2. In the second period Jesus had the people about him only for a few days,—from the crossing of the Jordan until his death. During this time he made to them no disclosure about his messiahship, and gave them also no hint which they could and must understand in this sense. The bribed witnesses know nothing of the sort to allege. What is [pg 132] remarkable in their evidence—upon which too little weight has been laid—consists precisely in the fact that _they in no wise charge him with wishing to be the Messiah._ For them his impious pretention exhausts itself in a disrespectful word about the Temple. Let one picture to himself what the procedure of the trial would have been if the hired accusers had of themselves discovered messianic hints in Jesus’ speeches! 3. From this point one arrives necessarily at the conclusion that up to the last moment he was for the people in Jerusalem just what he was in Galilee,—the great Prophet or the Forerunner, but in no wise the Messiah! There are two facts, however, which do not comport with this. The entrance into Jerusalem was—according to the common apprehension—_a messianic ovation._ Therefore the people must have had a presentiment of Jesus’ dignity. The High Priest put to him the question, whether he were the Messiah. Therefore he knew of Jesus’ claim. We have here a clear question to deal with: was Jesus regarded in the Jerusalem days as a messianic pretendant or no? One should not obscure this question by speaking of a more or less clear “presentment” in [pg 133] this matter. The “presentiment of the messiahship of Jesus” is a modern invention. The populace would hardly be swayed hither and yon by a dark mysterious presentiment, but rather it must have been a question of belief or unbelief. Whosoever held that he was the Messiah must accompany him through fire and death—to glory. Whosoever held no such faith, but had only a presentiment of such a pretention on his part, must give the signal to stone the blasphemer. There was no third course. The facts in general speak in favour of the opinion that the people and the Pharisees in the Jerusalem days ascribed to Jesus no messianic pretention,—no more indeed than they did at an earlier period. Only in this case the entrance into Jerusalem, understood as a messianic ovation, remains an enigma, and it is likewise unaccountable how it occurred to the High Priest to question him about his messiahship. On the one hand the situation must be understood in the way which is commonly assumed. Then one must renounce every hope of an historical understanding of the last public period of Jesus. It will not do to suppose that at the beginning of this period (entrance into Jerusalem) and at the [pg 134] end of it (question of the High Priest at the trial) he was taken for the Messiah, while the Jerusalem days which lay in the interval knew nothing of this claim whatever.