Mt 8:20,—The Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. Mt 11:19,—The Son of Man is come eating and drinking (in contrast to the Baptist). Mt 12:32,—Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a worse crime than speaking evil of the Son of Man. Mt 12:40,—The Son of Man will be three days in the earth, like Jonah in the belly of the fish. Mt 13:37, 41,—The Son of Man is the Sower; the Son of Man is the lord of the reapers. Mt 16:13,—Who do the people say that the Son of Man is? Here the expression is philologically impossible. For if Jesus had so used it, his hearers must simply have understood him to [pg 195] mean “man.” There is nothing here to indicate that the word is meant to express a future messianic dignity! Here in fact he designates by it his actual present condition! But “Son of Man” is a messianic title of futuristic character, since it always suggests a coming upon the clouds, according to Daniel 7:13-14. Furthermore, in all of these passages the Disciples are as yet ignorant of Jesus’ secret. For them the Son of Man is still an entirely distinct person. The unity of the subject is still completely unknown to them. Therefore they were not in a position to understand that by this term he refers to himself, but they must refer everything to that Son of Man of whose coming he also spoke elsewhere. Therewith, however, the passages would be meaningless, for they imply that Jesus is thus speaking of himself. Historically and philologically it is therefore impossible that Jesus could have employed the expression as a purposeless and matter of course self-designation. Even as a self-designation referable to the future messianic dignity that was to be his, only they could understand it who knew his secret. Hence all the passages are unhistorical in which, _previous to Cæsarea Philippi_ (or, for the Three, previous to the Transfiguration), [pg 196] he designates _himself_ as Son of Man. Only those in that period are historical in which he speaks of the Son of Man as a figure yet to come, not identical with himself (Mt 10:23 and Mk 8:38). The passages cited above, in which the expression is used without its proper significance as a mere self-designation, are therefore not historical, but are comprehensible only as the result of a literary process. How does it come about that a later period of Gospel composition regarded this expression as “Jesus’ self-designation”?