Christ and the Jewish Law

From the preface: "The importance of our subject is very generally admitted by competent theologians. Holtzmann, in papers frequently referred to within this work, makes allusion to a late work of Bruno Bauer's, and speaks in that connection of "the high significance, which belongs to Jesus' attitude towards the Law, in regard to His dignity as founder of a religion"; and Bassermann, the author of a brief but laborious commentary on Matthew 5:17-20, expresses himself as follows: "All admit the importance of this question," viz., the question how Jesus felt and taught regarding the Mosaic Law, "not only for a right understanding of the life and person of Jesus, but for a right understanding of the whole Christian religion. Rightly," he adds, "does Weisse call it a vital question for framing our conception of the Divine revelation made to us in Christ." Yet, so far as I am aware, there is no treatment of our subject, either in German or English, on a scale adequate to its importance. Perhaps the following pages may call attention to it. An apology is due for the absence of textual criticism. This book can make no claim to original scholarship, though I have tried to keep step with the results of scholarship. In Germany, it would be impossible to handle such a subject except in connection, not with textual criticism only, but with critical theories of the origin of the Gospels. And it is most legitimate to determine as exactly as possible the revealing facts and sacred words, on a sounder system than that of Gospel Harmony. But there are drawbacks. The next comer has a new criticism, and sweeps away at a stroke the underpinning upon which the superstructure of his predecessor rests. If we take our stand on the actual Gospel narratives, we cannot be so quickly despatched. The reader will not need to be told that I am under greater obligations to Ritschl than to any other writer. I have not indeed been able to follow his views upon "Christ and the Mosaic Law" in his Enstehung der altkatholischen Kirche. But from that book, and from his great work on Justification, I have derived suggestions and promptings so numerous that a detailed confession would be tedious. Perhaps it is right to add, that the following pages nevertheless are not an utterance of discipleship. Dr. Ritschl is not to be made responsible for the crudities of my criticism. Nor am I to be held assenting to the negations of his theology."