To vary the metaphor, theology comes home to find the broker's mark on all the furniture and goes on as before quite comfortably, ignoring the fact it will lose everything if it does not pay its debts.
The critical objections which Wrede and the "Sketch" agree in bringing against the modern treatment of the subject are as follows.
In order to find in Mark the Life of Jesus of which it is in search modern theology is obliged to read between the lines a whole host of things, and those often the most important, and then to foist them upon the text by means of psychological conjecture. It is determined to find evidence in Mark of a development of Jesus, a development of the disciples, and a development of the outer circumstances; and professes in so doing to be only reproducing the views and indications of the Evangelist. In reality, however, there is not a word of all this in the Evangelist, and when his interpreters are asked what are the hints and indications on which they base their assertions they have nothing to offer save argumenta e silentio.
Mark knows nothing of any development in Jesus, he knows nothing of any paedagogic considerations which are supposed to have determined the conduct of Jesus towards the disciples and the people; he knows nothing of any conflict in the mind of Jesus between a spiritual and a popular, political Messianic ideal; he does not know, either, that in this respect there was any difference between the view of Jesus and that of the people; he knows nothing of the idea that the use of the ass at the triumphal entry symbolised a non-political Messiahship; he knows nothing of the idea that the question about the Messiah's being the Son of David had something to do with this alternative between political and non-political; he does not know, either, that Jesus explained the secret of the passion to the disciples, nor that they had any understanding of it; he only knows that from first to last they were in all respects equally wanting in understanding; he does not know that the first period was a period of success and the second a period of failure; he represents the Pharisees and Herodians as (from iii. 6 onwards) resolved upon the death of Jesus, while the people, down to the very last day when He preached in the temple, are enthusiastically loyal to Him.
All these things of which the Evangelist says nothing-and they are the foundations of the modern view-should first be proved, if proved they can be; they ought not to be simply read into the text as something self-evident. For it is just those things which appear so self-evident to the prevailing critical temper which are in reality the least evident of all.
Another hitherto self-evident point-the "historical kernel" which it has been customary to extract from the narratives-must
