The Teaching and the Teacher
DR. awls has given to the words of Christ, as recorded in the synoptic tradition, a closeness of attention which is not too common in theological writing today. For the emphasis is not now equally laid on the whole of the teaching. It is on certain aspects that the stress mainly falls. That in this there has been a necessary redress of balance may at once be admitted. Yet there has been loss as well as gain ; and a recall to the consideration of the substance, method, and implications of the words of Him whom an early dristian father called " Our Teacher," is not a diversion into humanism and an offence against the Gospel. It is true that world-history would have been different if the Church had consistently sought to understand and practise the ethic of Jesus Christ. At the same time, the critical pages in the final chapter suffer from one-sidedness, and Dr. Curtis's judgement was overcast when he included a letter of Herbert Spencer's of which the best one can say is that its generalisations as to the nominal Christianity of Christians are greatly exaggerated. Of critical questions connected with the Gospels Dr. Curtis writes, though at no great length, in a late chapter, after he has expounded the teaching. With St. Mark's Gospel, and the 'collection of the sayings of Jesus known as Q as primary authorities, Dr. Curtis shows little hesitation in making use of all that the first three Gospels contain. His method is not always satisfying ; he does not apply himself to the difficult saying in St. Mark IV, 'if, where the purpose of parabolic speech to the multitude is given as " that seeing they may see, and not perceive," &c., and devotes himselfhimselfto the Matthaean parallel, where the notion of purpose is absent. He views St. John's Gospel as a commentary upon the earlier Gospels, in which we have " the Word rather than the words of the. Lord who had appeared among men, the authentic unfolding of what He was, and is, as His Spirit has interpreted Him to the evangelist, rather than the actual words of Jesus of Nazareth," and emphasises the importance of its " interpretative process " for the missionary work of the early Church Dr. Curtis is least satisfactory when he is in touch with that material in the Gospels which has played so large a part in dis- cussions about the coming of the Kingdom of God. I cannot but be greatly surprised that he relies as he does on a most doubtful translation and interpretation in St. Luke XVII, 20, "the Kingdran of God is within you." Nor are passages in the Gospels which speak of an imminent coming of the Son of Man adequately met by he argument a fortiori from our Lord's attitude to the mosaic law Cut He would not be " a servile accepter of the letter of apocalyphz." It is really unfortunate that a scholar of his independence, as his
discussion of the title "Son of Man " shows, has not gone much more deeply into this question. I feel a like dissatisfaction with the chapter on Christ's death: it does not come face to face with the possibility that Christ conceived of His death as in a very definite way a sacrifice and attached to it a very definite meaning.
For those who view the Gospels from the standpoint associated with such a scholar as Professor Dodd and his conception of the Kingdom of God as the final revelation, already present in the Person of Jesus, Dr. Curtis's book will seem to belong to an earlier epoch in its theological perspective. Out just because in the context of that perspective there are features of the Gospel-teaching which are apt to escape attention, this study of teaching and Teacher has the value of a reminder of the many-sided richness of the words of the Lord.
J. K. MOZLEY.
Previous page
