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(6) Concerning the story of the resurrection; (7) The aim of Jesus and his disciples.13 The last fragment engages most fully with Jesus’ life and was initially attributed to Moses Mendelssohn, the great Jewish representative of the Enlightenment and a friend of Lessing.14 “The aim of Jesus and his disciples” contains Reima- rus’ groundbreaking historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus, where he chal- lenged many classical theological interpretations: Jesus was a Jew and did not found a new religion; his teachings are to be separated from the teachings of his disciples; his notion of the “kingdom of heaven” has to be evaluated against Jewish theological traditions, for Jesus never explained what it meant. For Rei- marus Jesus was a Jew who spoke to Jews under the yoke of the Roman Empire and his message was to be interpreted as political, suggesting that the Messiah be placed “within the limits of humanity”.15 Jesus did not break with Jewish law, did not cease to be a member of the chosen people; he probably did not establish baptism and the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper) as new fundamental rituals. The narratives about the miracles are also deemed historically implau- sible – while Jesus was certainly a healer, he never performed public miracles. It was his disciples who had attempted to found a new religion, as they slowly tried to make sense of his inglorious and sudden death.16 Reimarus was a great ancient historian and a polymath, his writings distin- guished by immense erudition and composed in a witty and agreeable style. His interpretation of the life of Jesus summarized in a cogent manner knowledge about Jesus and his disciples that was disseminated in a wide array of sources. His notion that Christianity was indebted to Deism was politically charged, as it took shape among a circle of enlightened philosophers who aimed to reform the church and to establish a more tolerant society.17 His interpretation of the life of Jesus, with the idea that Jesus’ main message was worldly, should be set against the backdrop of changes in perceptions of Jews and Judaism and increasing support for their civic integration. The Fragments of an Anonymous Author of Wolfenbüttel was a great piece of literature and historical scholar- ship but, as Schweitzer underlined, its authorship remained veiled until another great German scholar of the “historical Jesus” created a public resonance. David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1878), a theologian influenced by Hegel, pub- lished Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined) 13 Schweitzer 2005, 16. 14 Benfatto 2018. 15 Schweitzer 2005, 18. 16 For a recent interpretation about the death of the leader see Destro/Pesce 2014. 17 Groetsch 2015; Klein 2011, 153–182. The Historical Jesus and the Christ of Early Cinema | 73www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1