Note 10 — II THE JESUS OF THE GOSPELS

One does not trust one’s eyes with this style of attempting to set up Mark as an even half-credible “historical source.” This attempt will remind us only too forcibly of Wrede’s ironical remarks when he is making fun of the “decisions as you like it” that flourish in the study of Jesus’ life. “This study,” says Wrede, “suffers from psychological suggestion, and this is one style of historical solution.”10 One believes that he can secure this, another that, as the historical nucleus of the Gospel; but neither has objective proofs for his assertions.11 If we wish to work with an historical nucleus, we must really make certain of a nucleus. The whole point is, that in an anecdote or phrase something is proved, which makes any other explanation of the matter under consideration improbable, or at least doubtful.12 It seems very questionable, after his radical criticism of the historical credibility of Mark’s Gospel, that Wrede saw in it such a “historical kernel”—though this is supposed by Wernle to “speak for itself.” Moreover, Wrede’s opinion of the “historian” Mark is not essentially different from Wernle’s. In his opinion, for example, Jesus’ disciples, as the Gospel portrays them, with their want of intelligence bordering on idiocy, their folly, and their ambiguous conduct as regards their Master, are “not real figures.”13 He also concedes, as we have stated, that Mark had no real idea of the historical life of Jesus,14 even if “pallid fragments”(!) of such an idea entered into his superhistorical faith-conception. “The Gospel of Mark,” he says, “has in this sense a place among the histories of dogma.”15 The belief that in it the development of Jesus’ public life is still perceptible appears to be decaying.16 “It would indeed be in the highest degree desirable that such a Gospel were not the oldest.”17