Technically regarded, the mistake on which Weiffenbach’s investigation made shipwreck was the failure to bring the Jewish apocalyptic material into relation with the Synoptic data. If he had done this, it would have been impossible for him to extract an absolutely unreal and unhistorical conception of the Second Coming out of the discourses of Jesus. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ The task which Weiffenbach had neglected remained undone—to the detriment of theology—until Baldensperger(158) repaired the omission. His book, “The Self‐consciousness of Jesus in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His Time,”(159) published in 1888, made its impression by reason of the fullness of its material. Whereas Colani and Volkmar had still been able to deny the existence of a fully formed Messianic expectation in the time of Jesus, the genesis of the expectation was now fully traced out, and it was shown that the world of thought which meets us in Daniel had won the victory, that the “Son of Man” Messiah of the Similitudes of Enoch was the last product of the Messianic hope prior to the time of Jesus; and that therefore the fully developed Danielic scheme with its unbridgeable chasm between the present and the future world furnished the outline within which all further and more detailed traits were inserted. The honour of having effectively pioneered the way for this discovery belongs to Schürer.(160) Baldensperger adopts his ideas, but sets them forth in a much more direct way, because he, in contrast with Schürer, gives no _system_ of Messianic expectation—and there never in reality was a system—but is content to picture its many‐sided growth. He does not, it is true, escape some minor inconsistencies. For example, the idea of a “political Messiahship,” which is really set aside by his historical treatment, crops up here and there, as though the author had not entirely got rid of it himself. But the impression made by the book as a whole was overpowering.