[p. III]
Preface
With the present work, which attaches itself in the first instance to my work on the Apostle Paul, published in the year 1845, my critical investigations of the canonical writings of the New Testament have now come to their close. Just as, in the case of the letters of the canon, those investigations have their center in this, that the individuality of the Apostle Paul comes to stand out in them in the high, preponderant significance which, according to history, belongs to it, and by which therefore everything is also to be judged that lays claim to the name of the Apostle, so, in an analogous sense, I could have designated the present work by the name of John, in order to say by this title that the whole criticism of the Gospels contained in it hangs, if not upon an equally concrete personality, yet upon an equally characteristic name. Only when one has placed oneself at the standpoint of the Johannine Gospel, and has grasped it in its whole peculiarity, does one have in it a sure critical standard by which everything that belongs to the circle of Gospel criticism can be measured. This is the guiding point of view from which these critical investigations of the Gospels have proceeded, and from which they are to be understood. The chief constituent of the present work is the treatise on the Johannine Gospel that appeared in the Theologische Jahrbücher for 1844. It appears here anew, after I have examined it once more in its whole extent, and have used for it everything that offered itself to me from various sides for
[p. IV]
consideration. When I composed that treatise, my view did not yet reach further, and I had not yet formed for myself any more definite opinion about the origin of the other Gospels and their relation to one another. On the path I had taken I had to be led next to the Gospel of Luke, and the treatise on the Gospel of Luke that appeared in the Theologische Jahrbücher for 1846 now attaches itself here also to the earlier one on the Johannine Gospel, not merely so that two treatises related in their content might stand outwardly beside one another, but in the inner connection of a view whose objective historical truth can prove itself in no better way than by this: that, pursued further at various points lying apart from one another, it establishes the result already gained earlier all the more firmly with every further step. This holds also of the two other Gospels, now likewise drawn into the circle of these investigations, in the case of which I could of myself take up into my view, already settled on its own account, what through the results of the more recent researches has come more and more to general recognition. Having thus, in the case of these two Gospels, not first to establish a new view, but only to ground further, and to determine more exactly, one already given, my interest was by contrast all the more directed to summing up in them, at last, the whole relation of the Gospels to one another in that total view which first opened itself to me in the Johannine Gospel.
What great significance New Testament criticism has, not only for theology, but for the Christian religious view of the world in our time generally, can surely be missed less and less. The more lively the interest with which one occupies oneself with the question of the essence and the historical origin of Christianity,
[p. V]
the more one must also convince oneself of the impossibility of coming to any satisfying view of that question before one has got clear about how matters stand with the writings to which we are directed as the only documents concerning the origin of Christianity. The more, so considered, so comprehensive a historical question is grasped at a definite point, the more concretely and sharply it lets itself be determined, and the less one can evade it by half and ambiguous answers. One can rightly maintain that all questions concerning primitive Christianity have their real center in the one question: how is the deeply penetrating contradiction to be resolved which lies undeniably open to the day in the Gospels themselves? From this point of view the present critical investigations also mean to grasp the more general questions of the time concerning Christianity at the point at which one can least withdraw from the necessity of a decision. Whoever, in order to answer such a question, still so far from settled and yet so decisive for the whole, enters upon a new path, must reckon in advance on a very serious contradiction; if only he might also expect, in the same proportion in which he must even wish for contradiction himself, one that is all the better motivated, and that enters all the more deeply into the matter. In vain have I, in the four years since the first appearance of my treatise on the Johannine Gospel, looked for such a one. But of course an ignoring that puts on airs, an unmotivated protesting in empty phrases, an empty dismissing of the matter out of mere party motives, a petty carping at side issues, such a procedure on the part of opponents, in which one may at best expect a discussion of individual subordinate questions guided by a purely apologetic interest, is always far easier and more convenient than a judgment of the view as a
[p. VI]
whole that gives evidence of knowledge of the subject and of a scientific interest. Even supposing that, on many individual points, what is erroneous and unsuccessful could be demonstrated in my case, it would still always come to this: that another view of the Gospel history, equally comprehensive and carried through with equal consistency, be set over against my total view. Let the attempt therefore now be made, as has not yet happened, and with better success, upon the view now developed in its whole connection, as the present work contains it. This much I believe I may in any case maintain, without any appearance of presumption: whatever view may in the future assert itself in Gospel criticism over against mine, it will not be possible for it to win for itself a more general recognition before mine has been refuted in its whole extent, and with quite other grounds and proofs than have been brought against it up to now.