When I was teaching in Boston, the seminary faculty used to be assigned regularly to celebrate a radio mass on Sundays. It was done in a small chapel in the Cardinal's residence with practically no people. And I always had the sense that there might not be anyone listening at all, just talking into a microphone. At least here you can see people as well as seeing the machines. Before we go on to the question of Jesus' public life, I'd just like to pick up on a couple of the things we were talking about last night for a moment, just to give one brief illustration of a technique that I mentioned of tying various matters in to the theology of the crucifixion, and in a sense using the crucifixion as the focal point for linking together different elements that might otherwise fly off in different directions. The two examples that I take are not completely arbitrary, but they're not the only examples that could be taken. They're both taken from the Gospel of Mark,

[01:02]

And that's not arbitrary at all, because Mark is often credited with being one of the primary figures in making these links in the early church. The first one is rather subtle. It comes from the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, and it's a point that you probably wouldn't even notice if you just read that chapter. But if you read the whole Gospel, or if you know basically what the story is, it jogs your memory a bit. The Gospel starts off with a brief account of John the Baptist. Then it speaks about Jesus' baptism by John and Jesus going out into the wilderness. So the evangelist has not yet really begun his story of what Jesus himself is going to say. Then in verse 14, he starts what will turn out to be a rather extended presentation throughout the gospel by saying, now when John was handed over

[02:10]

Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. Now most of that little summary presentation of what Jesus has to say, that's in very compressed form the substance of what's going to follow with regard to Jesus' preaching. But what I draw your attention to here this morning is not the capsule summary of Jesus' preaching, but rather the very brief introductory comment when John was handed over. It seems to just set the time, John the Baptist is baptized, Jesus now goes out of the scene. But any Christian reading or listening to this text knows that the gospel ends with Jesus being handed over. that what starts out so simply and so positively, preaching the gospel, has a very serious ending. And I suggest that that's one example of a way in which the evangelist links his presentation of Jesus, in this case Jesus as a teacher, to the fate that awaits this teacher at the end of the story.

[03:26]

Now, you might take that as an example of linking a type of wisdom Christology, Jesus as teacher, which the evangelist affirms, with another type of Christology in which he's even more interested. Second example comes from the end of Mark, chapter 15. This is from the crucifixion account. I won't read the whole of the account, but just one very brief section of it. Jesus has been crucified along with two thieves. And then beginning in verse 29, the evangelist writes, those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priest mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself.

[04:33]

Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. The background of those references, of course, Jesus' miracles, particularly the miracles of healing. And what's presented here at the crucifixion account is a demand for one final miracle. in a sense one that will surpass the others because now it will be a miracle performed for the benefit of Jesus himself and not simply for the benefit of others. So if there's any understanding that has survived up to chapter 15 of Jesus as simply being a miracle worker, It's encapsulated here in the demand for a final miracle at the end which will show him to be what he is and which will lead, according to the words at least, to faith in him as the Christ. What happens? Of course he does not come down from the cross. The demand for another miracle in that sense is unsatisfying. Instead,

[05:35]

When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling Elijah. And one ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed and gave him to drink, saying, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. Again, the miracle. But Jesus uttered aloud, cry, and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, truly this man was a son of God. There's no miracle, instead there's a death. And the response to the death is a profession of faith on the part of the centurion, not on the part of the others who were mocking him, but on the part of the centurion.

[06:46]

Take that in the context of the whole gospel, it's another way of saying The theology of Jesus as a miracle worker is okay as far as it goes because he did perform signs, wonders, but that won't do as a final identification. It won't do as a specification of why Jesus is salvific or how one recognizes Jesus as the Christ. Instead, it's in his death. And you notice that it takes place here before we get to the resurrection stories at all in this telling of the story. It's the death that reveals who Jesus is and shows him to be salvific. We can come back to that later, but those are just two illustrations of ways in which this evangelist, some of these texts aren't quite the same in the other Gospels, uses his literary techniques even in the Gospel to focus attention precisely on the death of Jesus as salvific and even as revelatory. Today in your discourse you spoke about the various terms by which Christ was mentioned.

[07:54]

And then the Son of God, and you said it had a different significance for the heathen Jews than what it has for us. And this term here, truly was the Son of God. Well... That's a good question. It's a very difficult question to answer. I think, first of all, that the Greek text doesn't say, The Son of God, but just Son of God. I don't think the article is there, so that might be something to consider. The second problem, of course, is that this is a centurion, a Roman, and you can't have a Roman speaking of a Messiah. That's a Jewish That's a Jewish category. So it may be that the background intended here, and Mark does this in his passion account, that you see chapters which talk about Messiah and chapters which talk about Son of God, that he's using something of a translation of Messianic terms into categories that aren't so directly Jewish.

[09:05]

Now, what's meant here in this text, one question is, What does it mean to the Centurion? It certainly is suggesting in this story some type of recognition. It's not a title of kingship in the earthly sense. It can't mean that here. On the other hand, it would be very difficult to think of a doctrine of the Trinity here either. But there's another respect here in which the Centurion is being used as a vehicle for Mark. for Mark to express his Christology. And the Son of God can have a different meaning and a deeper meaning for Mark than it would in the immediate historical circumstances that are being described. You notice here, of course it's partly the situation, but in the earlier passage we looked at yesterday when Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah, Jesus doesn't reject that, but he goes on to make some additions, must suffer much, and so on, and Peter doesn't understand that.

[10:13]

So you get the picture from the overall story that Peter's understanding is accurate as far as it goes, but it's not complete. Here there's no correction. Now, on the one hand, of course, there's little opportunity for correction. Jesus has just died and there's nobody else there to do it. But the other sense also seems to be that there's no need for correction, because here the confession that Jesus is whatever term is used to describe what he is, is face-to-face with his death. You don't have to tell the centurion. The centurion sees it and recognizes its significance. So in some ways, this actually is the highest confession within this gospel. And maybe if I could just add one last point on that. The first verses of the gospel significant. Anytime we start off a literary document, the beginning and the end have a certain impact that you might not have elsewhere.

[11:14]

And Mark begins his gospel by saying, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Matthew talks about son of Abraham, son of David. Well, that's a little different. So this is a title that certainly means a lot to Mark, more to Mark than what I said yesterday about the background of it in Old Testament music. Yeah? Just commentaries. I know that Jesus linked the centurion whose child was healed with the person at the foot of the cross. Might that be? I mean, I know it was done probably I'd be a bit hesitant about that. Perhaps I wouldn't be if I were making a movie. But the centurion here does not, up to this point, does not appear as favorable to Jesus at all.

[12:16]

He's the one who's conducting the crucifixion. It's not his decision, but he's carrying it out. And then there's a confession of faith. To link it, I think it would take more than a title to establish that kind of link. That was simply to illustrate bit more some of the themes we looked at last night. I'd like to add here a couple of transitional points before we come to Jesus' public life. First of all, all of the various categories we looked at last night, whether understood in Skillebeak's sense or Kirstner's sense or in any alternative sense, they're all subject to a little bit of testing and a little bit of investigation, which is to ask, is there a basis in Jesus' life? interpreting him in this way. There are bases for seeing him as a miracle worker, bases for seeing him as a teacher. It's one thing to use those categories as the overarching terms, the key terms for understanding who he is in general.

[13:24]

Some of the terms might not be suitable for that purpose, but they might still capture a certain amount of what Jesus was about, even if not all. I mention that here to suggest that even talking about those categories of New Testament Christology forces us to look back a bit into Jesus' public life, to raise some questions at least about what he said, what he did. in order to fill out those categories with content. So the look at New Testament Christology itself pushes us back a little bit behind the New Testament, even behind the 15 or 20 years before the New Testament got written, back to the time of Jesus' public life itself. And that's what we'll be looking at very briefly this morning. I draw your attention back to another set of categories that I mentioned, particularly in the introductory talk yesterday morning. The items, you might say, of the incarnation, the public life, the crucifixion, and the resurrection.

[14:30]

We're going to be looking for the moment at public life. But I suggested, particularly in the first talk, that we might ask how these various items are linked together. What's the connection between Jesus' public life and his crucifixion? What's the connection between the crucifixion and the resurrection? That last question is something we'll have to defer to for another day or so, but the question of the links between the public life and the crucifixion is one we might keep in mind here, and perhaps also the question of links between the public life and the resurrection. If there aren't some links, then things are going to come apart on us. We're going to talk about public life one day. We're going to say something that's quite different two or three days later and not try to make any connections. That's, in the long run, likely to be unsatisfactory, to try to take things in isolation. But to actually see the links connecting one item to another, that's more complex than it might appear to be at first glance.

[15:33]

And I'd ask you to keep that in mind as we go through things. Then finally, one point which I'll make, a final preliminary point. I'll put this in a bit more personal terms. When I taught at the seminary in Boston, I had, among others, two colleagues, two elderly Monsignors who were very distinguished church historians. One was a priest from Boston who has since died. He was an expert on medieval canon law, and especially on St. Peter Damian. The other was a priest from New York who is retired and living down south. He was an expert on modern French history, particularly the history of French educational systems and church-state relations in conjunction with that. They were both very good historians, but the sort of things they did were very different. The man who worked with the medieval material had a handful of texts

[16:37]

Hardly anybody knew who wrote what, and each small text was subjected to extraordinary scrutiny in order to get out of the very fragmentary documentation as much information as was possible. A man who dealt with modern French history had volumes and volumes of text published by the French government. The problem was not at all a shortage of text. The problem was how to plow through that material and figure out what was worth paying attention to and what was not significant at all. When we look at the question of historical issues regarding Jesus, the situation is much more like that of the medieval historian. We don't have the sheer quantity of information from Jesus' lifetime that we would have from a 19th or 20th century figure. We have instead a very limited amount of information written for very specific purposes that have to be studied then very, very carefully in order to get as much historical data as we can out of a limited quantity of text, fundamentally the Gospels, though there's a bit more beyond that.

[17:52]

That situation sometimes causes people to think that we don't know much of anything historically about Jesus. There's a certain awareness that the Gospels are interpreted critically, that we can't take everything simply at face value as it's reported, that sometimes causes people to think we don't know much of anything at all. But that's not so. That's drawing a false conclusion in the opposite direction. We know more historically about Jesus than we do about almost anyone else from that period. There are a couple of exceptions. Cicero would be an exception, I suppose. Caesar. Maybe as far as religious figures are concerned, we know a good bit about Paul, but Paul's really the only other New Testament figure we have a great deal of information about. In other words, even though our knowledge of Jesus historically can't be compared very well with what we might know about a prominent 20th century figure, you couldn't write a biography of Jesus in the detail that we have the biography of Churchill, for example.

[19:03]

That's just inconceivable. Still, that's not the right point of reference. The reference point is how much do we know about Jesus in comparison to other figures who lived 2,000 years ago. And there the amount of information is really quite significant and has very significant content as well. So what is the situation with regard to knowledge of Jesus' public life? I'd like to say first just a couple of words about the history of modern research on the subject. picking out just a few points, and then after that, give a little summary of the items of knowledge about Jesus that are of particular theological importance. And I'd like to say why I consider them to be of particular theological importance. First, a few words on the history of the research, because that helps to understand some of the issues and some of the context. The start of critical historical research on the Gospels does not lie in Catholic circles, nor does it lie in Orthodox Protestant circles.

[20:14]

It lies rather with opponents of Christianity. It was pursued to a great extent by people who did not accept the Christian interpretation of Jesus, who wanted to oppose it and in one form or another conducted their research for that purpose. Now, of course, a side effect of that is that the research acquired a bad name in Christian circles. That goes hand in hand. But the man whose name is always mentioned at the beginning of this process is a German scholar by the name of Hermann Samuel Reimarus. He's a professor in Hamburg, but he was also much influenced by English authors. Rimarus was born in 1694, and he died in 1768.

[21:15]

He's the only one of these figures that I'll mention in any detail here, but it will help, I think, to have some idea of what he was about and about the circumstances of the time. He was an Enlightenment figure, a rationalist. He believed in God, a rather remote God, but he believed in God. But he was not a Christian. He was not supportive of Christian positions. And in the interest of supporting his own religious views, he wrote a very long defense of rationalist conceptions of religion. I think it's about 800 to 1,000 pages or so. When people wrote books in those days, they tended to write very lengthy books. This book was published in 1972 for the first time. Now, the reason for the publication in 1972 is historical interest in Reimarus' work.

[22:22]

But the reason for not having it published in the 18th century is simply that an inconceivable letter book attacking Christianity in that way could have passed state censorship at that time. Instead, what happened after Reimarus' death is that between 1774 and 1778, The philosopher and literary figure G.E. Lessing published fragments of Reimarus' work, indicated that he had found these in a library, didn't know who the author was, whether that's true or not is disputed, but at any rate he didn't say who the author was. And Lessing said he was presenting these fragments to the public in order that Christians might refute them. He said he was sure they were wrong, that they should be refuted, but he didn't know how to go about doing it.

[23:23]

Whether that's really how he felt or not also is another question. But at any rate, that's the way he presented things. And Among the Fragments, even the fragments are a book of 150, 200 pages. There's a significant amount there. Among the Fragments is a long chapter on the purpose of Jesus and the purpose of his disciples. And then another long chapter on the story of the resurrection. I'd like to be a bit more specific about both, because they show something of the issues that are involved here, despite the questionable positions that Ramirez himself takes. He was a professor in Hamburg. He was a professor of what we would call Near Eastern studies. He knew the languages. He knew, to the extent that people did at that time, he knew the history, the archaeology, the material, the environment of Jesus. He was not a theologian. Reimarus took the position that Jesus, during his lifetime,

[24:30]

had a purpose very different from what Christians claimed after Jesus' death. He thought that Jesus was a political leader who sought to unify Israel, bring about eventually an overthrow of Roman rule. He had not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, not to replace Judaism with a different religious conception, but rather to bring about a revivification of Israel's own religious traditions. And in that context, the religious and political dimensions are intertwined. There's a nationalist dimension to it. So Jesus, as Ramirez saw him, preached the coming of the kingdom of heaven. but meant by that a messianic kingdom in this world, a restoration of Israel.

[25:37]

He was the son of David and son of David is a political title. It's a title of, of Israel's Kings. His disciples at the time shared Jesus views. That's why they were attracted to follow him. And occasionally Jesus came close to success, at one point in Galilee, later at the time of his entrance into Jerusalem. His efforts proved unsuccessful, however, in the long run, and he was crucified. That was the end, obviously, of Jesus' own messianic activity. That's the end of the effort to unify Israel and bring about a messianic kingdom in that original sense. I won't go into the details on this here, but if you look for the specific points that Reimarus is interested in, the specific verses that he takes, they're pretty much all taken from the Gospel of Matthew.

[26:44]

In the 20th century now, it's usually held that Mark was the first gospel written, Matthew came somewhat later, but at the time Reimarus was writing, Matthew was universally taken to be the first of the Gospels. And the basic thrust of Reimarus' argument, we'll see more of it in a minute, is that the Christians reinterpreted Jesus after his death. But that if you go back to the original, to the oldest text, Matthew, you find things still present that point away from what the Christians are trying to do with Jesus and give you something of a reflection of what Jesus was actually about. They were suppressing the actual memory of Jesus, but they didn't do a good enough job of it the first time around, and so things can still be found there. For example, the statement, I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. In Matthew's Gospel, contrast that with Pauline teaching on Christ as the end of the law. Ramirez's view is that this shows the difference and it shows that they hadn't yet got around to reformulating things.

[27:52]

What happened then? The disciples at Jesus' death can no longer continue in the same views. That's not possible. They're basically faced with the choice of going back to their original business, fishing or whatever, or reinterpreting Jesus, very significantly reinterpreting Jesus. Ramirez takes the position that what the disciples actually did was engage in such reinterpretation. He says that at the time, there were various notions of what it meant to be the Messiah. We touched on this a little bit in a different context last night. He says that on the one hand, there is a political notion, the Messiah as the son of David, that has nationalist overtones to it.

[29:08]

On the other hand, there is another type of thinking which can be considered apocalyptic. The messiah as the son of man, the son of man who will eventually come in the clouds of heaven, but this can also be linked with the notion of someone who will come twice. once in an ignominious state and then a second time in glory. Now, Reimarus' argument is that the more political notion of Messiah is what was conceived by Jesus. And that's the way the disciples thought of Jesus during his lifetime. But that came to an end with his death. His argument is that at this time the disciples continued to see Jesus as Messiah, but now had recourse to a different strand of messianic expectation.

[30:21]

Seeing Jesus as an apocalyptic figure who had already come in lowliness, that's the life that had just ended, would however in the future maybe the very near future, maybe the more far distant future, common glory. So messianic identification of Jesus is preserved, but it's preserved with complete shift in content, a falsification, actually, of what Jesus had originally been about. What happened then with regard to the resurrection material? Ramirez takes this to be a falsification. After the crucifixion of Jesus, he was buried. The disciples stole the body, hid it for 50 days, and then began at Pentecost to preach that Jesus was risen and exalted, to preach now the new interpretation of who Jesus was.

[31:33]

Now, obviously, this is change. Why the 50 days? Obviously the 50 days, the story comes from the Pentecost story, from Acts. But the purpose of waiting for the 50 days is simply that now the activity of the disciples can no longer be uncovered. No one can prove any longer that they are mistaken in what they're doing. No one can go to the grave or pursue further what they have done. Let me give just one example of a passage that's relevant to this interpretation. It's taken from Matthew. It's from chapter 27, toward the end of chapter 27, and then chapter 28. Matthew, like the other evangelists, has the story of Jesus' death and burial.

[32:46]

And then Matthew has the additional story. I won't read the full text here. I'll just read a couple of verses from it. The next day the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, Sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive, after three days I will rise again. Therefore order the supplicant to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people he has risen from the dead and the last fraud will be worse than the first. Pilate gives them the God. Eventually, when Matthew comes to the resurrection story, the gods are again mentioned. This is chapter 28, verses 11 to 15. Some of the God went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. When they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell the people his disciples came by night and stole them away while we were asleep.

[34:02]

If this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed, and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Now what is Ramirez doing with this material? First of all, the story of the gods, the presence of the gods at the tomb, and then the subsequent material about the bribing of the gods to tell the false story, that story is only found in Matthew's Gospel. There are no references to that elsewhere in the New Testament. The burial stories are there, resurrection stories are there, but the gods don't figure in it. This is only in Matthew. Rimares takes the position that's what's tucked away here in Matthew's gospel, is the real state of affairs. That Christians have suppressed that story in favor of their own account of the resurrection, and that here in Matthew there's an initial literary effort, in some ways a rather crude literary effort, to explain how the story originated through bribery.

[35:19]

Ramirez's point is that if you read the New Testament against the grain, against what the evangelist is trying to say, here and in a number of other places, you uncover what really happened. And so he gives a presentation of Jesus as a failed political messiah whose followers were unwilling to abandon him, but instead devised falsifications about his life, and about events after his death in order to develop Christian teaching. Eventually, expectation of immediate return faded. The apocalyptic expectation wanes a bit. But by that time, the church is well enough established to weather the storm. Grimaris' work is often pointed to, typically pointed to, as the beginning of critical research with regard to the historical Jesus.

[36:22]

It's not that Ramirez's positions are accepted. They're not. They're criticized from the time that the works were published, and rightly so. But this raises very urgently the question, what's the relationship between the actual events of Jesus' public life and death and the way the evangelists describe things? If it's not to be seen as a falsification, how are differences to be accounted for? What's the justification for the rethinking that goes on? In large part, for that reason, A great deal of attention was paid in the 19th century to writing lives of Jesus, particularly in Protestant circles. The impact on Catholic thought came later, mostly later. I won't go into detail here about the individual books.

[37:24]

Most of them are not extremely significant in their own right. The one exception I'll just mention in passing is a two-volume work published in 1835, 1836, by David Friedrich Strauss entitled The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. That was translated very rapidly into English by the novelist George Eliot. and it was influential in various other languages as well. Strauss' work is superior to others in that he was much more attentive to the details of the text, extraordinarily so, even though elements of his own interpretation can definitely be subjected to criticism. The overall depiction of Jesus in these lives tends to be dominated by the conceptions of Protestant liberal theology.

[38:29]

Jesus is presented mostly as a teacher, a teacher of moral doctrine, and as a figure whose own life exemplified the value and the implications of his teaching. No more than that, however. It's a presentation of Jesus that is at variance with the traditional Christological doctrine, and it was developed precisely in order to be at variance with that traditional Christological doctrine. It was intended as a substitute. But in the eyes of those who wrote those biographies, it seemed to them that this was the way Jesus really was. and that the later Christological teaching, especially with its focus on the divinity of Christ, was a distortion. They don't typically take the position that Ramirez took, that it was a deliberate distortion.

[39:31]

They're not saying that people went out of their way to falsify, to twist the texts or something of that sort. They are saying that over the course of time, stories sprang up and that influences of different cultures began to take hold The picture was in fact distorted, not through any deliberate efforts, but simply as time passed. Again, the background and the mentality of those who investigated in this period is one of the reasons why in Catholic circles and in more orthodox Protestant circles, there was a great deal of hostility to this type of research. It seemed questionable in its presuppositions and more than questionable in its results. That's largely the situation through the 19th century, something of an opposition between, on the one hand, the traditional dogmatic Christologies, and on the other hand, the 19th century lives of Jesus with a much lower conception of Jesus, with much more attention, however, to the details of his public life.

[40:43]

Now, where does that leave us with regard to our framework. The lives of Jesus, the typical 19th century lives of Jesus, are focused exclusively on Jesus' public life. They don't hold to a theology of the incarnation. They're not particularly interested in the resurrection. The crucifixion will get mentioned, but that's not the focus of their thought. It's Jesus as the teacher and as the example of his teaching who is still inspirational to us at the present time. On the other hand, more traditional theological circles, there is on the one hand a theology of the incarnation. and on the other hand, a theology of the crucifixion.

[41:50]

But there's not a great deal of attention to Jesus' public life. So the two movements are quite opposed to each other, very conscious of their opposition to each other. And at least at that time, there's no great interest in trying to draw positively on each other. This is a climate of considerable hostility and opposition. What happens in the 20th century, first, very briefly, around the end of the First World War, with some antecedents before that, but particularly around the time the First World War ended, there was a sharp break within Protestant theology away from 19th century liberal Protestantism. There's a very strong rejection of the mentality which led to this pursuit of the public life of Jesus and the development of biographies.

[43:01]

One reason for that is the judgment that the 19th century authors, contrary to their intentions, really did not give a good picture of what Jesus was like. That they read a lot of their own thought back into Jesus. They ended up with a Jesus who would have been quite at home in the 19th century. One of the figures who is instrumental in Promoting that criticism of 19th century thought is Albert Schweitzer, who is better known later for his medical work in the Congo, but who initially was a musician and a theologian. He wrote a history of the research on Jesus. Schweitzer himself was very sympathetic to liberal Protestant theology. He had no major criticisms of its ethical views. But he judged that Jesus wasn't like that. That in Schweitzer's judgment, Jesus was someone who preached that the world was about to end very soon.

[44:11]

An apocalyptic preacher who really didn't lend himself to use. He certainly didn't lend himself to use in the way the liberal Protestants had thought. So that was something of a blow to their system. The second element, a bit later, is particularly associated with the name of Karl Barth, a Swiss Protestant theologian. Barth wanted to overthrow liberal Protestantism. Basically, he said at one point that if it had really been a choice between being a liberal Protestant and being a Catholic, it would be much better to be a Catholic. His preference was to conduct something of a reform in the Protestant tradition. As far as Christology is concerned, Barth wanted to move away from the public life of Jesus to a focus on his death and resurrection and, in a way, on the Incarnation.

[45:17]

If you think of it in terms of the Bible, he doesn't want to go to the Synoptic Gospels. He wants to go to Paul and John. That's where you find Christology. Not by looking for the events of Jesus' life, but by looking at the proclamation of Christ after his death. And Barth's position was basically that that's the starting point for theology. If someone then asks you, what's the basis for this Christian preaching? What's the basis for Paul saying that Christ died for our sins? Then, Barth's answer is that Paul's preaching is God's word, and that it's not for you to question into its background. So the historical questions are brushed aside. in favor of concentration on the early church's preaching and especially the Pauline preaching of Christ.

[46:25]

That period, again I'm sticking here to Protestant theology, that period lasted for about a quarter century, roughly from 1920, well a little more than about 30 years, into the 1950s. Since that time, there has been an effort to revive theological interest in the events of Jesus' public life. It's no longer restricted to Protestant scholars, but it's equally to be found among Catholics. However, it differs from the 19th century search in that it's not intended to be in opposition to the traditional Christological doctrine. It's rather, in part at least, seen as being in support of investigating the origins of that doctrine. And here, without going into too much detail, I'd like to pick out a few points with regard to Jesus' historical public life.

[47:34]

that are very relevant for developing Christology. For the overall portrayal of Jesus' public life, I'd again refer you to the article by John Mayer in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary that I mentioned the other day. What can we say at the present time about his public life? First of all, Jesus preached the coming of God's kingdom, kingdom with both present and future dimensions. present dimensions in the sense that the kingdom already begins to be present in Jesus' own life and with Jesus' own activity. I think here are some of the miracle stories. If I, by the finger of God, cast out demons, then the reign of God has come upon you.

[48:38]

At the same time, there is also another sense in which the kingdom has not yet come, in which it's awaited in the future. And that tension between present and future is a key element of Jesus' own presentation. I suppose the most familiar example of the future element is the Our Father, where we're taught by Jesus to pray for the coming of the kingdom. You wouldn't do that if it were already there completely. So the message of Jesus has to do with God's kingdom, not directly with Jesus himself. He's preaching the kingdom of God as his primary focus. He is not primarily speaking about himself. That's the first point. And that's a point that would receive almost universal

[49:41]

recognition among biblical scholars at the present time. If I can put it in very rough terms, historically you get a better picture of Jesus preaching by reading the synoptic gospels than you do by reading the fourth gospel. The fourth gospel serves other purposes and has other values. But as a portrayal of Jesus preaching with its focus on the kingdom of God, the synoptic gospels are a better historical guide. The second point is a little trickier and it's the second point that's absolutely decisive for Christology. The coming of the kingdom is inseparably bound up with the person of Jesus. The kingdom is not separable from Jesus. It's in and through Jesus that the kingdom begins to be present in a way that it was not beforehand.

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And Jesus sees himself as God's final word, not to be replaced by another figure. There's something definitive about this. Now, this kind of connection between Jesus' person and his message is very important because this is what makes it possible and even necessary to move from the message about the kingdom of God to a Christology. It's the link between the person and the message that makes that possible. Think, for example, about a reference on Paul's part against the background of what I just mentioned about Jesus preaching the kingdom.

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Paul says, we preach Christ crucified. Paul does not say we preach the kingdom of God. Jesus didn't preach Christ crucified. What's the justification for that? Or is Paul, in his own way, replacing Jesus' preaching with something different? And basically the answer there, the link between the two, is to be found in the fact that even from the very beginning, Jesus' preaching about the kingdom always has presuppositions that rest in Jesus himself. He's not preaching the kingdom in general. He's preaching the kingdom, which has come close with his presence. And so the person of Jesus is tied inseparably to the content of his message. Now that's not always the case with people and messengers. When you listen to the news at night, the content of the news is pretty much independent from the figure who happens to be reading it to you.

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Sometimes people, of course, do get blamed for bad news, even if they're just the ones who happen to bring the message. It's dangerous to do that, and people tend to try to avoid doing that. But in Jesus' case, even though he's not speaking directly of himself, He is the presupposition of all that he has to say about the kingdom. Now, what does that mean? It means, first of all, that we can make a distinction between implicit and explicit Christology. This is very standard in recent literature. What is meant by it? Well, explicit Christology is a statement such as Jesus is the Messiah.

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or the statement that was mentioned earlier by the centurion, truly this man was the son of God, the type of statement in which a Christological title is associated directly with Jesus. We have lots of examples of that in the New Testament. Implicit Christology is a Christology that's expressed in a less direct fashion, not through direct use of titles. but in some other way. Let me give one example only. In the Sermon on the Mount, in several places, Jesus says, you have heard that it was said to men of old, and then he cites from the law, thou shalt not kill, something of that sort. And then he says, but I say to you, And then he teaches something which goes beyond, surpasses what had been present in the law.

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Now you notice there, he is not talking directly about himself. He doesn't say, I am the Messiah, or I am the Son of God, or any other, make use of any other Christological title. He simply teaches. So there's no explicit Christology in a passage of that sort. But there is an implicit Christology because in so teaching, Jesus claims the authority to surpass the law. He claims the authority to go beyond the law in making known God's will, God's intention. He claims in effect, to be what is otherwise expressed in terms of titles. The implicit Christology is another way of expressing the point that I made a few minutes ago about the link between Jesus' person and message.

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The message is what's reflected in this case in the ethical teaching. Implicit Christology is the personal presupposition of that in Jesus himself. Now that explicit Christology is certainly found in the New Testament. It is disputed among experts as to how much of that goes back to Jesus' own lifetime and how much of it is the contribution of the early church. The implicit Christology, however, certainly goes back to Jesus' own lifetime. It's reflected in his words, many of his words, and it's reflected in his deeds. On that point, I would add just one thing.

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We sometimes tend to presuppose that the explicit Christology is the more important of the two, but that's not so. The explicit Christology rests rather on the implicit. And unless you had a basis in the implicit Christology, in the way Jesus acts, in the way he teaches, then all the explicit Christology in the world would lack foundation. Let me give you an example of something else to move it out of the theological context. How do you know that George Bush is the president? Is it through explicit statements? You have that from time to time, publicly.

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Or is it through the way that he goes about exercising the office? Now, in fact, you have both. But supposing you were to ask, how would you tell the real president from someone who mistakenly thought he was president? There may be people in the country who mistakenly think that they're president. The answer is not going to be by asking who gets up and says, I am the president. In fact, if somebody walked in and said, I am the president, that would be cause for suspicion. Instead, the way you see what someone is, is through what someone says and does less directly. And then you summarize that in the explicit statement. Now, exactly the same kind of situation is present here with one further factor that I'll come to in a minute. But the same point is present, that it's not only through, not primarily through the explicit claim, either on Jesus' part or on someone else's part about Jesus, it's rather through the actual doing

[60:06]

that the issue is raised and it's through reference to the actual doing that it is to be judged. And let me add just one point and then we can take a few questions before we break up. I use the example of president deliberately partly because it's one that we're familiar with, but it also serves the purpose in two other respects. One, to illustrate something very similar to Jesus, and then secondly, to illustrate something that's very different. First of all, in both cases, Messiah and President, we have, at least in a broad sense, an office that only one can hold. You can't have two presidents in the same way that you can have two senators. In fact, you do have a hundred senators. If you had two presidents, for all practical purposes, you might as well not have any, because the content of the office would be undercut.

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It doesn't work that way. Similarly, the case with regard to Jesus. One of the key words in all the Christological titles, despite its absence in the Centurion's Confession, but in the great majority of New Testament usages, is the definite article that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, or whatever imagery is being used, the bread of life, the light of the world, and so on. There's a focus that there's something distinctive here that is not true in the same way of others. That's one element that this serves to show, that it's not just through the word, but rather through the content that light is shed on the word. But there's also a difference, and the difference is the point where this political analogy limps. We have only one president at a given time. But we have a specified constitutional description of the office.

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And over the course of time, the office has been held by a great variety of people. George Bush succeeded Reagan and will in turn eventually be succeeded by someone else. That means that we can define legally pretty well the content of the word president. and then look to an individual to see if the office is in fact being exercised. That's not quite the case with regard to Jesus. Here we get the same issue that came up yesterday in the evening, that the title Messiah or the other titles are suitable to a certain extent for describing Jesus, but they also get modified in the course of application. All the more reason, then, in this case, to have to go to the implicit exercise in Jesus' life of messianic claims, because the title alone won't help you.

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If you just had Jesus saying, I am the Messiah, even if you

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