Is it necessary to believe, that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites, and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, or between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, no one could have had any knowledge except those who took part in it. We must therefore assume that Jesus communicated these conversations to his disciples, and that these have reported to us the ipsissima verba. In this manner we are constantly involving ourselves in fresh difficulties of our own making, which we may indeed leave out of consideration, but which would never exist at all if we would only consider the circumstances under which the Gospels arose. I have previously expounded this view of the popular origin of the evangelic narratives in my Gifford lectures before an audience, certainly very orthodox; and although a small number of theologians were much incensed against me,—it was their duty,—the majority, even of the clergy, were decidedly with me. The things themselves and their lessons remain undiminished in value; we merely acknowledge a fact, quite natural from an historical standpoint, viz. that the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus have not come to us direct from Christ, nor from the apostles, but from men who, as they themselves tell us, received the report from others by tradition. Their narratives, consequently, are not perhaps fictitious, or prepared with a certain object; but they do show traces of the influence that was unavoidable in oral transmission, especially at a time of great spiritual excitement. This is a problem which in itself has nothing whatever to do with religion. We have the Gospels as they are. It remains with the historian alone to pass judgment upon the origin, the transmission, and the authenticity of these texts, just as the reconstruction of the text lies solely with the philologist. For this he need not even be a Christian, merely an historian. Whatever may be the judgment of the historical inquirer, we must learn to be content with what they leave us. In this, too, the half is often better than the whole. Quite sufficient remains, even when the critical historian assures us that the Gospels as we possess them were neither written by Christ nor the apostles, but contain the traditions of the oldest Christian communities, and that the manuscripts in which they have reached us were not written till the fifth or at the earliest the fourth century. We may deal with these materials as with all other historical materials from that period; and we do so rather as independent historians than as Christians.

The view that the four Gospels were miraculously revealed to their authors, miraculously written, miraculously copied and finally printed, is a view no doubt deserving of respect, but it leaves the contents of the Gospels untouched. The difference between the historical and the conventional interpretation of the Gospels comes out most clearly in the doctrine of eternal life. What Jesus understands by the eternal life that he has brought to mankind, is as clear as the sun. He repeats it again and again. Eternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and their true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same Father, they are of like nature with God and Christ (John xvii. 3).

This is the fundamental truth of Christianity, and it holds good not only for the contemporaries of Jesus, but for all times. Those who see in this view an overestimate of human nature, need only ask themselves what man could be, if he were not a partaker of the divine nature. This excludes the difference between human and divine nature as little as the difference between the physical father and the physical son. Even in this case we speak figuratively, for how could we speak otherwise of what is supersensual? The repetition of stories among the people, narrating how Jesus raised one or another to life, to eternal life, very soon led among women and children to the misunderstanding that this referred only to a resurrection from bodily death. Nay, this raising passed with them, as it still does with many, for a stronger proof of the divine nature and power of Christ than the resurrection from that spiritual death, which holds in captivity all who have not recognised their own divine sonship and have not understood the glad tidings which Jesus brought to all mankind. Such misunderstandings we find everywhere, as when, for instance, even a man like Nicodemus fails to comprehend the new birth of which Jesus speaks, and asks if a man can enter his mother's womb a second time. If this was possible in a Scribe, how much more so with the uneducated people. In the same way the Jews misunderstand the saying of Jesus, that the truth will make them free, and answer that they are the seed of Abraham, and free men, so that Jesus had to repeat that whosoever commits sin is not free, but a slave of sin (John viii. 33). Such misunderstandings meet us everywhere, and their influence extends much farther than we at first suppose. Naturally the tradition also puts words into Jesus' mouth that could only have issued out of the notions of the people, and almost entirely conceal the depth of his own words. While the revelation of the true divine sonship of man immediately bestows eternal life on him who comprehends or believes in it, heals his blindness, and raises him from spiritual death, Jesus is presented as not purposing to raise the dead until the last day (John vi. 40). Martha makes the same mistake, when to the words of Jesus, “Thy brother shall rise again,” she answers, “I know that he shall rise at the last day” (John xi. 24). Even some of the works which are ascribed to Jesus are plainly derived from the same source. A spiritual resurrection is not sufficient, it even passes for less than a bodily, and this is the very reason for the numerous stories of the raising of the dead. These are matters from which, even to this day, devout Christians are loath to part, especially where the details are given so minutely as in the raising of Lazarus. Now there is absolutely no objection to this, if we are resolved to cling to the historical reality of the raising of Lazarus. Only in that case the terms employed should be exactly defined. If we give the name death to the condition which excludes any return to life, especially when, as with Lazarus, decay had already set in, the condition from which Lazarus returned to life cannot be called death without a contradiction. Jesus even says that his sickness was not fatal (John xi. 4), and that he is not dead, but merely sleeps (John xi. 11). Was he mistaken? Such words should at least not be entirely disregarded, even though the other words follow immediately after, “Lazarus is dead” (John xi. 14). That a highly gifted nature, like that of Jesus, may have possessed wonderful healing powers, cannot be denied, however difficult it may be to determine the boundary between what is and is not possible here. On the other hand, it is firmly established that when once such an idea as the raising from physical death becomes rooted in the popular mind, the details, especially such as can serve as evidence, are provided spontaneously. The nucleus of the story of the raising of Lazarus lies of course in the words (John xi. 25, 26), “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Here we have the true teaching of Christ, in his own apparently contradictory language. The saying, “Whoever believes in me shall never die,” does not necessarily mean that his body will never die; and so the words, “Though he were dead, yet shall he live,” certainly do not signify that his dead and decayed body shall receive new life. But the people wanted something else. For the true miracles, for the spiritual resurrection, they had no comprehension, they wanted sensuous miracles, they wanted the resurrection of a body already decayed, and this is described in the Gospels in detail. Such is the regular privilege of popular tradition, and it happens without deliberate intention, except that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact. Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer wearied by six days' work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of salvation to a promise of resurrection from physical death. There are many good men and women fulfilling in their daily walk the commands of Christ, to whom the true historical conception of the gospel story would be a terrible disillusion. Well, such Christians are at liberty to remain in their own views. Our own interpretation of many of the details in the traditional representation of the Gospels, though details certainly of very great significance, makes no claim to papal authority. It gladly concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history. It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation from conscientious scruples. Their number is greater than is generally supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,—for it has been carried even so far,—that every parable, every figure, was whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church, and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.

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