Judea, six miles south of Jerusalem. The date of his birth was most probably in December, B.C. 5, four years before the era from which we count our years. That era was not used till several hundred years after Christ. The calculations were made by a learned monk, Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, who made an error of four years; so that to get the exact date from the birth of Christ we must add four years to our usual dates; that is, A.D. 1882 is really 1886 years since the birth of Christ.
It is also more than likely that our usual date for Christmas, December 25, is not far from the real date of Christ's birth. Since the 25th of December comes when the longest night gives way to the returning sun on his triumphant march, it makes an appropriate anniversary to make the birth of him who appeared in the darkest night of error and sin as the true Light of the world.
At the time of Christ's birth, Augustus Caesar was emperor of Rome, and Herod the Great was king of Judea, but a subject of Rome. God's providence had prepared the world for the coming of Christ, and this was the fittest time in all its history. All the world was subject to one government, so that the apostles could travel everywhere: the door of every land was open for the gospel. The world was at peace, so that the gospel could have free course. The Greek language was spoken everywhere with their other languages. The Jews were scattered everywhere with synagogues and Bibles.
III. Early Life. ? Jesus, having a manger at Bethlehem for his cradle, received a visit of adoration from the three wise men of the East. At forty days old, he was taken to the Temple at Jerusalem; and returning to Bethlehem, was soon taken to Egypt to escape Herod's massacre of the infants there. After a few months stay there, Herod having died in April, B.C. 4, the family returned to their Nazareth home, where Jesus lived till he was about thirty years old, subject to his parent, and increasing "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."
The only incident recorded of his early life is his going up to Jerusalem to attend the Passover when he was twelve years old, and his conversation with the learned men in the Temple. But we can understand the childhood and youth of Jesus better when we remember the surrounding influences amid which he grew. The natural scenery was rugged and mountainous, but full of beauty. He breathed the pure air. He lived in a village, not in a city. The Roman dominion was irksome and galling. The people of God were subject to a foreign yoke. The taxes were heavy. Roman soldiers, laws, money, every reminded them of their subjection, when they ought to be free and themselves the rulers of the world.
When Jesus was ten years old, there was a great insurrection, Act_5:37, in Galilee. He who was to be King of the Jews heard and felt all this. The Jewish hopes of a Redeemer, of throwing off their bondage, of becoming the glorious nation promised in the prophet, were in the very air he breathed. The conversation at home and in the streets was full of them. Within his view, and his boyish excursions, were many remarkable historic places, ? rivers, hills, cities, plains, ? that would keep in mind the history of his people and God's dealings with them.
His school training. Mr. Deutsch, in the Quarterly Review, says, "Eighty years before Christ, schools flourished throughout the length and the breadth of the land: education had been made compulsory. While there is not a single term for 'school' to be found before the captivity, there were by that time about a dozen in common usage. Here are a few of the innumerable popular sayings of the period: 'Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction of the young was neglected.' 'The world is only saved by the breath of the school-children.' 'Even for the rebuilding of the Temple the schools must not be interrupted.' "
His home training. According to Ellicott, the stages of Jewish childhood were marked as follows: "At three, the boy was weaned, and wore, for the first time, the fringed or tasselled garment prescribed by Num_15:38-41 and Deu_22:12. His education began at first under the mother's care. At five, he was to learn the law, at first by extracts written on scrolls of the more important passages, the Shema or creed of Deu_2:4, the Hallel or festival psalms, Psalms 114; Psalms 118; Psalms 136, and by catechetical teaching in school.
At twelve, he became more directly responsible for his obedience of the law; and on the day when he attained the age of thirteen, put on for the first time, the phylacteries which were worn at the recital of his daily prayer." In addition to this, Jesus no doubt learned the carpenter's trade of his reputed father Joseph, and, as Joseph probably died before Jesus began his public ministry, he may have contributed to the support of his mother.
(IV. Public Ministry. ? All the leading events recorded of Jesus' life are given at the end of this volume in the Chronological Chart and in the Chronological Table of the life of Christ; so that here will be given only a general survey.
Jesus began to enter upon his ministry when he was "about thirty years old;" that is, he was not very far from thirty, older or younger. He is regarded as nearly thirty-one by Andrews (in the tables of chronology referred to above) and by most others. Having been baptized by John early in the winter of 26-27, he spent the larger portion of his year in Judea and about the lower Jordan, till in December he went northward to Galilee through Samaria. The next year and a half, from December, A.D. 27, to October or November, A.D. 29, was spent in Galilee and norther Palestine, chiefly in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee.
In November, 29, Jesus made his final departure from Galilee, and the rest of his ministry was in Judea and Perea, beyond Jordan, till his crucifixion, April 7, A.D. 30. After three days, he proved his divinity by rising from the dead; and after appearing on eleven different occasions to his disciples during forty days, he finally ascended to heaven, where he is the living, ever present, all-powerful Saviour of his people.
Jesus Christ, being both human and divine, is fitted to be the true Saviour of men. In this, as in every action and character, he is shown to be "the wisdom and power of God unto salvation." As human, he reaches down to our natures, sympathizes with us, shows us that God knows all our feelings and weaknesses and sorrows and sins, brings God near to us, who otherwise could not realize the Infinite and Eternal as a father and friend. He is divine, in order that he may be an all-powerful, all-loving Saviour, able and willing to defend us from every enemy, to subdue all temptations, to deliver from all sin, and to bring each of his people, and the whole Church, into complete and final victory. Jesus Christ is the centre of the world's history, as he is the centre of the Bible. ? Editor).
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

the son of God, the Messiah, and Saviour of the world, the first and principal object of the prophecies, prefigured and promised in the Old Testament, expected and desired by the patriarchs; the hope of the Gentiles; the glory, salvation, and consolation of Christians. The name Jesus, or, as the Hebrews pronounce it, יהושוע , Jehoshua or Joshua, ‘Ιησους, signifies, he who shall save. No one ever bore this name with so much justice, nor so perfectly fulfilled the signification of it, as Jesus Christ, who saves even from sin and hell, and hath merited heaven for us by the price of his blood. It is not necessary here to narrate the history of our Saviour's life, which can no where be read with advantage except in the writings of the four evangelists; but there are several general views which require to be noticed under this article.
1. Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or Messiah promised under the Old Testament. That he professed himself to be that Messiah to whom all the prophets gave witness, and who was, in fact, at the time of his appearing, expected by the Jews; and that he was received under that character by his disciples, and by all Christians ever since, is certain. And if the Old Testament Scriptures afford sufficiently definite marks by which the long announced Christ should be infallibly known at his advent, and these presignations are found realized in our Lord, then is the truth of his pretensions established. From the books of the Old Testament we learn that the Messiah was to authenticate his claim by miracles; and in those predictions respecting him, so many circumstances are recorded, that they could meet only in one person; and so, if they are accomplished in him, they leave no room for doubt, as far as the evidence of prophecy is deemed conclusive. As to MIRACLES, we refer to that article; here only observing, that if the miraculous works wrought by Christ were really done, they prove his mission, because, from their nature, and having been wrought to confirm his claim to be the Messiah, they necessarily imply a divine attestation. With respect to PROPHECY, the principles under which its evidence must be regarded as conclusive will be given under that head; and here therefore it will only be necessary to show the completion of the prophecies of the sacred books of the Jews relative to the Messiah in one person, and that person the founder of the Christian religion.
The time of the Messiah's appearance in the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined, says Keith, by a number of concurring circumstances, which fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen_49:10, The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time during which the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people, while a king should reign among them, while they should be governed by their own laws, and while their judges should be from among their brethren. The prophecy of Malachi adds another standard for measuring the time: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall come suddenly to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts,” Mal_3:1. No words can be more expressive of the coming of the promised Messiah; and they as clearly imply his appearance in the second temple before it should be destroyed. In regard to the advent of the Messiah before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, and in this place will I give peace,”
Hag_2:7. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire, but the express number of years that were to precede his coming are plainly intimated: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks,”
Dan_9:24-25. Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year; seventy weeks, thus amounted to four hundred and ninety years. In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of Messiah, the Prince; so entirety is all ambiguity done away. The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity; accord in perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different lines terminate at once,—the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were extinct or dispersed among the nations. Judah alone remained, and the last sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was then unmoved; it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for ages. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passed away. During the very year, the twelfth of his age, in which Christ first publicly appeared in the temple, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished; Coponius was appointed procurator; and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria. The sceptre was smitten from the tribe of Judah; the crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. After the lapse of nearly four hundred years posterior to the time of Malachi, another prophet appeared who was the herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of Josephus confirms the account given in Scripture of John the Baptist. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah was erased soon after the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed. And with respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote period, how little discrepancy of opinion has existed among the most learned men, as to the space from the time of the passing out of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, after the Babylonish captivity, to the commencement of the Christian era, and the subsequent events foretold in the prophecy.
The predictions contained in the Old Testament respecting both the family out of which the Messiah was to arise, and the place of his birth, are almost as circumstantial, and are equally applicable to Christ, as those which refer to the time of his appearance. He was to be an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, and of the town of Bethlehem. That all these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ; that he was of that country, tribe, and family, of the house and lineage of David, and born in Bethlehem, we have the fullest evidence in the testimony of all the evangelists; in two distinct accounts of the genealogies, by natural and legal succession, which, according to the custom of the Jews, were carefully preserved; in the acquiescence of the enemies of Christ in the truth of the fact, against which there is not a single surmise in history; and in the appeal made by some of the earliest Christian writers to the unquestionable testimony of the records of the census, taken at the very time of our Saviour's birth by order of Caesar. Here, indeed, it is impossible not to be struck with the exact fulfilment of prophecies which are apparently contradictory and irreconcilable, and with the manner in which they were providentially accomplished. The spot of Christ's nativity was distant from the place of the abode of his parents, and the region in which he began his ministry was remote from the place of his birth; and another prophecy respecting him was in this manner verified: “In the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined,” Isa_9:1-2; Mat_4:16. Thus, the time at which the predicted Messiah was to appear; the nation, the tribe, and the family from which he was to be descended; and the place of his birth,—no populous city, but of itself an inconsiderable place,—were all clearly foretold; and as clearly refer to Jesus Christ; and all meet their completion in him.
But the facts of his life, and the features of his character, are also drawn with a precision that cannot be misunderstood. The obscurity, the meanness, and the poverty of his external condition are thus represented: “He shall grow up before the Lord like a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Thus saith the Lord to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship,” Isa_53:2; Isa_49:7. That such was the condition in which Christ appeared, the whole history of his life abundantly testifies. And the Jews, looking in the pride of their hearts for an earthly king, disregarded these prophecies concerning him, were deceived by their traditions, and found only a stone of stumbling, where, if they had searched their Scriptures aright, they would have discovered an evidence of the Messiah. “Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not this the son of Mary? said they; and they were offended at him.” His riding in humble triumph into Jerusalem; his being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffered, and spit upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet; the last offered draught of vinegar and gall; the parting of his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture; the manner of his death and of his burial, and his rising again without seeing corruption, were all expressly predicted, and all these predictions were literally fulfilled, Zec_9:9; Zec_11:12; Isa_50:6; Psa_22:16; Psa_69:21; Psa_22:18; Isa_53:9; Psa_16:10. If all these prophecies admit of any application to the events of the life of any individual, it can only be to that of the Author of Christianity. And what other religion can produce a single fact which was actually foretold of its founder?
The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life; and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb, which was to be killed every year in all the families of Israel, which was to be taken out of the flock, to be without blemish, to be eaten with bitter herbs, to have its blood sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it should be broken; not only did the offering up of Isaac, and the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, by looking upon which the people were healed, and many ritual observances of the Jews, prefigure the manner of Christ's death, and the sacrifice which was to be made for sin; but many express declarations abound in the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. But Isaiah, who describes, with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, characterizes, with the accuracy of a historian, the humiliation, the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer of a world; and the history of Christ forms, to the very letter, the commentary and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage, Isa_52:13, &c; 53, the connection of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity indisputable, and its application obvious, the sufferings of the servant of God (who under that same denomination, is previously described as he who was to be the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the elect of God in whom his soul delighted, Isa_42:10; Isa_49:6) are so minutely foretold, that no illustration is requisite to show that they testify of Jesus. The whole of this prophecy thus refers to the Messiah. It describes both his debasement and his dignity; his rejection by the Jews; his humility, his affliction, and his agony; his magnanimity and his charity; how his words were disbelieved; how his state was lowly; how his sorrow was severe; how he opened not his mouth but to make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical opposition to every dispensation of Providence which is registered in the records of the Jews, it represents spotless innocence suffering by the appointment of Heaven; death as the issue of perfect obedience; God's righteous servant as forsaken of him; and one who was perfectly immaculate bearing the chastisement of many guilty; sprinkling many nations from their iniquity, by virtue of his sacrifice; justifying many by his knowledge; and dividing a portion with the great and the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul in death. This prophecy, therefore, simply as a prediction prior to the event, renders the very unbelief of the Jews an evidence against them, converts the scandal of the cross into an argument in favour of Christianity, and presents us with an epitome of the truth, a miniature of the Gospel in some of its most striking features. The simple exposition of it sufficed at once for the conversion of the eunuch of Ethiopia. To these prophecies may, in fact, be added all those which relate to his spiritual kingdom, or the circumstances of the promulgation, the opposition, and the triumphs of his religion; the accomplishment of which equally proves the divine mission of its Author, and points him out as that great personage with whom they stand inseparably connected.
2. But if Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, in that character his Deity also is necessarily involved, because the Messiah is surrounded with attributes of divinity in the Old Testament; and our Lord himself as certainly lays claim to those attributes as to the office of “the Christ.” Without referring here to the Scriptural doctrine of a Trinity of divine Persons in the unity of the Godhead, (see Trinity,) it is sufficient now to show that both in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, the Messiah is contemplated as a divine Person. In the very first promise of redemption, his superiority to that great and malignant spirit who destroyed the innocence of man, and blighted the fair creation of God, is unquestionably implied; while the Angel of the Divine Presence, the Angel of the Covenant, who appears so prominent in the patriarchal times, and the early periods of Jewish history, and was understood by the early Jews as the future Messiah, is seen at once as a being distinct from Jehovah and yet Jehovah himself; bearing that incommunicable name; and performing acts, and possessing qualities of unquestionable divinity. As the “Redeemer” of Job, he is the object of his trust and hope, and is said to be then a “living Redeemer;” to see whom at the last was to “see God.” As “Shiloh,” in the prophecy of Jacob, he is represented as having an indefinitely extensive reign over “the people” gathered to him; and in all subsequent predictions respecting this reign of Christ, it is represented so vast, so perfect, so influential upon the very thoughts, purposes, and affections of men, that no mere creature can be reasonably supposed capable of exercising it. Of the second Psalm, so manifestly appropriated to the Messiah, it has been justly said, that the high titles and honours ascribed in this Psalm to the extraordinary person who is the chief subject of it, far transcend any thing that is ascribed in Scripture to any mere creature. But if the Psalm be inquired into more narrowly, and compared with parallel prophecies; if it be duly considered, that not only is the extraordinary person here spoken of called “the Son of God,” but that title is so ascribed to him as to imply, that it belongs to him in a manner that is absolutely singular, and peculiar to himself, seeing he is said to be begotten of God, Isa_49:7, and is called, by way of eminence, “the Son,” Isa_49:12; that the danger of provoking him to anger is spoken of in so very different a manner from what the Scripture uses in speaking of the anger of any mere creature, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little;” that when the kings and judges of the earth are commanded to serve God with fear, they are at the same time commanded to kiss the Son, which in those times and places was frequently an expression of adoration; and, particularly, that, whereas other Scriptures contain awful and just threatenings against those who trust in any mere man, the Psalmist nevertheless expressly calls them blessed who trust in the Son here spoken of;—all these things taken together make up a character of unequivocal divinity: and, on the other hand, when it is said, that God would set this his Son as his King on his holy hill of Zion, Isa_49:6, this, and various other expressions in this Psalm, contain characters of that subordination which is appropriate to that divine Person who was to be incarnate, and engage in a work assigned to him by the Father. The former part of the forty-fifth Psalm is by the inspired authority of St. Paul applied to the Christ, who is addressed in these lofty words, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” In the same manner Psa_102:25-28, is applied to Christ by the same authority, and there he is represented as the creator of all things, changing his creations as a vesture, and yet himself continuing the same unchanged being amidst all the mutations of the universe. In Psalm cx, David says, “Jehovah said unto my Lord, (Adonai,) Sit thou upon my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” And in Isaiah vi, the same Adonai is seen by the prophet “seated upon a throne, high and lifted up,” receiving the adoration of seraphs, and bearing the title, “Jehovah, Lord of Hosts,” of which passage St. John makes a direct application to Christ. Isaiah predicts his birth of a virgin, under the title of “Immanuel, God with us.” The same prophet gives to this wonderful child the style of “the Mighty God,” “the Everlasting Father,” and the “Prince of Peace;” so that, as Dr. Pye Smith justly observes, “if there be any dependence on words, the Messiah is here drawn in the opposite characters of humanity and Deity,—the nativity and frailty of a mortal child, and the incommunicable attributes of the omnipresent and eternal God.” Twice is he called by Jeremiah, “Jehovah our righteousness.” Daniel terms him the “Ancient of Days,” or “The Immortal;” and Micah declares, in a passage which the council of the Jews, assembled by Herod, applied to the Messiah, that he who was to be born in Bethlehem was “even he whose comings forth are from eternity, from the days of the everlasting period.” Thus the prophetic testimony describes him, as entitled to the appellation of “Wonderful,” since he should be, in a sense peculiar to himself, the Son of God, Psa_2:7; Isa_9:6; as existing and acting during the patriarchal and the Jewish ages, and even from eternity, Psa_40:7-9; Mic_5:2; as the guardian and protector of his people, Isa_40:9-11; as the proper object of the various affections of piety, of devotional confidence for obtaining the most important blessings, and of religious homage from angels and men, Psa_2:12; Psa_97:7; and, finally, declares him to be the eternal and immutable Being, the Creator, God, the Mighty God, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah.
In perfect accordance with these views, does our Saviour speak of himself. He asserts his preexistence, as having “come down from heaven;” and as existing “before Abraham;” and as being “in heaven” while yet before the eyes of his disciples on earth. In the same peculiar manner does he apply the term “Son of God” to himself, and that with so manifest an intention to assume it in the sense of divinity, that the Jews attempted on that account to stone him as a blasphemer. The whole force of the argument by which he silenced the Pharisees when he asked how the Messiah, who was to be the Son of David, could be David's Lord, in reference to the passage in the Psalms before quoted, arose out of the doctrine of the Messiah's divinity; and when he claims that all men should honour him as they honour the Father, and asserts that as the Father hath life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself, that he “quickeneth whom he will,” that “where two or three meet in his name he is in the midst of them,” and would be with his disciples “to the end of the world;” who does not see that the Jews concluded right, when they said that he made himself “equal with God,”—an impression which he took no pains to remove, although his own moral character bound him to do so, had he not intended to confirm that conclusion. So numerous are the passages in which divine titles, acts, and qualities, are ascribed to Christ in the apostolical epistles, and so unbroken is the stream of testimony from the apostolic age, that the Deity of their Saviour was the undoubted and universal faith of his inspired followers, and of those who immediately succeeded them, that it is not necessary to quote proofs. The whole argument is this: If the Old Testament Scriptures represent the Messiah as a divine Person; the proofs which demonstrate Jesus to be the Messiah, demonstrate him also by farther and necessary consequence to be divine. Yet, though there is a union of natures in Christ, there is no mixture or confusion of their properties: his humanity is not changed into his Deity, nor his Deity absorbed by his humanity; but the two natures are distinct in one Person. How this union exists, is above our comprehension; and, indeed, if we cannot explain how our bodies and souls are united, it is not to be supposed that we can comprehend the mystery of “God manifest in the flesh.” So truly does Christ bear the name given to him in prophecy,— “Wonderful.”
3. The doctrine of the Deity of Christ derives farther confirmation from the consideration, that in no sound sense can the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments be interpreted so as to make their very different and often apparently contradictory statements respecting him harmonize. How, for instance, is it that he is arrayed in the attributes of divinity, and yet is capable of being raised to a kingdom and glory?—that he is addressed, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and yet that it should follow “God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?”—that he should be God, and yet, by a human birth, “God with us?”—that he should say, “I and my Father are one,” and, “My Father is greater than I?”—that he is supreme, and yet a servant?—that he is equal and yet subordinate?—that he, a man, should require and receive worship and trust?—that he should be greater than angels, and yet “made lower than the angels?”—that he should be “made flesh,” and yet be the Creator of all things?—that he should raise himself from the dead, and yet be raised by the power of the Father? These and many other declarations respecting him, all accord with the orthodox view of his person; and are intelligible so far as they state the facts respecting him; but are wholly beyond the power of interpretation into any rational meaning on any theory which denies to him a real humanity on the one hand, or a real and personal divinity on the other. So powerfully, in fact, has this been felt, that, in order to evade the force of the testimony of Scripture, the most licentious criticisms have been resorted to by the deniers of his divinity; such as would not certainly have been tolerated by scholars in the case of an attempt to interpret any other ancient writing.
4. Being, therefore, not only “a teacher sent from God,” but the divine Son of God himself, it might be truly said by his wondering hearers, “Never man spake like this man.” On our Lord's character as a teacher, therefore, many striking and just remarks have been made by different writers, not excepting some infidels themselves, who, in this respect, have been carried into admiration by the overwhelming force of evidence. This article, however, shall not be indebted to a desecrated source for an estimate of the character of his teaching, and shall rather be concluded with the following admirable remarks of a Christian prelate:—
“When our Lord is considered as a teacher, we find him delivering the justest and most sublime truths with respect to the divine nature, the duties of mankind, and a future state of existence; agreeable in every particular to reason, and to the wisest maxims of the wisest philosophers; without any mixture of that alloy which so often debased their most perfect production; and excellently adapted to mankind in general, by suggesting circumstances and particular images on the most awful and interesting subjects. We find him filling, and, as it were, overpowering our minds with the grandest ideas of his own nature; representing himself as appointed by his Father to be our Instructer, our Redeemer, our Judge, and our King; and showing that he lived and died for the most benevolent and important purposes conceivable. He does not labour to support the greatest and most magnificent of all characters; but it is perfectly easy and natural to him. He makes no display of the high and heavenly truths which he utters; but speaks of them with a graceful and wonderful simplicity and majesty.
Supernatural truths are as familiar to his mind, as the common affairs of life are to other men. He revives the moral law, carries it to perfection, and enforces it by peculiar and animating motives: but he enjoins nothing new beside praying in his name, mutual love among his disciples, as such, and the observance of two simple and significant positive laws which serve to promote the practice of the moral law. All his precepts, when rightly explained, are reasonable in themselves and useful in their tendency: and their compass is very great, considering that he was an occasional teacher, and not a systematical one. If from the matter of his instructions we pass on to the manner in which they were delivered, we find our Lord usually speaking as an authoritative teacher; though occasionally limiting his precepts, and sometimes assigning the reasons of them. He presupposes the original law of God, and addresses men as rational creatures. From the grandeur of his mind, and the magnitude of his subjects, he is often sublime; and the beauties interspersed throughout his discourses are equally natural and striking. He is remarkable for an easy and graceful manner of introducing the best lessons from incidental objects and occasions. The human heart is naked and open to him; and he addresses the thoughts of men, as others do the emotions of their countenance or their bodily actions. Difficult situations, and sudden questions of the most artful and ensnaring kind, serve only to display his superior wisdom, and to confound and astonish all his adversaries. Instead of showing his boundless knowledge on every occasion, he checks and restrains it, and prefers utility to the glare of ostentation. He teaches directly and obliquely, plainly and covertly, as wisdom points out occasions. He knows the inmost character, every prejudice and every feeling of his hearers; and, accordingly, uses parables to conceal or to enforce his lessons; and he powerfully impresses them by the significant language of actions. He gives proofs of his mission from above, by his knowledge of the heart, by a chain of prophecies, and by a variety of mighty works.
“He sets an example of the most perfect piety to God, and of the most extensive benevolence and the most tender compassion to men. He does not merely exhibit a life of strict justice, but of overflowing benignity. His temperance has not the dark shades of austerity; his meekness does not degenerate into apathy. His humility is signal, amidst a splendour of qualities more than human. His fortitude is eminent and exemplary, in enduring the most formidable external evils and the sharpest actual sufferings: his patience is invincible; his resignation entire and absolute. Truth and sincerity shine throughout his whole conduct. Though of heavenly descent, he shows obedience and affection to his earthly parents. He approves, loves, and attaches himself to amiable qualities in the human race. He respects authority, religious and civil; and he evidences his regard for his country by promoting its most essential good in a painful ministry dedicated to its service, by deploring its calamities, and by laying down his life for its benefit. Every one of his eminent virtues is regulated by consummate prudence; and he both wins the love of his friends, and extorts the approbation and wonder of his enemies. Never was a character at the same time so commanding and natural, so resplendent and pleasing, so amiable and venerable. There is a peculiar contrast in it between an awful greatness, dignity, and majesty, and the most conciliating loveliness, tenderness, and softness. He now converses with prophets, lawgivers, and angels; and the next instant he meekly endures the dulness of his disciples and the blasphemies and rage of the multitude. He now calls himself greater than Solomon, one who can command legions of angels, the Giver of life to whomsoever he pleaseth, the Son of God who shall sit on his glorious throne to judge the world. At other times we find him embracing young children, not lifting up his voice in the streets, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax; calling his disciples, not servants, but friends and brethren, and comforting them with an exuberant and parental affection. Let us pause an instant, and fill our minds with the idea of one who knew all things heavenly and earthly, searched and laid open the inmost recesses of the heart, rectified every prejudice, and removed every mistake, of a moral and religious kind, by a word exercised a sovereignty over all nature, penetrated the hidden events of futurity, gave promises of admission into a happy immortality, had the keys of life and death, claimed a union with the Father; and yet was pious, mild, gentle, humble, affable, social, benevolent, friendly, affectionate. Such a character is fairer than the morning star. Each separate virtue is made stronger by opposition and contrast; and the union of so many virtues forms a brightness which fitly represents the glory of that God ‘who inhabiteth light inaccessible.' Such a character must have been a real one. There is something so extraordinary, so perfect, and so godlike in it, that it could not have been thus supported throughout by the utmost stretch of human art, much less by men confessedly unlearned and obscure.” We may add, that such a character must also have been divine. His virtues are human in their class and kind, so that he was our “example;” but they were sustained and heightened by that divinity which was impersonated in him, and from which they derived their intense and full perfection.
5. A great deal has been written concerning the form, beauty, and stature of Jesus Christ. Some have asserted, that he was in person the noblest of all the sons of men. Others have maintained, that there was no beauty nor any graces in his outward appearance. The fathers have not expressed themselves on this matter in a uniform manner. St. Jerom believes that the lustre and majesty which shone about our Saviour's face were capable of winning all hearts: it was this that drew the generality of his Apostles with so much ease to him; it was this majesty which struck those down who came to seize him in the olive garden. St. Bernard and St. Chrysostom contend in like manner for the beauty of Jesus Christ's person; but the most ancient fathers have acknowledged, that he was not at all handsome. Homo indecorus et passibilis, says Irenaeus. Celsus objected to the Christians, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was little, and ill made, which Origen acknowledged in his answer to have been written of him. Clemens Alexandrinus owns, in several places, that the person of Jesus Christ was not beautiful, as does also Cyril of Alexandria. Tertullian says plainly, vultu et aspectu inglorius; that his outward form had nothing that could attract consideration and respect. St. Austin confesses, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was without beauty and the advantage of person; and the generality of the ancients, as Eusebius, Basil, Theodoret, Ambrose, Isidore, &c, explain the passage in the Psalm, “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” as relating to the beauty of Jesus Christ according to his divinity. This difference in opinion shows that no certain tradition was handed down on this subject. The truth probably is, that all which was majestic and attractive in the person of our Lord, was in the expression of the countenance, the full influence of which was displayed chiefly in his confidential intercourse with his disciples; while his general appearance presented no striking peculiarity to the common observer.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

Jesus Christ
(Ι᾿ησοῦς Χριστός, Ι᾿ηοῦς ὁ Χριστός; sometimes by Paul in the reverse order “Christ Jesus”), the ordinary designation of the incarnate Son of God and Savior of mankind. This double designation is not, like Simon Peter, John Mark, Joses Barnabas, composed of a name and a surname, but, like John the Baptist, Simon Magus, Bar-Jesus Elymas, of a proper name and an official title. JESUS was our Lord's proper name, just as Peter, James, and John were the proper names of three of his disciples. To distinguish our Lord from others bearing the name, he was termed Jesus of Nazareth (Joh_18:7, etc., strictly Jesus the Nazarene, Ι᾿ησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος), and Jesus the son of Joseph (Joh_6:42, etc.).
I. Import of the name. — There can be no doubt that Jesus is the Greek form of a Hebrew name, which had been borne by two illustrious individuals in former periods of the Jewish history — the successor of Moses and introducer of Israel into the promised land (Exo_24:13), and the high priest who, along with Zerubbabel (Zec_3:1), took so active a part in the reestablishment of the civil and religious polity of the Jews on their return from the Babylonish captivity. Its original and full form is Jehoshua (Num_13:16). By contraction it became Joshua, or Jeshua; and when transferred into Greek, by taking the termination characteristic of that language, it assumed the form Jesus. It is thus that the names of the illustrious individuals referred to are uniformly written in the Sept., and the first of them is twice mentioned in the New Testament by this name (Act_7:45; Heb_4:8).
The original name of Joshua was Hoshea (הוֹשֵׁע, saving), as appears in Num_13:8; Num_13:16, which was changed by Moses into Jehoshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעִ, Jehovah is his salvation), as appears in Num_12:16; 1Ch_7:27, being elsewhere Anglicized “Joshua.” After the exile he is called by the abridged form of this name, Jeshua (יֵשׁוּע, id.), whence the Greek name Ι᾿ησοῦς, by which this is always represented in the Sept. This last Heb. form differs little from the abstract noun from the same root, יְשׁוּעָה, yeshuah', deliverance, and seems to have been understood as equivalent in import (see Mat_1:22 comp. Ecclesiastes 46:1). The “name of Jesus” (Php_2:10) is not the name Jesus, but “the name above every name” (Php_2:9); i.e. the supreme dignity and authority with which the Father has invested Jesus Christ as the reward of his disinterested exertions in the cause of the divine glory and human happiness; and the bowing ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ι᾿ησοῦ is obviously not an external mark of homage when the name Jesus is pronounced, but the inward sense of awe and submission to him who is raised to a station so exalted.
The conferring of this name on our Lord was not the result of accident, or of the ordinary course of things, but was the effect of a direct divine order (Luk_1:31; Luk_2:21), as indicative of his saving function (Mat_1:21). Like the other name Immanuel (q.v.), it does not necessarily import the divine character of the wearer. This, however, clearly results from the attributes given in the same connection, and is plainly taught in numerous passages (see especially Rom_1:3-4; Rom_9:5). for the import and application of the name CHRIST, SEE MESSIAH.
For a full discussion of the name Jesus, including many fanciful etymologies and explanations, with their refutation, see Gesenius, Thes. Heb. 2, 582; Simon. Onom. V. T. p. 519 sq.; Fritzsche, De nomine Jesu (Freiburg, 1705); Clodius, De nom. Chr. et Marioe Arabicis (Lips. 1724); Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 153,157; Seelen, Meditat. exeg. 2, 413; Thiess, Krit. Comment. 2, 395; A. Pfeiffer, De nomine Jesu, in his treatise De Talmude Judoeorum, p. 177 sq.; Baumgarten, Betracht. d. Namens Jesu (Halle, 1736); Chrysander, De vera forma atque emphasi nominis Jesu (Rintel. 1751); Osiander, Harmonia Evangelica (Basil. 1561), lib. 1, c. 6; Chemnitius, De nomine Jesu, in the Thes. Theol. Philol. (Amst. 1702), vol. 2, p. 62; Canini, Disquis. in loc. aliq. N.T., in the Crit. Sac. ix; Gass, De utroque J.C. nomine, Dei filii et nominis (Vratistl. 1840); and other monographs cited in Volbeding's Index, p. 6, 7; and in Hase's Leben Jesu, p. 51.
II. Personal Circumstances of our Lord. — These, of course, largely affected his history, notwithstanding his divinity. —
1. General View. — The following is a naked statement of the facts of his career as they may be gathered from the evangelical narratives, supposing them to be entitled simply to the credit due to profane history. (For literature, see Volbeding, p. 56; Hase, p. 8.) The founder of the Christian religion was born (B.C. 6) at Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, under the reign of the emperor Augustus, of Mary, at the time betrothed to the carpenter (τέκτων) Joseph, and descended from the royal house of David (Mat_1:1 sq.; Luk_3:23 sq.; comp. Joh_7:42). Soon after his birth he was compelled to escape from the murderous designs of Herod the Great by a hasty flight into the adjacent parts of Egypt (Mat_2:13 sq.; according to the tradition at Matarea, see Evangel. infant. Arab. c. 24; apparently a place near old Heliopolis, where is still shown a very old mulberry tree under which Mary is said to have rested with the babe, see Prosp. Alpin, Rer. AEg. 1, 5, p. 24; Paulus, Samml. 3, 256 sq.; Tischendorf, Reisen, 1, 141 sq.; comp. generally Hartmann, Erdbeschr. v. Africa, 1, 878 sq.). SEE EGYPT; SEE HEROD.
But immediately after the death of this king his parents returned to their own country, and settled again (Luk_1:26) in Nazareth (q.v.), in Lower Galilee (Mat_2:23; comp. Luk_4:16; Joh_1:46, etc.), where the youthful Jesus so rapidly matured (Luk_2:40; Luk_2:52), that in his twelfth year the boy evinced at the metropolis traits of an uncommon religious intelligence, which excited astonishment in all the spectators (Luk_2:41 sq.). With this event the history of his youth concludes in the canonical gospels, and we next find him, about the thirtieth year of his age (A.D. 25), in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, at the Jordan, where he suffered himself to be consecrated for the introduction of the new divine dispensation (βασίλεια τοῦ θεοῦ) by the symbol of water baptism at the hands of John the Baptist (Mat_3:13 sq.; Mar_1:9 sq.; Luk_3:21 sq.; Joh_1:32 sq.). He now began, after a forty-days' fast (comp. 1Ki_19:8) spent in the wilderness of Judea (Mat_4:1-11; Mar_1:12 sq.; Luk_4:1-13) in quiet meditation upon his mission, to publish openly in person this “kingdom of God,” by earnestly summoning his countrymen to repentance, i.e. a fundamental reformation of their sentiments and conduct, through a new birth from the Holy Spirit (Joh_3:3 sq.).
He repeatedly announced himself as the mediator of this dispensation, and in pursuance of this character, in correction of the sensual expectations of the people with reference to the long hoped for Redeemer (comp. Luk_4:21), he chose from among his early associates and Galilaean countrymen a small number of faithful disciples (Matthew 10), and with them traveled, especially at the time of the Paschal festival and during the summer months, in various directions through Palestine, seizing every opportunity to impress pure and fruitful religious sentiments upon the populace or his immediate disciples, and to enlighten them concerning his own dignity as God's legate (υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ), who should abolish the sacrificial service, and teach a worship of God, as the. common Father of mankind, in spirit and in truth (Joh_4:24). With these expositions of doctrine, which all breathe the noblest practical spirit, and were so carefully adapted to the capacity and apprehension of the hearers that in respect to clearness, simplicity, and dignified force they are still a pattern of true instruction, he coupled, in the spirit of the Old Testament prophets, and as his age expected from the Messiah, wonderful deeds, especially charitable cures of certain diseases at that time very prevalent and regarded as incurable, but to these he himself appears to have attributed a subordinate value. By this means he gathered about him a considerable company of true adherents and thankful disciples, chiefly from the middle class of the people (Joh_7:49; and even from the despicable publicans, Mat_9:9 sq. Luk_5:27 sq.); for the eminent and learned were repelled by the severe reproofs which he uttered against their corrupt maxims (Mar_12:38 sq.), their sanctimonious (Luk_12:1; Luk_18:9 sq.) and hypocritical punctiliousness (Luk_11:39 sq.; Luk_18:9 sq.), and against their prejudices, as being subversive of all true religion (Joh_8:33; Joh_9:16), as well as by the slight regard which (in comparison with their statutes) he paid to the Sabbath (Joh_5:16); and as he in no respect corresponded to their expectations of the Messiah, full of animosity, they made repeated attempts to seize his person (Mar_11:18; Joh_7:30; Joh_7:44). At last they succeeded, by the assistance of the traitor Judas, in taking him prisoner in the very capital, where he had just partaken of a parting meal in the familiar circle of his friends (the Passover), upon which he engrafted the initiatory rite of a new covenant; and thus, without exciting any surprise on his part, in surrendering him into the hands of the Roman authorities as a popular insurrectionist. He was sentenced to death by crucifixion, as he had often declared to his disciples would be his fate, and suffered himself, with calm resignation, to be led to the place of execution between two malefactors (on their traditional names, see Thilo, Apocryph. 1, 580 sq.; comp. Evang. infant. Arab. c. 23); but he arose alive on the third day from the grave which a grateful disciple had prepared for him, and after tarrying forty days in the midst of his disciples, during which he confidently intrusted the prosecution of the great work into their hands, and promised them the divine help of a Paraclete (παράκλητος), he finally, according to one of the narrators, soared away visibly into the sky (A.D. 29). (See Volbeding, p. 6.)
2. Sources of Information. — The only trustworthy accounts respecting Jesus are to be derived from the evangelists. (See Volbeding, p. 5.) SEE GOSPELS, SPURIOUS. They exhibit, it is true, many chasms (Causse, De rationibus ob quas non plura quam quoe extant ad J.C. vitam pertinentia ab Evang. literis sint consignata, Franckf. 1766), but they wear the aspect of a true, plain, lively narrative. Only two of these derive their materials from older traditions, doubtless from the apostles and companions of Jesus; but they were all first written down a long time after the occurrences: hence it has often been asserted that the historical matter was even at that time no longer extant in an entirely pure state (since the objective and the subjective, both in views and opinions, are readily interchanged in an unscientifically formed style); but that after Jesus had been so gloriously proved to be the Messias, the incidents were improved into prodigies, especially through a consideration of the Old Testament prophecies (Kaiser, Bibl. Theol. 1, 199 sq.).
Yet in the synoptical gospels this could only be shown in the composition and connection of single transactions; the facts themselves in the respective accounts agree too well in time and circumstances, and the narrators confine themselves too evidently to the position of writers of memoirs, to allow the supposition of a (conscious) transformation of the events or any such developments from Old Testament prophecy: moreover, if truth and pious poetry had already become mingled in the verbal traditionary reports, the eyewitnesses Matthew and John would have known well, in a fresh narration, how to distinguish between each of these elements with regard to scenes which they had themselves passed through (for memory and imagination were generally more lively and vigorous among the ancients than with us) (Br. ub. Rationalismus, p. 248 sq.; compare Heydenreich, Ueb. Unzulassigkeit d. myth. Auffassung des Histor. im N.T. und im Christenth. Herborn, 1831-5; see Hase, p. 9). Sooner would we suppose that the fertile-minded John, who wrote latest, has set before us, not the pure historical Christ, but one apprehended by faith and confounded with his own spiritual conceptions (Br. über Rational. p. 352). But while it is altogether probable that even he, by reason of his individuality and spiritual sympathy with Jesus, apprehended and reflected the depth and spirituality of his Master more truly than the synoptical evangelists, who depict rather the exterior phenomena of his character, at the same time there is actually nothing contained in the doctrinal discourses of Jesus in John, either in substance or form, that is incompatible with the Christ of the first three evangelists (see Heydenreich, in his Zeitschr fur Predigermiss. 1, pt. 1 and 2); yet these latter represent Jesus as speaking comparatively seldom, and that in more general terms, of his exaltation, dignity, and relation with the Father, whereas that Christ would have explained himself much more definitely and fully upon a point that could not have remained undiscussed, is of itself probable (see Hase, p. 10). Hence also, although we cannot believe that in such representations we are to understand the identical words of Christ to be given (for while the retention of all these extended discourses in the memory is improbable, on the other hand a writing of them down is repugnant to the Jewish custom), yet the actual sentiments of Jesus are certainly thus reported. (See further, Bauer, Bibl. Theol. N.T. 2, 278 sq.; B. Crusius, Bibl. Theol. p. 81; Fleck, Otium theolog. Lips. 1831; and generally Krummacher, Ueber den Geist und die Form der evang. Gesch. Lpz. 1805; Eichhorn, Einleit. 1, 689 sq.; on the mythicism of the evangelists, see Gabler, Neuest. theol. Journ. 7, 396; Bertholdt, Theol. Journ. 5, 235 sq.)
In the Church fathers, we find very little that appears to have been derived from clearly historical tradition, but the apocryphal gospels breathe a spirit entirely foreign to historical truth, and are filled with accounts of petty miracles (Tholuck, Glaubwurdigkeit, p. 406 sq.; Ammon, Leb. Jesu, 1, 90 sq.; compare Schmidt, Einl. ins N.T. 2, 234 sq., and Biblioth. Krit. u. Exegese, 2, 481 sq.). The passage of Josephus (Ant. 18, 3, 3; see Gieseler, Eccles. Hist. § 24), which Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiastes 1, 11; Demonstr. Ev. 3, 7) was the first among Christian writers to make use of, has been shown (see Hase, p. 12), although some have ingeniously striven to defend it (see, among the latest, Bretschneider, in his Diss. capita theolog. Jud. dogmat. e Josepho collect. Lips. 1812; Bohmert, Ueber des Jos. Zeugniss von Christo, Leipz. 1823; Schodel, Fl. Joseph. de J. Chr. testatus, Lips. 1840), to be partly, but not entirely spurious (see Eichstadt, Flaviani de Jesu Christo testimonii αὐθεντία quo jure nuper rursus defensa sit, Jena, 1813; also his 6 Progr. m. einenz auctar, 1841; Paulus, in the Heidelberg Jahrb. 1813, 1, 269 sq.; Theile, in the N. kritisch. Journ. d. theolog. Lit. 2, 97 sq.; Heinichen, Exc. 1 zu Euseb. H.E. 3, 331 sq.; also Suppl. notarius ad Eusebium, p. 73 sq.; Ammon, Leben Jesu, 1, 120 sq.). SEE JOSEPHUS. (See Volbeding, p. 5.) The Koran (q.v.) contains only palpable fables concerning Jesus (Hottinger, Histor. Or. 105 sq.; Schmidt, in his Bibl. f. Krit. u. Exegese, 1, 110 sq.; D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orientale, 2, 349 sq.; compare Augusti, Christologioe Koran lineam. Jena, 1799), and the Jewish History of Jesus (תּוֹלְדוֹת יְשׁוּע, edit. Huldrici, Lugd. Bat. 1703; and in Wagenseil, Tela ign. Satan. Altdorf, 1681) betrays itself as an abortive fabrication of Jewish calumny, destitute of any historical value (see Ammon, Bibl. Theol. 2, 263), while the allusions to Jesus in the Talmud and the Rabbins have only a polemical aim (see Meelfuhrer, Jesus in Talmude, Altdorf, 1699, 2, 4; Werner, Jesus in Talmude Stadae, 1731; comp. Bynaeus, De natali J.C. 2, 4). (See Volbeding, p. 5.) The genuine Acts of Pilate (“Acta Pilati,” Eusebius, Chron. Arm. 2, 267; compare Henke, Opusc. p. 199 sq.) are no longer extant, SEE PILATE; what we now possess under this title is a later fabrication (see Ammon, 1, 102 sq.). In the Greek and Roman profane authors, Jesus is only incidentally named (Tacitus, Annal. 15, 44, 3; Pliny, Epist. 10, 97; Lamprid. Vit. Alex. Sev. c. 29, 43; Porphyry, De philosoph. ex. orac. in Euseb. Demonstr. Evang. 3, 7; Liban. in Socr. Hist. Ev. 3, 23; Lucian, Mors peregr. c. 11, 13). On Suidas, s.v. Ιησοῦς see Walter, Codex in Suida mendax de Jesu (Lips. 1724). Whether by Chrestus in Suetonius (Claud. p. 25) is to be understood Christ, is doubted by some (comp. Ernesti and Wolf, ad loc.; SEE CLAUDIUS ), but the unusual name Christus might easily undergo this change (see also Philostr. Soph. 2, 11) in popular reference (see generally Eckhard, Non-Christianor. de Christo testimonia, Quedlinb. 1737; Koecher, Hist. Jesu Christo ex scriptorib. profan. eruta, Jena, 1726; Meyer, Versuche Vertheid. u. Erlaut. der Geschichte Jesu u. d. Apostol. a. griech. u. rom. Profanscrib. Hannov. 1805; Fronmüller, in the Studien der wurtemb. Geistl. 10, 1. On the Jesus of the book of Sirach , 43, 25, see Seelen, De Jesu in Jesu Sirac. frustra quoesito, Lubec. 1724; also in his Medit. exeg. 1, 207 sq.).
3. The scientific treatment of the life of Jesus belongs to the modern period of theological criticism. Among earlier contributions of a critico- chronological character is that of Offerhaus (De vita J. C. privata et publica, in his Spicil. histor. chronol. Groningen, 1739). Greiling (Halle, 1813) first undertook the adjustment in a lively narrative, of the recent (rationalistic) exposition that has resulted, to the actual career of Christ. An independent but, on the whole, unsatisfactory treatise is that of Planck (Gesch. d. Christenth. in der Periode seiner ersten Einfuhr. in die Welt durch Jesum u. die Apostel, Göttingen, 1818). Kaiser has attempted an analysis (Bibl. Theol. 1, 230 sq.). Still more severe in his method of criticism is Paulus (Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage einer reinen Gesch. d. Urchristenth. Heidelb. 1828), and bold to a degree that has alarmed the theological world is D.F. Strauss (Leben J. krit. bearbeit. Tubing. 1835, and since). The latter anew reduced the evangelical histories (with the exception of a few plain transactions) to a mythical composition springing out of the Old Test. prophecies and the expectations of the Messiah in the community, and, in his criticism upon single points, generally stands upon the shoulders of the preceding writers. In opposition to him, numerous men of learning and courage rose up to defend the “historical Christ,” some of them insisting upon the strictly supernatural interpretation (Lange; Harless; Tholuck, Glaubwurdigkeit der evangel. Gesch. Hamb. 1838; Krabbe, Vorles. über das Leben Jesu, Hamb. 1839), while others concede or pass over single points in the history (Neander, Leben J. Chr. Hamburg, 1837). Into this controversy, which grew highly personal, a philosophical writer (Weisse, Evang. Geschichte Krit. u. philosoph. Bearbeitung, Leipz. 1840) became involved, and attempted, by an ingenious but decidedly presumptuous criticism, to distinguish the historical and the unhistorical element in the evangelical account. At the same time, Theile (Zur Biographie Jesu, Leipzig, 1837) gave a careful and conciliatory summary of the materials of the discussion, but Hase has published (in the 4th ed. of his Leben Jesu, Leipz. 1840) a masterly review, showing the gradual rejection of the extravagances of criticism since 1829. The substance of the life of Jesus has thus now become established in general belief as historical truth; yet Bauer (Krit. der evangel. Gesch. d. Synoptiker, Leipz. 1841), after an analysis of the gospels as literary productions, calls the original narrative concerning Jesus “a pure creation of the Christian consciousness,” and he pronounces the evangelical history generally to be “solved.” Thenius has met him with a proof of the evangelical history, drawn from the N. Test. epistles, in a few but striking remarks (Das Evang. ohne die Evangelien, Leipz. 1843), but A. Ebrard (Viss. Krit. d. evang. Gesch. Frankf. 1842) has fully refuted him in a learned but not unprejudiced work (see also Weisse, in the Jen. Lit.-Zeit. 1843, No. 7-9, 13-15). But this heartless and also peculiarly insipid criticism of Bauer which, indeed, often degenerates into the ridiculous appears to have left no impression upon the literary world, and may therefore be dismissed without further consideration (comp. generally Grimm, Glaubwurdigkeit d. evangel. Gesch. in Bezug auf Strauss und Bauer, Jena, 1845). Lately, Von Ammon (Gesch. d. Leb. Jesu; Leipz. 1842) undertook, in his style of combination, carefully steering between the extremes, a narrative of the life of Jesus full of striking observations. Whatever else has been done in this department (Gfrorer, Geschichte des Urchristenth. Stuttg. 1838; Salvador, Jesus Christ et sa doctrine, Par. 1838) belongs rather to the origin of Christianity than to the data of the life of Jesus. In Catholic literature little has appeared on this subject (Kuhn, Leben Jesus wissensch. bearbeitet, Mainz, 1838; of a more general character are the works of Francke, Leipz. 1838, and Storch, Leipz. 1841). (On the bearing of subjective views upon the treatment of the gospel history, there are the monographs cited in Volbeding, p. 6.) See literature below, and compare the art. SEE CHRISTOLOGY.
4. Chronological Data. —
a. The year of Christ's birth (for the general condition of the age, see Knapp, De statu temp. nato Christo, Hal. 1757; and the Church histories of Gieseler, Neander, etc.; on a special point, see Masson, Jani templ. Christo nascente reseratum, Rotterdam, 1700) cannot, as all investigations on this point have proved (Fabricii Bibl. antiquar. p. 187 sq., 342 sq.; Thiess, Krit. Comment. 2, 339 sq.; comp. especially S. van Tilde, de anno, mense et die nati Chr. Lugd. Bat. 1700, praef. J.G. Walch, Jena, 1740; K. Michaeles, Ueber das Geburts- u. Sterbejahr J.C. Wien, 1796, 2, 8), be determined with full certainty (Reccard, Pr. in rationes et limites incertitudinis circa temp. nat. Christi, Reg. 1768); yet it is now pretty generally agreed that the vulgar era (Hamberger, De epochoe Dionys. ortu et auctore, Jen. 1704; also in Martini Thes. Diss. 3, 1, 341 sq.), of which the first year corresponds to 4714 of the Julian Period, or 754 (and latter part of 753; see Jarvis, Introd. to Hist of the Church, p. 54, 610) of Rome (Sanclemente, De vulg. oeroe emendat. Rom. 1793; Ideler, Chronol. 2, 383 sq.), has assigned it a date too late by a few years (see Strong's Harm. and Expos. Append. 1), since the death of Herod the Great (Mat_2:1 sq.), according to Josephus (Ant. 17, 8, 1; comp. 14, 14, 5; 17, 9, 3), must have occurred before Easter in B.C. 4 (see Browne's Ordo Soeclorum, p. 27 sq.). Hence Jesus may have been born in the beginning of the year of Rome 750, four years before the epoch of our era, or even earlier (Uhland, Christum anno ante oer. Vulg. 4 exeunte nature esse, Tubing. 1775; so Bengel, Anger, Wieseler, Jarvis), but in no case later (comp. also Offerhaus, Spicileg. p. 422 sq.; Paulus, Comment. 1, 206 sq.; Vogel, in Gabler's Journ. f. auserl. theolog. Lit. 1, 244 sq.; and in the Studien der wurtemberg. Geistlichk. 1, 1, 50 sq.). A few passages (as Luk_3:1; Luk_3:23; Mat_2:2 sq.) afford a closer determination, SEE CYRENIUS; the latter gave occasion to the celebrated Kepler to connect the star of the Magi with a planetary conjunction (of Jupiter and Saturn), and more recent writers have followed this suggestion (Wurm, in Bengel's Archiv. 2, 1, 261 sq.; Ideler, Handb. d. Chronol. 2, 399 sq., and Lehrb. d. Chronol. p. 428 sq.; compare also Munter, Stern der Weisen, Copenh. 1827; Klein's Oppositionsschr. 5, 1, 90 sq.; Schubert, Lehrb. d. Sternkunde, p. 226 sq.), fixing upon B.C. 6 as the true year of the nativity. SEE NATIVITY.
But Mat_2:16 seems to state that the Magi, who must have arrived at Jerusalem soon after the birth of Jesus, had indicated the first appearance of the phenomenon as having occurred a long time previously (probably not exactly two years before), and on that view Jesus might have been born earlier than B.C. 6, the more so inasmuch as the accession of Mars to the same conjunction, occurring in the spring of B.C. 6, according to Kepler, may have first excited the full attention of the Magi. Lately Wieseler (Chronolog. Synopse, p. 67 sq.) has brought down the nativity to the year B.C. 4, and in additional confirmation of this date holds that a comet, which, according to Chinese astronomical tables, was visible for more than two months in this year, was identical with the star of the wise men, at the same time adducing Luk_2:1 sq.; Luk_3:23, as pointing to the same year. But if the Magi had first been incited to their journey by the appearance of that comet, they could not well have designated to Herod as the Messianic star the planetary conjunction of A.U.C. 747 or 748, then almost two years ago, seeing this was an entirely distinct phenomenon. Under this supposition, too, Herod would have made more sure of his purpose if he had put to death children three years old. According to this view, then, we should place Christ's birth rather in B.C. 7 than B.C. 4. Some uncertainty, however, must always attend the use of these astronomical data. SEE STAR IN THE EAST.
As an element in determining the year of the nativity, Luk_3:1, comp. 23, must also be taken into the account. Jesus is there positively stated to have entered upon his public ministry at thirty years of age, and indeed soon after John the Baptist, whose mission began in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, so that by reckoning back about thirty years from this latter date (August, 781, to August, 782, of Rome, A.D. 28-29), we arrive at about B.C. 3 as the year of Christ's birth, which corresponds to the statements of Irenaeus (Hoeret. 3, 25), Tertullian (Adv. Jud_1:8), and Eusebius (Hist. Ev. 1, 5), that Jesus was born in the year 41 (42) of the reign of Augustus, i.e. 751 of Rome, or B.C. 3 (Ideler, Chronolog. 2, 385). As Luke's language in that passage is somewhat indefinite (“about,” ώαεί), we may presume that Christ was rather over than under thirty years of age; and this will agree with the computation of the fourth year before the Dionysian era, i.e. 750 of Rome. If, however, we suppose (but see Browne, Ordo Soeclorum, p. 67) the joint reign of Tiberius with Augustus, i.e. his association with him in the government especially of the provinces (Vell. Paterc. Hist. Rom. 2, 121; Sueton. 3, 20, 21; Tacitus, Annal. 1, 3; Dio Cass. Hist. Rom. 2, 103), three and a half years before his full reign (Janris, Introd. p. 228-239), to be meant, we shall again be brought to about B.C. 6, or possibly 7, as the year of the nativity. The latest conclusion of Block (Das wahre Geburtsjahr Christi, Berl. 1843), that Jesus was born in the year 735 of Rome, or nineteen years before the beginning of the vulgar era, based upon the authority of the later Rabbins, does not call for special examination (yet see Wieseler, Chronol. Synopse, p. 132). SEE ADVENT.
The month and day of the birth of Christ cannot be determined with a like degree of approximation, but it could not, at all events, have fallen in December or January, since at this time of the year the flocks are not found in the open fields during the night (Luk_2:8), but in pens (“ the first rain descends the 17th of the month Marchesvan [November], and then the cattle returned home; nor did the shepherds any longer lodge in huts in the fields,” Gemara, Nedar. 63); moreover, a census (ἀπογραφή), which made traveling necessary (Luk_2:2 sq.), would not have been ordered at this season. We may naturally suppose that the month of March is the time for driving out cattle to pasture, at least in Southern Palestine (Suskind, in Bengel's Archiv. 1, 215; comp. A.J. u. d. Hardt, De momenteis quibusd. hist. et chron. ad determin. Chr. diem natal. Helmst. 1754; Korner, De die natali Servatoris, Lips. 1778; Funck, De die Servat. natali, Rint. 1735; also in his Dissert. Acad. p. 149 sq.; Minter, Stern der Weisen, Copenh. 1827, p. 110 sq.). If we can rely upon a statement of the Jewish Rabbins, that the first of the twenty-four courses of priests entered upon their duties in the regular cycle the very week in which the Temple was destroyed by the Romans (Mishna, 3, 298, 3), we are furnished with the means, by comparison with the time of the service of Zachariah (Luk_1:5; Luk_1:8), who belonged to the eighth division (1Ch_24:10), of determining with considerable certainty (Browne's Ordo Soeclorum, p. 33 sq.) the date of the nativity as occurring, if in B.C. 6, about the month of August (Strong's Harm. and Expos. Append. 1, p. 23). The attempts of Scaliger and Bengel to determine the month of the nativity from this element (compare Maurit. De sortit. p. 334 sq.) are unsatisfactory (see Van Til, ut sup. p. 75 sq.; Allix, Diatr. de anno et mense J.C. nat. p. 44 sq.; Paulus, Comment. 1, 36 sq.). Lately Jarvis (Introd. p. 535 sq.) has endeavored to maintain the traditionary date of Christmas of the Latin Church; and Seyffarth has anew adopted the conclusion (Chronoloq. Sacra, p. 97 sq.) that John the Baptist was born on the 24th of June, and consequently Jesus on the 25th (22d in his Summary of recent Discoveries in Chronology, N. York, 1857, p. 236) of December, based on the supposition that the Israelites reckoned by solar months: this pays no regard to Luk_2:8 (see Hase, p. 67). SEE CHRISTMAS.
b. The year of Christ's crucifixion is no less disputed (comp. Paulus, Comment. 3, 784 sq.). The two extreme limits of the date are the above- mentioned 15th year of Tiberius, in which John the Baptist began his career (Luk_3:1), i.e. Aug. 781 to Aug. 782 of Rome (A.D. 28-29), and the year of the death of that emperor, 790 of Rome (A.D. 37), in which Pilate had already left the province of Judaea. Jesus appears to have begun his public teaching soon after John's entrance upon his mission; for the message of the Sanhedrim to John, which is placed in immediate connection with the beginning of Christ's public ministry (Joh_1:19; comp. Joh_2:1), and comes in just before the Passover (Joh_2:12 sq.), must have been within a year after John's public appearance. This being assumed, a further approximation would depend upon the determination of the number of Passovers which Jesus celebrated during his ministry; but this itself is quite a difficult question (see under No. 5, below). It is now generally conceded that he could not well have passed less than three Paschal festivals, and probably not more than four (i.e. one at the beginning of each of Christ's three years, and a fourth at the close of the last); thus we ascertain as the terminus a quo of these festivals the year A.D. 28, and as the probable terminus ad quem the year A.D. 32; or, on the supposition (as above) that the joint reign of Tiberius is meant, we have as the limits of the Passovers of Jesus A.D. 25-29. This result would be rendered more definite and certain if we could ascertain whether in the last of these series of years (A.D. 29 or 32) the Jewish Passover fell on a Friday (Thursday evening and the ensuing day), as this was the week day on which the death of Christ is generally held to have taken place. There have been various calculations by means of lunar tables (Linbrunn, in the Abhandlung der bayerschen Akademie der Wiss. vol. 6; Wurm, in Bengel's Archiv. 2, 1, 292 sq.; Anger, De temporumn in Act. Apost. ratione ciss. 1, Lips. 1830, p. 30 sq.; Browne, Ordo Soeclorum. Lond. 1844, p. 504), to determine during which of the years of this period the Paschal day must have occurred on Friday (see Strong's Harm. and Exposit. Append. 1, p. 8 sq.); but the inexactness of the Jewish calendar makes every such computation uncertain (Wurm, ut sup. p. 294 sq.). Yet it is worthy of notice that the two most recent investigations of Wurm and Anger both make the year A.D. 31, or 784 of Rome, to be such a calendar year as we require. Wieseler, Chronol. Synops. p. 479), on the other hand, protests against the foregoing computations, and insists that in A.D. 30 alone the Paschal day fell on Friday. According to other calculations, A.D. 29 and 33 are the only years of this period in which the Paschal eve fell on Thursday (see Browne, Ordo Soeclorum, p. 55), while so great discrepancy prevails between other computations (see Townsend's Chronological N.T. p. *159) that little or no reliance can be placed upon this argument (see Strong's Harm. and Exposit. Append. 1, p. 8 sq.). SEE PASSOVER.
The opinion of some of the ancient writers (Irelenus, 2, 22, 5), that Jesus died at 40 or 50 years of age (compare Joh_8:57), is altogether improbable (see Pisanski, De errore Irenoei in determinanda oetate Christi, Regiom. 1777). The most of the Church fathers (Tertull. Adv. Jud_1:8; Lactantius, Institut. 4, 10; Augustine, Civ. dei, 18, 54; Clem. Alex. Stromn. 1, p. 147, etc.) assign but a single year as the duration of Christ's ministry, and place his death in the consulship of the two Gemini (VIII Cal. April. Coss. C. Rubellio Gemino et C. Rufio Gemino), i.e. 782 of Rome, A.D. 29, the 15th year of Tiberius's reign, which Ideler (Chronology, 2, 418 sq.) has lately (so also Browne, Ordo Soeclorum, p. 80 sq.) attempted to reconcile with Luk_3:1 (but see Seyffarth, Chronol. Sacra, p. 115 sq.; Eusebius, in his Chronicles Armen. 2, p. 264, places the death of Jesus in the 19th year of Tiberius, which Jerome, in his Latin translation, calls the 18th; on the above reckoning of the fathers, see Petavius, Animadvers. p. 146 sq.; Thilo, Cod. Apocr. 1, 497 sq.). On the observation of the sun at the crucifixion (Mat_27:45; Mar_15:33; Luk_23:44), SEE ECLIPSE, (On the chronological elements of the life of Jesus, see generally Hottinger, Pentas dissertat. bibl.-chronol. p. 218 sq.; Voss, De annis Christi dissertat. Amst. 1643; Lupi, De notis chronolog. anni mortis et nativ. J.C. dissertat. Rom. 1744; Horix, Observat. hist. chronol. de annis Chr. Mogunt. 1789; compare Volbeding, p. 20; Hase, p. 52.) SEE CHRONOLOGY.
5. The two family registers of Jesus (Matthew 1 and Luke 3), of which the first, is descending and the latter ascending, vary considerably from each other; inasmuch as not only entirely different names of ancestors are given from Joseph upwards to Zerubbabel and Salathiel (Mat_1:12 sq.; Luk_3:27), but also Matthew carries back Joseph's lineage to David's son Solomon (Luk_3:6 sq.), while Luke refers it to another son Nathan (Luk_3:31). Moreover, Matthew only goes back as far as Abraham (as he wrote for Jewish readers), but Luke (in agreement with the general scope of his gospel) as far as Adam (God). This disagreement early engaged the attention of the Church fathers (see Eusebius, Hist. Ev. 1, 7), and later interpreters have adopted various hypotheses for the reconcilement of the two evangelists (see especially Surenhus. Βίβλος καταλλαγῆς, p. 320 sq.: Rus, Harmon. evang. 1, 65 sq.; Thiess, Krit. Commentar, 2, 271 sq.; Kuinol, Proleg. in Matt. § 4). There are properly only two general representations possible. For the history of Christ's parents, SEE JOSEPH; SEE MARY.
(a) Matthew traces the lineage through Joseph, Luke gives the maternal descent (comp. also Neander, p. 21); so that the person called Eli in Luk_3:23, appears to have been the father of Mary (see especially Helvicus, in Crenii Exercitat. philol. hist. 3, p. 332 sq.; Spanheim, Dubia evang. 1, 13 sq.; Bengel, Heumann, Paulus, Kuinol, in their Commentaries; Wieseler, in the Studien u. Krit. 1845, p. 361 sq.; on the contrary, Bleek, Beitrage z. Evangelienkrit. p. 101 sq.). But, in the first place, in that case Luke would hardly have written so expressly “the son of Eli” (τοῦ ᾿Ηλί), since we must understand all the following genitives to refer to the actual fathers and not to the fathers-in-law (the appeal to Rth_1:11 sq., for the purpose of showing that a daughter-in-law could be called daughter among the Hebrews, is unavailing for the distinction in question); although, in the second place, we need not understand the Salathiel and Zerubbabel named in one genealogy to have been both different persons from those mentioned in the other (Paulus, Comment. 1, 243 sq.; Robinson, Gr. Harmony, p. 186), which is a very questionable expedient (see especially Hug, Einleitung, 2:266; Methodist Quarterly Review, Oct. 1852, p. 602 sq.). Aside from the fact that Luke does not even mention the mother of Jesus (but only Mat_1:16), and from the further fact that the Jews were not at all accustomed to record the genealogies of women (Baba Bathra, f. 110, “The father's family, not the mother's, is accounted the true lineage;” compare Wetstein, 1, 231), we might make an exception in the case of the Messiah, who was to be descended from a virgin (compare also Paulus, Leben J. 1, 90). A still different explanation (Voss, ut sup.; comp. also Schleyer, in the Theol. Quartalschr. 1836, p. 403 sq., 539 sq.), namely, that Eli; although the father of Mary, is here introduced as being the grandfather of Joseph (according to the supposition that Mary was an heiress, Num_27:8), proceeds upon an entirely untenable interpretation (see Paulus, Comment. 1, 243, 261). Notwithstanding the foregoing objection to the view under consideration, it meets, perhaps better than any other, the difficulties of the subject. SEE GENEALOGY.
(b) Some assume that the proper father of Joseph was Eli: he, as a brother, or (as the difference of the names up to Salathiel necessitates) as the nearest relative (half-brother?), had married Mary, the wife of the deceased childless Jacob, and according to the Levirate law (q.v.) Joseph would appear as the son of Jacob, and would, in fact, have two fathers (so Ambrosius); or conversely, we may suppose that Jacob was the proper father of Joseph, and Eli his childless deceased uncle (comp. Julius Afric. in Eusebius, Hist. Ev. 1, 7; Calixtus, Clericus). This hypothesis, which still conflicts with the Levirate rule that only the deceased is called father of the posthumous son (Deu_25:6), Hug (Einl. 2, 268 sq.), has been so modified as to presume a Levirate marriage as far back as Salathiel, by which the mention of Salathiel and Zerubbabel in both lists would be explained; and Hug also introduces such a marriage between the parents of Joseph, and still another among more distant relatives. This is ingenious, but too complicated (see generally Paulus, ut sup. p. 260). If a direct descent of Jesus could have been laid down from David, there remains no reason why, when the natural extraction of the Messiah straight from David was so important, the very evangelist who wrote immediately for Jewish readers should have traced the indirect lineage. But if so many as three Levirate marriages had occurred together (as Hug thinks), we should suppose that Matthew, on account of the infrequency of such a case, would have given his readers some hint, or at least not have written (Deu_25:16) “begat” (ἐγέννησε) in a manner quite calculated to mislead. Moreover, this hypothesis of Hug rests upon an interpretation of 1Ch_3:18 sq., which that scholar himself could only have chosen in a genealogical difficulty. SEE LEVIRATE LAW
(c) If both the foregoing explanations be rejected, there remains no other course than to renounce the attempt to reconcile the two family lines of Jesus, and frankly acknowledge a discrepancy between the evangelists, as some have done (Stroth, in Eichhorn's Repert. 9, 131 sq.; Ammon, Bibl. Theol. 2, 266; Thiess, Krit. Comment. 2, 271 sq.; Fritzsche, ad Matthew p. 35; Strauss, 1, 105 sq.; De Wette, B. Crusius, Alford, on Luke 3). In the decayed family of Joseph it might not have been possible, especially after so much misfortune as befell the country and people, to recover any written elements for the construction of a family register back to David. Were the account of Julius Africanus (in Eusebius, 1, 7; compare Schottgen, Hor. Hebr. p. 885), that king Herod had caused the family records of the Jews to be burned, correct, the want of such information would be still more evident (but see Wetstein, 1, p. 232; Wieseler, in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1845, p. 369). In that case, after the need of such registers had arisen, persons would naturally have set themselves to compiling them from traditional recollections, and the variations of these may readily have resulted in a double lineage. But even on this view it has been insisted that both lines present the descent of Joseph and not of Mary, since it was unusual to exhibit the maternal lineage, and the Jews would not have regarded such an extraction from David as the genuine one. There are, at all events, but two positions possible: either the supernatural generation of Jesus by the Holy Spirit was admitted, or Jesus was considered a son of Joseph (Luk_3:33). In the latter case a family record of Joseph entirely sufficed for the application of the O.T. oracles to Jesus; in the former case it has been conceived that such a register would have been deemed superfluous, and every natural lineage of Jesus from David (Rom_1:3) would have thrown his divine origin into the background. This has been alleged as the reason why John gives no genealogy at all, and generally says nothing of the extraction of Jesus from the family of David (see Von Ammon, Leb. Jes. 1, 179 sq.). The force of these arguments, however, is greatly lessened by the consideration that the early Christians, in meeting the Jews, would be very anxious, if possible, to prove Christ's positive descent from David through both his reputed and his real parent; the more so, as the former was avowed to be only nominally such, leaving the whole actual lineage to be made out on the mother's side. (See generally Baumgarten, De genealogia Chr. Hal. 1749; Durr, Genealogia Jesu, Gott. 1778; Busching's Harmon. d. Evang. p. 187 sq., 264 sq.) SEE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST.
6. The wonderful birth of Jesus through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, which only the synoptical gospels relate (Luk_1:26 sq.; Mat_1:18 sq.; the apocryphal gospels, in order to remove all idea of the conception of Mary by Joseph, make him to have been absent a long time from home at work, Histor. Josephi, c. 5; Hist. de Nativ. Marics, c. 10), has been imagined by many recent interpreters (Ammon, Biblic. Theol. 2, 251 sq., and Comm. in narrationum de primordus J.C. fontes, incrementa et nexum c. rel. Chr. Gott. 1798; also in his Nov. Opusc. p. 25 sq.; Bauer, Theol. N.T. 1, 310 sq.; Briefe über Rationalismus, p. 229 sq.; Kaiser, Bibl. Theolog. 1, 231 sq.; Greiling, p. 24 sq.) to have been a myth suggested by the O. Test. prophecies (Isa_7:14), and they have held Joseph to be the proper father of Jesus (as it is well known that many in the earliest Church, and individuals later, from time to time, have done, Unschuld. Nachr. 1711, p. 622 sq.; Walther, Vers. eines schriftmass. Beweisse dass Joseph der wahre Vater Christi sei, Berl. 1791; on the contrary, Oertel, Antijosephismus oder Kritik des Schriftm. Bew., etc., Germ. 1793; Hasse, Josephum verum patrem e Scriptura non fuisse, Reg. 1792; Ludewig, Histor. Untersuch. über die versch. Meinungen v. d. Abkunft Jes. Wolfenbuttel, 1831 ; comp. also Korb, Anticarus oder histor.-krit. Beleuchtung der Schrift; “Die naturl. Geburt Jesu u. s. w.” Leipzig, 1831) on the following noways decisive grounds:
(a) “John, who stands in so near a relation to Jesus, and must have known the family affairs, relates nothing at all of this wonderful birth, although it was very apposite to his design.” But this evangelist shows the high dignity of Jesus only from his discourses, the others from public evidences and a few astonishing miracles; moreover, his prologue (1, 1-18) declares dogmatically pretty much the same thing as the synoptical gospels do historically in this respect. (Compare also the deportment of Mary, Joh_2:3 sq.; see Neander, p. 16. sq.) (b) “Neither Jesus nor an apostle ever appeals in any discourse to this circumstance. Paul always says simply that Jesus was born ‘of the seed of David' (Rom_1:3; 2Ti_2:8); once (Gal_4:4), more definitely, ‘of a woman' (ἐκ γυναικός, not παρθένου).” It must be admitted, however, that an appeal to a fact which only one individual could positively know by experience would be very ineffectual; and an apostle would be very likely to subject himself to the charge of irrelevancy if he resorted to such an appeal (comp. Niemeyer, Pr. ad illustrand. plurimor. N.T. scriptorum silentium de primordiis vitoe J.C. Halle, 1790). But this would be laying as improper an emphasis upon the word γυνή (Gal_4:4) as that of the older theologians upon עִלְמָה(Isa_7:14).
(c) “Mary calls Joseph, without qualification, the father of Jesus (Luk_2:48), and also among the Jews Jesus was generally called Joseph's son (Mat_13:55; Mar_6:3; Luk_3:23; Luk_4:22; Joh_1:46; Joh_6:42).” This last argument is wholly destitute of force; but Mary might naturally, in common parlance, call Joseph Jesus' father, just as, in modem phrase, a foster-father is generally styled father when definiteness of expression is not requisite.
(d) “The brothers of Jesus did not believe in him as the Messiah (Joh_7:5), which would be inexplicable if the Deity had already indicated him as the Messiah from his very birth.” Yet these brothers had not themselves personally known the fact; and it is, moreover, not uncommon that one son in a family who is a general favorite excites the ill will of the others to such a degree that they even deny his evident superiority, or that brothers fail to appreciate and esteem a mentally distinguished brother.
(e) “History shows in a multitude of examples that the birth of illustrious men has been embellished with fables (Wetstein, N.T. 1, p. 236); especially is the notion of a birth without connection with a man (παρθενογενής) wide spread in the ancient world (Georgi, Alphabet. Tibet. Rom. 1762, p. 55 sq., 369 sq.), and among the Indians and Chinese it is even applied to the founders of religion (Paul. a Bartholom. System. Brahman. p. 158; Du Halde, Beschr. d. Chines. Reichs, 3, 26).” In case it is meant by this that a wonderful generation of a holy man, effected immediately by the Spirit of God, was embraced in the circle of Oriental belief (Rosenmüller, in Gabler's Journ. ausserl. theol. Liter. 2, 253 sq.), this argument might make the purely historical character of the doctrine in question dubious, were it capable of proof that such an idea also harmonizes with the principles of the Israelitish monotheism, or could it be made probable (Weisse, Leben Jesu, 1, 176 sq.) that this account of the birth of Jesus is a heathen production (see, on the contrary, Neander, p. 12 sq.). On the other hand, however, this statement stands so isolated in the Christian tradition, and so surpasses the range of the profane conceptions, that we can hardly reject the idea that it must have operated to enhance the estimate of Christ's dignity. It has been suggested as possible (Paulus, Leben Jesu, 1, 97 sq.) that the hope had already formed itself in the soul of Mary that she would become the mother of the Messiah (which, however, is contradicted by her evident surprise and difficulty at the announcement, Luk_1:29; Luk_1:34), and that this had drawn nourishment from a vision in a dream, as the angelic annunciation (Luk_1:26 sq.) has been (but with the greatest violence) interpreted (see, however, Van Oosterzee, De Jesu e Virgine nato, Utr. 1840). SEE CONCEPTION.
Bethlehem, too (Wagner, De loco nat. J. Chr. Colon. Brandenb. 1673), as the place of Christ's birth, has been deemed to belong to the mythical dress of the narrative (comp. Mic_5:1; see Thess, Krit. Comment. 2, 414), and it has therefore been inferred that Jesus was not only begotten in Nazareth, but also born there (Kaiser, Bibl. Theol. 1, 230) — which, nevertheless, does not follow from Joh_1:46. That Jesus was born in Bethlehem is stated in two of the evangelical accounts (Mat_2:1; Luk_2:4), as may also be elsewhere gathered from the events which follow his birth. But a more direct discrepancy between Matthew and Luke (Hase, p. 44), respecting Joseph's belonging to Bethlehem (Mat_2:22-23; Luk_1:26; Luk_2:4), cannot be substantiated (compare generally Gelpe, Jugendgesch. d. Herrn, Berne, 1841.) SEE BETHLEHEM.
7. Among the relatives of Jesus, the following are named in the N. Test.:
(a) Mary, Jesus' mother's sister (Joh_19:25). According to the usual apprehension of this passage, SEE SALOME, she was married to one Clopas or Alphaeus (q.v.), and had as sons James (q.v.) the younger (Act_1:13) and Joses (Mat_27:56; Mar_15:40). SEE MARY.
(b) Elizabeth, who is called the relative (συγγενής, “cousin”) of Mary (Luk_1:36). Respecting the degree of relationship, nothing can be determined: it has been questioned (Paulus, Comment. 1, 78) whether she was of the tribe of Levi, but this appears certain from Luk_1:5. In a fragment of Hippolytus of Thebes (in Fabricii Pseudepimr. 2, 290) she is called Sube, the daughter of Mary's mother's sister. She was married to the priest Zacharias, and bore to him John the Baptist (Luk_1:57 sq.). SEE ELIZABETH.
(c) Brethren of Jesus (ἀδελφοί, Mat_12:46, and parallel passages; Joh_2:12; Joh_7:3; Joh_7:5; Joh_7:10; Act_1:14; ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ Κυρίου, 1Co_9:5), by the name of James, Joses (q.v.), Simon, and Judas (Mat_13:55, and the parallel passage, Mar_6:3). (On these see Clemen. in the Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 3; 329 sq.; A. H. Bloom, De τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς et , ταῖς ἀδελφ. τοῦ κυρίου, Lugd. Bat. 1839; Wieseler, in the Studien u. Kritik. 1842, 1, 71 sq.; Schaff, Das Verhaltn. des Jacob. Brud. d. Herrn zu Jacob. Alphai, Berl. 1842, p. 11 sq., 34 sq.; Grimm, in the Hall. Encycl. 2, sect. 23, p. 80 sq.; Method. Quar. Rev. Oct. 1851, p. 670-672; on their descendants, Euseb. Hist. Ev. 3, 20, 33; see Korner, De propinquor. Servatoris persecutione, Lips. 1782.) In the passages Mat_12:46; Mat_13:55; Joh_2:12; Act_1:14, are unquestionably to be understood proper brothers, as they are all together named conjointly with the mother of Jesus (and with Joseph, Mat_13:55); the same is the natural inference from the statement (Joh_7:5) that the brethren (ἀδελφοί) of Jesus had not believed in him as the Messiah. On “James, the brother of the Lord” (Ι᾿άκωβος ὁ αδελφὸς Κυρίου, Gal_1:19), SEE JAMES.
These brethren were regarded as mere relatives, or, more exactly, cousins (namely, sons of Mary, Jesus' mother's sister), by the Church fathers (especially Jerome, ad Matt. 12, 46); also lately by Jessieu (Authentic. epist. Jud. p. 36 sq.), Schneckenburger (Ep. Jac. p. 144 sq.), Olshausen (Comment. 1, 465 sq.), Glockler (Evang. 1, 407), Kuhn (Jahrb. f. Theol. und christl. Philos. 1834, 3, pt. 1), and others, partly on the ground that the names James and Joses appear among the sons of the other Mary (Mat_27:56), partly that it is not certain that Mary, after her first conception by the Holy Spirit, ever became the mother of other children by her husband (see Origen, in Matt. 3, 463. ed. de la Rue; comp. Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiastes 2, 1). The latter argument is of no force (see Schaff, p. 29); on the former, see below. But the term “brethren” (ἀδελφοί), since it does of itself indicate blood relatives, cannot without utter confusion be used of mere cousins in immediate connection with the mother. And if it denotes proper brothers, as also Bloom and Wieseler suppose, the question still remains whether these had both parents the same with Jesus (i.e. were his full brothers), or were the sons of Joseph by a former marriage (halfbrothers; compare Theophyl. ad 1 Corinthians 9). The latter opinion, SEE JOSEPH, which is based upon an old (Ebionitic) tradition (see Fabricius, Pseudepigr. 1, 291; Thilo, Cod. Apocr. 1, 109, 208, 362 sq.), is held as probable by Grotius (ad Jac. 1, 1), Vorstius (De Hebr. Nov. Test. ed. Fischer, p. 71 sq.), Paulus (Comment. 1, 6113), Bertholdt (Einleit. 5, 656 sq.), and others; the former by Herder (Briefe zweener Bruder J. p. 7 sq.), Pott (Proleg. in Ep. Jac. p. 90), Ammon (Bibl. Theol. 2, 259), Eichhorn (Einl. ins N.T. 3, 570 sq.), Kuinol (ad Mat_12:46), Clement (ut sup.), Bengel (in his N. Archiv, 2, 9 sq.), Stier (Andeut. 1, 404 sq.), Fritzsche (ad Matt. 481), Neander (Leb. Jesu, p. 39 sq.), Wieseler and Schaff (ut sup.), and others. An intimation that favors this last view is contained in the expression “first-born” (Mat_1:25; Luk_2:7), which is further corroborated by the statement of abstinence from matrimonial intercourse until the birth of Jesus (Mat_1:25; but see Olshausen, ad loc.), which seems to imply that the brothers in question were later sons of Joseph and Mary. The circumstance that the sister of Jesus' mother had two sons similarly named James and Joses (or three, if we understand Ιούδας Ιακώβον [Luk_6:16] to mean “brother of James”, SEE JUDAS ) — is not conclusive against this view, since in two nearly-related families it is not even now unusual to find children of the same name, especially if, as in the present case, these names were in common use. Eichhorn's explanation (ut sup. p. 571) is based upon a long since exploded hypothesis, and requires no refutation. Joh_19:26, contains no valid counter argument: the brothers of Jesus may have become convinced by his resurrection (Mat_28:10), and, even had they been so at his death, yet perhaps the older and more spiritually- kindred John may have seemed to Jesus more suitable to carry out his last wishes than even his natural brothers (see Pott, ut sup. p. 76 sq.; Clement, ut sup. p. 360 sq.). At all events, the brothers of Jesus are not only expressed as having become at length believers in him, but they even appear somewhat later among the publishers of the Gospel (Act_1:14; 1Co_9:5). SEE BROTHERS.
(d) Sisters of Jesus are mentioned in Mat_13:56; Mar_6:3 (in Mar_3:32, the words καὶ αἱ ἀδελφαί are of very doubtful authenticity). Their names are not given. That we are to understand own sisters is plain from the foregoing remarks respecting his brothers.
(e) Finally, an ecclesiastical tradition makes Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and mother of the apostles James and John (Mar_15:40; Mar_16:1, etc.), to have been a relative of Jesus. (See Hase, p. 55.) SEE SALOME.
8. Jesus was educated at Nazareth (Hase, p. 57; Weisse, De J.C. educatione, Helmst. 1698; Lange, De profectib. Christi adolesc. Altdorf, 1699), but attended no (Rabbinical) schools (Joh_7:15). He appears, according to the custom of the times, to have learned the trade of his adopted father (Justin Mart. c. Tryph. 88, p. 316, ed. Col.; comp. Theodor. Hist. Eccl. 3, 23; Sozomen, 6, 2, etc.), but this he did not continue to practice at the same time with his career of teaching, as was usual with all the Rabbins (compare Neander, p. 54). By this means he may in part have acquired his subsistence (comp. Mar_6:3; but Origen, Contra Celsum, 6, p. 299, denies this statement, and Tischendorf omits ὁ τέκτων). Besides, his followers supplied him with liberal presents, and, on his journeys, the Oriental usages of hospitality (Joh_5:45; Joh_12:2) served him in good stead (see Rau, Unde Jes. alimenta vitoe acceperit, Erlang. 1794). SEE HOSPITALITY.
A number of grateful women also accompanied him for a considerable time, who cared for his maintenance (Luk_8:2; Mar_15:41). He had a common traveling purse with the apostles (Joh_12:6; Joh_13:29), from which the stock of provisions for the journey was provided (Luk_9:13; Mat_14:17 sq., etc.). We certainly cannot regard Jesus as properly poor in the sense of indigent (see Walch, Miscell. Sacr. p. 866 sq.), for this appears (Henke's Mus. 2, 610 sq.) neither from Mat_8:20 (see Lunze, De Christi divitiis. et pautpertate, Lips. 1784), nor yet from 2Co_8:9 (see Beitrage z. vernunftigen Denk. 4, 160 sq.), and Joh_19:23, rather shows the contrary (comp. Bar-Hebraeus, Chron. p. 251); yet his parents were by no means in opulent circumstances (see Luk_2:24; comp. Lev_12:8), and he himself possessed (Mat_8:20) at least no real estate whatever (see generally Rau, De causis cur J.C. patupertati se subjecerit proecipuis, Erlang. 1787; Siebenhaar, in the Sachs. eget. Stud. 2, 168 sq.). SEE HUMILIATION. During his public career of teaching, Jesus (when not traveling) staid chiefly and of choice at Capernaum (Mat_4:13), and only on one or two occasions (Luk_4:16; Mar_6:1) visited Nazareth (see Kiesling, De J. Nazar. ingrata patria exule, Lips. 1741). In exterior he constantly observed the customs of his people (see A. Gesenius, Christ. decoro gentis suoe se accommodasse, Helmst. 1734; Gude, De Christo et discipulis ejus decori studiosis, in the Nov. miscellan. Lips. 3, 563 sq.), and, far from wishing to attract attention by singularity or austerity he took part in the pleasures of social life (Joh_2:1 sq.; Luk_7:31 sq.; Mat_11:16 sq.; compare 9:14 sq.). Nevertheless, he never married (compare Clem. Alex. Strom. 3, 191 sq.; see Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, 1st ed. 2, 526), for the supposition of Schulthess (Neutest. theolog. Nachr. 1826, 1, 20 sq.; 1828, 1, 102 sq.) that Jesus was married according to Jewish usage, with the addition that his wife (and, perhaps, several children by her) had died before his entrance upon public life, is a pure hypothesis that at least deserves no countenance from the silence in the N.T. as to any such occurrences; and the stupendous design already in the mind of the youthful Jesus afforded no motive for marriage, and, indeed, did not admit (compare Mat_19:12) such a confinement to a narrower circle (see Weisse, Leben Jesu, 1, 249 sq.; comp. Hase, p. 109). Additional literature may be seen in Volbeding, p. 17, 18; Hase, p. 59. SEE NAZARENE.
9. The length of Jesus' public ministry (beginning about the 30th year of his age, Luk_3:24; see Rosch, in the Brem. u. Verd. Bibliothl. 3, 813 sq.), as well as the chronological sequence of the single events related in the Gospels, is very variously estimated. (See Hase, p. 17.) The first three evangelists give, as the scene of their transactions (after his temptation and the imprisonment of the Baptist, Mat_4:1-13), almost exclusively Galilee (De Galilee opportuno Servatoris miraculor. theatro, Gott. 1775), inasmuch as Jesus had his residence then in the city Capernaum, especially in the winter months (Mat_4:13; Mat_8:5; Mat_17:24; Mar_1:21; Mar_2:1, etc.). For the most part, we find him in the romantic and thickly settled neighborhood of the Sea of Tiberias, or upon its surface (Mat_8:23 sq; Mat_13:1 sq; Mat_14:13; Luk_8:22), also on the other side in Peraea (Mat_8:28; Luk_8:26; Mar_7:31). Once he went as far as within the Phoenician boundaries (Mat_15:21; Mar_7:24 sq.). But in the synoptical gospels he only appears once to have visited Jerusalem, at the time of the last Passover (Matthew 21 sq.; Mark 11 sq.; Luke 19 sq.). According to this, the duration of his teaching might be limited to a single year (Euseb. 3, 24), and many (appealing to Luk_4:19; comp. Isa_61:1 sq.; see Origen, Horn. 32; comp. Tertull. Adv. Jud. c. 8; but see Kirner, p. 4) already in the ancient Church (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1, p. 147; Origen, Princip. 4, 5) only allow this space to his public mission (compare Mann, Three Years of the Birth and Death of Christ, p. 161; Priestly, Harmony of the Evangelists, London, 1774, 2, 4; Browne, Ordo Soeclorum, p. 634 sq.); although, independently of all the others, Luk_6:1 (second-first Sabbath) affords indication of a second Passover which Jesus celebrated during his public career. SEE SABBATH.
On the other hand, John's Gospel shows (comp. Jacobi, Zur Chronol. d. Lebens J. im Evang. Joh. in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, 4, 845 sq.) that Jesus was not only oftener, but generally in Judaea (whence he once traveled through Samaria to Galilee, Joh_4:4; compare his return, Luk_17:11), namely, in the holy city Jerusalem (but this difference agrees with the respective designs of the several gospels; see Neander, p. 385 sq.), and informs us of five Jewish festivals which Jesus celebrated at Jerusalem. The first, occurring soon after the baptism of Jesus (Joh_2:13), is a Passover; the second (Joh_5:1) is called indefinitely “a feast of the Jews” (ἑορτὴ τῶν Ι᾿ουδαίων); the third was the Festival of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2); the fourth the Feast of Dedication (Joh_10:22); and, lastly, the fifth (John 12, 13) again a Passover: mention is also made (Joh_6:4) of still another Passover which Jesus spent in Galilee. Hence it would seem that Jesus was engaged some three years (Origen, Contra Celsum, 2, p.67) as a public teacher; and if by the “feast” of Joh_5:1 we are also to understand a Passover (Paulus, Comm. 1, 901 sq.; Suskind, in Bengel's Archiv. 1, 182 sq.; B. Crusius, ad loc.; Seyffarth, Chronol. Sacra, p. 114; Robinson, Harmony, p. 193), which, however, is not certain (Lücke, ad loc.; Anger, De temp. in Act. Apost. ratione, 1, 24 sq.; Jacobi, ut sup. p. 864 sq.), we must assign a period of three and a half years (Eusebius, 1, 10, 3), as lately Seyffarth has done (Summary of recent Discoveries in Chronol. N.Y. 1857, p. 183), although on the most singular grounds (see Alford, Commentary on Joh_5:1). Otherwise the evangelists hardly afford more than two years and a few months (see Anger, ut sup. p. 28; Hase, p. 17 sq.) to the public labors of Jesus (see generally Laurbeck, De annis ministerii Chr., Altdorf, 1700; Korner, Quot Paschata Christus post baptism. celebraverit, Lips. 1779; Pries, De numero Paschatum Christi, Rostock, 1789; Lahode, De die et anno ult. Pasch. Chr. Hal. 1749; Marsh's remarks in Michaelis's Introd. 2, 46 sq.). Again, as the apostles were not uninterruptedly in company with Jesus, the time of their proper association with him might be still further reduced somewhat, although we can not (with Hanlein, De temporis, quo J.C. cume Apostol. versatus est, duratione, Erl. 1796) assume it to have been barely some nine months.
Under these three (or four) Paschal festivals writers have repeatedly endeavored, for historical and particularly apologetic purposes, to arrange all the single occurrences which the first evangelists mention without chronological sequence, and so to obtain a complete chronological view of Jesus' entire journeys and teaching. Yet, notwithstanding so great a degree of ingenuity has been expended upon this subject, none of the Gospel Harmonies hitherto constructed can be regarded as more than a series, of historical conjectures, since the narrative of the first three evangelists presents but little that can guide to a measurably certain conclusion in such an arrangement, and John himself does not appear to relate the incidents in strictly chronological order according to these Passovers (see generally Eichhorn, Einl. ins N.T., 692 sq.). The most important of these attempts are, Lightfoot, Chronicle of the O.T. and N.T. Lond. 1655; Doddridge, Expositor of the N.T. London, 1739;
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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