origin is also conditioned, to be sure, by the circumstances of the time, by which the apparent delay of the Parousia threatened to weaken the faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, and in the fulfilment of the promise (b). Their biblical theological value is conditioned by a critical decision as to the literary use of sources and traditional matter made use of, a decision which may and ought to be carried to some sure stage (c). Former labourers here offer little help for the execution of our task, because they either ignore the critical question, or else settle it in a falsely one-sided way (d).

(a) There can be no doubt that the first two Gospels, which bear the name of Matthew and Mark, are to be looked upon as witnesses for early apostolic Jewish Christianity. Not only are their authors acknowledged to have been Jewish Christians, but the Gospel of Mark rests on a Petrine tradition; the so-called Gospel of Matthew on a written tradition of the Apostle Matthew (comp. § 11, a, b). If with these we at the same time include the Gospel of Luke, and its continuation, the so-called Acts of the Apostles, although their author was without doubt a Gentile Christian and a follower of Paul, then would even that find its justification in the affinity of the former with the two other synoptical Gospels. But this affinity rests even on this, that the Gospel of Mark and the early apostolic sources of the first Gospel must have lain at the basis of the writing of the Gospel, as also were other early apostolic sources made use of either directly or indirectly (§ 11, c), while similar sources must, according to § 35, b, have been at the basis especially of the first part of the Acts of the Apostles. But a writer who made such abundant use of early apostolic sources, in spite of his dependence on Paul, could not be regarded as a representative of pure Paulinism. Early apostolic and Pauline elements must have become mixed in his doctrinal view, and his writings would be distinguished from the other documents mentioned in this section only in this way, that there is here undoubtedly a more direct influence of Paulinism; and that, even though such is to be assumed in them, it here forms not the woof, but the warp of the web of his doctrinal views.

(b) Our synoptical Gospels arose partly before and partly after the year 70, the Acts of the Apostles a little later;

they belong therefore chronologically to this period. It is also very likely that the rise of our Gospel literature is closely connected with the circumstances of the time. The more that the most decisive evidence for Jesus' Messiahship seemed to be brought into doubt by the apparent delay of the Parousia (§ 111, a; 112, b; 113, a), all the more must the regard of the Church have been turned back to the historical life of Jesus, and in it must have sought for those moments which, even irrespective of His glorious return, set forth securely the Messianic character of His appearance. A representation, moreover, of Jesus' life could not be given without reviving the hope of His speedy return by the production of His prophecy of the Parousia. If the first two evangelists have set before themselves specially this task, this is presented from another side by the Pauline Luke. We have seen, § 90, 91, how it was that Paul reconciled the apparent contradiction of the history of Christianity, which found its richest and most significant development on GentileChristian ground, with the promise given to Israel, with which the earliest form of the hope of the Messianic final consummation was connected (§ 42, a). As, now, with the fall of Jerusalem the temporary rejection of Israel had become decisive, this apparent contradiction must have become glaringly prominent; and it was natural to seek in the life of Jesus, and in the history of the apostles, those moments which set forth the transference of Christianity from the Jews to the Gentiles as a transference ordained of God. Regarded from this side, the writings of Luke, which assumed this task expressly, must have helped to strengthen the certainty of the Messianic salvation, in spite of the unexpected form of its development, and thereby to meet any doubt as to its hoped-for consummation. But the first Gospel also had apparently already canvassed this task, and, so far as it was possible in a narrative of the life of Jesus, had sought to solve it.

(c) The biblical theological value of the historical writings depends in no respect on the idea ruling in the Tübingen school, according to which the oldest church had not in them the viewpoint of original historical documents, but, as they had sprung from the dogmatic consciousness of the time,

conformably to this they modified them ever afresh (comp. Schwegler, i. p. 258). Even if the traditionary matter used in them was essentially historical, and was regarded as such, yet even from the selection and grouping of the materials, as well as from the individual literary reflections on these, the point of view could in several ways be recognised from which the author regarded it. So far as we can now trace the use made of the sources by the authors, it is added that in their motives for deviating from the sources, where these can be established, are exhibited the conceptions and views peculiar to them.1 The matter is more difficult when we are in a position to ascertain nothing reliable as to the sources, whether verbal or written, from which the first or third evangelist has drawn. Then nothing else remains but to regard the facts, reflections, or sayings of Jesus, contained in these portions in the form and conception in which they are received by the individual evangelist, as their special spiritual possession, and as a moment for the determination of their doctrinal view, where it does not somehow lie in the nature of the case that the statements taken from their sources refer to the views of an earlier period, as does much in the preliminary history of Luke.2 In this relation the treatment of the Acts of the Apostles presents the greatest difficulty, where cautious criticism cannot think of a detailed

1 This is least of all possible with Mark, when, not to speak of the very free use of single passages from the apostolic sources, the dividing line is not to be drawn with any certainty throughout between what the author took from (Petrine) tradition by word of mouth, and what he contributed from his own conception. On the other hand, the work of Mark can be perfectly traced in our first and third Gospels, and also the use made of apostolic sources, where these have been used independently by both. From the analogy of the doctrinal peculiarities thus gotten on the one hand, and the character of the apostolic sources on the other hand, further conclusions can then be drawn of what has been altered or added by one of the two only of what was drawn from apostolic sources (§ 11, d).

2 The historical question, whether trustworthy traditions from the life and the lips of Jesus are herein contained, or whether only the ideas of the Church, by means of the authors regarding Jesus and the utterance of what they looked upon as the opinion or the command of Christ have been therein embodied, does not come within the sphere of biblical theology. For it only the facts and utterances of Jesus, as recorded by the Gospels, or by one of them, are established by means of the evangelists, as existing in the consciousness of the Church at the time when the Gospels arose, and as regulation for her doctrinal development.

3

separation, carried through the whole book, of the accounts taken from the sources, or directly from eye and ear witnesses, and of what has been added by Luke (comp. § 35, b). Yet not only does the plan and the doctrinal tendency of the Acts of the Apostles remain full of significance, but enough is to be found throughout the whole book, which, as the representation of the writer, may be referred directly to his views. There is much, to be sure, which now seems to be a peculiarity of Luke's conception, which belonged originally to his sources; but inasmuch as he has appropriated them in the way before us, they may yet be looked on as his spiritual property.

(d) It helps little to the solution of our task when Schmid and Lechler compare the Gospel of Matthew with the Epistle of James (comp. Schmid, ii. pp. 133-139 [E. T. 363–368]; Lechler, p. 171); van Oosterzee, Mark and Matthew with Jude (§ 31); all three, the writings of Luke with Paulinism (comp. Schmid, pp. 355-366 [E. T. 513-518]; Lechler, pp. 156-158; van Oosterzee, p. 211); and the first of them compare the two Jewish-Christian Gospels with the doctrinal system of Peter (ii. p. 211 ff. [E. T. 412]). Lutterbeck deals very thoroughly with the doctrine of the Gospel of Matthew, as the first stage of the doctrinal system of Peter (pp. 158-169); that of the Gospel of Mark, in common with the Epistles of Peter, as the third stage of it (pp. 182-184), in a way which corresponds neither with the trustworthiness of the Gospels nor with the originality of Mark. He is more cautious in the section about the doctrines of Luke discussed in the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles (pp. 238-244). In complete conformity with his system, Baur, pp. 297-338, has represented the doctrinal system of the synoptical Gospels, and of the Acts of the Apostles, as the fourth stage in the second period, according to which they are treated as purely doctrinal writings, which have quite freely invented

3 For the representation of the earliest apostolic preaching, and for the religious life of the early Church, we have made use of this especially in its first portion, and similarly of many a part in the later sections for the illustration of Pauline doctrine and of life in the Pauline churches. But as even in the first part much can be distinguished from the tradition made use of as belonging to the peculiar conception of Luke, so also the later sections can be variously used, in order, from the way in which Luke reproduces the words of his apostle, to find out his conception of Paulinism.

their materials in conformity with their doctrinal tendency, or have changed them. In complete opposition to this, Reuss, in his handling of the three Gospels (ii. pp. 344-366 [E. T. ii. 311-339]), has occupied himself mainly with the proof, that the supposed theological party points are not indicated in our writings, and that they cannot be put under the point of view of doctrinal writings with a tendency, unless they are to be convicted of self-contradiction.

SECTION I

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

CHAPTER I.

THE OLD AND THE NEW COVENANT.

Comp. van den Ham, Doctrina de veteri novoque testamento in ep. ad
Hebraeos exhibita, 1847.

§ 115. The Imperfection of the Old Covenant.

The Epistle to the Hebrews presents the relation of Judaism and Christianity under the aspect of a New Covenant which is to bring the promise given in the Old to fulfilment (a). Such fulfilment was dependent on the fulfilment of the law, and that even by the pious of the Old Covenant remained very imperfect (b). To meet this want, to be sure, there was given the atoning institute of the Old Covenant, which was to bring about for the members of the covenant the perfection necessary for obtaining the fulfilment of the covenant promise, but it had proved to be defective and unreal (c). It could only have this one object, prefiguratively to set forth as a typical prophecy the perfect atonement of the New Covenant (d).

(a) What Christ proclaimed as the coming of the kingdom of God (§ 13, c), what the early apostles as the appearance of