Note 52 — II THE JESUS OF THE GOSPELS

And again the account of the betrayal, of the thirty pieces of silver, and of Judas’ death, have their source in the Old Testament, viz., in the betrayal and death of Ahitophel.52 To what extent in particular the figures of Moses, with reference to Deut. xviii. 15 and xxxiv. 10, of Joshua, of Elijah and Elisha, influenced the portrayal of the evangelical Jesus has also been traced even by the theological party.53 Jesus has to begin his activities through baptism in the Jordan, because Moses had begun his leadership of Israel with the passage through the Red Sea and Joshua at the time of the Passover led the people through the Jordan, and this passage (of the sun through the watery regions of the sky) was regarded as baptism.54 He has to walk on the water, even as Moses, Joshua, and Elias walked dryshod through the water. He has to awaken the dead, like Elijah;55 to surround himself with twelve or seventy disciples and apostles, just as Moses had surrounded himself with twelve chiefs of the people and seventy elders, and as Joshua had chosen twelve assistants at the passage of the Jordan;56 he has to be transfigured,57 and to ascend into heaven like Moses58 and Elijah.59 Elijah (Eli-scha) and Jeho-schua (Joshua, Jesus) agree even in their names, so that on this ground alone it would not have been strange if the Prophet of the Old Testament had served as prototype of his evangelical namesake.60 Now Jesus places himself in many ways above the Mosaic Law, especially above the commands as to food,61 and in this at least one might find a trait answering to reality. But in the Rabbinical writings we find: “It is written,62 the Lord sets loose that which is bound; for every creature that passes as unclean in this world, the Lord will pronounce clean in the next.”63 So that similarly the disposition of the Law belongs to the general characteristics of the Messiah, and cannot be historical of Jesus, because if it were the attitude of the Jewish Christians to Paul on account of his disposition of the Law would be incomprehensible.64 The contrary attitude, which is likewise represented by Jesus,65 was already foreseen in the Messianic expectation. For while some hoped for a lightening and amendment of the Law by the Messiah, others thought of its aggravation and completion. In Micah iv. 5 the Messiah was to exert his activity, not merely among the Jews, but also among the Gentiles, and the welfare of the kingdom of the Messiah was to extend also to the latter. According to Isaiah lx. and Zechariah xiv., on the contrary, the Gentiles were to be subjected and brought to nothing, and only the Jews were worthy of participation in the kingdom of God. For that reason Jesus had to declare himself with like determination for both conceptions,66 without any attempt being made to reconcile the contradiction contained in this.67 That the parents of Jesus were called Joseph and Mary, and that his father was a “carpenter,” were determined by tradition, just as the name of his birthplace, Nazareth, was occasioned by the name of a sect (Nazaraios = Protector), or by the fact that one sect honoured the Messiah as a “branch of the root of Jesse” (nazar Isai).68 It was a Messianic tradition that he began his activity in Galilee and wandered about as Physician, Saviour, Redeemer, and Prophet, as mediator of the union of Israel, and as one who brought light to the Gentiles, not as an impetuous oppressor full of inconsiderate strength, but as one who assumed a loving tenderness for the weak and despairing.69 He heals the sick, comforts the afflicted, and proclaims to the poor the Gospel of the nearness of the kingdom of God. That is connected with the wandering of the sun through the twelve Signs of the Zodiac (Galil = circle), and is based on Isa. xxxv. 5 sqq., xlii. 1–7, xlix. 9 sqq., as well as on Isa. lxi. 1, a passage which Jesus himself, according to Luke iv. 16 sqq., began his teaching in Nazareth by explaining.70 He had to meet with opposition in his work of salvation, and nevertheless endure patiently, because of Isa. 1. 5. Naturally Jesus, behind whose human nature was concealed a God, and to whom the pilgrim “Saviour” Jason corresponded,71 was obliged to reveal his true nature by miraculous healing, and could not take a subordinate place in this regard among the cognate heathen God-redeemers. At most we may wonder that even in this the Old Testament had to stand72 as a model, and that Jesus’ doings never surpass those which the heathens praise in their gods and heroes, e.g., Asclepius. Indeed, according to Tacitus73 even the Emperor Vespasian accomplished such miracles at Alexandria, where, on being persistently pressed by the people, he healed both a lame man and a blind, and this almost in the same way as Jesus did, by moistening their eyes and cheeks with spittle; which information is corroborated also by Suetonius74 and Dio Cassius.75 But the most marvellous thing is that the miracles of Jesus have been found worth mentioning by the critical theology, and that there is an earnest search for an “historical nucleus,” which might probably “underlie them.”