The more one thinks about it the more clearly one recognises how little the assumption that Jesus took himself to be the Messiah [pg 005] suffices to explain his “life,” inasmuch as no connection whatever results between his selfconsciousness and his public activity. It may sound banal to ask the question, but it is one which cannot on that account be avoided, why Jesus never tried through instruction to raise the people up to the new ethical conception of messiahship. The attempt would not have been so hopeless as one commonly assumes, for at that time there was a deep spiritual movement going on in Israel. Why did Jesus maintain persistent silence about his conception of messiahship? On the other hand, if one assumes that he did not take himself to be the Messiah, it must be explained how he came to be made Messiah after his death. Certainly it was not on the ground of his public activity, for this had nothing to do with his messiahship. But then again, what was the significance of the revelation of the secret of his messiahship to the Twelve and the confession before the high-priest? It is a mere act of violence to declare these scenes unhistorical. If one resolves upon such aggression, what is there then left of the whole Gospel tradition? And withal one should not forget, that if Jesus did not take himself to be the Messiah, this means the death blow to the Christian [pg 006] faith. The judgment of the early Church is not binding upon us. The Christian religion is founded upon the messianic consciousness of Jesus, whereby he himself in a signal manner sharply distinguished his own person from the rank of the other preachers of religious morality. If now he did not take himself to be the Messiah, then the whole of Christianity rests—to use honestly a much perverted and abused word—upon a “value judgment” formed by the adherents of Jesus of Nazareth after his death! Let us not forget that we are dealing here with an antinomy from which only one conclusion can be drawn, namely, that what has hitherto been accounted the “historical” conception of the messianic consciousness of Jesus is false, because it does not explain the history. Only that conception is historical which makes it intelligible how Jesus could take himself to be the Messiah without finding himself obliged to make this consciousness of his tell as a factor in his public ministry for the Kingdom of God,—rather, how he was actually compelled to make the messianic dignity of his person a secret! Why was his messiahship a secret of Jesus? To explain this means to understand his life.