Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §6.3
standing. 21 It is important to realise that this sense of the historian's ability to
empathise with the past was central in what was perceived as the emergence of
'historical consciousness' in Romanticism. 22 Historical consciousness could
rise above its own relativity. To 'know' the historical past is not simply to know
it as a historical phenomenon to be understood only in its own terms, but to
know it as belonging to what is in the end of the day the same world, 23 as one
who enters a foreign country and after moving beyond the initial strangeness begins
to appreciate the shared patterns of humanness, of culture and community.
It is equally important to note that we are not talking here of faith as such. It is
possible for the historian to enter empathetically into the faith experience of the
first followers of Jesus even when the historian does not share that particular
faith. That is why the quest of the historical Jesus is not simply a matter of faith
looking for its mirror-image or confirmation in the past. Precisely because all
three factors so far outlined are involved, a faith perspective can be and has to
be self-critical. At the same time, historical method which lacks empathy with
the subject matter is unlikely to enter far into the lived experience of the historical
characters being studied. 24
On the other hand, it is important to note the limiting feature of the principle
of analogy. Gadamer cites Friedrich Schlegel: 25
The two basic principles of so-called historical criticism are the postulate of
the commonplace and the axiom of familiarity. The postulate of the commonplace
is that everything that is really great, good, and beautiful is improbable,
for it is extraordinary or at least suspicious. The axiom of familiarity
is that things must always have been just as they are for us, for things are
naturally like this.
This passage clearly signals the danger that these postulates, spelling out the
principle of analogy, may reduce all that is recognizable in human experience to
the lowest common denominator. Can it, we may ask, for example, give suffi-
21. See the extracts from volume 7 of Dilthey's Gesammelte Schriften (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck, 1926), in Mueller-Vollmer, Hermeneutics Reader 149-64, particularly 159-61;
Dilthey recognized that 'all understanding contains something irrational because life is irrational;
it cannot be represented by a logical formula' (162).
22. Hence my use of the different phrase, 'historical awareness', to characterize the developments
of the Renaissance (chapter 3 above).
23. Gadamer, Truth 290. See further Gadamer's treatment of Dilthey (218-64); also
P. Ricoeur, 'The Task of Hermeneutics', From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II
(Evanston: Northwestern University, 1991) 58-63.
24. Gadamer cites Dilthey as declaring 'that only sympathy makes true understanding
possible' {Truth 232).
25. Gadamer, Truth 361.
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