based on the sum of his observations has in it something arbitrary. Everything which conflicts with the rational construction of the course of the history is referred directly to the theory of the concealment of the Messianic secret. But in the carrying out of that theory a number of self-contradictions, without which it could not subsist, must be recognised and noted.
Thus, for example, all the prohibitions, [1] whatever they may refer to, even including the command not to make known His miracles, are referred to the same category as the injunction not to reveal the Messianic secret. But what justification is there for that? It presupposes that according to Mark the miracles could be taken as proofs of the Messiahship, an idea of which there is no hint whatever in Mark. "The miracles," Wrede argues, "are certainly used by the earliest Christians as evidence of the nature and significance of Christ. ... I need hardly point to the fact that Mark, not less than Matthew, Luke, and John, must have held the opinion that the miracles of Jesus encountered a wide-spread and ardent Messianic expectation."
In John this Messianic significance of the miracles is certainly assumed; but then the really eschatological view of things has here fallen into the background. It seems indeed as if genuine eschatology excluded the Messianic interpretation of the miracles. In Matthew the miracles of Jesus have nothing whatever to do with the proof of the Messiahship, but, as is evident from the saying about Chorazin and Bethsaida, Matt. xi. 20-24, are only an exhibition of mercy intended to awaken repentance, or, according to Matt. xii. 28, an indication of the nearness of the Kingdom of God. They have as little to do with the Messianic office as in the Acts of the Apostles. [2] In Mark, from first to last, there is
- ↑ P. 33 ff. The prohibitions in Mark i. 43 and 44, v. 43, vii. 36, and viii. 26 are put on the same footing with the really Messianic prohibitions in viii. 30 and ix. 9, with which may be associated also the imposition of silence upon the demoniacs who recognise his Messiahship in Mark i. 34 and iii. 12.
- ↑ The narrative in Matt. xiv. 22-33, according to which the disciples, after seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, hail Him on His coming into the boat as the Son of God, and the description of the deeds of Jesus as "deeds of Christ," in the introduction to the Baptist's question in Matt. xi. 2, do not cancel the old theory even in Matthew, because the Synoptists, differing therein from the fourth Evangelist, do not represent the demand for a sign as a demand for a Messianic sign, nor the cures wrought by Jesus as Messianic proofs of power. The action of the demons in crying out upon Jesus as the son of God betokens their recognition of Him; it has nothing to do wlth the miracles of healing as such.
