events. But in the main we must here rely upon exact observation of single narratives in their details, and especially upon a careful analysis of the discourses in their historical relations. The former, however, is not possible, so long as modern criticism, by its denial of miracle, is bound to regard our Gospels as such legendary distortions of tradition that no confidence can be placed upon their detailed reports; and the latter is impracticable so long as men like Keim shake together the fragments of the different discourses in their critical kaleidoscopes, and decide which portions are genuine, and which false, according to subjective tests. We can here clearly see how much criticism has prejudiced the solution of its great problem by throwing away the fourth Gospel. For while it is certain that this Gospel, also, does not profess to give a pragmatic history, but only to present in a new light some striking moments in the life of Jesus, this, however, by no means excludes us from receiving through John a deeper insight into the significance of many events, and from seeing some springs of action through which alone certain incidents become comprehensible.

When we turn from the formal method to the material results we cannot pronounce a more favourable judgment. Endless pains are taken to discover traces of change and growth in the consciousness of Jesus in regard to His own person and vocation. He is represented as changing or modifying His attitude towards the Old Testament law, and as to the question of the admission of heathen into the kingdom of God. Then, to suit circumstances, He is supposed to have changed His conception of that kingdom, of His own vocation, and of the means of fulfilling it. We are told that we have not a truly human idea of Jesus unless we accept such developments. But the critics overlook the fact that from a purely human point of view, no thoughtful man would begin a ministry that went so deep without a clear, full consciousness of the aims for which he was to strive and the means he would employ. And, moreover, if we accept with modern criticism that view of the Synoptics-not at all to be justified-which limits the public ministry of Jesus essentially to one year, the very shortness of the time makes it extremely improbable that there was room enough left for such developments. Indeed, so long as the possibility is assumed that Jesus allowed Himself to be forced into the role of the Messiah by the people, or that He simply took the resolution to be the Messiah-so long as the attempt is made to analyze the conception of the kingdom of God, with its cognate ideas, as one would analyze a doctrine of Apostolic times, as if Jesus had aimed, by a new didactic system, to introduce the day of redemption for His people-so long will it remain impossible to understand the first prerequisites for the true comprehension of His Messianic vocation (which were, however, clearly given in the Old Testament), and for the way in which alone He could have come to

the certainty of His calling. The critics are unwearied in praising as a special acquisition of modern science the theory that the innermost circle of the disciples did not arrive at a recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus until the confession of Peter at Cæsarea Philippi, and that the people began to think of it at His last visit to Jerusalem. How far Mark's account justifies this assumption we leave at present an open question, since in the other Gospels, and even in this, there is no lack of evidence, direct and indirect, to the contrary. This idea makes the historic movement of the life of Jesus altogether incomprehensible in its central point, for this movement turned just on the way in which, by virtue of His Messianic vocation, He purposed to bring in the kingdom of God and consummate the theocracy, in opposition to the popular expectations. It was essentially in this relation that the disciples from the beginning accepted Him as the man destined to be the Messiah. The fourth Gospel distinctly proceeds on this supposition, and the rejection of its evidence brings its own punishment in the loss of this indispensable prerequisite for the comprehension of the life of Jesus. It is true that the various phases through which His doctrine and work had to pass, as the position of the people towards Him gradually unfolded itself, have left their traces on the Synoptics. But when these are referred to the inner development of Jesus instead of to His successes or failures in His ministry, the ground of the mistake lies largely in the fact that the rejection of the fourth Gospel, and the false conception of the Synoptics which accompanies it, have precluded a true understanding of the course of events between Jesus and His people. On more than one point the fourth Gospel offers the key to phenomena which, if we had the Synoptics alone, would remain incomprehensible. For instance, let us take the calling of His first two pairs of disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It is quite intelligible that the older critical school held this to be a legendary imitation of the calling of the prophets in the Old Testament. But the modern critical school can no longer reconcile this with their insight into the character and origin of our Gospels. And this leaves us standing before a psychological problem which can only be solved by data supplied by the fourth Gospel.

We come to the same conclusion when we look at the other side of the life of Jesus: His relations to the hostile tendencies among the people. The problem here is to determine the causes of the final catastrophe in Jerusalem. The modern critics maintain that they have been the first to make this historically comprehensible in accordance with the Synoptical premisses, whereas the fourth Evangelist, after anticipating all the motives which led to it, can only bring it about at last by means of an artfully combined machinery. This is directly the reverse of the actual truth. The fact is, if we read the Synoptics alone, the whole matter is incomprehensible. Let us look at the case. Jesus is beloved of the people. He has indeed come into

collision with the Scribes and Pharisees at many points, but the conflicts regarded from the standpoint of the hierarchy were doctrinal and quite indifferent. They did, according to the évidence of our witnesses, no essential injury to His popularity. And yet on His first visit to Jerusalem the hierarchy, which lived only by popular favour and had every reason to respect the voice of the people who had just made the most triumphant declaration for Jesus, treated Him at once as a deadly foe, commenced immediate action against Him, and, with the fanatical applause and consent of the people, brought about His execution. Certainly this is a perfect labyrinth of enigmas and internal contradictions. And the difficulty becomes still greater when we get a clearer conception than usual of the fact that the Pharisaic party, which was hostile to Jesus, was by no means identical with the party of the ruling Sadducees in Jerusalem, who must have taken an entirely different position' towards the questions which were agitated between Jesus and the Pharisees. The greatest efforts have been made to solve the enigma. The Messianic demonstration at the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, which the rulers did not think worth mentioning at the trial, is exaggerated to an importance which it could not possibly have had. The purification of the Temple, which in all historical probability does not belong to this last visit at all, must receive an interpretation which directly contradicts the text. The disputes in the Temple, all of which can hardly belong to this period, and among which there are some so utterly harmless as the Sadducees' puzzle about the woman with seven husbands, or the theological discussion in regard to the greatest commandment, are made use of in a way altogether inadmissible. And no one has more clearly recognized that all this is insufficient than the latest expositor of the life of Jesus, who, in the plerophory of his only correct historical comprehension" of that life, is for ever lashing the pseudo-John with the scourge of ridicule, sometimes delicate but not always refined. To make up the deficiency, preparatory narratives are constructed about the fugitive life of Jesus in Galilee, where He is driven from place to place by His persecutors like a hunted deer, until at last He runs straight into the mouth of His foes. But of all this our sources, apart from a few much tortured reflections by the first Evangelist, know absolutely nothing. On the contrary, Jesus Himself ridicules the message of Herod (Luke xiii. 32) as a trick of the wily Tetrarch, who indeed had more cause to fear Jesus than Jesus had to fear him (Mark vi. 16). All this is but the false machinery which the critics are forced to invent, after their rejection of the testimony of John has robbed us of the true explanation of the course of

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events.

When we maintain that modern criticism, so far from justifying its lofty claims, not only carries us back to the justly ridiculed artifices of old Rationalism for the solution of the cardinal question in the life of

Jesus, but also in other important points gives us, instead of attested history, effects and plots partly imaginary and partly artificial, we do not intend to lay the blame at the door of criticism in itself. For criticism is only a necessary element of the scientific method without which there can be no historical research. To exclude it from the Gospels would be simply to give up the scientific presentation of the life of Jesus. The fact lies rather in the unhistorical because purely dogmatical prejudices with which criticism enters upon the study of the Gospels. For, apart from the question of miracle, it is often a personal estrangement from Biblical views which makes many facts, undoubtedly attested by our authorities, unacceptable to the critics, and induces them to treat much of the material in a light which is altogether unhistorical, because altogether modern. And if, as we have seen, the rejection of the fourth Gospel altogether precludes the full comprehension of the historic life of Jesus, then the internal connection of the different points on which we have touched becomes clear. For after all, no matter what efforts are made to conceal it, the question of miracles must be decisive for the question of the Gospel of John.

BERNHARD WEISS.

CAVENDISH COLLEGE.

AN EXPERIMENT IN UNIVERSITY EXTENSION.

A

MONG the questions whose hold upon public attention is likely to become stronger in the next few years, University Extension, and Intermediate or Secondary Education may be confidently named. As yet the efforts made to solve the problems they contain have been rather experimental and sporadic than systematic and national. Very valuable and searching investigations, such as that of the Schools Inquiry Commission, have pioneered the ground, have pointed out the deficiencies, and suggested remedies; but as yet public opinion has hardly formed itself, and consequently the full powers granted by Parliament to the Endowed Schools Commission, and afterwards transferred to the Charity Commission, are, as regards any great national result, ineffective. It may indeed be feared that the utter disregard of method and co-ordination with which the endowed schools are being refurbished will prove a great obstacle whenever the country really asks for a complete system of intermediate education. Meanwhile it is open to individuals or voluntary associations to institute experiments and raise discussions which may serve at least to quicken the public apprehension of the interests at stake.

Wants, like wrongs, may be classed as public and private, and institutions as well as laws are then most happily conceived when the needs of individuals and the interests of society are both provided for. I hope to be able to show in this paper that the new institution to which I venture to draw attention meets a real defect in English education looked at as a public interest; and at the same time offers to many parents and students an escape from the alternative of an education either incomplete and imperfectly recognized, or else too protracted and costly for their means.

The great blot in our English system of public education is the