Fragments from Reimarus

regards the sending out of the apostles on their mission, we must suppose either that Jesus did or did not know what their impression of the kingdom of Heaven was. In the first case, it is clear that his object must have been to rouse the Jews to the expectation of a speedy worldly deliverance, because he employed messengers whom he knew to have no other belief, and who therefore could not preach a different one. In the second case, if he did not know their impression, he must still have guessed them to be under the universally prevailing one, and so ought to have enlightened and instructed the disciples until they abandoned their delusion and were fully convinced of the truth of his real object, in order that they might not propagate a false gospel. But it is evident that the disciples, both then and afterwards, retained the delusion—or the belief—in a worldly deliverer of Israel through the Messiah, and were not converted to any other. Jesus, nevertheless, sends them to preach the kingdom of Heaven, and to become the teachers of others; therefore, he must have approved of the prevailing belief among the disciples and people, and it must have been his object to encourage and circulate it throughout Judea. This action on the part of Jesus cannot be justified. In sending such missionaries, he could have had no other object than to rouse the Jews in all parts of Judea, who had so long been groaning under the Roman yoke and so long been preparing for the hoped-for deliverance, and to induce them to flock to Jerusalem.