can be welcomed as advantageous.[1] His work, therefore, like that of Strauss, leads up finally to a philosophical exposition in which he shows how for us the Jesus of history becomes the Christ of faith.[2]
Weisse is the direct continuator of Strauss. Standing outside the limitations of the Hegelian formulae, he begins at the point where Strauss leaves off. His aim is to discover, if possible, some thread of general connexion in the narratives of the Gospel tradition, which, if present, would represent a historically certain element in the Life of Jesus, and thus serve as a better standard by which to determine the extent of myth than can possibly be found in the subjective impression upon which Strauss relies. Strauss, by way of gratitude, called him a dilettante. This was most unjust, for if any one deserved to share Strauss's place of honour, it was certainly Weisse.
The idea that Mark's Gospel might be the earliest of the four, first occurred to Weisse during the progress of his work. In March 1837, when he reviewed Tholuck's "Credibility of the Gospel History," he was as innocent of this discovery as Wilke was at the same period. But when once he had observed that the graphic details of Mark, which had hitherto been regarded as due to an attempt to embellish an epitomising narrative, were too insignificant to have been inserted with this purpose, it became clear to him that only one other possibility remained open, viz., that their absence in Matthew and Luke was due to omission. He illustrates this from the description of the first day of Jesus' ministry at Capernaum. "The relation of the first Evangelist to Mark," he avers, "in those portions of the Gospel which are common to both is, with few exceptions, mainly that of an epitomiser."
The decisive argument for the priority of Mark is, even more than his graphic detail, the composition and arrangement of the whole. "It is true, the Gospel of Mark shows very distinct traces of having arisen out of spoken discourses, which themselves were by no means ordered and connected, but disconnected and fragmentary"�being, he means, in its original form based on notes of the incidents related by Peter. "It is not the work of an eyewitness, nor even of one who had had an opportunity of questioning eyewitnesses thoroughly and carefully; nor even of deriving assistance from inquirers who, on their part, had made a connected
- ↑ At the end of his preface he makes the striking remark: "I confess I cannot conceive of any possible way by which Christianity can take on a form which will make it once more the truth for our time, without having recourse to the aid of philosophy; and I rejoice to believe that this opinion is shared by many of the ablest and most respected of present-day theologians."
- ↑ Vol. ii. pp. 438-543. Philosophische Schlussbetrachtung ilber die religiose Bedeutung der Personlichkeit Christi und der evangelischen Uberlieferung. (Con- cluding Philosophical Estimate of the Significance of the Person of Christ and of the Gospel Tradition.)
