connection with the express claim to be the son of David, their Messianic significance was not obvious to the Jews. For the Jewish consciousness the special signification alike of the Messianic attribute Son of God" and of that of "Son of man" was conditioned by the presupposition of the most weighty and unchanging feature of the splendid and powerful kingly sway of the Messiah. For the consciousness of Jesus, on the other hand, the sure ground of His Messianic dignity in the kingdom of God lay in the fact that He was the Son of God, so far as the filial relationship to God, characteristic of all members of the kingdom, was fully realised in Him. Hereby it was occasioned that He could apply the title "Son of man" to Himself in the full sense in which it denoted the bearer of a frail finite human nature; for He knew that His Divine Sonship was not only altogether compatible with His humanity, but it required to be manifested by Him amid special conditions of human lowliness.

6. With this whole consistent view of Himself on the part of Jesus, which stands in inward relation to His idea of the nature of the kingdom of God, as we find it attested by the Matthew-Logia and the Gospel of Mark, we have now to compare His view of Himself as contained in the discourses of the fourth Gospel. Here it is important, above all, that we explain the sayings of the Johannine discourses by themselves and from their connection, and do not consider them from the first in the light in which the evangelist who has redacted the Johannine source has

1

set them. If we follow this rule, the one specially striking difference we meet-viz. that in the Johannine discourses the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus stands in the foreground of the record, whilst in the synoptical discourses, apart from those which concern the closing period of Jesus' ministry, it comes only briefly and occasionally to light-finds a ready explanation. For these Johannine discourses, from the first sayings at the cleansing of the temple, as I have several times already brought out, exhibit evident signs of having all originally belonged to the closing period of Jesus' ministry, and have only by the redacting evangelist been distributed over the whole period of the ministry. So soon as we firmly grasp this knowledge, we can, in accordance with the standard of the testimony of our other sources, no longer regard as unintelligible and unhistorical the general fact that the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus is placed so strongly in the foreground. The question is only whether this personal testimony of Jesus, according to the substance of the thought, is in harmony with that found in the accounts of the synoptical discourses.

At the central point of Jesus' view of Himself, according to the Johannine discourses, stands His claim to be "the Son of God," Kaт' èçoxýv (v. 17, 19 ff.; vi. 40; x. 36; xiv. 13; xvii. 1). To this claim, which forms the foundation for His further claim to have a unique significance for salvation, Jesus gives special emphasis and manifold particular detail; against this claim, also, was levelled the specially pointed objection of His Jewish opponents, who taxed Him with

1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 288 ff.

blasphemy on account of it (cf. v. 17 ff.; x. 30 ff.). Before we inquire as to the exact sense in which this claim to Divine sonship in the Johannine discourses is meant, we must first consider the significance of the fact that here also the personal Messianic testimony of Jesus, whilst He avoids the direct title of Messiah, is generally concentrated upon the assertion. of His unique and perfect filial relation to God. Certainly this fact appears without significance so long as it is assumed that for the Jewish consciousness also the idea of the Son of God was equivalent to the idea of the Messiah. But when it is made clear that though the Jews certainly understood the title "Son of God" as a traditional attribute of the Messiah, they yet by no means found the essential principle and significance of the Messiahship in the filial fellowship of the Messiah. with God, but in His splendid and powerful Davidic kingship, then, in the emphasising and specialising of this idea of filial fellowship with God, and in the founding of all Messianic claims of Jesus solely on this Divine sonship, we already recognise a very remarkable accordance between the Johannine personal testimony of Jesus and that which meets us in the accounts of the synoptical sources throughout, and specially in the question of Jesus as to the Davidic sonship of the Messiah (Mark xii. 35 ff.) in opposiVery character

tion to the prevailing Jewish view. istic in this respect is the conversation, John x. 24 ff., where the Jews press Jesus with the appeal that He should no longer keep them in suspense, but declare plainly if He were the Messiah; to which Jesus answered, that He had already declared it to them,

but they did not believe. The appeal of the Jews was occasioned by their having heard from Jesus in His previous discourses such expressions in regard to His special significance as seemed to them to be indeed intimations of His Messianic position, but which still did not amount to a direct expression, or a plain paraphrasing, of the Messianic claim. On the contrary, Jesus Himself was conscious of having already fully and plainly announced to them His Messianic claim. For while He declared His filial sonship with God, which was attested by His works (ver. 256), He expressed in regard to Himself what, according to His consciousness, amounted fundamentally and essentially to the Messiahship. The assertion of His most close filial fellowship with His Father is now repeated by Him with the greatest decision (vers. 30-38). But He gives no other declaration in regard to His Messiahship; for whoever did not understand and recognise His claim to be the Son of God, and did not find therein expressed the essential designation of the Messiah, the same would not recognise or rightly understand though He had assumed the direct title of Messiah.

If we have firmly grasped this general and very weighty point of the agreement of Jesus' view of Himself in the Johannine discourses with that given in the synoptical, viz. that Jesus based His Messianic dignity solely on His filial fellowship with God, we must now inquire further, if then the special character of this filial fellowship is represented in the discourses of the fourth Gospel in the same way as in the sayings recorded in the other sources. We have

seen above that, according to these other original accounts, Jesus has regarded His sonship with God as homogeneous in principle with the Divine sonship which all other members of the kingdom of God should have; in other words, it is a fellowship of love with God in which God, as the Father, grants His eternal welfare, and the man, as son, trustfully and obediently receives and obeys the will of God; only that Jesus knew that this filial relationship to God was realised in Himself in a unique perfection, and He therefore regarded Himself as the Son of God, Kat' ¿çoxýv. In the Johannine discourses of Jesus, on the contrary, very many sayings of Jesus give the appearance of the Divine sonship of Jesus being represented in another manner: as no doubt also manifesting itself in a mutual relation of love between God and Jesus in His Messianic work on earth, but nevertheless as primarily resting on a peculiarly physical and local fellowship of Jesus with God, which had existence already before the earthly life of Jesus, and therefore now also conditioned His earthly life; and accordingly the sonship of Jesus does not strictly represent such a relation to God as all the disciples should have fundamentally, but rather such a one as distinguishes Jesus fundamentally from all His disciples.

In these discourses Jesus says of Himself that He did not originate from this world, nor from beneath, like His Jewish adversaries, but from above (viii. 23; xvii. 14, 16); that He had come down from heaven, and would go up to heaven (iii. 13; vi. 32 f., 38, 50 f., 58); had proceeded, and was come, from God (viii. 42 ; xvi. 27 f.; xvii. 8); had been sent from God the