XIX
THOROUGHGOING SCEPTICISM AND THOROUGHGOING ESCHATOLOGY
W. Wrede. Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verstandnis des Markusevangelinms. (The Messianic Secret in the Gospels. Forming a contribution also to the understanding of the Gospel of Mark.) Gottingen, 1901. 286 pp.
Albert Schweitzer. Das Messianitats- und Leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu. (The Secret of the Messiahship and the Passion. A Sketch of the Life of Jesus.) Tubingen and Leipzig, 1901. 109 pp.
THE COINCIDENCE BETWEEN THE WORK OF WREDE[1] AND THE "SKETCH of the Life of Jesus" is not more surprising in regard to the time of their appearance than in regard to the character of their contents. They appeared upon the self-same day, their titles are almost identical, and their agreement in the criticism of the modern historical conception of the life of Jssus extends sometimes to the very phraseology. And yet they are written from quite different standpoints, one from the point of view of literary criticism, the other from that of the historical recognition of eschatology. It seems to be the fate of the Marcan hypothesis that at the decisive periods its problems should always be attacked simultaneously and independently from the literary and the historical sides, and the results declared in two different forms which corroborate each other. So it was in the case of Weisse and Wilke; so it is again now, when, retaining the assumption of the priority of Mark, the historicity of the hitherto accepted view of the life of Jesus, based upon the Marcan narrative, is called in question.
- ↑ William Wrede, born in 1859 at Bucfcen in Hanover, was Professor at Breslau. (He died in 1907). Wrede names as his real predecessors on the same lines Bruno Bauer, Volkmar, and the Dutch writer Hoekstra ("De Christologie van het canonieke Marcus-Evangelie, vergeleken met die van de beide andere synoptische Evangelien," Theol. Tijdischrift, v, 1871). . In a certain limited degree the work of Ernest Havet (Le Christianisme et ses origines) has a claim to be classed in the same category. His scepticism refers principally to the entry into Jerusalem and the story of the passion.
