Note (return) — Chapter III

5. The ideas of Christ's work which were influential in the communities—Christ as Teacher: creation of knowledge, setting up of the new law; Christ as Saviour: creation of life, overcoming of the demons, forgiveness of sins committed in the time of error,—were by some, in conformity with Apostolic tradition and following the Pauline Epistles, positively connected with the death and resurrection of Christ, while others maintained them without any connection with these events. But one nowhere finds independent thorough reflections on the connection of Christ's saving work with the facts proclaimed in the preaching, above all, with the death on the cross and the resurrection as presented by Paul. The reason of this undoubtedly is that in the conception of the work of salvation, the procuring of forgiveness fell into the background, as this could only be connected by means of the notion of sacrifice, with a definite act of Jesus, viz., with the surrender of his life. Consequently, the facts of the destiny of Jesus combined in the preaching, formed, only for the religious fancy, not for reflection, the basis of the conception of the work of Christ, and were therefore by many writers, Hermas, for example, taken no notice of. Yet the idea of suffering freely accepted, of the cross and of the blood of Christ, operated in wide circles as a holy mystery, in which the deepest wisdom and power of the Gospel must somehow lie concealed.266 The peculiarity and uniqueness of the work of the historical Christ seemed, however, to be prejudiced by the assumption that Christ, essentially as the same person, was already in the Old Testament the Revealer of God. All emphasis must therefore fall on this—without a technical reflection which cannot be proved—that the Divine revelation has now, through the historical Christ, become accessible and intelligible to all, and that the life which was promised will shortly be made manifest.267