To him the soul was neither a specimen nor a laboratory, but the supreme treasure of the man. For this reason it is idle to search in his teachings for a detailed exposition of its powers. Nevertheless, the terms of his thinking were not without definition. It is a contradiction of terms to suppose that one who thought so keenly thought at the same time vaguely. If one makes due allowance for a colloquialism that was inevitable in his method of teaching, it is at once apparent that with Jesus, as with Socrates, words were the representatives of things. For this reason it is, that, although definitions are uncommon, Jesus' use of words is consistent as well as concrete. The rabbis, like all scholastic nomialists, might haggle over words. Jesus took them as he found them and used them steadily as the implements of real thought, able to make deep and consistent impressions without attempting formal distinctions.
Perhaps it is because of this consistency that the difficulties mentioned above are far less evident in the gospels than in the epistles. The unity of their teaching is the unity of a dominating personality. Peter, and James, and Paul, and John, and the other authors of letters, each had his own more or less consistent psychological terminology, and in their combination these terminologies are sometimes confusing. But in the words of Jesus such confusion is wanting, for the gospel writers do not allow themselves sufficient editorial license to affect the fundamental conceptions of their Master.[1]
It is these fundamental conceptions that one must seek if he would get the logical point of departure for not merely the social but the religious teachings of Jesus. It is not impossible that in the search for them modern ideas may be read into ancient words, but none the less is the search to be made. And if it
- ↑ It is, of course, here quite unnecessary to go into any complete discussion of biblical psychology—even if there be any such. It may, perhaps, be noted in passing that any method that attempts to derive scriptural teachings by a mere aggregation of texts is always liable to the uncertainties and suspicion that will be found to attend any unhistorical search after any developing truth. Besides, it is only too easy to erect a merely practical into an absolute distinction. Cf. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, p. 366 n.
