conditions which would have to be realised in order to make it possible to trace, even in general outline, the evidence of such a transformation in the Gospel narrative.
All these solutions of the eschatological question start from the teaching of Jesus, and it was, indeed, from this point of view that Johannes Weiss had stated the problem. The final decision of the question is not, however, to be found here, but in the examination of the whole course of Jesus' life. On which of the two presuppositions, the assumption that His life was completely dominated by eschatology, or the assumption that He repudiated it, do we find it easiest to understand the connexion of events in the life of Jesus, His fate, and the emergence of the expectation of the Parousia in the community of His disciples?
The works which in the examination of the connexion of events follow a critical procedure are few and far between. The average "Life of Jesus" shows in this respect an inconceivable stupidity. The first, after Bruno Bauer, to apply critical methods to this point was Volkmar; between Volkmar and Wrede the only writer who here showed himself critical, that is sceptical, was W. Brandt. His work on the "Gospel History"[1] appeared in 1893, a year after Johannes Weiss's work and in the same year as Bousset's reply. In this book the question of the absolute, or only partial, dominance of eschatology is answered on the ground of the general course of Jesus' life.
Brandt goes to work with a truly Cartesian scepticism. He first examines all the possibilities that the reported event did not happen in the way in which it is reported before he is satisfied that it really did happen in that way. Before he can accept the statement that Jesus died with a loud outcry, he has to satisfy his critical conscience by the following consideration: "The statement regarding this cry, is, so far as I can see, to be best explained by supposing that it was really uttered." The burial of Jesus owes its acceptance as history to the following reflection. "We hold Joseph of Arimathea to be an historical person; but the only reason which the narrative has for preserving his name is that he buried Jesus. Therefore the name guarantees the fact."
But the moment the slightest possibility presents itself that the event happened in a different way, Brandt declines to be held by any seductions of the text, and makes his own "probably" into an
- ↑ Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ur sprung des Christentums auf Grund einer Kritic der Berichte uber das Leiden und die Auferstehung Jesu. (The Gospel History and the Origin of Christianity considered in the light of a critical investigation of the Reports of the Suffering and Resurrection of Jesus.) By Dr. W. Brandt, Leipzig, 1893, 588 pp. Wilhelm Brandt was born in 1855 of German Parents in Amsterdam and became a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1891 he resigned this office and studied in Straussburg and Berlin. In 1893 he was appointed to lecture in General History of Religion as a member of the theological faculty of Amsterdam.
