belong to a later time. Intimate sayings, evidently intended for the inner circle of disciples, have the widest publicity given to them.
But why should whatever is incomprehensible to us be unhistorical? Would it not be better simply to admit that we do not understand certain connexions of ideas and turns of expression in the discourses of Jesus?
But instead even of making an analytical examination of the apparent connexions, and stating them as problems, the discourses of Jesus and the sections of the Gospels are tricked out with ingenious headings which have nothing to do with them. Thus, for instance, von Soden heads the Beatitudes (Matt. v. 3-12), "What Jesus brings to men," the following verses (Matt. v. 13-16), "What He makes of men." P. W. Schmidt, in his "History of Jesus," shows himself a past master in this art. "The rights of the wife" is the title of the dialogue about divorce, as if the question at stake had been for Jesus the equality of the sexes, and not simply and solely the sanctity of marriage. "Sunshine for the children" is his heading for the scene where Jesus takes the children in His arms-as if the purpose of Jesus had been to protest against severity in the upbringing of children. Again, he brings together the stories of the man who must first bury his father, of the rich young man, of the dispute about precedence, of Zacchaeus, and others which have equally little connexion under the heading "Discipline for Jesus' followers." These often brilliant creations of artificial connexions of thought give a curious attractiveness to the works of Schmidt and von Soden. The latter's survey of the Gospels is a really delightful performance. But this kind of thing is not consistent with pure objective history.
Disposing in this lofty fashion of the connexion of events, Schmiedel and von Soden do not find it difficult to distinguish between Mark and "Ur-Markus"; that is, to retain just so much of the Gospel as will fit in to their construction. Schmiedel feels sure that Mark was a skilful writer, and that the redactor was "a Christian of Pauline sympathies." According to "Ur-Markus," to which Mark iv. 33 belongs, the Lord speaks in parables in order that the people may understand Him the better; "it was only by the redactor that the Pauline theory about hardening their hearts (Rom. ix.-xi.) was interpolated, in Mark iv. 10 ff. and the meaning of Mark iv. 33 was thus obscured."
It is high time that instead of merely asserting Pauline influences in Mark some proof of the assertion should be given. What kind of appearance would Mark have presented if it had really passed through the hands of a Pauline Christian?
Von Soden's analysis is no less confident. The three outstanding miracles, the stilling of the storm, the casting out of the legion of devils, the overcoming of death (Mark iv. 35-v. 43), the
