II
HERMANN SAMUEL REIMARUS
"Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Junger." Noch ein Fragment des Wolfenbuttelschen Ungenannten. Herausgegeben von Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Braun- schweig, 1778, 276 pp. (The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples A further Instal- ment of the anonymous Woltenbiittel Fragments. Published by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Brunswick, 1778.)
Johann Salomo Semler. Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten ins' besondere vom Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jiinger. (Reply to the anonymous Fragments, especially to that entitled "The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples.") Halle, 1779, 432 pp.
BEFORE REIMARUS, NO ONE HAD ATTEMPTED TO FORM A HISTORICAL CONCEPTION of the life of Jesus. Luther had not so much as felt that he cared to gain a clear idea of the order of the recorded events. Speaking of the chronology of the cleansing of the Temple, which in John falls at the beginning, in the Synoptists near the close, of Jesus' public life, he remarks: "The Gospels follow no order in recording the acts and miracles of Jesus, and the matter is not, after all, of much importance. If a difficulty arises in regard to the Holy Scripture and we cannot solve it, we must just let it alone." When the Lutheran theologians began to consider the question of harmonising the events, things were still worse. Osiander (1498-1552), in his "Harmony of the Gospels," maintained the principle that if an event is recorded more than once in the Gospels, in different connexions, it happened more than once and in different connexions. The daughter of Jairus was therefore raised from the dead several times; on one occasion Jesus allowed the devils whom He cast out of a single demoniac to enter into a herd of swine, on another occasion, those whom He cast out of two demoniacs; there were two cleansings of the Temple, and so forth.[1] The correct view of the Synoptic Gospels as being interdependent was first formulated by Griesbach.
The only Life of Jesus written prior to the time of Reimarus which has any interest for us, was composed by a Jesuit in the
- ↑ Hase, Geschichte Jesu, 1876, pp. 112, 113.
