Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §4.3
consciously high point of European and German culture. 59 In these lectures
Harnack deliberately turned his back on the Christ of dogma. Christianity indeed
must be rescued from its dependence on metaphysics and philosophy; the dogma
had been too much influenced by Greek philosophy. What was needed now was a
rediscovery of the simplicity and freedom of the gospel which Jesus himself had
preached. Here for Harnack was 'the essence of Christianity' — the 'historical Jesus'
encountered through the Gospels in his own religion and message. And what
was that essence? Harnack summed up Jesus' gospel as centring on the fatherhood
of God, the infinite value of the human soul, and the importance of love, regularly
popularized thereafter as 'the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man'. 60
These were Jesus' enduring insights, what was of permanent value when abstracted
from the merely transitory. According to Harnack, 'true faith in Jesus is
not a matter of credal orthodoxy but of doing as he did'. 61
What was at stake in all this at the fundamental level of human selfunderstanding
and motivation is profound. Kant, we may say, had made room for
morality (and even faith) beyond the limitations of science and knowing. 62
Schleiermacher had added a third category, religion and feeling. How these are to
be related and inter-related is the stuff of philosophy, and whether, for example, a
reassertion of the importance of the experience of inspiration, of what some now
call 'epiphany' (not to mention conscience), can still hold open the door to a realistic
concept of revelation, is a question of moment, on which human knowledge
and self-understanding, human being and well-being, and not just Christianity itself,
are dependent more than is usually appreciated. Since historical knowledge
and hermeneutics are also dependent on such questions, questers of the 'historical
Jesus' and readers of the Gospels at academic level need to be aware of the
deep philosophical assumptions on which particular hypotheses are based and
the unresolved epistemological issues and debates continuously rumbling below
the surface. In this case, the most important hermeneutical principle at work was
in effect the conviction that Jesus, the 'historical Jesus', the Jesus stripped of
59. A. Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums (1900), ET What Is Christianity? (London:
Williams and Norgate, 1901, 3 1904) compiled from a listener's shorthand record.
60. The 'essence' of Jesus' message variously summarized in What Is Christianity? 52-
76. Harnack recognised the importance of 'the kingdom of God and its coming' in Jesus' message,
but regarded it as 'a spiritual force, a power which sinks into a man within, and can be understood
only from within', 'a purely religious blessing, the inner link with the living God',
'the most important experience that a man can have' (63-64). The next few pages show what
Harnack thought was the true essence (65-72). Cf. the earlier summaries of Jesus' teaching by
Kant and J. G. Herder (Brown, Jesus 65, 72; Kümmel, New Testament 83).
61. This is W. R. Matthews' summary of What Is Christianity? 149-52 in the fifth edition
(London: Benn, 1958) x.
62. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason opens with the declaration that he wishes to 'abolish
knowledge in order to make room for faith' (I owe the reference to my colleague David Brown).
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