They were simply swept through these events by the momentum of the purpose of Jesus. That is why the tradition is incoherent. The reality had been incoherent too, since it was only the secret Messianic self-consciousness of Jesus which created alike the events and their connexion. Every Life of Jesus remains therefore a reconstruction on the basis of a more or less accurate insight into the nature of the dynamic self-consciousness of Jesus which created the history.
The people, whatever Mark may have thought, did not offer Jesus a Messianic ovation at all; it was He who, in the conviction that they were wholly unable to recognise it, played with His Messianic self-consciousness before their eyes, just as He did at the time after tha sending forth of the disciples, when, as now, He thought the end at hand. It was in the same way, too, that He closed the invective against the Pharisees with the words "I say unto you, ye shall see me no more until ye shall say. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt. xxiii. 39). This saying implies His Parousia.
Similarly He is playing with His secret in that crucial question regarding the Messiahship in Mark xii. 35-37. There is no question of dissociating the Davidic Sonship from the Messiahship. [1] He asks only how can the Christ in virtue of His descent from David be, as his son, inferior to David, and yet be addressed by David in the Psalm as his Lord? The answer is; by reason of the metamorphosis and Parousia in which natural relationships are abolished and the scion of David's line who is the predestined Son of Man shall take possession of His unique glory.
Far from rejecting the Davidic Sonship in this saying, Jesus, on the contrary, presupposes His possession of it. That raises the question whether He did not really during His lifetime regard Himself as a descendant of David and whether He was not regarded as such. Paul, who otherwise shows no interest in the earthly phase of the existence of the Lord, certainly implies His descent from David.
The blind man at Jericho, too, cries out to the Nazarene prophet as "Son of David" (Mark x. 47). But in doing so he does not mean to address Jesus as Messiah, for afterwards, when he is brought to Him he simply calls Him "Rabbi" (Mark x. 51) And the people thought nothing further about what he had said. When the expectant people bid him keep silence they do not do so because the expression Son of David offends them, but because his clamour annoys them. Jesus, however, was struck by this cry, stood still and caused him, as he was standing timidly behind the
- ↑ That would have been to utter a heresy which would alone have sufficed to secure His condemnation. It would certainly have been brought up as a charge against Him.
