work is to retain His significance for a metaphysical and non-ascetic time; and since it is not possible to do this in the case of the historical Jesus, the author denies His existence in favour of an apocryphal Jesus.
It is, in fact, the characteristic feature of the Life-of-Jesus literature on the threshold of the new century even in the productions of professedly historical and scientific theology, to subordinate the historical interest to the interest of the general world-view. And those who "wrest the Kingdom of Heaven" are beginning to wrest Jesus Himself along with it. Men who have no qualifications for the task, whose ignorance is nothing less than criminal, who loftily anathematise scientific theology instead of making themselves in some measure acquainted with the researches which it has carried out, feel impelled to write a Life of Jesus, in order to set forth their general religious view in a portrait of Jesus which has not the faintest claim to be historical, and the most far-fetched of these find favour, and are eagerly absorbed by the multitude.
It would be something to be thankful for if all these Lives of Jesus were based on as definite an idea and as acute historical observation as we find in Albert Dulk's "The Error of the Life of Jesus." [1] In Dulk the story of the fate of Jesus is also the story of the fate of religion. The Galilaean teacher, whose true character was marked by deep religious inwardness, was doomed to destruction from the moment when He set Himself upon the dizzy heights of the divine sonship and the eschatological expectation. He died in despair, having vainly expected, down to the very last, a "telegram from heaven." Religion as a whole can only avoid the same fate by renouncing all transcendental elements.
The vast numbers of imaginative Lives of Jesus shrink into remarkably small compass on a close examination. When one knows two or three of them, one knows them all. They have scarcely altered since Venturini's time, except that some of the cures performed by Jesus are handled in the modern Lives from the point of view of the recent investigations in hypnotism and suggestion. [2]
- ↑ Albert Dulk, Der Irrgang des Lebens Jesa. In geschichtlicher Auffassung dargestellt. Erster Teil: Die historischen Wwzein und die galildische Blilte, 1884, 395 pp. Zweiter Teil: Der Messiaseinzug und die Erhebung ans Kreuz, 1885, 302 pp. (The Error of the Life of Jesus. Historically apprehended and set forth. Pt. i., The Historical Roots and the Galilaean Blossom. Pt. ii., The Messianic Entry and the Crucifixion.) The course of Dulk's own life was somewhat erratic. Born in 1819, he came prominently forward in the revolution of 1848, as a political pamphleteer and agitator. Later, though almost without means, he undertook long journeys, even to Sinai and to Lapland. Finally, he worked as a social democratic reformer. He died in 1884.
- ↑ A scientific treatment of this subject is supplied by Fr. Nippold, Die psychiatrische Seite der Heilstatigkeit Jesu (The Psychiatric Side of Jesus' Works of Healing), 1889, in which a luminous review of the medical material is to be found. See also Dr. K. Kunz, Christus medicus, Freiburg in Baden, 1905, 74 pp. The scientific value of this work is, however, very much reduced by the fact that author has no acquaintance with the preliminary questions belonging to the sphere of history and literature, and regards all the miracles of healing as actual events, believing himself able to explain them from the medical point of view. The tendency of the work is mainly apologetic.
