Teaching Of Jesus
TEACHING OF JESUS.The place and meaning of knowledge in the Christian religion constitute a question of supreme importance. It has been answered in differing ways in different times and places, and with far-reaching effects, often of the saddest character. Yet the answers have usually been of the nature of instinctive assumptions rather than results of deliberate investigation into the grave problem involved; indeed, it has seldom been realized that a problem existed. In our own day, however, the spread of the mode of thought known as Agnosticisma term coined in protest against a too confident attitude of gnosis or full knowledgehas helped to bring home the fact and something of the nature of the problem underlying the various bodies of doctrine claiming the authority of Christ. In so stating the case, our thoughts travel back to the final form of the question,* [Note: In this connexion Lathams Pastor Pastorum, chs. i. and iii., offers certain regulative ideas of high value.] which must control all others, viz., What sort of knowledge did Jesus Himself offer to men, and how is it related to human knowledge in general and to mans religious consciousness as such? Some suggestions towards a true answer may be gained from a study of the terms found in our Gospels as used in this connexion, such as know, knowledge, teach, teaching, teacher, mystery, in the light of their originals, Aramaic and Greek. Here, on the whole, it seems needless to distinguish between Christs own usage and that of the Evangelists themselves, for these coincide generally. The few exceptions in the Synoptics can be noted incidentally, while the special Johan nine usage is treated by itself.
The characteristic Greek term occurs in our Gospels only in Luk 1:77 knowledge of salvation, and Luk 11:52 the key of knowledge (see below); and the intellectual interest connoted by it, as also by wisdom () and the Wise man, among the Greeks, is here quite absent ( does not occur at all). All this points to the concrete, personal, or experimental nature of the knowledge implied in the religion of the Gospels, as of the OT,a fact which comes out also in the contexts in which know occurs.
The OT everywhere assumes that there is such a thing as the knowledge of God, but it is never speculative, and it is never achieved by man. God is known because He makes Himself known, and He makes Himself known in His character. Hence the knowledge of God is in the OT = true religion; and as it is of Gods grace that He appears from the beginning speaking, commanding, active, so as to be known for what He is, so the reception of the knowledge of God is ethically conditioned. It is in this sense of an experimental acquaintance with Gods character, and a life determined by it, that a universal knowledge of God is made the chief blessing of the Messianic age. Side by side with this practical knowledge of God, the OT makes room for any degree of speculative agnosticism. This is especially brought out in the Book of Job (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible iii. 8 f.).
The distinction between gradual experimental recognition (, ) and the actual possession of knowledge () is well preserved; e.g. in Joh 14:7 If ye had come to recognize me (in my true character), ye would have had knowledge of my Father also. Corresponding to the ethical quality of the knowledge acquired by growing personal receptivity, is the nature of the teaching* [Note: This didache consisted of didaskali or definite instructions as to conduct, cf. Mar 7:7, Mat 15:9 teaching for instructions human injunctions ( , after Isa 29:13).] (), as defined by the contexts in which this term and its verb stand; e.g. Mat 7:28 The crowds were exceedingly astonished at his teaching; for he was teaching them as having authority, and not as their scribes (after Sermon on the Mount). Finally, the fact that Jesus was habitually addressed as Rabbi, and so treated, suggests that He dealt with the same subject-matter as the official teachers of the Jewish Law (Trah), viz. the sort of conduct pleasing to the God of Israel (cf. Mat 5:17-20), though He differed in going behind the act to the motive, and in setting this in the light of the Fathers character. There was, we may be sure, a certain fitness in the plausible compliment, as coming even from Pharisaic lips, Rabbi, of a truth thou teachest the way of God (Mar 12:14, ||, cf. Mar 12:32). We do well, then, to approach the meaning of knowledge and teaching in the Gospels through the senses which these terms bore in contemporary Judaism. Philo describes Jews as taught , even long before the sacred laws and also the unwritten usages, to recognize as one God the Father and Creator of the world (Legatio ad Gaium, 16). Here we have a starting-point for consideration of the knowledge Jesus offered to impart, as regards its substance.
i. The Synoptic Gospels.Jesus own knowledge was rooted in the essential teaching of the OT, interpreted by a unique religious experience, which even in childhood enabled Him to make marvellous use of its contents (Luk 2:46 f.), and which developed as a wisdom that matured with His years (v. 52). The determinative element in it was a consciousness of the God of Israel as His Father in a peculiarly intimate personal sense. Through this the OT revelation, as written and as currently taught, was gradually filtered, until only those elements and interpretations remained effective in His mind and speech which were valid in the light of the idea of the Holy Father and His practical relations with men. Thus the sacred laws of Mosaism were transmuted into the teaching of Jesus, the Messiah, with its new spirit and fresh emphasis. But the lines of the new were continuous with the old as regards the primarily practical reference of the new teaching, which superseded that of the scribes of the Pharisaic school, then dominant (Mar 1:22-27; Mar 2:16-18). Thus the knowledge which Jesus aimed at imparting in His teaching was analogous in scope to that recognized as such in current Palestinian Judaism, and bore essentially on true piety conceived as doing the will of God (Mar 3:35). But the form of its presentation, and much of its resulting spirit, were largely determined by two features peculiar to Jesus as a teacher: (a) a note of fresh, personal authority, in contrast to the derivative authority claimed by the scribes (Mar 1:22); (b) constant reference to the kingdom of heaven, the true Theocracy for which Israel had long been waiting and watching, in connexion with Messiah, its Divinely commissioned Inaugurator. John the Baptist had spoken of such a Theocracy as imminent. Yet so little had he realized the spiritual experience proper to it in its fulness, that Jesus, even in the act of recognizing Johns supremacy in the order of prophets, can declare that He that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (Mat 11:11, Luk 7:28). The Messianic Kingdom, then, is bound up in a unique manner with Jesus Himself as its Announcer () and Legislator ()the two aspects in which He conveys knowledge of it, and so of religion as it is known to the Gospels.
Wellhausen, indeed, roundly denies this (Einleitung in die drei crsten Evangelien, 105, 106 ff.): From the Kingdom as present, Jesus as already constituted (dagewesener) and present Messiah is inseparable; accordingly He cannot Himself have spoken of it. In Mark He speaks only of the future Kingdom; but He does not say that He is to bring it. It is thought that the declaration of this future Kingdom was actually the proper content of His preaching. Far from this, it recedes completely into the background in Mark. In the Galilaean period He does not as a rule preach at all, but He teaches: and indeed not about the Kingdom of God (which doe not occur at all, save in the addition Mar 4:30; Mar 4:32), but, in unconstrained succession, touching this and that matter which comes in His way; obvious truths, with reference to the needs of a general public, which is misled by its spiritual leaders (p. 106). As regards the Kingdom of God, the idea of which He could assume as present to His hearers minds, He emphasized in any case warning more than promise. He began not with allusions to blessings (Glckwnschen und Seligpreisungen), but with the preaching of penitence: The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent! Like Amos before Him, and like John the Baptist, He thereby protested against the illusion of the Jews, as though to them the Judgment were bound to bring the fulfilment of their wishes (107 f.). Wellhausen goes on to question whether the phrase the gospel was ever found on Jesus own lips, since even in Mark the gospel is tantamount to Christianity, i.e. what the Church came to understand as the purport of its Masters life and death. Here Wellh, seems to take gospel in too rigid and uniform a sense, rather than as good tidings which may vary in connotation. In any case, it is one thing to argue that the Evangelists have made Jesus use a phrase proper to their age, not His (yet Isa 61:1, in view of Mat 11:5, Luk 7:22; cf. Luk 4:18, makes His use of the verb preach good news []as in Lk., who never uses the substantive []far from unlikely): it is quite another to have disproved the historic truth of the idea thereby conveyed, viz. that Jesus own announcement of the Kingdom as imminent was in a different key from John the Baptists. Both, no doubt, urged repentance as befitting such an expectation; but how differently this may be done, how different the motives suggestedin a word, how different the spirit of the two messages! (see Mar 2:18 f. ||, Mat 11:16; Mat 11:19, Luk 7:31; Luk 7:35). In the one the note of severity was uppermost, in the other that of gladness Surely the very point of the striking saying in Mat 11:11, Luk 7:28 is that the spirit of Johns message was defective, as we feel it to be, in its negative and threatening tone, as compared with the positive and winning note of benediction and hope added by Jesus, in the light of Gods true attitude to mena revelation which by no means took from the force of the summons to repentance for sins, now seen more clearly in the purer light. So we read in Mar 6:12, even after much of the Galilaean teaching was already given, that the Apostles went out and preached that men should repent (Wellh. l.c. p. 112, questions even whether there were any apostles during Jesus lifetime). The spirit of the above distinction is finely given by Longfellows lines (cited in Sir A. F. Horts Com. on Mar 1:15):
A voice by Jordans shore,
A summons stern and clear:
Repent! be just, and sin no more!
Gods judgment draweth near!
A voice by Galilee,
A holier voice I hear:
Love God, thy neighbour love! for see
Gods mercy draweth near.
The idea of the Kingdom necessarily determines the sense and emphasis given to repentance in relation to it; and as righteousness meant to Jesus something very different from what it did on Johns lips, so with their respective teaching as to the Kingdom.
As to the future and present Kingdom, surely on Jesus idea of the essentially spiritual nature of the Kingdom this distinction loses its full force; where the righteousness of the Kingdom is, there is the Kingdom already in a real sense.
As preaching the Kingdom, He declares the fact of its near advent, so giving knowledge of salvation as yet nearer than Johns preaching was able to announce (Luk 1:77). Reception of such knowledge meant repentance for sins as unfitting the sinner for membership in the Kingdom soon to appear, and confidence in the forgiveness which was part of the expected Messianic blessings. Then as teaching, He gave knowledge of the laws and principles of the coming era of the Fathers realized sovereignty. Relying on this teaching and obeying its precepts, the man who accepted the preaching of the Kingdom as at hand was assured of participation therein when it arrived. Of such teaching the Sermon on the Mount is the summarized expression (Mat 7:28 f.). It represents the key of knowledge touching Gods will, as it should be done in the true Theocracy or Kingdom, which the official guardians of the Law had removed out of mens reach by their traditions (Luk 11:52). But the same knowledge was also given less fully and formally, in occasional and piecemeal fashion, in the teaching Jesus was wont in His earlier ministry to give at the Sabbath services in synagogues of Galilee, in close connexion with the reading of the Law and its regular exposition (Mar 1:21; Mar 6:2, Luk 4:15; cf. Luk 4:43 for preaching also), as well as on other and less formal occasions. Its main subject would seem to have been the nature of the Kingdom and the character required in its members (Sanday), treated in the light of the Fatherhood of God
At first, moreover, His own Person formed no part of His explicit teaching. Apparently the practical recognition of His plenary authority as Revealer of the Kingdom and the truths constitutive of it, enforced by the object-lesson of His deeds (Luk 10:23-24) of beneficent authority in the healing of the body and soul (see Mar 2:5; Mar 2:12), was what Jesus had most at heart in the earlier stage of His ministry at least. What went beyond this was allusive and suggestive rather than dogmatic, being contained in the title by which, in preference to all others, He chose from first to last to refer to Himself and His waysthe Son of Man. The sense which He gave to it, as distinct from the associations currently attaching to it in various circles of Judaism, seems to be chiefly brotherhood with toiling and struggling humanity, which He who most thoroughly accepted its conditions was fittest also to save (Sanday). It was only as criticism and challenge forced Him to fall back upon His ultimate and inner credentials, that He referred explicitly to His mysteriously unique experience of Sonship to the Father as the ground of the revelation He imparted in His teachingparticularly as to the Divine Fatherhood which lay at the heart of that teaching (Mat 11:25 ff., Luk 20:21; Luk 20:24).
In this we get some insight into one of the most significant features of Christs teaching, viz. His pedagogic method, which implied that religious knowledge is not to be thought of or taught as if it were all on one level, or as if it were of little moment how it is imparted and acquired. In other words, nothing is more characteristic of truth as it is in Jesus than the psychological conditions under which it should be learned, by progressive assimilation, as the learner is able to bear it. His was the experimental method of religious knowledge, to a degree surpassing all other teachers. This fact comes out in several connexions,* [Note: Among these we can only allude to the stages in Jesus teaching of His disciples in the latter part of His ministry, which dates from the decisive confession at Caesarea Philippi.] of which His use of parables deserves special notice.
As regards Jesus use of the parable proper, as distinct from mere figurative maxims or illustrations, it is often strangely overlooked that the Gospels do not represent it as a form of communicating religious knowledge employed by Jesus from the first. In fact it emerges relatively late in His ministry, when already He had proved the general unreceptiveness of His hearers and the positive hostility of their official teachers. This appears not only from the first occasion on which, in the relatively historical order preserved in Mk., Jesus is said to have taught in parables (Mar 4:2, Mat 13:3; Mar 3:23, Luk 5:36; Luk 6:39 do not prove the contrary), but also from the fact that His disciples ask Him as to the meaning of the first recorded parable, plain as its meaning is to us (Mar 4:10; Mar 4:13). Further, that meaning is one which implies a disappointing experience of various types of hearer,the good being in the minority,such as suits a comparatively prolonged period of experiment, during which Jesus had proved how unprepared the majority of His countrymen were to embrace the Kingdom as He meant it. In fact the psychological moment at which He began His full parabolic method on principle, was just that depicted in Marks narrative (cf. Latham, op. cit. p. 324). Already the Scribes, both local (Mar 2:6; Mar 2:16) and from the religious centre in Jerusalem (Mar 3:22), the Pharisees generally (Mar 2:18; Mar 2:24, Mar 3:6), and even the disciples of John,presumably a specially prepared class,had indicated pretty clearly that their attitude was likely to be unreceptive Thus we read in Mar 3:7 of His withdrawing from before Pharisaic hostilitywhich already felt that He must be got rid of at any cost (v. 6)with His circle of disciples, from the synagogue and the city, where friction was likely, to the seashore, there to continue His effort to win the unsophisticated hearts of the common people. Then follows the selection of the Twelve from the larger body of disciples habitually about Him, with a view to their acting as apostles or missionaries, to assist in what was opening out before Him as a longer and more arduous ministry than had, perhaps, at first seemed needful. That in itself is significant; and its significance is enhanced by the scene which precedes the first parables, when He dwells on the spiritual ties binding Him to the disciples, in contrast even to His own blood relations. All this implies that Jesus fell back, as it were, upon the parabolic teaching which we regard as so beautifully characteristic of Him, largely under the necessity of adjusting the form of His teaching, for deep spiritual reasons, to the disappointing unreceptivity of His hearers generally. Nor was the state of His disciples much better in point of intelligence, though their practical self-committal to Him as their trusted authority and teacher implied a moral affinity of great latent possibility for future insight and knowledge. This comes out most clearly in Marks narrative, which, throughout the chapter on the beginnings of parabolic teaching, preserves the original historic atmosphere to a degree far surpassing what the other Evangelists, owing to their later perspective, particularly as regards the intelligence at that time of Christs personal disciples (see Mar 4:13, omitted by Mt. and Lk.), have been able to achieve.
Observe the following, compared with the parallel passages in Mt. and Lk.: He proceeded to teach them in parables many things, and to say to them in his teaching, Listen (Mar 4:2) He who has ears to listen, let him listen (Mar 4:9). And he went on to say to them* [Note: i.e. to the disciples, to whom He is explaining His new method.] (that the light of the lamp is meant to be seen, and so), there is nothing hidden except with a view to its being ultimately made manifest. If any one hath ears to listen, let him listen (Mar 4:21-23). And he went on to say to them, See to it what ye hear (= understand, cf. Luk 8:18 how ye hear). According to the capacity of the measure ye use, it shall be meted out to you, and with interest ( , cf. Mat 13:12; Mat 25:29 , after the next clause); for he who hath (i.e. by receptiveness), there shall be given to him, and he who hath not (by unreceptiveness), even that which he hath (through his ears merely, cf. Luk 8:18 what he supposes he hath) shall be taken from him (Mar 4:24-25). Then, after two more parables, [Note: Probably not spoken on the same occasion, but added by the Evangelist (in keeping with catechetical tradition), by affinity of theme; and this addition leads up naturally to the use of to them in Mar 4:33 = to the people.] we read: And with such parables, and many of them, he used to speak to them the word just as they were able to listen; but without parable used he not to speak to them, whilst privately to his own disciples he used to resolve (the meaning of) all things (Mar 4:33 f.).
Running throughout the whole account in Mk. is a single coherent conception of the function of parable as a vehicle of religious knowledge, viz. that it is a sort of veil spread over the face of truth, in order that only those who are morally ready to act aright in regard to it shall perceive its Divine lineaments. This implies (a) that it is bad for a man to see the truth in the wrong, i.e. unsympathetic, mood, and (b) that it is the special nature of spiritual or religious knowledge to be morally conditioned in its communication. Accordingly it can be received, in the sense alone valued by Jesus, only gradually, by successive acts of use or vital obedience. But the teachers ulterior object in parable, as in plainer modes of speech (as the context of the simile of casting pearls before swine helps to make clear, Mat 7:6 ff.), was that as many, not as few, as possible of the average hearers addressed might, by seeking and its discipline, come to find aright, instead of resting in imaginary possession of a knowledge that was really error. [Note: A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, pp. 1823, and Latham, Pastor Pastorum, ch. x. (To those who have, is given), in support of this and much of what follows.] The treasure of knowledge touching the Kingdom could not be had without real spiritual quest; it was a secret, to be shared in only by awakened curiosity and desire. What is received too easily is held loosely; or rather, in the case of spiritual truth, it is not received at all, when taken passively and not by the activity that is also self-committal; or, again, it is received in so crude a sensewhat comas from without being overlaid or distorted by what already exists withinthat it had better not be received at all in this fashion. The remedy is that the reception should be gradual, through a process of piecemeal and even painful adjustment of the mind and will of the hearer to the essential form of the truth enshrined in the message or teaching. Then, what is so won becomes the basis of fresh discoveries of the same kind. In this beneficent yet deeply serious sense Jesus was wont to speak the word to men just as they were able to listen to it.
Such seems the philosophy of Christs parabolic teaching, when we regard the trend of this fundamental section and the general effect of His teaching in the Gospels. But what are we to make of the motive assigned to it in Mar 4:12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest haply they should turn again and it should be forgiven them? Can we believe that in these wordsif read in the sense of a judicial blindingwe have a quotation from Jesus lips uncoloured by the tradition lying between Him and the Gospel records? Hardly. The saying is an isolated one in the Synoptics. But a like use of the passage in Isaiah (Isa 6:9 f.) here drawn upon, occurs in Act 28:25-27, in an address to leading Roman Jews, and in Joh 12:39-40, which contains the reflexions of the Evangelist himself. Here we seem to have the clue to the paradox as some would call it, incompatibility as it will seem to others. That is, Jesus own use of Isaiahs language underwent development in the Churchs tradition, being first reapplied to specific Jewish unbelief (as in Acts), and then hardened in its spirit* [Note: Surely Dr. Sanday (Hastings DB ii. 618) does not allow enough for the change of spirit between Jesus own reference to the law of continued insensibility involved in Isaiah, and the less sympathetic use of the words in John. Hence he speaks of their strange severity in Marks context, which would be mitigated if they could be put later in the ministry, where they occur in St. John. We have argued that even in Mk. they do belong to a relatively late stage in the ministry; but we would give them a gentler sense on Jesus own lips, viz. one of sadness, not of severity.] (as in Jn.). The conclusive thing appears to be this. Not only are the words virtually quoted from Isa 6:9 f., but they are not given uniformly in the other Synoptics. Then it is only in the anti-Judaic reflexions in Jn. that the sense of judicial blindness is given to them at all, by a deliberate change of form, which attributes the blinding and dulling of hearing to direct Divine action. It seems natural, then, to assume that Jesus simply made an allusive use of the phraseology of Isa 6:9, so far as it lent itself to His purpose; and that in the Churchs tradition this reference was taken up, fully applied, and even, as in Joh 12:40, emphasized in an anti-Jewish direction. Here Mk. shows us the first stage in the tradition, at which the regret with which Jesus contemplates the inevitable effect of the law that unreceptiveness tends to become a fixed habit, is apparent in the quick transition to lest haply they should turn back and forgiveness should be theirs ( , an adaptation of Isaiahs on Jahwehs behalf). Against this the telic with a view to () cannot weigh decisively, since its exact degree of purposiveness is not always the same. Here it may well be no more than a recognition of the providential nature of the law of moral continuity, as well as of those inevitable effects which Jesus knew to be involved in His deliberate resort to parabolic teaching, [Note: Which is, as Matthew Henry puts it, a shell that keeps good fruit for the diligent, but keeps it from the slothful; cf. also Bruce, l.c. pp. 21 23.] in place of plainer proclamation, touching the Kingdomits inner and gradual operation, and its fortunes, especially in the near future. Further, the less severe reading seems required by what follows in Mar 4:21-23, viz. that the object of the lights coming is to be seen; and any temporary covering or hiding is all meant to be subservient to this. All is simply adjusted to existing ability to hear (Mar 4:33).
Why then, it may be asked, resort to this obscurer form of instruction? Because He was now passing on to a new side or aspect of His teaching. Henceforth the more unambiguous form of declaration would have met immediately with a summary rejection [Note: The lessons as to the slow and gradual progress of the Kingdom, as bound up with its spirituality, were so strange to the Jews that He had to adopt a method of instruction that might conciliate and provoke reflection, and gradually make a way to their minds for new truth (Salmond on Mar 4:1 in Century Bible).] so decisive as to jeopardize the very completion of His own ministry and cut short the training of His disciples, the actual nucleus of the coming Kingdom, on whom its future realization depended. The popular receptivity towards such a Kingdom as Jesus had in mind, one radically spiritual,as distinct from national and hedonistic,had already been tested by clear enunciation of its ethical nature and requirements; and but few had definitely responded. That was the daunting experience which had been His for some months at least, months of such ethical intensity for all within range of His influence as to mean more than as many years of the ordinary testing of life. Already He saw that His lot was to be akin to that of the prophets of old, who achieved their mission only after and through a period of general rejection, during which disciples learned their message vitally, and then helped in the conversion of Israel. But while this was the case on the whole, there were still individuals to be gained over one by one to the little flock of His disciples, if only they had time to ponder the new ideal of the Kingdomas coming only gradually, from a very small nucleus (Mar 4:26-32). Elect souls could do so most profitably under the very stimulus of curiosity aroused by the parabolic or suggestive method, regarded on its positive side; while for the impatient mass it had only its negative function, veiling the full truth from the profane gaze of those insensible as swine to the real charm of pearlsand apt, when disappointed, to turn like swine and rend the bearer of jewels. Hence Jesus spoke His parables publicly, to call such prepared or preparing souls, as well as to instruct His own inner circle in the deeper or more trying aspects of the Kingdom they had already in principle and at heart received. For this seems the point of Marks To you the secret* [Note: The secret consisted of the true nature of the Kingdom itself, as being such as Jesus revealed it in Himself and His ministry of deed and word (corresponding to seeing and hearing in the next verse). This fundamental secret made its possessor a disciple (cf. Mat 13:52 every scribe made a disciple to [or by] the kingdom of heaven . ), corresponding to the initiated in the Greek and other Mysteries. Those who shared it not were those outside, who move wholly in the sphere of parable, the outer simile never opening and revealing the inner truth or reality thus kept secret.] (mystery) hath been given, touching the kingdom of God (Mar 4:11). Disciples as such had the qualifying secret in their souls, the key to further understanding in the detailed knowledge of the Kingdom. It is rather this latter that Mt. and Lk. have in mind in writing (according to the form of the saying most familiar to them), to you it hath been given to recognize the secrets (mysteries) of the kingdom. This probably represents a later turn given to the original thought as found in Mk., the truth of which is borne out by what follows at once in Mat 13:12 he that hath, to him shall be given, etc. Here the possession that is the basis for further additions, must be primarily the recognition of the Kingdom in principle. When this fundamental issue, as conditioned by the original historic situation, faded more and more into the background, and various detailed aspects of the Kingdom came practically to the front in the Churchs experience, it was natural that the saying should be coloured thereby and its shade of meaning changed. Further, we can see how the later form would lend itself to the growing reflective tendency which showed itself in Gnosticism, a mode of thought alike unbiblical and un-Jewish in spirit, but akin to Greek intellectualism or one-sided reliance on knowledge (gnosis) as such. Yet rightly understood, i.e. in relation to the whole genius of Christs teaching in the Synoptic Gospels at least, [Note: Confirmed also by the character of the Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles as it was understood in the circle represented by the Didache,a fact the more striking if, as seems probable, this compilation of traditional matter represents in the main Syrian Christianity (c. 75100 a.d.), the source also of our Synoptic tradition.] not even the later form warrants the idea that Gnostic or metaphysical doctrines are here meant in any degree. The secrets in question are just those detailed aspects of the Kingdom and its development, as parts of the Divine counsels, which form the essence of the parables which follow in this connexion and elsewhere. They are of the nature of moral principles such as verify themselves in the experience of the loyal life, rather than remain mysteries of faith in the later sense of these words.
This is not the place for full discussion of the limits of knowledge, even religious knowledge in a sense, attaching to the gospel in the mind of Jesus Himself. Such limits clearly exist as regards the times and seasons of the Kingdoms temporal development. This is manifest in the saying in Mar 13:32 || But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father (alone). It is also implied in the parable of the Seed Growing Unobserved (Mar 4:26; Mar 4:29), if the Sower who himself knows not how the seed grows, be none other than Christ, as seems to be the case,a fact which at once explains the omission of the parable by Mt. and Luke. Such ignorance only confirms our general view as to the strictly spiritual character of the knowledge conveyed by Jesus in His teaching,a statement which applies even to the knowledge referred to in the high utterance in Mat 11:25-27, Luk 10:21 f., touching Jesus unique knowledge of the Father and His corresponding revelation of Him to receptive souls. See, further, art. Kenosis.
ii. The Fourth Gospel.So far we have had in view knowledge and the teaching of it in the Synoptic Gospels only. But like results hold good in essence of the Fourth Gospel also, though with characteristic differences as to form. There, while the special word for knowledge () does not occur, the corresponding verb, with its suggestions of progressive insight gained by moral affinity, is very frequent (e.g. Joh 10:38 recognize and go on recognizing, Joh 13:7 thou dost not know now, but thou shalt come to recognize hereafter, cf. Joh 14:7). The knowledge in view is still such as can be verified by spiritual experience, and not such as must necessarily remain mere objective theory or dogma in the later sense.
A typical passage is Joh 3:1-21, where, however, it is impossible to say exactly how much is due, in form at least, to the Evangelist, and how much to Him of whom he writes. At Joh 3:16 even the form ceases to be historic, and passes into reflexion on the principles involved in what precedes. But what underlies the whole is the idea of religious experience as conditioning insight into such knowledge as the new Rabbi had to convey (Joh 3:2 ff.). Its subject-matter is the Kingdom of God, the nature of which dawns on a mans inner eye like the light of a fresh world of experience, into which he comes as by a new birth. This correlation of light and life implies that the knowledge in question is not abstract or impersonal, but vital and personal, such as can best be learned from and through a person, as it animates and gives him his specific character and attitude to life. Thus the life in Jesus Himself was the light He bore about in His personal walk among men. This is why belief in Jesus as a person and recognition of the light of His message are so closely related, indeed practically identified, in the Fourth Gospel in particular. Both attitudes of soul are conditioned by a mans will, and this again by his underlying characterso far as developedand the sympathetic affinities proper thereto. For everyone that doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God (Joh 3:20 f.). Here we get the Johannine terms in their most essential meaning, as defined by the context. Christs manifestation of the knowledge of God (on which the Kingdom depends) as His essential life, is the truth about God and man in their mutual relations,a truth, therefore, practical in its scope,and so the light of men as regards their special concern, the art of life. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (Joh 8:12). My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself (Joh 7:16 f.).
This agrees essentially with the Synoptic teaching as to righteousness and its conditions;* [Note: Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, i. 256 ff., as well as his general conception of the relation between the Synoptic and the Johannine representations of Jesus teaching.] it even coincides in form as regards the metaphor of light for mans footsteps in the journey of life (Mat 6:23, Luk 11:33 f., Joh 8:12), and the vision or blindness of men as determined by their prior moral affinities (Mat 15:14; Mat 23:16-26, Luk 4:18; Luk 6:39). What is peculiar to the Johannine presentation is the use of truth where the Synoptic word is righteousness. But OT usage [Note: Hastings DB iii. p. 9a: The conception of true religion as the knowledge of God is probably the true antecedent and parent of some NT expressions for which affinities have been sought in the phenomena of Gnosticism. John (Joh 6:45) quotes Isa 54:13 (All thy children shall be taught of the Lord).] helps us to see their equivalence in idea, and that truth is here at bottom no more speculative or dogmatic than righteousness. It means the way of God in truth (Mat 22:16, Luk 20:21; cf. Luk 16:11); and the Fourth Evangelists choice of the more intellectual synonym is probably due to a habit which he had adopted in bringing the message home to men of Greek rather than Jewish training. But the practical and vital sense in which the term is used appears, for instance, in the central saying: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me (Joh 14:6). When, too, Jesus goes on with, If you had come to recognize me (for what I am), of my Father also you would have had knowledge ( ), He does not pass into another sphere than that of spiritual quality and power, experimentally perceived: He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. The very fact that this is said in surprised reply to Philips request, Show us the Father, proves that distinct and explicit teaching as to the Father in Himself had formed no part of the teaching; it had all been implicit in the authoritative yet dependent or filial mien with which the Son had spoken and acted for God. [Note: Latham, op. cit. p. 17, observes that Jesus trusts to mens believing that the Father is in Him, not because He has declared it in set dogmas, but because He has been so long with them. This is part of His chosen method of teaching, to the most religious effect, in view of the nature of man as a being whose spiritual faculties are to be evoked and trained freely and ethically.] How far any sayings recorded in the great discourse and prayer which follow, go beyond such manifested spiritual unity, into the realm of metaphysics, is still an open question among scholars. Yet it should be remembered that the thought moves ever on the devotional rather than the dogmatic level of thought, especially in the prayer in ch. 17; and that to all believers is open a like oneness to that between Jesus and His Father ( , Joh 17:22), though this comes to others through relation to Himself ( , Joh 17:23). In any case the unity is that of Love made perfect (Joh 17:23; Joh 17:26), and rests on recognition of the Fathers name, gained by recognition of Jesus as sent of the Father (Joh 17:25 f.).
In confirmation of this view, namely, that Jesus teaching, even in the Johannine Gospel, moved essentially in the region of knowledge accessible to spiritual perception acting on kindred facts of experience, analogously to ordinary sense perception, we have the idea of Jesus as the true and faithful witness (Rev 1:5; Rev 3:14). Jesus witnesses to His message in various aspects (Joh 3:11; Joh 5:31; Joh 7:7; Joh 8:13 f., Joh 18:37), in such words and deeds as make failure to recognize its truth a self-judgment passed by each man upon the state of his own conscience or spiritual faculty, as determined by past conduct and motive (Joh 3:17-21; Joh 15:22; Joh 15:24, cf. Mar 4:21-25 ||). Thus the witness of Jesus constituted a manifestation (Joh 2:11; Joh 7:4; Joh 17:6) within the reach of men independently of intellectual capacity, on the sole basis of moral perceptivity and receptivity (see Joh 7:16 f., quoted above, cf. Joh 5:30), in which the common folk excelled the learned (Mat 11:25). The real object of such perception by nascent moral affinity, the specific revelation in Christ, was the total effect of Jesus teaching, what we should style its spirit. To resist this impression by practically judging it evil in nature and origin, was sin against the Holy Spirit at work in the consciencethe most fatal, because the most radical of all sins (Mar 3:28-30, Mat 12:31). The ultimate source, then, of insight into the message witnessed and the character of the Messenger as sent of God, especially in the full and perfect sense constituting Him the Messiah (Mar 8:27-30 ||), was the revealing action of the Father Himself (Mat 16:17, Joh 5:32; Joh 6:44; Joh 8:18, cf. Mat 11:27), as distinct from all mere human conditions of knowing (cf. Latham, op. cit. 337 f.). The Father Himself was the ultimate witness. Not only were Jesus works manifestly Gods works (Joh 5:36; Joh 17:10); His voice gave the final silent confirmation within the conscience; His immanent word answered to the word uttered without by His witness; the vaguely dim outline of His character or Name was but fulfilled in clearer form in the Name given by and in His witness (Joh 5:37 f.). And so the light from within met and recognized the light from without, and rose to the triumphant faith that the Light promised to Israel had indeed risen upon it.
iii. General Results.In all this there seems essential harmony between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, though in the latter the emphasis on the inner conditions of insight, and upon the Person of Jesus as summing up the spirit of His own teaching by word and deed, is more marked. In both types of Gospel the educative method* [Note: The wonderfully original and quickening nature of this is analyzed in Lathams Pastor Pastorum as nowhere else, perhaps, not excepting Ecce Homo.] of Jesus appears, even if, from its different scope, the Fourth Gospel does not bring this out concretely and progressively, as does the Synoptic narrative by its very nature as a narrative largely concerned with the gradual training of the Twelve through actual intercourse with their Master. Perhaps we may say that the immediate influence of the Personality of Jesus, through eye and ear, is more apparent in the Synoptic account; while in the Johannine, the universal significance of His Person as Messianic and Divine is set in reliefas it would be in later Christian experience. But in neither does the knowledge go beyond the scope of the Kingdom of God, the true Sovereignty of the Righteous Fatherfirst its principles, and then its future developmentsin close connexion with the destiny of its Founder and Lord, the Messiah, seen in His true character as unique Son of God. It is continuous with the Covenant idea of personal relations between God and His chosen people, and with the Divine name or character revealed in concreto through those relations. [Note: Psa 25:14 RV, The secret (counsel) of the Lord is with them that fear him; and his covenant, to make them know it ( ). Here the LXX inserts reference to the name of the Lord between the parallel clauses, as a third synonym.] The secret or mystery revealed is the more spiritual and less national nature of the Kingdom; and its essential contents form the New Covenant, which, towards the end of His private teaching to the inner circle of disciples, Jesus declared was destined to be consecrated or sealed in His own life-blood. The emphasis on the connexion between the message and the Messenger, the Messianic Kingdom and His own Person as Messianic Son of God, increased with the growing opposition encountered; so that confidence in Himself became the very sheet-anchor of the cause to which He was from the first consecrated. Thus the perspective of the teaching changes somewhat. The side at first implicit, becomes more and more explicit, especially in the intimate intercourse of Jesus and His inner circle. But there is essential continuity of spirit throughout. Nor is there any esoteric knowledge, in the strict sense, different in kind from the public teaching. The inner side was simply the darker side of difficulty and rejection, that most apt to repel the hearer until his confidence in the Master was well grounded. These were the mysteries* [Note: True to the OT usage = secret counsels; cf. Rev 10:7 then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which he declared to his servants the prophets.] of the Kingdom, if Jesus ever used such an expression (Mat 13:11, Luk 8:10, where Mk. has the mystery, and above, p. 702). There was no new theology in the abstract and Greek sense, as distinct from that of personal relations with man. Accordingly there is in the teaching of Christ no real warrant for the Gnostic developments which began once the Gospel passed from Jewish to Greek soil. It is significant that religious knowledge was not taken in a Gnostic sense among Palestinian Christians (as distinct from the mixed Samaritan type). This implies that Christs teaching was felt to move within the circle of general Hebrew metaphysics, and not to have any direct knowledge here to convey.
Such a judgment is confirmed, positively, by the so-called Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which in its present form is probably of Palestinian or Syrian origin, and understands the teaching () of the Lord to have differed from Judaism only ethically, in the deeper knowledge of Gods will, fuller spiritual life, and firmer grasp on immortality ( , , , 9:3, 10:2), which it bestowed. Its negative confirmation lies in the very fact that Gnosticizing versions of Christs teaching early arose in the centres where the Hellenic spirit was strongest. Such apocryphal Gospels, professing, as a rule, to supply from a secret line of tradition the words of deeper wisdom which it was assumed must have fallen from the lips of the great Revealer of the spiritual world (here regarded cosmically rather than ethically), only show what the speculative spirit missed in our Gospels, with their concrete, practical teaching, often in terms of an individual case. Most probably Christian Gnostics felt some encouragement and justification afforded them by the less Hebraic tone of the Fourth Gospel, even though it is mystical rather than metaphysical in its distinctive elements, and is tinged with Christian experience rather than cosmical philosophy. Probably also their first efforts at Gospel-writing were more ethical than metaphysical in scope and interest. This was certainly the case in some circles, notably that represented by the Gospel to which belong the Oxyrhynchus Sayings of Jesus (published in 1898, 1904), in which the non-original element is largely inspired by the Wisdom literature of Hellenistic Judaism, and takes the form mainly of glossing certain actual sayings of Jesus with developments and expansions in terms of the deeper moral philosophy or the day, e.g. of the maxim, Know thyself, and the Platonic doctrine of Wonder as the mother of Wisdom. Once this process of free development was started, however, and sanctioned among Christians imbued with Hellenic and Oriental notions, both philosophical and mythological,for the age was one of syncretism or the blending and fusion of ideas of very diverse origin,it was bound to go ever further and further away from the attitude and horizon of historic Gospels. If the remains of 2nd cent. Gospels known to us were not so scanty, we should be able to see the stages by which the later types, in which the historic element of Jesus teaching in word and deed is at a minimum, evolved gradually, rather than sprang full-blown to life. Thus the uncanonical Gospel drawn on by the preacher whose homily is known traditionally as 2 Clement, whether it be the Gospel according to the Egyptians or not, represented the next stage of idealization to that marked by the Oxyrhynchus Gospel; but it still contained much matter found in (and probably borrowed from) our Synoptic Gospels.* [Note: See The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, Oxford, 1905.] Quite the opposite kind of development, though one which also carries us away from the historic teaching of Jesus, is seen in the Judaizing Gospel according to the Hebrews, in its two forms or stages, in which the reactionary reading of Jesus message, the tendency to make it Judaic in letter and spirit, becomes more and more manifest.
Midway between these two opposed tendenciesthe Judaic or legal, and the Gnostic or esoteric, mysterious, metaphysicallie our historic Gospels. They are full of the spirit of Hebraic teaching as to knowledge of Divine things; but raise it to a new power and universality by contact with the Personality and spirit of Jesus, Himself the heart of the Gospel within the Gospels, the prime source of their perennial vitality and authority. Nor must we overlook the fact that the very form of these Gospels fits them, in a wonderful way, to be the vehicles of religious teaching after the mind of Jesus Himself, through being narrative instead of didactic, and coming from the Evangelists instead of from Christ Himself direct. If our Lord, says Latham (p. 13), had left writings of His own, every letter of them would have been invested with such sanctity that there could have been no independent investigation of truth. Its place would have been taken by commentatorial works on the delivered word, on the lines of the scribes and Rabbis. The letter of Jesus teaching would have been so revered, that its spirit and life would have had less chance of reproducing itself through personal effort freely to find its meaning by inner moral quest. So would the very end of that teaching have been frustrated. For in all His sayings and doings, our Lord was most careful to leave the individual room to grow. He cherishes and respects personality. And so He gave seed thoughts which should lie in mens, hearts, and germinate when fit occasion came (ib. pp. 5, 10, 12). All this is permanently secured by the simple narrative form of the Gospels, especially the Synoptics. Herein the outer form of the NTits Epistles hardly less than its Gospelsis as characteristic of the religion it enshrines as the Koran is of Islam. It is a notable fact that the Apocryphal Gospels steadily moved away from the narrative to the didactic manner, many of them transposing their key from the third to the first person, by the device of making their teaching ostensibly post-resurrectional (even the Oxyrhynchus Gospel does this), with a view to make it more dogmatically impressive. In so doing they came nearer the Koran and most other sacred books representing founders of religions; but they receded further from the earlier type of Christian written Gospel, of which the four in the Churchs canon are the most perfect samples.
See also artt. Discourse, Illustrations, Originality, Parable, etc.
Literature.As bearing on the form of Jesus teaching and its leading terms, so far as determined by their original Aramaic character, Dalmans Die Worte Jesu is invaluable [English translation of first part = The Words of Jesus, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1902]. Equally fundamental for the meaning of Jesus teaching in the Synoptics, compared also with that in the Fourth Gospel, is Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu [English translation The Teaching of Jesus, 2 vols., Edinburgh, T.& T. Clark, 1892); cf. A. B. Bruce, The Kingdom of God, Edinburgh, 1890, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, London, 1889. Perhaps the best book in English on the whole subject is Lathams Pastor Pastorum (Cambridge, 1890), which gives special attention to the way in which our Lord taught His disciples, both in what He did and in what He refrained from doing and saying. Incidental help is also afforded by the larger Lives of Christ; while the articles on Knowledge and Teaching in Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias often contain a section on our special subject.
Vernon Bartlet.