Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

That Jesus of Nazareth professed himself to be the messianic legate of God is proved by the tenor of the Gospels, by the consensus of Christians, by the concession of unbelievers

1. The tenor of the Gospels. Nothing is more manifest than the testimony that Jesus gives on almost every page of the Gospels concerning his messianic consciousness and vocation. Both his words and his deeds inculcate this one thing, that he is the messianic legate sent by God. Once this testimony is removed, the whole Gospel history vanishes. Unless, therefore, we favor an absolute biblical scepticism, rejecting all sound criticism, we must concede the fact of Jesus' messianic profession.¹

2. The consensus of Christians. The whole primitive Church professed Jesus to be the Messiah. Peter on the day of Pentecost urges in Jerusalem: "Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know most certainly, that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus, whom you crucified."² Paul preaches at Damascus: "That this is the Messiah";³ at Thessalonica he cries out: "That this is Jesus the Messiah, whom I announce to you";⁴ at Corinth he insists, "testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah";⁵ at Ephesus "he mightily refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah".⁶ All the apostles "ceased not, every day, in the temple and from house to house, teaching and preaching Jesus as the Messiah"⁷. But this unanimous faith and this constant preaching of the disciples could in no way be explained, unless the Master himself had professed himself to be the Messiah.

3. The concession of unbelievers. Overcome by this testimony of the Gospels and of the disciples, the rationalists themselves, a few of the more radical excepted, admit that Jesus' messianic profession is the most certain of all facts, one that no person of serious mind would deny.⁸ They contend only this, that Jesus did not from the beginning of his preaching hold and present himself as the Messiah, but that gradually, during his public life and above all in the last days of his life, he persuaded himself that he was the messianic legate of God. To this opinion adhere those who maintain that Jesus did not receive his messianic vocation from God, but acquired it by a natural psychological development. Hence it is of great moment to prove that the messianic preaching of Jesus took its beginning already at the very outset of his public life, its growth in the progress of his public life, and its completion at the close of his public life.