The Gospels
Christ in the Gospels. By A. E. J. Rawlinson, D.D., Bishop of Derby. (Oxford University Press. 6s. 6d.) THESE are days when Bishops, hard pressed by manifold diocesan cares and often involved in extra-diocesan activities, have little time to spare for large-scale contributions to sacred learning. The Archbishop of Canterbury does, indeed, defy all rules; but it is very much not a case of ex uno disce omnes. So there is to be a greater pleasure in receiving from one of the most distinguished of English New Testament scholars a volume of which the interest and import' ance are quite out of proportion to its slender size. For Dr. Rawlinsoo has here gathered together the outstanding results of that study and interpretation of the Gospels which has followed upon an era of attention concentrated mainly on literary and historical problems; and he shows with great „clarity and continuous reference to the actual texts that what emerges is "no watered-down or 'reduced' version of Christianity, but the authentic Gospel of Christ." If the Gospels are to be understood they must be taken for what they truly are. They are not formal biographies, differing in brevity but not in character from modern " Lives " Of this Pero and that. Two sentences of Dr. Rawlinson's when taken together give just the right relation between the negative and the positive, and are of the nature of a final -verdict upon the evidence which the Gospels supply and the researches of scholars' here illuminated The Gospel3, he writes, " proclaim a Gospel rooted in history, but their relation, to historical facts, considered simply as such indirect." And in the section entitled " The Gospels and History, one of four very valuable appendices, he declares " record and revelation, history, and interpretation, cannot in the GospelsTh be separated; but the control of history is everywhere present." _f central part of the book is an exposition in successive chapters ", the truth thus stated. It is a reading of the Gospels in terms CI the Messiahship of Jesus to which the narratives, explicitly implicitly, in the latter case frequently by their relation to ,lhe Old Testament, bear constant witness. I would mention partia. larly the chapters on " The Messianic Signs " and " The Uitirlu' Sacrifice." In the former Dr. Rawlinson is especially concerned to draw out the significance of the narratives. The histotical question involved in the accounts of miraculous events he does not attempt to answer.
He does not regard the question of miracles as one that can be answered from a purely historical standpoint, with all other considerations excluded. Nevertheless, " whatever may be the precise basis in history of these stories, they at least constitute an important part of the available evidence as to the impression made by the Jesus of history upon the hearts and minds of such as believed in Him." In the latter chapter the sacrificial interpretation of the Cross, with the linking together of the notions of the Messiah and the Suffering Servant, is traced back to its source in " the historical mind of our Lord." Dr. Vincent Taylor, Dr. Rawlinson and others have shown that this is the true historical background of the Christian Gospel as it was preached in the primi- tive Church.
Writing of the Kingdom of God, Dr. Rawlinson affirms that " there is a sense in which, with the coming of Christ Himself into the world, the Kingdom of God is already a present and glorious reality." Yet he rightly refuses to allow what is called " realised eschatology " to obscure the futurist aspect of the Kingdom. As to this, though what he says is in itself valuable, I wish he had said more in direct reference to Schweitzer's view of the future but imminent Kingdom as the one true key to the interpretation of the LOrd's life and ministry. A Christianity, ethical but not theological, has no root either in the earliest Christian records or in what lies behind them. That conclusion becomes steadily more plain. To the confirming of it Dr. Rawlinson has brought the accumulated resources of trained
scholarship, a clear mind, and a ready pen. J. K. MOZLEY.
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