ment of the law in this sense, and in point of fact they themselves sought to establish the law by their traditions; for this was consistent with that "binding" of the law which they made their great task. But Jesus neither meant nor aimed at a fulfilment in this sense. It was not by quantitative extension, but by qualitative renewal, that He designed to bring the law and the prophets to fulfilment. In consciousness and in aim He retained the idea of the old, and did not produce what was absolutely new; but He sought to bring the imperfect expression of that idea to perfection, by retaining part of the traditional form of this expression as valid, and by rejecting another part as without worth, whilst still another part was changed or replaced by what was quite new, according as this was required by the uniform idea of the whole. To those who regarded only particular and external details, this procedure in regard to the form of the Old Testament revelation might appear merely an arbitrary partial destruction of it; and certainly the Pharisaic scribes thus regarded it. But in spite of this appearance, Jesus Himself could maintain the certainty that He did not destroy but fulfil the law and the prophets, since the personal revelation experienced by Him had made Him aware of the true idea of the Old Testament revelation, and in it He recognised the essential connection existing between the old and the new.

By a reference to this attitude, which Jesus was clearly conscious of maintaining towards the Old Testament revelation, as well as by His corresponding employment of the words of Scripture in par

ticular instances, we can also understand the declaration of Jesus: "Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old" (Matt. xiii. 52). In His view it was not impossible for one to be both a scribe and a disciple of the kingdom of God. The knowledge which was gained by a right study of Scripture, and that which was learnt as a disciple of the kingdom of God, would, on the contrary, mutually enrich each other. Jesus had so experienced it Himself, and, according to His view, it must be so in the case of all other members of the kingdom of God.

If

any one understood and searched the Old Testament Scriptures in the light of the knowledge derived from personal connection with the kingdom of God, he would thereby gain treasure which would confirm and increase his own store. He remains in possession of the old, which he recognises as of enduring worth; yet he is not limited to the old, but along with it he has a valuable new possession. And thus the treasures which, like the rich householder, he imparts to others, are both new and old-new, because of the attainment of the new revelation of the kingdom of God; and old, because of the retention of the earlier revelation of God, which is similar in nature and value to the new revelation.1

1 Matthew has placed this saying (xiii. 52) at the close of his great parable-discourse, and so suggested the idea that it refers to the foregoing parables, whether to the substance of the teaching given in those parables, or to the form of the parable-teaching in general. When one knows, however, that the groundwork of this whole parable-discourse lies in Mark iv. 1-34, where this closing saying, given by Matthew, is

Since Jesus saw, in His gospel of the kingdom of God, the fulfilment of the Old Testament revelation of God, and in the present form of the kingdom, the blessed realisation of the ideal hoped for by prophets and saints (Luke x. 23 f.; Matt. xiii. 17), He could judge that every member of this kingdom of God as such had a superior position to that of all who stood only on the ground of the earlier revelation, even of the most eminent representatives of the older revelation. In this sense, after declaring that John the Baptist was more than a prophet, and the greatest of all of woman born, and that he was the Elias promised as the immediate forerunner of the kingdom of God (Matt. xi. 9 ff.), He added that nevertheless one comparatively little in the kingdom of God was greater than he (ver. 116). For even the Baptist

1

omitted, and that Matthew on his part has, here as elsewhere, added to the discourses in Mark other sayings from the Logia, apparently related to them in substance, we can well understand that Matthew thought that he required to put at the close of this parable-discourse such a saying of Jesus as expressed His own teaching in the form of a comparison; but we do not feel obliged to interpret that imported saying with reference to the parable-teaching of Jesus. With such a reference, the most important and characteristic conception of the parable, namely, that of the scribe, whereby Jesus here, as nowhere else, denotes Himself, will be meaningless. This conception receives a proper interpretation only according to our exposition given above, where we make the saying refer to the investigation and explanation of the Holy Scriptures. If, on the ground of other sayings of Jesus in regard to the relation of His doctrine of the kingdom of God to Old Testament Scripture, we should consider what Jesus meant by a scribe who at the same time has become a disciple of the kingdom of God, it would at once be obvious what must be understood by the old and the new.

1 In the words, Matt. xi. II: ὁ δὲ μικρότερος ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν μείζων αὐτοῦ ἐστίν, the comparative μικρότερος cannot refer to John. For if ὁ μικρότερος is understood as the subject absolute, and ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ T. op. is connected with the predicate, then either the thought is suggested, that he who in general respects is smaller than John, is greater than he in the kingdom of God,-which is illogical, since the being

stood outside of the kingdom of God in hopeful expectant prediction of the dispensation of grace which the members of the kingdom of God had received and possessed at that present time (vers. 12 and 14).

3. The way in which Jesus established and made. good His relation to the earlier revelation of God.

smaller in general respects must include the being smaller in the kingdom of God; or the thought is suggested, that he who in all other respects, except in regard to the kingdom of God, is less than John, is greater than John in the kingdom of God,-which is absurd, since the being less in earthly respects cannot of itself be a reason for superiority to John in the kingdom of God. If, however, the more definite designation in T Bao, T. oup. is connected with xośTapos, the thought is then suggested, that he who in the kingdom of God is less than John, yet, absolutely considered, or in all other respects, is greater than John, -a thought which stands in direct opposition to the manifest intention of the words of Jesus, since Jesus in the first place here considers the Baptist not as already belonging to the kingdom of God, but represents him as simply the last of the prophets of the preparatory and expectant period (ver. 12 ff.); and since, secondly, He does not consider the being less in the kingdom of God as any reason for superiority to another who is greater in the kingdom of God, but He rather regards the belonging to the kingdom as the ground of an absolute superiority to all others who do not belong to it. The comparative MixTpos, with which the more definite designation i Bar. T. oup. is to be connected, can accordingly have reference only to the remaining members of the kingdom of God. Nevertheless it is not at all equivalent to the superlative; for it does not denote the one who stands at the lowest position in the kingdom of God, but it denotes any one who is among the less in the kingdom of God, i.e. one comparatively small in the kingdom of God. The expression is used because all members of the kingdom of God as such are great, and because some can only be spoken of as comparatively little. Cf. Kühner, Ausführ. griech. Grammatik, ii. p. 20 f., with the cited example, Odyss. vii. 156: 'Εχένηος, ὃς δὴ Φαιήκων ἀνδρῶν TROYEDÉOTEpos Ev, "the oldest among those who were all comparatively young." Cf. also the comparatives, Matt. xxiii. 11; 1 Cor. xii. 22 f.; xiii. 13. When Jesus says that among those born of women no greater has arisen than John the Baptist, the contrast that follows, viz. that one comparatively little in the kingdom of God is yet greater than he, makes it evident that by "those born of women" Jesus means all men up to that time, up to the advent of the kingdom of God, but that He excepts the members of the kingdom of God, though they also are born of women.

contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, appears to me one of the grandest proofs of the geniality, the clearness, and the moral purity of His insight and judgment, and a remarkable indication of how high above His contemporaries He stood, and how free He kept Himself from the influence of the prevailing spiritual tendency in His people and time. We must keep in view how the Old Testament Scriptures were regarded and used in the contemporary Judaism.' The Jews' assurance, that the true revelation of God is contained in Scripture, was expressed by their derivation of the letter of Scripture from miraculous inspiration, and in its investment with the greatest holiness and authority. But the idea and the pretension that they really held fast to, explained, and followed the Old Testament Scripture in full and in the strictest way, were nevertheless connected with a great illusion. In reality, the religious ideas and legal precepts of Pharisaic Judaism represented a stage of advancement in opposition to the form of the Israelitish religion attested in the Old Testament,— an advancement which certainly in a great measure found its starting-point and foundation in that earlier form, but which deviated just as widely from other elements and tendencies contained in that earlier form. The Jews of Jesus' time deluded themselves in regard to those facts. Whilst seeking to explain with finest casuistry and to observe one portion of the Divine commands contained in the Old Testament, they overlooked and disregarded others; and whilst seeking with the utmost pains to keep the letter of Scripture,

1 Cf. vol. i. p. 37.