into _the religion_ that
is the mystery of his Person, in which lies his unique and permanent
position in the history of humanity.

_Supplement_ 4.--The conservative position of Jesus towards the
religious traditions of his people had the necessary result that his
preaching and his Person were placed by believers in the frame-work of
this tradition, which was thereby very soon greatly expanded. But,
though this way of understanding the Gospel was certainly at first the
only possible way, and though the Gospel itself could only be preserved
by such means (see Sec. 1), yet it cannot be mistaken that a displacement
in the conception of the Person and preaching of Jesus, and a burdening
of religious faith, could not but forthwith set in, from which
developments followed, the premises of which would be vainly sought for
in the words of the Lord (see Sec.Sec. 3, 4). But here the question arises as
to whether the Gospel is not inseparably connected with the
eschatological world-renouncing element with which it entered into the
world, so that its being is destroyed where this is omitted. A few words
may be devoted to this question. The Gospel possesses properties which
oppose every positive religion, because they depreciate it, and these
properties form the kernel of the Gospel. The disposition which is
devoted to God, humble, ardent and sincere in its love to God and to the
brethren, is, as an abiding habit, law, and at the same time, a gift of
the Gospel, and also finally exhausts it. This quiet, peaceful element
was at the beginning strong and vigorous, even in those who lived in the
world of ecstasy and expected the world to come. One may be named for
all, Paul. He who wrote 1 Cor. XIII. and Rom. VIII. should not, in spite
of all that he has said elsewhere, be called upon to witness that the
nature of the Gospel is exhausted in its world-renouncing, ecstatic and
eschatological elements, or at least, that it is so inseparably united
with these as to fall along with them. He who wrote those chapters, and
the greater than he who promised the kingdom of heaven to children, and
to those who were hungering and thirsting for righteousness, he to whom
tradition ascribes the words: "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject
to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven"--both
attest that the Gospel lies above the antagonisms between this world and
the next, work and retirement from the world, reason and ecstasy,
J