een Te ema or a ae en a oe ow + e ee p e DACA s ae ” age a) > = Bot JESUS THE MAN AN HISTORICAL STUDY By VICTOR E. HARLOW, M. A. HARLOW PUBLISHING CO. OKLAHOMA CITY 1924 Ed lA iY tne ' ; cy ete a . op Te) a Av) hy“ ’ dina b $ wer i ~ ; . j F My i Copyright 1924 By SES EAE BAN PUBLISHING co. es .* ay CONTENTS ReEEN TRODUCTION iN fee dece ieee eat cree te 1 II. THE BEGINNING—JOHN THE BAPTIZER .. 15 PI ANE DAPTISMM seem eo ee 25 IV. THE VISION AND THE AWAKENING.............. 32 V. ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM IN GALILEE .. 38 VI. CONFLICT WITH THE PHARISEBS.................. 52 VII. THE GREAT DISCOURSES AT CAPERNAUM— HE GEAVES ;CAPERNAUM GO ee 69 VIII. At NAZARETH — THE TouR THROUGH GAD TURE iy Wnty a emi Eman Oh get 2) 87 DXOROENDING OF THE | DWELVEM an: 97 X. HEROD SEEKS HIS ARREST—EXILE FROM TP BROD St LO MENIONS yes wae ore un een 103 XI. CAESAREA PHILIPPI—THE TWELVE REC- OGNIZE JESUS AS THE MESSIAH — HE DETERMINES TO GO TO JERUSALEM............ 122 AII. THE MARCH TO JERUSALEM ...W0002............. 136 XIII. THE MESSIANIC ENTRY TO JERUSALEM. ....157 XIV. Ht TAKES POSSESSION OF THE TEMPLE ....163 XV. THE ARGUMENT IN THE ‘TEMPLE—THE AUTHORITIES MEURIO MPH] gaan uth 174 XVI. “WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE, AND WHAT SHALL, BEVTHE (OIGN 22) 191 XVII. THE SUPPER AT BETHANY AND THE BE- PRAY A Tiare it cegeti Cte me eR TY 202 XVIII. THe ARREST AND THE INQUISITION ........ 215 XIX. THE TRIAL BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN AND THE) CONVICTION Foe iiru ite perenne ae 228 XX. THE HEARING AND ACQUITTAL BEFORE PILATE—THE HEARING BEFORE HEROD— DHS } CONDEMNATION | aes ace eee eae 232, UT ML Bi COR UCTELXRION Wits nce ie a eee eae ee 248 JESUS THE MAN - Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/jesusmanhistoricOOharl Jesus The Man INTRODUCTION Jesus of Nazareth is not merely the object of rev- erence of the greatest religion in the world; he is also a figure of universal history. His activities, it is true, were confined to a small area and involved in immediate contact only a comparatively limited number of people, but they were important enough to win for him a paragraph in the pages of the greatest of Roman historians. Tacitus in a passage the authenticity of which is beyond question, con- firms the historicity and the importance of this great Jew. ‘‘Auctor nominis ews, Christus, Tiberio wm- peritante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum sup- plicio affectus erat.’” If there were no Christian records whatever, we should still be informed that a man called Christus lived in Judea in the days of Tiberius the Emperor; that he did something of sufficient importance to eall him to the attention of the governor of that province; and that he was put to death at the order of that governor, Pontius Pilate. This in itself is real accomplishment; to rise out of the oblivion which enshrouds the millions of his contemporaries tAnnal. XV, 44. [1] 2 JESUS THE MAN and achieve the immortality of these few lines makes him one of the few remarkable men of his time, even if the religion built about his personality and his life and death had not enshrined him in the souls of ten thousand millions since then. Hundreds of studies of the life of this man have been made, many of them by the greatest minds of our race. Such studies, for the most part,—it is perhaps justifiable to say almost exclusively,—have had for their dominant motive a religious in- terest. Considering the supreme place in the relig- ious consciousness of our race which is occupied by the theology constructed around him, this is neither strange nor unjustified. Yet such studies do not ex- haust the subject. As an historical personage he is also a strictly historical problem. It is entirely reasonable for the pure historian, starting from that statement of Tacitus, to inquire what manner of man was this, and what deeds did he perform which caused Pontius Pilate to inflict upon him the ex- treme penalty; and to make that inquiry entirely apart from any theological consideration whatever. Such inquiry, however, need not be contradictory to any sound theology. The day of the Docetists is past. Those who accept Jesus as very God also look upon him as very man, who lived a truly human life. Leaving the divine side to the theologians, it is proper and reasonable for the historian, out of such materials as are available, to attempt to construct as far as may be done, the actual human life of this great man; not merely a life such as will fit snugly INTRODUCTION a into the theological molds later provided for it by the reflections of pious men, but the vivid, energetic, vital life which was seen by his contemporaries and which broke the narrow confines of his race and locality to find a place in the record of the great Roman Empire. The genuineness and the import- ance of the religious interest cannot be overlooked, but it does not exclude, it merely enhances, the his- torical interest in this strictly human and historical problem. ’ This, then, has been the motive for the succeeding pages; to reproduce so far ag it is possible, in form intelligible to the reader of our time, the real phys- ical and mental life of the man Jesus, who actually walked and talked with men, as they saw him and heard him and as we would see him and hear him and understand him could we be translated into that far-off time and race. We aspire to see him as did those who lived with him, who when he was living saw him as a remarkable, an extraordinary man with an extraordinary message, but nevertheless truly asaman. It is by no means necessary to as- sume that such human life exhausted the meaning of the life of Jesus, but whatever there was in it over and beyond the human factors we leave to those skilled in such investigations. We retain only the humbler yet absorbingly interesting problem of the purely human life, physical, intellectual and emo- tional, of one than whom no more truly heroie char- acter has walked this earth, of Jesus the man. The materials for such an attempt are more fully eh ER aes these studies have any first thy ) 4. Poy. JESUS THE MAn Se | * available now than ever before. The results at pains- taking investigation by scholars of, two continents for more than half a century have changed the whole outlook on the problem of Jesus. The veil which has hidden the thoughts and motives. of the J oyeyp most as fully as into those of any. ‘ie history. This new development and* “arepr derstanding have rendered obsolescent “if ne lete those mafty fine lives of Jesus ci 0 days and from other viewpoints and justify an at- tempt at a fresh delineation of this. remarkable char- acter, in accord with the knowledge of his time and his race which has been acquired dugingg the past half century. Another factor has contributed to the dagiaien to attempt to retrace this oft traveled road. All the studies of the life of Jesus made haratenee: have been made by.theologians and professional seh« 10] men who were largely segregated from the ° prac ical interests of life. Such men have produced. studies ‘very valuable from the theological or tl : standpoint, but with decided limitatior purely historical standpoint. Few of th INTRODUCTION 5 litical and governmental. Heconomic and business factors were not lacking and the whole story is full of elements which seem to have escaped the atten- tion of the very learned men whose intentness upon the ideal and spiritual in Jesus has blinded them to many things of the highest interest to the more prac- tical and everyday mind of the average individual. A study which attempts to give due emphasis to these more homely and human elements of the story should be at once more accurate histori¢ally and more illuminating to those who would like to picture the wonderful career as nearly as possible. as it would have looked to one who’ saw it develop. An attempt at such a study by one who has. carried through an active business and political life an ab- | sorbing interest in the historical side of this most important episode in the history of our race ought at least to have the value of making a suggestion to some more gifted and more fully experienced man who will take up the task and perform it as it should be performed. The materials for such a study are Ponfined! tithe in comparatively narrow compass. With but few. exceptions they are contained in that aggregation of books of varied authorship and date of compo- sition which has been compiled under the name New. . Sp Testament. The direct references to J esus, ‘contem=*,... ° poraneous or nearly so, outside of these books: ‘are limited to the nEe ee from Tacitus ae 3 PG 8 i, oa. # Cy a a pees a” , ares hy Be eth, hit aN) he 6 JESUS THE MAN referred to, to two passages in Josephus, one of which is generally admitted to be a later insertion and not a part of the original text of that historian, and some references in the writings of the early churchmen, most of which are preserved for us in the writings of Eusebius. Of all this material four books—those generally designated as the four gos- pels—contain material directly biographical. All the other sources, including the other books of the New Testament, are merely confirmatory or explan- atory. In view of the wonderful results secured in explorations and excavations in the various parts of the Orient where ancient manuscripts from time to time have been discovered, the hope has persisted that somewhere perhaps a new source might be un- covered which would shed new light upon this re- markable story, but the passage of years has seen the fulfillment of this hope grow less and less prob- able. It now seems unlikely that there have ever been more ample authentic literary records cover- ing this period than are now available to us. Consequently any attempt at reconstruction of an historic Jesus must be made with the same primary material which has been so often worked and re- worked. The books known by the names of the gos- pels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John must still be the source from which we must draw any such construction. Such other crumbs of in- formation as may be available may be used to eluci- date this story, but in its particulars as in its broad outlines it must depend upon these writings. INTRODUCTION ‘4 These books in the last century have been sub- jected to a most intense scrutiny. The result of this penetrating investigation by scholars of many lands has been a body of definitely recognized and admit- ted facts to which the older students of the life of Jesus, even had they been able to approach the prob- lem as a strictly historic one, had no access. Any present attempt must as a necessary preliminary take full cognizance of the conclusions which are now generally accepted among competent students of these books. The most casual observation of the many different lives of Jesus impresses one with the sincerity of their authors but at the same time with the shadowy and contradictory character of the individual por- trayed through them,—a character which has even given rise to serious doubts as to whether any such individual ever existed. Comparatively little reflec- tion upon the results of modern scholarship as re- gards the gospels is necessary to make the reason for this clear. It is now generally admitted that the gospels contain two stories of Jesus; stories not merely fundamentally different, not merely portray- ing two men of absolutely different characteristics, two lives with largely different incidents, but two stories which are to a very considerable extent con- tradictory. The first three gospels tell the same story with comparatively slight variations; the fourth gospel portrays a being utterly different from him whose brief career is chronicled by Matthew, Mark and Luk+ S JESUS THE Man The shadowy, contradictory figure before men- tioned is the result of an attempt to portray a being fulfilling the requirements of both of these stories. The four gospels come to us on an equal basis; they were included in the same collection by the great Catholic fathers who selected the books which make up our New Testament, and have been handed down to us with equal authority. Consequently the biog- raphers of Jesus have felt compelled to give them equal weight, to include in any portrayal of the great Nazarene all the features characteristic of both these two divergent chronicles. That the result has been contradictory and unconvincing is no cause for sur- prise. Modern scholarship has indicated a way out of this difficulty. It has been made clear that the thoughtful student of Jesus can accept one of these portrayals; that it is not intellectually necessary to attempt to accept both with their contradictory char- acter. The general conclusion of this scholarship can be briefly stated here; it is not necessary to go into de- tails or to give the reasons for this conclusion, for there are numerous books dealing with the subject in detail. The first three gospels were written not much if any later than 75 A. D. Of these the earliest is the gospel according to Mark, written almost certainly by the man whose name it bears, who secured his data chiefly from Peter and Paul. Parts of his story probably were based upon his own experience and INTRODUCTION 9 observation, but in the main it is the story which was told in various parts of Asia and Italy by Peter. The gospels of Matthew and Luke are based upon that of Mark, with whose story they have consolidated a quantity of other material of uncertain origin; there is strong reason to believe that it consisted of an- other document or documents which contained a col- lection or collections of the sayings of Jesus, with perhaps a small amount of narrative included, but entirely devoid of chronological arrangement. In consolidating this material the writers of both the gospels, Luke in particular, have taken the liberty of rearranging the chronological order of Mark to conform with their own later ideas of what prob- ably occurred. Neither Luke, who was undoubtedly the Greek physician of that name who accompanied Paul for a long time, nor the author of Matthew, who is unidentified but was probably also a Greek, had first-hand knowledge of the facts which they chron- icled, and apparently they had little if any first hand knowledge from men who actually accom- panied Jesus in his experience, other than that con- tained in Mark. The gospel of Matthew probably takes its name from the fact that it is a consolidation of the gospel by Mark with a book written in Hebrew by Matthew, one of the twelve, which we know to have been a col- lection of the sayings of Jesus. The production of both Matthew and Luke was a literary task; both re- veal clearly the particular phases which their prob- lem took, the attempts to solve their difficulties as 10 JESUS THE Man they appeared; the seams, so to speak, show clearly where the various parts are patched together. Par- ticularly is this true of Luke, who treated the orig- inal story as told by Mark with far greater freedom than did the author of Matthew. These three gospels show the developing theolog- ical interest very clearly. In Mark this interest is comparatively small; the story as told by him is a clear, straightforward human story, of an extra- ordinary man, the memory of whose personality has already begun to be touched with superhuman char- acteristics, but who is nevertheless a man. These superhuman characteristics are more prominent in Matthew and still more so in Luke, showing the increasing interest in the theological problems de- veloped by continued reflection and the consequent growing haziness as to the details of the story itself, yet still clearly portraying the genuine experience of aman. The essential elements of the story, though dislocated in many particulars, remain the same in the gospels according to Matthew and to Luke as in Mark; for all their variations, Matthew, Mark and Luke tell one and the same story of one and the same man. When, however, we come to the gospel according to John we find an entirely different being. This gospel is the production of some Christian theolog- ian who was at the same time a Greek Neo-Platonist and who lived somewhere in Asia, probably at Eiphesus, after the theology of Paul had been de- veloped to its full conclusion. Its thought both phil- INTRODUCTION Vn osophic and theological is that of a period many years, at least as much as fifty, probably as much as a hundred, later than the period when the other three gospels were written. The vigorous, virile, power- ful human personality which shines through the pages of Mark in particular, and in less degree through those of Matthew and Luke, has changed in- to another and utterly different being; he has lost his human characteristics and has become the an- swer to a problem of Greek philosophy. The Jesus of Mark is a man of action; a man of intensely human emotions; a man who grows angry; who hurls de- fiance and contempt into the teeth of his enemies; a man of iron will and determination who decides what he will do and asserts that he will do it in the face of the gates of Hell. The Jesus of John is the Logos of a philosophic sect; a being whose conscious memory transcends all human limitations and reaches back to the time when He created the world and all that is therein; whose dominant characteristic is a di- vine love which leaves in him no room for any of the powerful human characteristics which were so prominent in the man described by the first three gospels. The fourth gospel in its nature, its form and its content is an exemplification of its purpose, frankly stated in it—‘‘that ye might believe that Jesus is the Anointed, the Son of God.’’ In other words, it is a book written to maintain the thesis of the deity of Jesus. The first three books are his- torical books touched with theology; the fourth is a theological treatise in historical form. 12 JESUS THE MAN The gospel according to John is saturated with the finest spirit of Christianity. Its unknown author, —scholars are practically agreed that he was not the Apostle John,—was a great religious genius and has set his seal forever upon the thought and aspiration of the Christian world. Christians of all ages have turned toward this book more than to any other as the source and expression of the consolation and the firm hope which are characteristic of the faith which has built itself about the personality and the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This is now true as it has been true for nearly eighteen hundred years; most of the dogmas, most of the theology of the many varied forms of the Christian faith are based upon this book. Yet the fact remains that historically it is not possible to accept this book as the true story cf the human life of Jesus and at the time accept the story as told by the first three gospels. The com- mon explanation that both stories are true, that they merely look at the problem from different angles, cannot stand. While they contain many of the same incidents, the stories are essentially different and contradictory. It is possible to reconstruct a story according to the gospel of John and it is possible to construct one according to the other three gospels; but to develop an intelligible sequence of events which shall satisfy at one and the same time these two divergent records never has been possible. Anyone who attempts such a reconstruction must make his choice. This book is based upon such a INTRODUCTION ES" decision. The gospel according to John will con- tinue to appeal more intensely to everyone whose interest is chiefly theological. It is a book written by a theologian, for theologians. The historian, however, naturally turns to the book which is first of all and almost exclusively a history, the gospel ac- cording to Mark, and its offspring, the gospels ac- cording to Matthew and Luke. This book, then, is frankly an Prearini to recon- struct the life of Jesus upon the model first of Mark, consolidating with it the other material contained in Matthew and in Luke. It is based upon the con- viction that the gospel according to John was writ- ten long afterwards, its historical information drawn almost exclusively from these and in no point to be considered as authoritative when it contradicts the Marcan narrative. In a few in- stances, particularly in the narration of the events of the last twenty-four hours of Jesus’ life, there are touches in the gospel according to John which indi- cate the possibility that its author may have had ac- cess to an original source. These instances give information not contained in the other gospels, which is not contradictory to them, but which can well be considered as supplementary to them. This material it is true is commingled with other material which is directly contradictory to the synoptic story and it may be as inaccurate as this other material, but it is sufficiently illuminating if true that the pos- sibility of its truth has been adopted. All other sources approximately contemporary making refer- 14 JESUS THE MAN ences to Jesus,—Josephus, the Book of Acts, lgna- tius, Kusebius,—have been used for what they are worth as throwing light upon the story, but the nar- rative remains after all essentially the story told by John Mark, the cousin of Joses who was surnamed Barnabas, the companion of Peter and of Paul, who dwelt in Jerusalem during those stirring days and who probably himself saw many of the events of that wonderful and fatal last week. CHAPTER I. Tue Brcinninc—JoHN THE Baptizer. Sometime late in the year 28 or early in the year 29 of our era a strange figure appeared in the hill country of eastern Judea. A man who was called Jochanan, the equivalent of our English ‘‘John,”’ robed in garments of camel’s hair, girded with leath- ern girdle, a typical inhabitant of the wilderness, be- gan to proclaim to the Jewish inhabitants of that rugged region an announcement to them most sig- nificant and stirring. ‘*Repent,’’ said he, ‘*for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”’ Never was spoken message more tremendous in its effect. The inhabitants of the hill country flock- ed around him. By word of mouth this—to us— *Luke 3:1-2. This is the only date connected with the life of Jesus which can be determined with any degree of accuracy. The reign of Tiberius Caesar began on August 19, A. D. 14. Con- sequently its fifteenth year began August 19, A. D. 28 and ended August 18, A. D. 29. Those who desire to retain the stories of the miraculous birth and annunciations (Matt. 1:18-2:23; Luke 1:5- 2:52) and attempt to reconcile the chronology of tthese two sec- tions with the careful statement of Luke 3:1-2, count the reign of Tiberius as beginning two years earlier when he practically assumed joint responsibility with Augustus, making the appear- ance of John in 26 or 27. This rather strained conclusion, how- ever, fails to eliminate the contradictions, and is unnecessary when it is recognized that the entire story of Matthew 1 is un- historical, the product of later reflection on the relation be- tween Jesus and the prophecies believed to be essential in the conception of the Messiah. See note 3, page 26. [15] 16 JESUS THE Man strange message passed swiftly from the hills of the Judean wilderness to Jerusalem and to all parts of Judea and the regions about the Jordan until multi- tudes surrounded the anchorite, hanging upon the burning words which fell from his lips, and pressing upon one another to participate in the rite which gave him the peculiar name by which he was known, —‘‘ John the Baptizer.’” But if strange to us, his message was full of mean- ing to those who came to hear him. In them was not the least uncertainty as to what he meant. The Mes- sianic hope of the Jews, their expectation that a spe- cial kingdom of God would come upon the earth, to be composed of the chosen and worthy of the Jewish nation, was at that time in the full vigor of its grasp upon the people whom it was later to destroy.’ This wonderful expectation enabled the Jews, proud and imperious of spirit and inspired by the memory of a glorious history, in the face of most contradic- tory circumstances to retain their racial pride and confidence that they were the especially chosen peo- *Matt. 3:1-6; Mark 1:4-6; Luke 3:1-4. "It is evident from the account of Josephus that the disturb- ances which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus had their root in the Messianic expectation, Josephus himself nowhere specifically makes such a statement, but numerous hints of the general attitude of the leaders in sedition appear, and indicate that Josephus was rather concealing the Messianic ten- dencies of his people, which when he wrote had by no means died out and would if revealed to the authorities at Rome, sub- ject the Jews to further persecution. See, for example, Wars II, xiii, 3-5 and the continuous references to the Zealots all through the story of the disorders in Jerusalem. See also note 8 to Chapter VI, page 70. Tuer BEGINNING 17 ple of the Most High. At that time they had com- pletely lost their once proud national position. With the passing of the Maccabean dynasty and follow- ing their conquest by Pompey, they had become the helpless subjects of Rome. Oppressed, humiliated, almost stripped of standing among the nations of the earth, deprived of national lberty, no. longer ruled by their own princes, but subject to the crea- tures of the far-away Roman government who ming- led with a deep contempt a fear which made them more harsh and oppressive than was even the Roman practice, they nevertheless maintained a firm hope and confidence that they were still God’s chosen peo- ple and that ultimately they would triumph over their oppressors through Him. The expectation that one of the line of David would restore the Kingdom to the Jews had been common among them for centuries.’ This belief was a universal racial heritage and was at least as old as the days of the conquest and destruction of the nation by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, We have certain knowledge that for almost two hun- dred years’ it had been definite in form, persistent through every fresh humiliation, growing stronger as the national difficulties grew greater and the ‘See, for example, Isaiah 11:1-12; written almost 700 years before. Similar specimen references occur in the succeeding notes; they are merely samples of what occurs abundantly through all the prophets. ‘That is, since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes (B. C. 17%5- 164). The book of Daniel, which was written during this period, contains the basis and much of the detail of the later conception. 18 JESUS THE MAN probability of recovery of their former great posi- tion through human instrumentalities grew less. It was the unquenchable hope of a conquered and op- pressed people, who nevertheless would not give up their national pride and their confidence in their own God. But from the days of the writer of the Book of Daniel, almost. two hundred years before our era, the Jewish people had been looking forward with an even more definite expectation to a time when their oppression and inferiority and misfor- tune would be wiped out in a cataclysmal event which would destroy out of the world all the oppres- sors, all the evil doers, all those who deprived Israel of his heritage.” In that Great Day of the Lord, won- derful and terrible, only the pious, the obedient to the Law, the poor in spirit, those who were fit to be participants in a kingdom ruled by the direct pres- ence of God, those who should be found ‘‘written in the book’’,’ would be able to endure and to partici- pate in the Golden Age which would follow; all others would go into everlasting punishment or be totally destroyed. This glorious new kingdom of Israel was to be once more the visible favorite of God; it was to be inaugurated by the coming on the clouds of heaven of His own anointed representa- tive, who was to judge it, admit the just into it, and Tsaiah 13:6-138; 16:4,5; 34:1-4. Isaiah 35:5-10; Daniel 12:1. ‘Isaiah 1, 27-28; 3:9, 11. ‘Observe the intense feeling and the confident hope in Isaiah 14 :1-27. THe BEGINNING 19 rule over it;’ the Jews dispersed throughout all the earth would again be gathered into Palestine;” all the nations of the earth were to be subordinate to the Jews, again visibly the chosen nation of God, and would come to worship in his holy mount, Jeru- salem.” All misfortune, all sickness, all suffering, all hardship, all hunger and thirst, would be done away. The desert was to blossom as a rose.” All the land of Palestine was to be fruitful beyond imag- ination. The dead should rise to participate accord- ing to their fitness, whether for good or for evil.’”” Old age and death would be no more.” The Jewish masses had no doubt that all this was to come to pass; the only uncertainty was that the time when this wonderful change should occur was still mysterious. Most of the prophets who were spe- cific in their promise were entirely indefinite as to the time; Daniel, it is true, spoke with precision of times and seasons, but in mysterious terms, the meaning of which the people were unable to unravel, and which even the wisdom of the scribes could not discern. At some time this much hoped-for event would occur, but the time was hidden.” Msaiah 16:5; 42:1-9; Daniel 7:13, 14. N“Tsaqiah 11:11-12. 2Tsaiah 14:1-2. BYsaiah 2:2-4. M4Isaiah 35:1-2. SDaniel 12:2. Isaiah 25:8, “Daniel 9:22-27; 12:7-13. *The most accurate statement of the details of the Messianic hope is presented in Section 29 of Schuerer’s monumental work. (The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ). Real com- oe 20 JESUS THE MAN This was the general attitude of mind of the peo- ple of that thickly populated corner of the earth. Learned and ignorant alike, the poor and the rich, the great and the humble, all alike were familiar with this hope. Most of them shared it, but whether believed or not, it was a common element in the mentality of all the people, a universal expectation in which all were participants. As all felt the same hu- miliation, all kept the same ultimate trust in God, all in some degree held to this traditional form of the racial hope. : It is consequently not to be wondered at that when suddenly, without warning, the striking and solitary figure of John appeared, and speaking with decis- ion and full assurance proclaimed that delay was past, the times were fulfilled, and this great and longed-for day was about to arrive, people dropped their ordinary occupations and crowded around him to listen to that which more than anything else in the world they desired to hear. Vigorous, incisive, were the words of the wilderness preacher; pictur- esque, as was the strange garb which to the minds of these people, saturated with the memory of their an- cient records, recalled the magnificent, far-off fig- ure of the greatest of all the prophets of their race, prehension of it, however, is most readily secured from reading the prophecies in the Old Testament, especially Isaiah and Daniel, remembering that all those references to a glorious yet terrible future event were believed by the Jewish people in the reign of Tiberius to refer to a time and a man certain to come. The re- cently recovered book of Enoch also throws much light upon the Messianic ideas of the time of Jesus and immediately before. Tue BEGINNING 21 —Hlijah, the Tishbite, who also dwelt in the wilder- ness, who also was clothed in a garment of hair, and wore.a leathern girdle. ” ‘‘Change your thoughts,’’—for that is the mean- ing of the Greek word which the churchmen of later centuries have translated ‘‘repent,’’—‘‘ Change your thoughts, for the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn very near. Bring forth the fruits of a changed heart. For the axe les at the root of every tree; every tree therefore that brings not forth good fruit shall be cut down and east into the fire.’’ That is to say, the new Kingdom ruled by God’s own pres- ence is about to appear, and in this Kingdom only those will participate who have abandoned their old sinful practices and have made their lives and per- sonalities sufficiently valuable to be a desirable part of it. All others will be destroyed. The idea was familiar to the people who in in- creasing numbers crowded to hear him. The great and terrible Day of the Lord was at hand. The be- lief in the coming Kingdom was not all joy; it car- ried with it a great fear. That the bad would be de- stroyed and only the good be saved was as familiar to them as the rest of the conception. They believed John’s convincing words, and the fear and the terror of that awful Day fell upon them. ‘‘What then shall we do?’’ they eried. Simple was his answer; simple yet most profound. The moral teaching which has since come to domin- *TI Kings 1:7-8. The marginal translation is “a man with a garment of hair’. yy Jesus THE Man ate the world was foreshadowed in it. He gave these terrified people a code of morals suitable for such a time, for those who believed they stood almost in the immediate presence of God and could be saved from His destruction only by being fit to live in such a presence. He said to them:” “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and ‘he that hath food let him do likewise.” And there came also publicans to be baptized, and they said uuto him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said unto them, “Extort no more than that which is appointed you.” And soldiers also asked ‘him, saying, “And we, what must we do?” And he said unto them, “Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one falsely; and be content with your wages.” The disturbance was not limited to the ignorant and lowly. The most learned, the most prominent of the nation, came with the multitude to hear the welcome announcement of John and to participate in his baptism. But the aristocrats and lawyers from Jerusalem received precisely the same type of warning as did the humble peasant and mountaineer. A new conception he presented to them. They too believed in the coming of the Kingdom, but they be- lieved that because of their racial inheritance they would necessarily be partakers in this new King- dom of God which was to be prepared especially for the Jews. But John said to them ‘‘Bring forth fruits worthy of your change of heart, and think not to say to yourselves ‘We are Abraham’s children,’ Luke 3:11-14. For the probable origin of the idea, see Isaiah 33 :14-16. Tuer BEGINNING fay for that avails you nothing; for God ig able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Only those trees that bring forth good fruit shall escape the fire.’”” It is difficult for us, with almost two thousand years between us and that time, members of a race in circumstances unutterably different, with nothing in us corresponding to the wild hope which possessed these people, to understand the excitement which the appearance of John evoked. Apparently every- body in that section of Palestine” dropped their busi- ness and went to hear him and to participate in the baptism which he gave as an evidence that they had put sin behind them, that they were clean in heart and purified in body, and were prepared for mem- bership in this coming Kingdom.” How long the excitement continued we do not know. Considering the inflammatory mental con- dition of these people, it could take only a short time for it to reach fever heat. Certain it is that as John moved up and down the Jordan, preaching and baptizing at this place and at that, from the wilderness near the Dead Sea on the south to Beth- ™~Matthew 3:7-10. Matt 3:5; Mark 1:5; 2=Hor explanation of the meaning of the rite, see Josephus Antiq. XVIII, v. 2. He says that he “was a good man, and com- manded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness to- wards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to bap- tism; for that the washing would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.” 24. JESUS THE Man ebara across the river in Perea far to the north, the echoes of the excitement he created ran through Palestine from one end to the other. The people were convinced that in truth the times spoken of by Daniel were ended and the great and terrible Day of the Lord was at hand, and crowded about him from all directions. John made no claim of.authority for himself. The reasons by which he supported his claim that the time was fulfilled have been lost to us; evidently they were convincing to his hearers, but he did not base that claim upon any special personal power or capacity. He even spoke in cryptic fashion of one who should succeed him, beside whom he was noth- ing, ‘‘whose shoes I am not worthy to bear,’’ who should substitute for his symbolic water baptism a baptism of divine power.” Later reflection caused men to see in this majestic, mysterious, tragic figure the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah, ‘‘The voice of one erying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.’™” “Matt 3:11; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:15-17. *Tsaiah 40:3. CHAPTER II. Tar BAprism At the height of this excitement, from Nazareth of Galilee came Jesus, the son of Joseph, joining in the great procession of true Israelites who believed the message, who desired to participate in the joy of this coming Kingdom, and to evidence their de- termination and their fitness by partaking of John’s baptism in the Jordan. Later, when this young man had come to be looked upon by hosts of devoted followers as the Messiah, and even as the personification of God himself, leg- end busied itself much about the events of his life prior to his meeting with the great figure of John. These legends grew out of the attempts of his de- voted followers to visualize and to explain the strange relationship which they believed had existed between him and God. Some of them were the re- sult of attempts to explain little understood or mis- understood references in the language of Jesus him- self.’ Others followed the application of logical proc- "Greek Jesous (pronounced Yasous), transliteration of the Aramaic Yeshua. The Greek did not have the sh sound, and transliterated it by s, making the word Yasoua or Yasous. His Aramaic name,—that by which he was known in his lifetime,— was Yeshua bar (or ben, meaning son of) Yoseph. Yeshua was the equivalent of the older Hebrew Yoshua (Joshua), or still older Yehoshua, which meant “God of Salvation”. The idea of the miraculous conception, for example, no doubt [25] 26 JESUS THE Man esses to the current conception of the Messiah, and were attempts to confine the personality of Jesus within the moulds of these fixed conceptions. Most of these legends are frankly impossible.” Many are so crude and coarse as to be revolting to the more re- fined sensibilities of our times. Very few of them have even remote connection with the facts, and originated in the frequent references of Jesus to God as his Father, later amplified by the tendency of the Greeks to attribute divine parentage to their heroic figures. *The birth in Bethlehem, and the visit of Joseph and Mary to that village, evidently unhistorical, are the outgrowth of a logical process as follows: Jesus was the Messiah; the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem; therefore Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem. Since the record showed that his parents lived at Nazareth, some explanation of the presence of Mary in Beth- lehem became necessary. The enrollment gave the only possible rational explanation, as the family had no known property or other interest to take them there. The chronological contradiction involved in placing the birth at the time of the enrollment, in 6-7 A. D. and then stating that Jesus was about thirty years old in 28-29 A. D., only twenty-two years later, seems to have escaped Luke just as the error of also placing the birth in the time of Herod, who died ten years before the enrollment, was overlooked by both Luke and Matthew. These legends are the most natural development conceivable. The early Christians were convinced that Jesus was the scriptural Messiah, and that consequently all the scriptures understood to apply to the Messiah must apply to Jesus. Showing that he did in fact fulfill all the Messianic proph- ecies was one of the most important methods of securing beliey- ers. Where the facts were apparently contradictory to the prophecies, some means must be found to eliminate the contra- diction, which, in their view, could only be apparent, not genuine. The preliminary stories of both Matthew and Luke were at- tempts at such elimination; as suggested, the writers were not aware that such attempt led them into even greater contradictions, of chronology. *The most unreasonable stories of the childhood and youth of Jesus were early excluded from the literature of the church but some of them are still extant in the several apocryphal gospels. THe Baprism 27 only a very limited number of them have kept their place in Christian literature as a part of the accept- ed teaching of the church which has grown up about his personality. Outside of these legends and the crumbs of truth that may be contained in them, there are yet some facts about the personality of the man who now came to John which can be definitely ascertained from the authenticated story of his brief career. He was the son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth,’ a village situated on the slopes of the hills to the northwest of the Plain of Esdraelon in Galilee. He was about thirty years old.” He, like his father be- fore him, was a carpenter, or a builder of the simple houses of that country. He had several brothers and sisters. His family was later believed and taught by his followers to have been descendants of the House of David. Of this we cannot be sure, as the genealogical evidence contained in the gospels is contradictory and insufficient, and some of his own statements lead to a contrary inference. It is quite possibly true, however, for as the development of his brothers, James and Jude, showed, it was a "Matt. 138:54-57; Mark 6:1, 4; Luke 4:16. ®SLuke 3:23; Matthew 13:55. "Mark 6:3. In a country and a time when all occupations were simple and elemental, this fact has none of the economic and social significance attaching to a similar occupation in our time. ‘Hor example, see Matthew 22:41-46, Mark 12:35-37, Luke 20 :41-44. The inference is immediate that he was here prepar- ing a defense against possible objection to his Messianic claim on the ground that he was not the son of David. 28 JESUS THE MAN family of strong capacity, which was not inherited by Jesus alone,’ and the tradition was still vivid and shared by members of his family some generations later.” He was an educated man, as education went in those days and among that people. That is, he read the classic language of his people, equivalent in our day to scholarship in the Greek and Latin classics ;" he was deeply learned in the law and the prophets of the sacred writings of his race. He was very familiar with the conditions and surround- ings of the common and poor people who made up the population of Galilee; but we have no definite knowledge of the financial status of his family. He *James later became the head of the Christian community at Jerusalem, and according to Josephus (Antiq. XX, ix, 1; Eusebius II, xxiii,) like Jesus, was arrested, condemned by the Sanhe- drin and put to death; conclusive evidence that he was an in- dividual of force and character as otherwise he could not so have aroused the antagonism of the Jewish leaders, He was called “the Just” by the ancients (Eusebius, II, i, 2. Hegesip- pus, quoted by Eusebius II, xxiii, 4-19) on account of his piety and many virtues, and has a place of his own in history. The authorship of the letters in the New Testament bearing the names of James and Jude has been disputed since the time of Eusebius, though probability supports their authenticity; but even if they should be considered apocryphal, the fact that their authors sought to give them standing by attributing them to James and Jude and that such assumption of authorship has secured their place in the Christian Canon, should be convincing evidence of the weight the two had among the early Christians and conse- quently of their exceptional ability and strength of character. *Husebius, Bk III, c. 19, 20, tells that the Emperor Domitian called before him the grandchildren of Jude, the brother of Jesus, who, on being asked whether they were descendants of David, admitted that they were. “Luke 4:16-20. The scriptures as read in the synagogue were written in Hebrew, which at that time was a dead language. Tue Baptism 29 was not a member of the governing class or closely in touch with it; all during that short part of his life known to us he showed by his statements an un- familiarity with the more intimate habits and cus- toms of the ruling classes, as great as his familiarity with the experiences and motives of the common people of Galilee. But his appearance,” his bearing, his education, combined to set him apart from the common people with whom he had grown up and made it easy for them to recognize him later as a member of the teaching class, and to call him by the title which recognized that superiority. “There is no authentic portrait of Jesus, an entirely natural fact, as Jewish religious habit prevented such practice, and in his life he did not come into sufficiently prominent contact with Greeks or Romans to cause their artists to produce statuary preserving his physical appearance. Likewise there is no direct description of his personal appearance in the gospels or else- where in authentic documents. It is proper to infer, however, that he was of large and commanding presence, for the power of suggestion which he exercised is almost always connected with impressive physique. Also several incidents, notably his escape from the crowd at Nazareth, can best be understood by the assumption of great physical power. He lived in an age when leadership was almost invariably associated with excep- tional physical size and power; his march to Jerusalem at the head of the multitude would have been extremely unlikely had he not been a man whose appearance suited the part he was tak- ing. Had he not been personally attractive it is not probable that he could have held with him, in closest and most intimate contact, the twelve men who clung to him in the face of danger and failure, or the women who adhered so closely both in Galilee and Jerusalem. In thinking of his demeanor and appearance it is necessary to remember that they were such that after his death those who knew him most intimately found nothing incongruous in the conelusion that he was superhuman, a personage so great that he could not be held even by death itself. The conclusion is irresistible that he was a great, commanding, impressive figure. 30 JESUS THE MAN He too was saturated with the Messianic concep- tion of his time. Tremendously gifted, exceedingly earnest, he had, no doubt, thought more vigorously and with more penetration than most others of his time, upon the characteristics of this strange hope of his race. It held him with absorbing interest, so great that it assumed control of his thought and pur- pose, to the practical exclusion of other matters. Naturally he was acquainted with all the literature of Messianism. With the Messianic psalms and the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel especially he was familiar ; likewise with that strange book which deals with the same theme, the Book of Enoch, the seventh from Adam.” Time was to show that even in this expectation which he held in common with the others of his race, his remarkable personality had develop- ed an individual conception, greater, deeper, and more far reaching in religious spirit, than that of the others of his time. Extraordinarily gifted also he was in his con- ception of the nature of God, and his relation to Him. The idea of the immanence of God in all things is characteristic of the eastern mind, but in Jesus this idea reached a richness and fullness that has never been known in any other man. With him, God seemed always immediately present; not the hard, eruel, personally exacting God of the race of his fathers, but a God of love, whose relation to him 8Scholars agree that the picture of the great Judgment given in Matthew 25:31ff is based directly on the judgment scene of Enoch xe, 20ff. THe Baptism sil he loved to express by the term ‘‘Father.’’ This conception and this attitude, present in some de- gree to many Jewish minds of his time, was in him developed into the controlling and dominating fea- ture in his life. John was a relative, if one of the traditions which later developed is to be believed.“ It seems prob- able that at least they were acquainted in the years before the beginning of John’s preaching, and that John was familiar with his exceptional qualities, for when this carpenter of Nazareth came to the waters of Jordan with the multitudes from all over Pales- tine to be baptized in preparation for the Kingdom which they now were all convinced was about to ap- pear, John immediately recognized him and at first declined to baptize him. ‘‘I have need to be baptized of you,’’ he said, ‘‘and do you come to me?’”” “QTuke, Chapter 1, especially v. 36. MMatthew 3:14. Another possible explanation of John’s re- mark, even more likely than the assumption of previous acquaint- ance, may be inferred from the considerations set out in Note 12, page 29, supra. ‘The majestic figure which later overawed the temple authorities in Jerusalem could easily have elicited such a remark from John. CHAPTER IIT. Tue VISION AND THE AWAKENING As Jesus came up from the river, he had an ex- traordinary experience. Surcharged as he was with the belief that the prophecies were about to be ful- filled, that the Messiah was to come immediately and the unsatisfactory world with which he was sur- rounded was about to pass away to give place to the new world in which the will of God was to be su- preme; filled with the consciousness of the intimate nearness of God, of a close relationship which he could, express only by calling God his Father and speaking of himself as his Son;—all these powerful emotions, freshened and intensified by the meaning of the purifying and separative rite which he had just undergone at the hands of John, and the ex- citement in the crowds surrounding them, found sudden fruition in an intense consciousness which had the nature of a vision, and ripened into a sub- jective sense experience, an experience which took form in sight and sound, and which seemed to him to have an objective existence outside of himself.’ It seemed to him that he saw the heavens opened, and from the skies, which to him as to all others of ‘Mark 1:10-11; Matthew 3:16,17;: Luke 3:21, 22. Such an experience, while rare, is by no means without counterpart in other lives. Savonarola, Swedenborg, Joan of Are, Socrates, Paul, will immediately recur to most minds as examples of great [32] THe VISION AND THE AWAKENING 33 his time’ represented the abiding place of the Most High, seemed to descend a being in the form of a dove, which came to him and rested upon him. At the same time, from the open sky he seemed to hear a sound, a voice saying to him, ‘* This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’’ To a nature such as his, serious and sincere, such an ecstatic experience came with almost explosive effect. What could be its meaning? It did not oc- cur to him to doubt its objective reality or that it was tremendously significant to himself. personalities whose internal experiences were embodied into sen- sational forms so vivid and so real to them that their whole lives were remolded upon them. The experience of Paul at the gates of Damascus, and his being “lifted up into the third heav- en,” of Peter, James and John upon the mount of transfigura- tion, are identical in fundamental character with that of Jesus at the fords of the Jordan and had similar effect upon the lives of those who experienced them. These notable examples, in which subjective ideas, heightened by an extraordinary concentra- tion of attention and imbedded in emotions of high intensity, become vivid enough to be undistinguishable from actual objec- tive experiences, all have the religious impulse as the emotional background. Other emotions, however, especially fear, remorse and grief, when sufficiently intense, have the capacity to cause this same objectivization of memories or constructed ideas. The essential element of them all, as stated by Ribot (Psy- chology and Attention, C. ITI, 2) is “extreme intellectual ac- tivity accompanied by intense concentration upon a single idea. This is a state of intense and! circumscribed ideation; all life is gathered up, as it were, in the thinking brain, in which a single representation absorbs everything else.” 2The world to all the ancients, the Jews no less than the Greeks, was a three story affair; the heavens were the divine abiding place (except when they thought of the Temple as God’s special residence) the earth was the abode of men, while the subterranean depths contained the dead and the spirits and gods of the underworld. Jesus’ scientific ideas of course were those of bis own age. 34 JESUS THE Man Overwhelmed with the wonder of this experience and the persistence of the problem as to its mean- ing, he withdrew from the crowd which surrounded John, to find a solitude where he could think the matter out. Near at hand was the wilderness of Judea. This stretch of rugged, almost mountainous territory, where the descending floods cut the slopes which lead down to the Dead Sea into multitudinous steep and barren hills, was the dwelling place of wild beasts and furnished neither food nor shelter, but it meant solitude, and in this solitude, so absorbed by the wonderful problem that he even lost sight of the demands of the body, so that the days passed with- out food and without thought of it, he worked out the answer to the question. The heavenly vision had said, ‘‘This is my be- loved Son.’’ What did this mean? What could it mean but that, amazing though it was to him, he was to be the Messiah, the Son of Man, who, accord- ing to Daniel,’ would come upon the clouds of heaven and participate in this renovation of the world which was about to occur? But if this be true, how was it to come to pass? How was he to be revealed to the waiting world? Howshould he use this great authority? What was to be the effect upon himself? How should he fulfill the hopes of his nation for dominion and authority over the world? These and countless other queries must have run through his mind. SPaniel 7:18, 14. *Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13. THeE VISION AND THE AWAKENING oo The natural selfish tendencies of human nature revealed themselves in him. Later, when he dis- closed what occurred during this troublous period, telling it no doubt to his intimates among the apos- tles, he personified this whole experience and es- pecially the temptations which came to him as he thought his problem out by the statement that the devil came to him and tempted him. The story as repeated by those who learned it from him took the form of three several attempts.* What other conceptions and queries occupied fie mind during these days of fasting and dreaming and doubting we cannot know, as these only he seems to have mentioned. But the result we know. There among the hills and the rocks in the barren immensities of silence and solitude, with the com- panionship of only the wild beasts, he wrestled with the most tremendous conception that ever entered the mind of a man, adjusting it to the facts of his experience and the ideas already fixed in him by his environment and education, until it occupied a ra- tional relation to the remainder of his mentality. The man who came from Nazareth a pious and sin- cere Jew, who merely desired to fulfill all the re- quirements that he might be a participator in the coming Kingdom of God, returned out of the wilder- ness with the very definite conviction that he was in truth the Son of God, and that on him rested the burdens of the Messiahship. ‘Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-18. 36 JESUS THE MAN He returned to the neighborhood of John. By this time John’s movement had become a national phe- nomenon. All Palestine was in a blaze of excite- ment. From all over the section inhabited by the Jews the people were crowding to hear John, and to accept his baptism. No doubt the orderly course of business was disturbed. No doubt in the minds of many, ignorant, materialistic, and expecting pure- ly a physical revelation, a new political kingdom, this excitement revealed itself in disorders and dis- turbanees which brought about frequent conflicts with the civil authorities. The disturbance became a menace to the existing order of things. Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, whose jurisdiction included the section where John was preaching, became appre- hensive that it might cause a revolution, so he sent and arrested John and carried him away to a prison located at Machaerus on the borders between Perea and Arabia.’ This put an end to his preaching and the excitement naturally soon died down. It might have been expected that Jesus also would be arrested in this attempt to break up the Messianic movement. There is some evidence that after his re- turn from the wilderness he too had been preaching the coming Kingdom to the crowds who flocked to John, and who were no doubt greater than John ‘Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, v. 2. The explanation given in Mark (6:17-19) and repeated in Matthew (14:3,4) and Luke (3:19, 20) only apparently contradicts the Josephus story and is really supplementary to it, as it no doubt refers to state ments made by John before Herod after his arrest. ‘John 4:1-3, Tur VISION AND THE AWAKENING qi alone could satisfy. But if so, it seems that his con- nection with the movement had not continued long enough to bring him to the notice of Herod. So after the arrest of John and the scattering of his crowds, Jesus left the Jordan and returned to his home country of Galilee... With him he took the firm conviction of the truth of John’s teaching of the im- mediate nearness of the Kingdom and of his own preeminent part therein. At this time his family seems to have removed from their home at Nazareth to the larger city of Capernaum, on the west shore of the little mland sea of Galilee. This city was the home of Jesus during the crowded few remaining months of his life. ‘Mark 1:14; Matthew 4:12. "Matthew 4:13. CHAPTER IV. ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM IN GALILEE With the pressure of the consciousness of his great mission upon him, Jesus began immediately to renew in Galilee the message which John, and perhaps he himself, had preached in Judea and Perea. Out of his meditations in the wilderness had come at least one clear conviction; the obligation rested upon him, who positively knew the nearness of the Day of the Lord, to warn the people, lest they be taken without warning and destroyed. The remainder of his life was spent in this task, of warning them of the im- pending great event, and advising them how to live so as to be safe when the Day should arrive. Precisely where he began we do not know. But it is certain that in some of the villages of Galilee, probably very near Capernaum, was heard again the message ‘* The times are fulfilled and the King- ‘Mark 1, 38: “And he said unto them, let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth.” Luke 4, 18-21: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the cap- tives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down, And the eyes of all them that were in the syna- gogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” Luke 4:43. “And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.” [38] ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM IN GALILEE 39 dom of Heaven is at hand. Change your hearts and believe the good tidings.’’ The Messianic hope was as widely distributed among the Jews of Galilee as elsewhere. This hope had been freshened and made immediate and posi- tive by the preaching of John, to whom numbers of Galilean Jews also had gone. In this respect it was not a new message which Jesus brought to the Gali- leans, but one with which they were all familiar, and to which they flocked as soon as it was known that one was again preaching these good tidings. Wherever the Jews gathered in the towns of that region, especially in the synagogues, the centers of the Jewish life in those communities of mixed popu- lations, Jesus went, announcing the nearness of the Kingdom and arousing the enthusiasm of his eager hearers. The fame of his preaching quickly spread throughout that region. Very early in this preaching he attracted to him four young men whose lives were thereafter most intimately bound up with his. In his new home city of Capernaum dwelt two families of fishermen who plied their occupation on the sea of Galilee. One was composed of the brothers Simon and Andrew; the other of Zebedee with his sons, James and John. These worked together as partners. On one of his *Matthew 4:28; Mark 1:39; Luke 4:14, 15, 44. ‘These synagogue meetings were not limited to the Sabbath. Schuerer (§27) quoting from the Talmud says, “it is stated, as the mark of a large town, that even on week days there was always without difficulty a sufficient number of synagogue frequenters present” for a religious meeting. 40 JESUS THE MAN early trips, probably somewhere near Capernaum, Jesus sat in Simon’s boat and spoke to the assembled multitudes who had practically crowded him off the shore in their eagerness to be near him.” After he finished speaking, at his suggestion the boat was moved farther out into the lake and the net was let down in a spot indicated by Jesus. To the astonish- ment of the fishermen, who had had a very unsuc- cessful night, the net drew up a great quantity of fish, so great that Simon, already deeply moved by the speech of Jesus, immediately assumed that it was the result of his supernatural knowledge. Caught by the wonder of his message and deeply impressed by this extraordinary event, the four younger men, Simon and Andrew, James and John, at his invi- tation abandoned their boats and followed this new preacher of the coming of the Kingdom. It is easy to understand why young men of ardent temperament, filled as these men were with the be- lief in the reality of the Kingdom of God which Jesus was preaching, and convinced that it was in truth near at hand, would abandon their daily occupation to follow him. ‘* Follow me,’’ he had said ‘‘and IT will make you fishers of men.’” Why should they not? If this message was true, their daily occupation was about to become useless. All the familiar everyday things of their world were about to pass away and a new world was to come into existence, filled with ‘Luke 5:1-11; Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20. ‘Luke puts it “thou shalt take men alive”. ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM IN GALILEE Al the presence of the living God, and containing only men fit for such a world. Property was no longer of value; fitness for the new Kingdom alone was worth while. The purpose of Jesus in calling them to follow him at this time is not so clear. His intent, as shown in kis invitation to them, was to induce them also to become preachers of the Kingdom to those who were in danger of being lost. Apparently it was also a manifestation of the natural desire for the constant association and cooperation of men of his own type of thought, who had similar expectations concerning the events of the immediate future. Later, when his movement acquired more breadth, their number and their function in the movement were expanded. During these early days, however, they appeared merely as followers, companions, who accompanied him on his travels through the neighboring villages of Galilee, constant listeners, who gradually ac- quired his vivid conception of the immediate end- ing of the age and the coming of the Kingdom of God and who became daily more impressed with his ex- traordinary personal qualities and powers. These first intimate associates were themselves striking characters. James and John seem to have been his cousins, sons of his mother’s sister, Salome. Their occupation as fishermen does not properly in- ‘John 19:25, with Mark 15:40 and Matthew 27:56. The weak- ness of the opinion is that it depends upon the historical accuracy of the reference to ‘his mother’s sister” in John 19:25, a passage which is undoubtedly inaccurate in other respects. 42 JESUS THE Man dicate to modern minds their social standing. They were not the poorer type of fishermen, but operated upon a more pretentious scale, as they had hired helpers who worked with them. The little Sea of Galilee at this time was alive with fishing vessels, as the fisheries constituted one of the most profit- able occupations of that time. It was especially fruitful of fish and was far famed through the an- cient world for the abundance and_ exceptional quality of its products. Fish from this sea were carried as far as Rome. Men engaged in the busi- ness upon such a scale as they were, occupied a superior economic position. The two brothers were of vigorous, powerful per- sonality, impetuous and eager, of a type which Jesus later described by calling them ‘‘sons of thunder.’” Of Simon and Andrew we know less. Socially and economically they seem to have been in a position similar to that of the sons of Zebedee, for they were partners. We have no indication of any family con- nection with Jesus. But Simon in particular was a really gifted individual, with a capacity for cour- age and leadership which in later years was to make him the center around which the followers of Jesus would rally and concentrate. These two also seem to have been less educated than John and James. Simon especially was an individual of a very con- crete mind, who was much interested in the things ™ark 3:17; 9:38; Luke 9:49, 52-54. ANNOUNCING THE Kincpom IN GALILEE 43 which he could see and feel, and was most affected by considerations which reached him through ob- servation of the world about him. He was impulsive, a man of action, and of an intensely loyal nature. He was tremendously impressed by the personality of Jesus, and was most ready of all his followers to impute a supernatural character to events connected with him. Of Andrew we know very little except that he was a brother of Simon and during this period his constant associate. Other disciples came to Jesus later, other men became important in the movement which he initiat- ed, but no one disturbed the preeminence which these first permanent followers occupied in his af- fections. Throughout the crowded and turbulent few months when he set his little world in turmoil, these four men were with him continuously through good report and through evil report, up almost to the final hour. And upon Simon, most of all, he came to rely for a complete and sympathetic under- standing. The four followed him to his home in Capernaum and then followed a period of the most intense ac- tivity which in a short time had all that part of Galilee in an excitement greater even than that which had been produced a short time before by the preaching of John. His method was simple. On the Sabbath days he went into the synagogues. These were the universal gathering places of the Jews. In Galilee at that 44 JESUS THE MAN time the population had become very largely per- meated with the Greek and Roman and Syriac ele- ments, but in all the towns there was a strong Jewish element. Wherever these Jews were found, was found a synagogue, at once the product and means of perpetuation of the racial and national feeling. Here on the Sabbath days the people gathered, hearing the reading of the law and the prophets, usually in the ancient tongue, then translated into the vernac- ular Aramaic, followed by a request to any person who had a message to speak to the congregation. This opportunity Jesus utilized with telling effect. On all Sabbaths he stood in some synagogue and told the congregation of how the times spoken of by Daniel had been fulfilled, how the prophecies of Isaiah and Amos and the other prophets were being realized, and that the great and terrible Day of the Judgment of the Lord was about to appear, followed by the Kingdom of Heaven. On other days of the week, he went among the people either in the syna- gogues or where they were busied in their daily oc- cupations and spoke the same message. Beginning at Capernaum through all the numerous villages which at that time dotted northern Galilee, he fol- lowed this same method. His message was little different from that which John had brought, but almost from the beginning, he brought into his preaching a feature which John had lacked. On the first Sabbath after his four new "Refer to note 3, this chapter. Apparently he chose the syn- agogues wherever possible. ANNOUNCING THE KiInGpOoM IN GALILEE 45 disciples followed him into Capernaum, while he was speaking to the congregation, he was interrupted by a man who was representative of a type frequently found in all times and among all peoples. All races have their mentally disturbed, the unbalanced indi- viduals whose mental processes for many and varying reasons do not operate normally. In our own time this type of affliction is rarely seen; many of us spend our lives without having come into close contact with a person so afflicted. Our in- sane, our mentally deranged, are in asylums. But in that time there were no such asylums; and these mentally deranged and unbalanced persons were seattered throughout the population. They seem to have been very numerous among the people of Pal- estine at that time, but no doubt if our asylums were closed and their inmates scattered among our popu- lation, our own insane would seem even more omni- present. In our time the development of medical knowledge has caused us to understand in large degree what these diseases are. We refer them to their causes; to lesions in the nervous substance, to disturbances of circulation and of other vital processes, to a fail- ure to function by some special part of the nervous system, to many other causes all of which are under- standable. We think of mental disorder as a per- fectly comprehensible disturbance in the individual, which yields to medical treatment or to the power of suggestion, to definite procedure based upon ra- tional interpretation of conditions. Cure of insanity 46 JESUS THE Man or mental disturbance is frequent and natural; it excites no astonishment. But in the time of Jesus all of these things were far in the future. Mental disturbance was incomprehensible upon any ordinary explanation. Such ideas as dissociation of person- ality, auto-suggestion, complexes, inhibition, disor- ganization, and the many explanations now given for these troubles, were undreamed of by him or by the people among whom he lived. They had a much simpler explanation of the phenomena. They fell back upon the idea which has come to all people with undeveloped scientific ideas; they referred the disturbance to the effect upon the individual of some ‘‘demon’’ who had taken possession of him. The world of Jesus’ time, in the belief of himself and his contemporaries, was peopled with whole races of beings which to us are but names but to them were vivid actualities. Angels, as the assist- ants and messengers of God, were believed to be active everywhere, All the evil and pain in the world were explained by the activity of a supreme evil spirit called by the ancient name of Beelzebub or by the later name of Satan, who was believed to be as- sisted and obeyed by hosts of inferior evil spirits or demons. These were the disembodied spirits of the giants who were the offspring of the fallen sons of God and the daughters of men.” These last were the *Enoch XV, 1-12, XVI, 1. Particularly XV, 8 ff: “And now the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men and from the holy watchers (fallen ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM IN GALILEE 47 beings who, according to the understanding of that time, had taken possession of these poor ‘‘demoni- acs,’’ who caused the paroxysms of the epileptic, the ravings of the insane, the vagaries of the dis- sociated personality. The only relief for the unfortunates thus ‘*pnossessed’’ was for some one who had superior in- fluence or authority to force the demon to abandon his victim. Among the Jews were professional ex- orcists, who sometimes accomplished this result by means of specially devised rites and formulae, the effect of which was supposed to be to compel the demon to abandon his victim.” And now when Jesus was interrupted by the ravings of this afflicted man, he applied the only conception known to his time, but with a new method. Confronting him with the appearance and words of authority he peremptorily commanded the supposed demon: ‘‘ Hold thy peace, and come out of him.”’ Similar methods under similar conditions have thousands of times since provoked the same result. The mentally disturbed individual was overpowered angels) is their beginning and primal origin: they shall be evil spirits on earth and evil spirits shall they be called. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle and work destruction on the earth and cause trouble; they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offenses. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them.” These demons were not expected to be punished until the judg- ment, at which time they were to be destroyed (XVI, 1.) The origin of the idea seems to have been Genesis 6:1-4. Matthew 12:27. 48 JESUS THE Man by the suggestion of the more vigorous and more highly willed personality. He believed that the demon was being driven from him. A nervous par- oxysm followed; he was freed from his obsession; he stood up healed; the devil ‘‘had gone out of him.”’ In our time, when physicians skilled in the use of suggestion apply similar methods we recognize the operation of definite mental laws. But to the un- scientific and for the most part densely ignorant people who saw this most extraordinary thing hap- pen, it was the revelation of the direct hand of God: who but God had a power superior to that of the devil over his minions? What could this procedure mean? Here were no rites of exorcism, no secret forms of words; he merely commanded and ‘‘the de- mon had come out.’’ They were all amazed inso- much that they questioned among themselves, say- ing, ‘‘ What is this new teaching? With authority he ecommandeth even the evil spirits and they obey ina Quickly the report of this miraculous event swept through the crowded population of Capernaum. It was immediately followed by a similar event in which the mother-in-law of Peter was relieved of a fever by the inspiration of the presence of Jesus, whose hold on the popular confidence and imagina- tion was already becoming very great. It is perhaps impossible for us who live in a period when ecmpe- tent and scientific physicians are abundant, when most diseases and their causes are thoroughly un- derstood, when the means for the alleviation of hu- ANNOUNCING THE KinGpoM IN GALILEE 49 man suffering have been multiplied and improved, to understand what the effect must have been in a population where disease and suffering were far more abundant than among us and hopeless beyond expression. For most of the ills to which flesh is heir there was to the people of Jesus’ time no relief. There were no anaesthetics; there was practically no surgery; suffering was to be endured; for the sufferer there was little or no hope. To a population thus filled with suffering and devoid of hope the information must have run like an electric thrill, that here was some one who was able to heal diseases, to relieve pain. In Cap- ernaum that first wonderful day, within a few hours after these two ‘‘cures’”’ had been effected, the whole population of the city had gathered around the house where Jesus was. All the sick people of Capernaum were there. All the demoniac, the insane, and possessed were there. With one accord the whole people rushed to the man who had unexpectedly shown the capacity to heal. The later reports of this event state that he healed all that were brought to him. The older, more cau- tious, More correct story by Mark” merely states that ‘‘He healed many that were sick with divers diseases and cast out many devils.’’ It is not extraordinary to believe that among that multitude of distressed humanity there were num- bers of disorders which would yield to the sugges- uMark, 1:34. Cf Matthew 8:17, Luke 4:40. 50 BSW JESUS THE Man tion of so vigorous and powerful a personality. We have seen many times in subsequent centuries how such healing enthusiasm takes possession of a mul- titude so that numbers are healed through the con- tagion of the belief in the healing of those about them. This too would have helped. There is no good reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement of Mark. Neither is there any reason to wonder at the re- sult which immediately followed. In a very short space of time it was impossible for Jesus openly to enter into a city because of the multitudes that thronged about him, pressing for the cure of their sick and possessed. Wherever he went they crowded about him, hanging upon the words of promise and of hope which he spoke, looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where pain and suffering and sickness should cease entirely; but most of all seeking for the healing power of his presence and his words upon those who in this world were already sick and distressed.” It is not necessary to refer in detail to the inci- dents which characterized this period of his activ- ity. They were all practically of the same charac- ter. His message was the promise of the immedi- ateness of the end of the age and of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. The instances of healing “That Jesus should assume that the various human weak- nesses would be healed by his commands was a natural corol- lary to his belief in his special relation to God. Such phenom- ena were expected to accompany the approaching Kingdom. Cf Isaiah 35:3-6; 42:6, 7. ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM IN GALILEE 59 | were practically of the same type: words of authori- ty, suggestions of various type; commands to the demon to depart, forgiveness of the sins, the sense of which oppressed the minds of the sick as the cause of their suffering. Success in such activities increased the possibility of more such results, as confidence in him increased. The effect upon the people was the same everywhere; ‘‘They were all amazed and glorified God, saying ‘we never saw it in this fashion.’ ”’ What part of the people at this time were drawn to him by their delight in his message, and desire to observe his warning, what part of them by the hope of benefit from his power to heal, it is of course impossible to tell, but it is extremely likely that the healing impressed them most. The tendency to ‘take the cash and let the credit go’’ is strong in all peoples and all ages. Here was something immedi- ate, perceptible, intensely desirable. Here there was no uncertainty. They hoped with him, believed with him in the coming of the future Kingdom of Heaven, but they rejoiced with him in what both he and they came quickly to believe to be the hand of God working among them, relieving their suffering and saving their lives. CHAPTER V. ConFuict WITH THE PHARISEES The enthusiasm which now possessed Jesus and those who walked with him gave little heed to thoughts of powers or_ boundaries. All believed that the end of the world was near at hand and gave little or no heed to the fact that they were in a time and place where they were subject to authority and must be restrained by the laws of their own people as well as by those of the alien government which was set over them. Such a state of mind was certain to lead them into conflict with those responsible for the maintenance of peace among the population. But Jesus’ earliest official trouble occurred with the influential class of his own nation, and arose from questions of the Jewish ceremonial law. The Pharisees were an element of Jewish society of great influence both with the government of Galilee and with the government of Judea. They were men of high social standing, who in general conformed to the laws and regulations of the foreign- controlled civil government under which they lived, but at the same time considered themselves in a peculiar sense responsible for the maintenance of the Jewish ritualistic law. This law, though perhaps not specifically enforced by the civil authorities, was yet practically in effect among the Jews throughout the whole of Palestine, wherever the Jewish tradi- [52] ConFLicr WITH THE PHARISEES ey tion was powerful and predominant, and of this law the Pharisees as a class were the interpreters. The scribes, or lawyers, who were for the most part Pharisees, by centuries of ingenious and often fictitious logic had built up around the plain lan- guage of the ancient laws a host of rules and tra- ditions and observations which had come to have with them and with the mass of the population dom- inated by them the same force and weight as the ancient law itself. Of these traditions and obser- vances the Pharisees considered themselves the special custodians, observing them in their own personal lives with the most meticulous care and precision and urging such observations upon all others. Possessed as he was with the powerful conception of the immediate presence of God himself and the impending destruction of existing institutions and systems, Jesus plainly saw the uselessness and com- plete lack of value of the complicated and artificial system which had been built up around and upon the Jewish nation. His outlook was that of the genuine Jew, but the tremendous idea which possessed him revealed to him the hollowness of the observances which the Pharisee class emphasized as absolutely necessary. In his own life and in his dealings with the people he threw aside as useless many of these observances, and early in the development of his movement this forced him into direct conflict with these Pharisees. Their religious interests had quickly brought them 54 JESUS THE MAN into contact with Jesus. The man who was predict- ing the early coming of the Kingdom and drawing the multitudes about him by his marvelous healing power, was tremendously interesting to these men. Many of them were strong adherents of the belief in the coming of the Messiah. They were more intelli- gent than the general mass of the Galilean popula- tion, and consequently were less affected by the im- mense confidence that the Kingdom was immediately to appear which Jesus was able to communicate to the unlettered and unlearned multitude. They were nevertheless deeply interested in hearing his ideas upon this subject and they were consequently among the first to listen to him. They took no offense at his Messianic teaching during these early weeks. They were not disturbed by a conception which was very similar to their own, if not identical with it, the greatest difference being in the definiteness of the time which Jesus an- nounced. But practically at the very beginning of his work he gave them deep offense by the free and cavalier manner in which he treated their legal tra- dition. This antagonism caused him a great deal of in- convenience and interference during the whole period of his work. It grew out of a number of conflicts over legal traditions, probably extending over the entire period of his preaching. Mark, otherwise the most accurate of his chroniclers,—and perhaps so even in this case,—has assembled all these controversies in one series without reference ConFLict WITH THE PHARISEES 5D to the exact time when they may have occurred. The first one occurred at Capernaum almost at the beginning of his preaching. After one of his jour- neys out among the villages of Galilee he returned to Capernaum and it became known. that he was at home. No sooner was this known than the populace crowded about his home, packing not merely the in- terior of the house, where Jesus was, but the area about the door so that it was impossible for any one to reach him. The friends of a paralytic, seeking to reach Jesus in order that his wonderful healing power might be invoked, attempted to penetrate the erowd but were unable to do so. In the earnestness of their desire and the determination not to miss the opportunity, they went to the top of the house, and broke up the thatch covering the place where Jesus was. Attaching ropes to the corners of the bed upon which he lay, they let the man down into the immedi- ate presence of Jesus. Jesus recognized in the mental condition of the man and of those who had brought him the state of mind which he and the gospel writers after him de- nominated by the word ‘‘faith;’’ that is, a great suggestibility, a domination by a confidence in the Superior power of the man in whose presence they were, a trusting belief that this man had the authori- ty and power to heal him of his affliction. It was an attitude of mind which made powerful suggestion not only possible but almost unavoidable. Jesus spoke to him in terms which both he and they understood. Such a condition as that in which 56 JESUS THE Man the man before him found himself was universally believed by the Jews of that time to be the result of sin, a punishment sent upon him by God, because of some violation of the law.’ ‘‘Son,’’ he said, ‘‘thy sins are forgiven.’’ Lawyers were sitting in that room, listening with interest to the words of Jesus, though until this time with only a general interest. But these words of the preacher aroused them with a shock. ‘*Why does this man speak thus?’’ they said. ‘‘He blas- phemes. Who can forgive sin but God?’’ Their shocked and suddenly antagonistic faces revealed to Jesus the displeasure he had given to them. His quick mind perceived the nature of their reaction to his words. ‘‘Why do you think these thoughts?’’ he said. ‘*Which is easier, to say to this sick man ‘Thy sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘ Arise, take up your bed and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man’ has authority on earth to forgive sins,”’ 'For some classes of their disorders such conception was not so unsound as at first glance it may seem to be. No more dis- organizing factor in the human mind is known than a deep con- sciousness of sin. Various types of mental disorders to-day have their origin in the suppressed memories or consciousness of great wrongs committed by the sufferer, even presenting the more physical forms of hysteria, anaesthesia, sometimes even paralysis such as in the case recorded in the text. One of the most ap- proved methods of modern alienists is that of searching out these obscure and carefully concealed factors and inducing the recti- fication of the wrong, in order to eliminate the evil results that have followed the attempted suppression of its memory. In other words they try to supply the feeling that ‘“‘the sin is forgiven”. The method does not differ substantially from that used by Jesus. ‘Here for the first time we meet with the expression “the Son ConFuLicrt WITH THE PHARISEES Yi —here he turned to the palsied man,—‘‘I say unto you, arise, take up your bed, and go into your house.’’ The suggestion was complete. The inhibiting sense of his own sinfulness which lay at the base of his paralysis was removed from the man; _ he thought his sins were forgiven and that their results were consequently done away with. The inhibition was removed. Just as happens to-day under similar conditions, his muscles responded to his will; he arose, took up his bed and walked forth before them all. The multitude was amazed and grateful; they voiced their thanks to God, whom they understood to have wrought this wonder through the instrumen- tality of Jesus. But the lawyers did not forget the offensive assumption of Jesus. According to their view he was practically guilty of the highest of all of Man” used in the reported language of Jesus as referring to himself. Much discussion has revolved about the problems grow- ing out of this term and its application to Jesus, and there are phases of the problem upon which there is still no agreement among scholars. It is clear however (1) that it had its origin in Daniel 7:13-14; (2) that the Danielic appearance was ex- pected in connection with the appearance of the Messianic King- dom; (38) that Jesus used it frequently, in two distinct senses, sometimes as referring to the well known personage of the future without identifying him with himself, sometimes clearly mean- ing such identification; (4) that his frequent use of it in this sense led his biographers, at a later date when his identification with both the Messiah and the one who should come on the clouds of heaven had become complete with his followers, fre- quently to place it in his mouth as a substitute for the pronoun I, perhaps, even probably, sometimes when he did not actually use it. This is probably such an oceasion. 58 JESUS THE Man Jewish crimes,—blasphemy. He had not claimed to the multitude to be the Son of God. This secret he kept locked in his own heart. To the multitude and to the scribes he was a preacher of good tidings, a man whom they now were beginning to believe firm- ly to be gifted with supernatural powers, to be able to invoke the direct intervention of God; but he had made no claim before them which justified his as- sumption of the authority to forgive sin. The scribes saw the implication contained in his assump- tion of a power which belonged only to God, sensed something of the greatness of his presumption and viewed it with displeasure and apprehension. Another occasion followed quickly. As he passed along the streets of Capernaum on his way to the seacoast, his favorite spot for addressing the crowds which now surged about him, he passed by the office of the tax collector and saw there Levi, or Matthew, the son of Alphaeus, who, though a Jew, was engag- ed in the hated occupation of collecting the taxes. No doubt he had been a frequent hearer of Jesus, and was profoundly affected by the vision of the coming Kingdom which he preached. At his invitation ‘‘ Fol- low me,’’ just as the four earlier disciples had done the publican left his place of business, left his occu- pation and his contract with the government, his property and his worldly prospects and followed Jesus. Levi was a man of substantial property, as were all the farmers of the Roman taxes. He celebrated the change in his outlook and purpose by a great ConFLIcT WITH THE PHARISEES 59 feast in his own house, to which he invited Jesus with his disciples and with them a number of people who had become attached to him. Among these were representatives of two classes who were especially hateful to the law-observing Pharisees: men engaged in Levi’s own unpopular occupation,—the tax-gath- erers or ‘‘publicans’’; and those who did not observe the law—‘‘sinners.’’ The tax-gatherers especially were hated by all classes of the Jews, who believed that in enforcing the tax laid upon their nation by a foreign authority these publicans were doing an il- legal thing which gave affront to God. This tax was the most humiliating phase of their subject condition, and the men who enforced it re- ceived in their own person the full weight cof the hatred felt toward the oppressing foreigners. The intimate ceremony of eating, in common association, with people who did not observe the legal require- ments, in the minds of the strict ceremonialists made those who thus associated with them also unclean. For a man who was engaged in preaching the near approach of the Kingdom of God, this ignoring of what they considered to be the requirements of God seemed to the Pharisees incongruous and contradic- tory. The Pharisees themselves of course were not present. They would not participate in such a pro- miscuous contact with the unclean multitude. But a little later when they met some of the immediate followers of Jesus, they asked them the question, ‘*How is it that your Master eats and drinks with 60 JESUS THE Man the tax-gatherers and those who keep not the law?’’ These disciples were not willing to speak for Jesus and took the question to him. He said, ‘*They that are whole have no need for a physician, but they that are sick do. I came not to eall the righteous, who have no need, but the sinner to repentence.’” This profound statement went to the foundation of Jesus’ conception of his mission. In the new world which was about to dawn upon them, the righteous would escape the judgment; they needed no help from anybody. But the great multitude of the sinners, of those whose fruits were evil, who would be unable to stand in that great day, moved the soul of this lover of his kind. His heart went out to them. 'T’o save them from the wrath that was to come, to cause them to change their minds, to submit to the will of God so that they too might participate in the coming Kingdom, he was giving himself freely. But in the Pharisees and the lawyers, who believed that salvation from the wrath to come was to be secured not through the attitude of the soul, but through conformity to the ceremonies of the law, this great purpose and love that actuated him found no re- sponse. His teaching set aside the value of the law by which they believed they were to be justified ; it sought to open the Kingdom to those whom they considered utterly unfit for it. A difference so pro- found necessarily caused an increasing antagonism. He speedily came into conflict with them in a still *The discourses included in Luke 15 were probably delivered at this time in addition to the brief quotation given by Mark, ConFLIcT WITH THE PHARISEES 61 more important matter. Of all the ritualistic re- quirements of the Jews none were so rigid as those surrounding the observance of the Sabbath. About this particular requirement all the logic and dia- lectical skill of generations of lawyers had busied themselves and had built up a structure of detailed limitation which practically prohibited action of any kind upon that day. The extent to which they carried their conception of the holiness of the Sabbath day by forbidding any of the normal occupations or ac- tivities is almost unbelievable. Even the simplest and most necessary human functions were forbidden. Practically no service of any kind could be done for one’s self or for any one else. Some of the most ex- treme went to the point of lying absolutely motion- less throughout the day on the supposition that ac- tivity of any kind was a violation of its holiness. The Pharisees did not go quite that far, but stopped not far short of it. The whole Sabbath system had be- come a tremendous burden upon the lives of the pious Jews that is scarcely conceivable to us, who have inherited through the centuries only a slight tinge of the conception which lay at the basis of their rigid system. This view of the Sabbath had lost its hold upou Jesus. He saw the hollowness and uselessness of it. Dominated with the idea of the speedy coming of the Kingdom, he saw how the exaggerated and rigid restraint which this Sabbath idea placed about the lives of men was a hindrance instead of a help. His disciples shared in his freedom of action; as was in- 62 JESUS THE Man evitable, sharing as they did his fundamental ideas. The year had now come to the harvest time, about June. As they passed along the narrow country roads through Galilee, the disciples began as they went to reach into the wheat that grew along the side of the road, to pluck the ripening heads and to rub the grain out with their hands and eat it. Their law permitted this to be done; it was lawful to pick from the fields through which they were passing so much as they could rub out of the ear with their hands. But it was the Sabbath day, and some Phari- sees, perhaps passing along at the same time, ob- served this process and took them to task, not for taking the grain, but for breaking the Sabbath by rubbing it out of the ear. They criticised Jesus for permitting his disciples to break the law in this fashion. His answer was to the point and directly contradictory to their ideas. He said, ‘‘Did you never read what David did when he had need and was hungry, he and they that were with him? How he entered into the house of God and ate the show- bread which it is not lawful to eat save for the priest, and gave also to them that were with him?’’ That is, the law was not intended to interfere in a case of genuine need; the hunger of his disciples was suf- ficient answer as to the infraction of the letter of the law. Then he stated the broad basis of the whole Sabbath idea: ‘‘ The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.’” ‘The sentence which completes the incident in the text of all three of the gospels ‘so that the Son of Man is lord of the Sab- ConFuict WITH THE PHARISEES 63 This seems to us entirely reasonable. But to them it was a violation of their most profound legal and religious notions. Bear in mind that to them, Sab- bath breaking was not only an unreligious act but was a genuine infraction of the law, punishable by death. To the Jew, there was no distinction between his religious conceptions and regulations and his laws. He had no laws except those which were based upon his religious ideas, and his religious regula- tions had all the force of law. To these Pharisees Jesus appeared as a law violator, in one of the most important of all laws. He now began to appear to them in the same light in which a criminal of a very dangerous type now appears to us. A little later occurred another instance, again in the Capernaum synagogue. Among the crowd that gathered to hear Jesus speak on that Sabbath day was a man who had a withered hand. Apparently it was known that the man was there in the hope of being healed by this prophet who was now the most marked figure in all Galilee, for the Pharisees who were present watched Jesus closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath day. They were now well aware of his illegal and dangerous ideas, and bath” seems to have no logical connection with the preceding discussion and conveys an assumption that he was already open- ly claiming the authority of God—an idea contradicted by all the spirit of the Marcan story. He certainly had not openly claimed to be either God or the Son of God prior to Caesarea Philippi. Probably Mark 2:28 was not intended as the words of Jesus, but was Mark’s own comment on the Sabbath question, which was still very much alive when Mark wrote. For a similar instance, where Mark draws a conclusion on a question vital among Christ- ians at that time, see Mark 7:19. 64 JESUS THE Man were beginning to seek an opportunity to acquire grounds for legal action against him. Jesus was perfectly aware of their attitude, and of the significance of his own opinion on the Sab- bath. But he was not restrained by considerations of personal danger. Beside, his attitude was _ so clear and so reasonable to himself that it seemed that it must be so to every one else. He said to the man, ‘‘Stand forth.’’ Then turning to the Pharisees, whose spirit of criticism and evil purpose was mani- fest in their expression of countenance, if not in actual words of criticism, he said ‘‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do harm? to save a life Ontoskilless The question was difficult for the Pharisees. Hard of heart, practically without sympathy, harboring the opinion that to obey the letter of the law was far better than to do a deed of mercy, they nevertheless hesitated to state such an opinion in the face of a crowd which was already deeply attached to Jesus because of his merciful heart and kindly actions. But the restraint which controlled them only in- creased their feeling of antagonism and its mani- festation in their attitude toward Jesus. Their merciless attitude and growing antagonism aroused extreme irritation in him. He looked round upon them in anger and indignation; he said, ‘* What man among you that has one sheep and if it fall in- to a pit on the Sabbath day, will not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much is a man better than a sheep?’’ Then as they remained silent, he turned ConFuicrt WITH THE PHARISEES 65 to the man who was standing before him in intense hope and expectation. ‘‘Stretch forth your hand,’’ Jesus said to him. And there before them the re- straint upon circulation, caused no doubt by some self-suggestion of injury, or of sin, was removed by the confidence that this man who spake thus au- thoritatively had undone the cause of his disorder. And the man was healed. But this open defiance of the most powerful and influential class of all the Jews bore its natural fruit. If the Jewish nation had been operating in its own sovereignty, Jesus would have been arrested immediately and put to death for a violation of one of the most sacred laws. As it was, the Jews of Galilee had neither nationality nor local government. They were the subjects of Herod, who exercised over them complete authority. They had no opportunity to bring him into condemnation for the violation of the Sabbath law. But they saw clearly the danger to the peace of Galilee involved in the continuance of his preaching and they now went to the local of- ficers of Herod to make complaint of the activity of Jesus, to tell of the character of his preaching, which they know from Herod’s action against John to be displeasing to him, and to bring Jesus into con- demnation as a disturber of the peace. From this time on they looked on him as a disturbing and dan- gerous factor, a threat to the basic Jewish legal insti- tutions, one whose preaching of the Kingdom could not be true because he at the same time preached doctrines contrary to the law, consequently one who 66 JESUS THE Man misled the people to their danger and disadvantage. His destruction, which they now believed necessary, but which they could not accomplish of their own initiative, they sought to accomplish indirectly by bringing him into conflict with Herod’s authority. Jesus realized the disturbance he had created. He saw the threat contained in the antagonism and the activity of the Pharisees. Their complaint to the authorities made his presence there unsafe until it eould be seen whether Herod’s government would act upon it. Taking his disciples he withdrew to the seaside further north along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, temporarily out of contact with the trouble- some Pharisees and the busy officers of Herod. Thither followed him’ the great multitude. By this time word of this new preacher of the kingdom had gone all over Palestine. With it had gone the information that this man not merely preached the gospel of the speedy coming of the Kingdom, as John had done, but that through him was manifested the power of God; that he healed people of diseases and cast out devils. From every quarter of Palestine people had come and on this day great crowds followed him out to his resort by the seaside. From Galilee, from the country of Judea, from the Jewish capital, Jerusalem itself, from Tdumea still further south, from Perea beyond the Jordan, from far up the Mediterranean coast as far 5Mark 3:7-12; Matthew 12:15-21. Luke 6:12. Note the in- ference contained in Matthew 12:15 that he withdrew because he recognized the plot against him. ConFLict WITH THE PHARISEES 67 as Tyre and Sidon, came Jews who hoped for the early coming of the Kingdom, together with those who brought their sick and their possessed to be healed by him. The scene was one that could not have been duplicated at any other time or place in the history of the world. Here on the shore of that inland sea were multitudes without number, repre- sentatives of an ancient and proud but oppressed race, stript not only of property but of opportunity. Filled with a sense of injustice and misery, pro- foundly believing even in the face of all this that they were the chosen children of God, and that the time would come when all these troubles would be done away, the hand of the oppressor would be lift- ed from them, and their nation would be raised to its former greatness, bringing to them indescribable possibilities of happiness and freedom, they were come together to hear this man tell them in wonder- ful eloquence and absolute assurance that the time was now immediately at hand when these blessings were to come to them. The contagion of a common purpose, a common hope, and a common confidence in this great prophet swept over the multitude. The individual was caught up in the spiritual exaltation of the great crowd. Under the inspiration of the great occasion, overwhelmed with the power and the wonderful personality of the prophet who spoke, raised to supreme heights of faith in his superhuman capacity, his suggestions took hold of them with the firmness of actuality. Numbers were healed of their afflictions; disordered mentalities responded to the 68 JESUS THE Man graciousness of his words and of his personality and returned to ordered mental processes. The crowds pressed upon him, those on the outskirts seeking eagerly to reach the place where he stood and threatening the personal safety of those who stood near to him and even of Jesus himself. He sought safety in the only means left to him; he called to his disciples to bring him a boat, but in- stead of departing in it he merely withdrew from the pressure of the throng and as soon as it had scattered sufficiently to permit him to make his way through it, he climbed up the precipitous sides of the mountain overlooking the lake, only a short distance away from it, and relieved himself of the pressure of the multitude. To assure himself of safety from any attempts of the officials to arrest him, he did not return to Capernaum on this night, but spent it in the moun- tain, carefully cautioning those who knew his pur- pose not to reveal his refuge. ‘Matt. 12:16, 17. The parallel, Mark 3:12, is subject to the possible interpretation that he was charging the unclean spirits not to make him known. The two together make it clear that he was seeking secrecy. CHAPTER VI. THe GREAT Discourses AT CAPERNAUM—HeE LEAVES CAPERNAUM. The weight of this task was becoming too great. His meditation in the solitude of that night ripened the conviction that he must have help in carrying his message; that it would be impossible for him alone to reach all the lost sheep of the house of Is- rael, to give them an opportunity to change their hearts and become fit for membership in the King- dom before the time when it should arrive. So with the coming of the morrow he sent’ to the multitude which was awaiting his return at the foot of the mountain, and called to him twelve men, whose in- terest and belief in the message were strongest and whose superior ability had impressed him and had convinced him of their fitness for the work to be done. Twelve was a pecuharly significant number. Though the ten tribes had long been separated from the rest of the Jews and the old tribal organization was merely a tradition, it was nevertheless a very sacred tradition. The Jews believed that in the Kingdom of God when it should appear, the scat- Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:13-16. It is likely that the five already chosen by him, or some of them, accompanied him into his se- clusion the previous night. [69] 70 JESUS THE Man tered ten tribes would again be united to the faith- ful two tribes and that the renewed and recon- structed Israel would again contain twelve tribes as of old. Jesus was completely a Jew in his mental outlook and the selection of twelve men, as shown by his subsequent statement, was for the pur- pose of adjusting his own organization of workers to the future kingdom of twelve tribes. At .a later time he told these twelve that in the day of judg- ment, the twelve should sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’ Among these twelve, preeminent were the four who had accom- panied him for the past few weeks, since the be- ginning of his preaching in Galilee,—Peter and Andrew, James and John. With them were in- eluded Levi, or Matthew, the tax gatherer of Caper- naum; Simon of Cana, well known as an adherent of that great Judas who had stirred up the disturb- ance in the time of the enrollment, probably prom- inent in the troubles of that time, and for this rea- son called the Zealot’; Judas, from the town of Ke- "Matthew 19:28. *The enrollment or “taxing”, by Quirinius which Luke places at the time of Jesus’ birth, occurred actually in the thirty-sev- enth year of Augustus’ victory over Antony at Actium (Jos. Antiq. XVIII, ii, 1) or during 6 and 7 A. D. Most of the Jews sub- mitted peacefully to the enrollment, or assessment, which was especially hateful to the Jews, even when performed by their own kings. Some of the bolder spirits, however, under the leadership of Judas the Galilean, resisted bitterly. Jos. Wars II, viii, 1: “A certain Galilean whose name was Judas, prevailed with his countrymen to revolt; and said they were cowards if they would endure to pay a tax to the Romans, and would, after God, sub- mit to mortel men as their lords’. In the Antiquities (XVIII, Tue Great Discoursss at CAPERNAUM ffi rioth and for that reason called Ish-karioth, or man of Kerioth; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas; and the brothers James and Judas, the sons of Alpheus, or Clopas, like John and James probably cousins of Jesus. Names for the most part common even among the Jews, but in the centuries that have passed since then, written by thousands and tens of thousands in every record, every census, every muster roll of the western world. When he had named these men and asked them to undertake this task and they in turn had accepted it, he came down from the mountain to the level sea coast at its foot,’ and began to teach them and such part of the multitude as could come within reach of his words the real meaning of his message, so i, 1) the same historian describes at greater length the purposes and appeals of Judas, and alleges that the subsequent disasters of the Jews had their beginning in this rebellion and the ideas which caused it. Messianic ideas are evident in the cautious language in which Josephus describes the beliefs of these Zeal- ots (Antiq XVIII, i, 6): ‘These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attach- ment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord”. Jesus was a boy of eight or nine years when this outbreak took place. Judas was a Galilean and the disturbance was in Galilee. Jesus may conceivably have seen and talked with Judas himself and certainly was familiar with his followers and his ideas. It is very Significant that one so thoroughly identified with this move- ment as to be called “the Zealot” should have been one of Jesus’ most intimate associates. It is well to remember these facts when Jesus is later asked about the legality of payment of trib- ute to Caesar. ‘Luke 6:17. 72 JESUS THE Man far as it affected the present lives of those who heard him. This address, preserved for us by one of those happy strokes of good fortune which go so far to support those who find a satisfaction in believing that God operates by special dispensation, was in- tended to be a statement to those who had accepted his doctrine of the Kingdom, of the principles ac- cording to which their lives must be lived if they were to be able to participate in the coming King- dom of God. It contained a system of morals suit- able to a people who believed that they were shortly to stand in the immediate presence of God, and that their hope for safety from condemnation and for participation in the promises of this Kingdom de- pended upon their bringing forth in their lives fruits worthy of that hope. This discourse, under the name of ‘‘The Sermon on the Mount,’’ has become the most cherished pos- session of the western world.’ Jesus at this time was at the height of the power and vigor of his preaching. As yet he was not seriously disturbed by any contradiction or antago- nism. Dominated as he was with the absolute assur- ance that the day was immediately at hand when all present human institutions and human relations would pass away and human beings would stand in the presence of the Most High with only their own ‘The complete form is found in Matthew, chapters 5-7. The Lucan parallel is found in chapter 6. Parts of the sections omit- ted by Luke are scattered through other chapters of that gospel. THe Great Discourses at CAPERNAUM to righteous personalities to save them from destruc- tion and to give them participation in the joy of the presence of God, his moral ideas were based upon a sense of true values not possible to one governed by ordinary motives, and had a vivid insight and a limpid clarity such as have been vouchsafed to no other man. The Sermon on the Mount continues to this day to be the greatest ethical and religious docu- ment ever produced. In five wonderful verses of the sixth chapter of Matthew, known in all Christian lands as ‘‘the Lord’s prayer,’’ he enunciated the essence of all true religious life, an ideal of religious attitude which has been the goal for which all devout souls have striven ever since. This discourse was the high mark not only of Jesus’ own religious teach- ing, but of the world’s religious history. Jesus finished his discourse, and returned to his home in Capernaum. Whatever the danger which had caused him to be so cautious the previous night, it had passed. The multitude which had _ sur- rounded him, everwhelmed with the wonder of his message and his personality, filled with hope and delight with his power to relieve suffering and to soothe the disordered mind, hung upon his steps as they had hung upon his words. They crowded about his house to such an extent that none of the proced- ure of normal life was possible. Jesus and his fol- lowers could not even partake of food because of the crowd that pressed into his presence.’ ®Mark 3:19-20. 14 JESUS THE Man Jesus had friends in Capernaum who had known him in the days before he went to John and experi- enced his vision. They were mystified by the tre- mendous change in him. This extraordinary pro- cedure upon his part, his preaching and healing, his gathering to himself of a body of personal followers and close companions, the presence of the multitude that pressed about him and would not be dispersed, seemed to some of them who had not been swept off their feet by the message which he preached, the marks of fanaticism and mental disturbance. His purpose they could not determine, but his actions were ominous. They knew clearly from the experi- ences of Judas and of John what were the dangers incident to such demonstrations, and feared for the result to him. They said ‘‘He is beside himself’’ and attempted to approach him to take him out of reach of the crowds which, they thought, were turn- ing his head.’ But the multitude was such that they could not do it. Then came his mother and his brothers, perhaps influenced by those friends who could not see a favorable end for the procedure he was following. They, too, were unable to press through the crowd to him so they stood without, ealling to him. The press was such that Jesus himself was unaware of their presence, so that one brought the message through the multitude to him, ‘*Your mother and your brothers are outside seek- ing for you.’’ "Mark 3:21. SMark 3:31-35; Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21, THE Great Discourses at CAPERNAUM 15D The exaltation which possessed him, the inspira- tion of his great conception and the joy in the sense of successful performance of the duty which had come upon him, were so great that none of these in- fluences had any effect upon him. All other consid- erations had now become of small moment to him. The relationships, the motives and the values of this world had ceased to be of weight with him who thought only in terms of the relationships and the values of the new world which was about to appear. Even the ties of friendship and of family had be- come submerged in a broader and deeper love for his race. His love for those who loved God had ab- sorbed all his power of affection, his total capacity for love. To him who repeated the message to him, he said: ‘*Who is my mother and my brother?’’ Looking round on them that sat about him he said, ‘‘ Behold my mother and my brother; for whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.’’ All human ties were cast behind him as he set his face towards the fulfillment of what he thought to be his duty as the Son of God. With his closest relatives and his friends believ- ing that he was beside himself, failing to recognize the truth of his message, seeking to gain possession of him to save him from the consequences of his ap- parent obsession, it is not strange that the Phari- sees, estranged from him, hostile because of his law- breaking tendencies and teachings, should have found an unfriendly explanation of what he was do- 76 JESUS THE Man ing. Failure to engage the immediate action of Herod’s government did not in the least decrease their hostile interest. Information of the extraordi- nary events occurring in Galilee had gone to Jeru- salem, and the rulers of the Pharisees had sent ob- servers to investigate the report. The lawyers whom they sent’, as they saw the wonderful effects of Jesus’ personality upon the crowd, did not find themselves able to contradict the facts. They saw the demoniacs soothed, the disturbed minds rendered normal and calm; the fact was beyond their contra- diction. They had the only explanation available in their time as to the cause of these disorders; they were the result of demoniac possession. It was ob- vious to them that the demons were actually cast out of these afflicted people, but as to how this was ac- complished they had another explanation. To Jesus and to the multitude of those who followed him, it was a revelation of the very presence of God; they believed that by the power of God, given to him in an extraordinary degree, he cast out these demons and made them subject to him. But to these Pharisee lawyers, who knew that Jesus himself broke the law (the ritualistic law as they taught it, which they be- lieved to be absolutely valid), it was inconceivable that this man could be wielding the power of God. This man was a breaker of the law; God could not be with him. But how then to explain these facts? There was only one other authority to whom these *Mark 3:22 ff; Matthew 12:24 ff. THe Great Discourses AT CAPERNAUM tf demons were subject, the authority of the prince of the demons themselves. The conclusion was logi- cal and irresistible, given their beliefs to start from; this man must be possessed by Beelzebub, the prince of all the devils, and by his authority he cast them out. Information of these statements by the lawyers was brought to Jesus. His answer is extremely in- teresting, as it shows not merely the logic with which he demolished their explanation, but also reveals his own idea of the meaning of the wonders which accompanied his teaching: “Every kingdom divided against itself, is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself will not stand; and if Satan casteth out Satan, he is di- vided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand? And if 1 by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? But if I by the spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.” To him, as to hig enthusiastic followers, these ex- traordinary phenomena of healing which accom- panied his preaching were conclusive proof that the spirit of God was working among them, and if this was true, the prophecies were being fulfilled, the de- mons were again subject to the power of God, and the Kingdom of Heaven was truly at hand. Jesus did not take this attack kindly, nor endure it without resentment. The intense nature which re- vealed itself in his absorption in his great con- viction carried with it capacity for deep and violent emotions. His excoriation of those lawyers which followed was astonishing in its suddenness 78 JESUS THE MAn and its bitterness and reveals something of the depth of passion and indignation of which he was capable. Already these Pharisees and lawyers had placed him in serious danger by their attempt to involve him with Herod, and now their new attack seemed to him an attack upon that very spirit of God upon which he was relying, and aroused his deepest resentment. He said: | “T say unto you, every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiv- en unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come. “Hither make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by the fruit. Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things; and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. And I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg- ment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Immediately afterward, on the same day, Jesus again went out by the seaside and the multitudes, still hanging upon his words, again gathered about him in immense numbers. Unable to speak to them in comfort upon the shore because of their close crowding about him, he again entered a boat and pushed out a little distance into the sea. Continuing the teaching of the previous day, he began to tell them many things about the coming Kingdom. This Tue Great Discourses at CAPERNAUM 79 time his language was entirely figurative. One of the parables in particular deserves attention be- cause of the clearness with which he stated his econ- ception of the crisis which was approaching the world and the terribleness of the condemnation which confronted those who were not fit for a place in the Kingdom :* ‘Another parable set he before them saying, The king- dom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the house- holder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The ser- vants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he saith, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.” “Then he left the multitudes, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field. And he answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man; and the field is the world; the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy that sowed them is the devil; and the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and * Matthew 13 :24-30, 36-43, 47-50. 80 JESUS THE MAN them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into the fur- nace of fire; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew up on the beach, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be in the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” Judging from another of the parables of that day, he was already experiencing the unreliability of the erowds. The fact that he spoke in parables was a change from his custom and disturbed his disciples. It is also significant to us, as is his answer when they asked him his reason for so doing. ‘‘Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they un- derstand.’”” The parable of the seed which fell upon the rocky ground and sprang up straightway but quickly withered in the heat of the risen sun, which he interpreted as ‘‘he that heareth the word and straightway with joy receiveth it, yet *** when tribu- lation or persecution ariseth *** straightway he stumbleth’”’—this shows what he wag experiencing under the growing pressure of the displeasure and opposition of the Pharisees and the attempt to in- “Matthew 13:11-18; Mark 4:11-12; Luke 8:10. “Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23; Mark 4:3-9, 138-20; Luke 8:5-8, 11-15. THe Great Discourses at CAPERNAUM 81 volve him with Herod. Memories of the uprising of Judas and its consequent miseries, little more than twenty years before, were still fresh and the sudden enthusiasm could not stand the strain of the appre- hension of their repetition. It was such as these, and those whose desire it was to cause him trouble and who were probably present, as so often occurred with him, to find an excuse upon which they might accuse him, for whom he intended ‘‘that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand.’’ Already it was becom- ing difficult for him to publish his message openly. The continuous pressure of this multitude was ex- ceeding his powers of endurance. For several days he had been practically without rest and without quiet. A change was imperative. So at the end of the day instead of attempting to return to Caper- naum where a repetition of the experience of the day before was definitely to be expected, he and his dis- ciples rowed directly across the lake where they would be out of reach of the crowd.” On the way they met one of those violent wind storms characteristic of the evening on the Sea of Galilee at that time of the year. Jesus himself was weary from his day of teaching and contact with the multitude, and was asleep in the stern of the boat. The waves and the wind grew dangerous; the water began to beat into the open boat and his companions began to fear that it would founder. BMatthew 8:18 23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25, 82 JESUS THE Man For awhile they labored in the storm but becoming convinced of their extreme danger they awoke Jesus, to inform him of the danger in which they stood. But he refused to share their fears. His yet un- shaken confidence in the importance of his mission and of his personality caused him to be assured that the elements contained no threat to him, The sudden summer tempest passed; he turned to the twelve and said ‘‘Why were you afraid? Do you not yet have faith?’’ The amazed disciples, who during the previous days had seen events which they had believed im- possible, observing his calm assurance and complete absence of fear in the presence of what seemed to them extreme danger, believed that this passing of the tempest also had occurred because of the com- mand of Jesus. They looked upon him with awe and growing fear and said one to another ‘‘ What manner of man is this? even the wind and the sea obey him.’’ The opinion of his personality which was later to ripen into the conviction that he could be nothing else than the Anointed of God, and still later into the opinion that he was God himself, was already taking possession of these men. Upon their arrival at the eastern side of the lake, the territory called the country of the Gerasenes, adjacent to the little city of Gerasa," he was immedi- “Mark 5:1-20; Matthew 8:28-34; Luke 8:26-39. The place has been identified as the group of ruins now called Khersa. The difference in names between Mark and Luke on the one hand and Matthew on the other, who calls it Gadara, is ex- Tue Great Discourses at CAPERNAUM 83 ately met by a demoniac of extraordinarily violent character, whose disordered mind he soothed and calmed. The healing of this man had two effects; it aroused the fear and the hostility of the people of that section, who believed that in healing the man he had destroyed a herd of swine, and insisted that Jesus leave their country; and it sent the man, with his sanity restored, out among the people of all that section telling the story of the extraordinary thing which Jesus had done for him. A few months later this was to furnish its results in the multitude which came out of this section to follow Jesus into Jerusa- lem. Under the circumstances his stay there was brief and in a very short time, probably the next morn- ing, he returned across the sea to Capernaum, There they found the multitude, still largely undispersed, waiting for him, again thronging about him on the shore as he left the boat. Then followed a circum- stance, of small meaning in itself, but greatly magni- fied by the reports which carried it swiftly from mouth to mouth throughout that section.” Jairus, one of the chief men of the Jewish com- munity, came pressing through the crowd to Jesus, telling him that his little daughter lay sick to the point of death and begging that he come to her and lay his hands upon her and heal her. Jesus with his plained by the probability that the village of Gerasa was includ- ed in the territory appurtenant to the larger city of Gadara, a few miles to the southeast. Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41-56; Matthew 9:18-26. 84 JESUS THE MANn companions followed the ruler of the synagogue, pressing their way through the crowd which sur- rounded them so closely that they could make little headway. When they were stopped on their way by a woman, whose faith in his healing power cured a disorder upon her merely by taking hold upon his garments, servants of the ruler made their way to their master and said to him ‘* Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”’ Comforting the stricken father with an expression of hope, Jesus proceeded nevertheless to his home, where he found the household engaged in the tumul- tuous procedure of a Jewish mourning. When he entered and looked at the child he saw that she was not in truth dead, but that their fears had given rise to their conclusion that she was dead. He said to them, ‘*Why do ye weep and make tumult? The child is not dead, but asleep.’’ Despite their disbe- hef in his assurance, he proceeded to send everybody out of the room except her father and her mother and his own followers. Then taking her by the hand, he said to the child, ‘‘Damsel, arise.’’ The touch and words roused her and she arose. A great astonishment came upon all of them, for they were certain that she was dead. He was unwill- ing that this mistaken statement of it should go out and cautioned them particularly to say nothing about it but to take care of the child. Nevertheless, the story quickly spread abroad, and no doubt expanded and exaggerated, sped through the multitude and throughout the country as an addition to the body of He Leaves CAPpERNAUM 85 rumor and imagination which was already making of this truly wonderful man a being surpassing the capacity of a man. Capernaum had become a place where it was im- possible for him to live in peace. The reputation of his teaching and of his wonderful work of heal- ing had now gone so far abroad and people from every direction in all parts of Palestine were travel- ing to him to such an extent that neither peace nor rest were possible to him, nor, indeed, to the resi- dents of that little city, which had become overrun with a multitude far exceeding its capacity to care for them. Besides, his conception of his mission made it necessary that his message be preached also to those who dwelt in other parts of Galilee. We have no record of how he left the multitude at this time, or why it dispersed, but he now departed from Capernaum. But it is extremely likely that at this time the an- tagonism of the Pharisees and their complaints to Herod’s representatives, together with the confusion caused by the assembling of the immense excited crowds, had resulted in the activity of the local au- thorities, and that his removal from the scene of his greatest successes was not altogether voluntary. We observe in his later denunciation of the city a bitter- ness of feeling which he showed only in the face of strong opposition, which, up until now, he had not found in his home city :” *Matthew 11 :23-24, 86 JESUS THE Man “And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt go down to Hades; for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.” We find no more crowds surging about him in Capernaum, and when he again enters the city, once only and then for only a short while, he makes no public appearance whatever, and takes special pre- caution to keep his presence secret.’ Also, since up to this time he had had no positive conflict with the government, his warning to Capernaum leaves a very direct inference that unfriendly action was now taken against him and that both he and his mul- titude either were practically thrust out as a source of trouble, or left the city in the interest of personal safety. WMark 9:30-38. CHAPTER VII. At NazaretH—T'He Tour THroucH GALILEE From Capernaum he went to the little city of Nazareth where he had spent his youth and from which place he had departed at that memorable time when he submitted to the baptism of John and ex- perienced the vision that completely changed his life. People of Nazareth remembered him as a man who only a few months before had been one of them; a gifted man, perhaps, but whom it had never oc- curred to them to consider as so extraordinary and superior to all of them as the stories now circulated about him would indicate. His life from his boy- hood had been lived among them; the stories which now reached them concerning the marvellous things he was doing in the region about the Sea of Galilee found no corresponding belief in them. ‘T'o those who had known him intimately for years in his daily occupation and conversation, the incidents now nar- rated about him by the awestruck people who had fallen under his influence were unbelievable. The account of his experience there, as given by Luke, circumstantial and vivid, is interesting in | the extreme. It is characteristic of his method of reaching the people throughout Galilee both before and after this event. It shows him going into the synagogue, the common gathering place of the Jews [87] 88 JESUS THE Man upon the Sabbath, taking advantage of the custom- ary opportunity given to any one who had a message to the people to present it, and preaching to these people an interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah, which supported his message that the Kingdom was near at hand: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach to the poor; he hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.” His wonderful earnestness, the assurance with which he spoke, the appeal of the message which he brought, amazed these neighbors, men and wo- men who only a few months ago had been his inti- mate associates. They could hardly believe their senses. Was this man really the man whom they had known so intimately for so many years? They began to say to one another—‘‘Ts not this Joseph’s son?’’ As they realized that after all it was really their former neighbor, the astonishment gave place to in- dignation at the pretension involved in his immense ‘Luke 4:16-30; Mark 6:1-6; Matthew 13 :54-58. At NAZARETH 89 assurance. Since he was truly Jesus, the son of Joseph, whence had he right or authority to be mak- ing these extravagant promises and announcing the future with such confidence? What right did he have to identify himself with the great personage of Isaiah’s prophecy? They began again to say to each other, ‘‘Whence is the wisdom which this man hath—whence the mighty works of which we hear? Is not this the carpenter, the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all here with us? Whence does he have all these things?’’ Instead of believing his message, they were angered at his as- sumption of wisdom and authority before them, who knew him so well. He saw the resentment he had aroused. “And he said unto them, Doubtless, ye will say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thine own country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land, and un- to none of them was Elias sent, save unto Zarephath of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian.” The inference contained in this statement was obvious. He eonveyed to them that God’s grace in the past had not been shown to all his people, but 90 JESUS THE MANn had come only to those who were fit for it, to those who had a faith which made the power of God avail- able. Since the people of Nazareth did not have this faith, the wonders he had done in Capernaum would not be repeated among them. They were not fit for the blessing of God. In an atmosphere such as surrounded him there, the healing power which had astonished Capernaum failed to operate. The awe and reverence which per- mitted his suggestion to dominate the minds and bodies of those who believed him to be gifted with supernatural powers were lacking entirely in those who saw him only as the carpenter, whose life had all been spent among them. A few of the sick at the little city had been sufficiently influenced by the stories which had preceded his coming that they be- heved in his power and were relieved, but on the whole his appearance in his home was a disappoint- ment both to him and to the people who had heard so much of his wonderful doings in Capernaum. This disappointment and resentment became steadily greater as the people thought of the preten- sions with which he had appeared before them. To them his claim of prophetic power was a vicious im- position and his explanation of his failure to perform the wonders they had expected on the ground that they were not fit to receive the blessing of God was an insolent affront. Their indignation waxed hot; they were not restrained by any belief in his super- natural capacity and they laid violent hands upon him, thrust him forth from the town and would have At NAZARETH 91 cast him over the precipice near their city. Perhaps with the assistance of his companions, who had fol- lowed him from Capernaum, and who eame to his rescue when the danger became serious, perhaps through his own prowess, fully exerted when it be- came necessary, he freed himself from the grasp of his angered townsmen and went his way to another village, marvelling that they had failed to believe. His astonishment was natural, for this was the first community into which he had gone where his mes- sage had not been received with eagerness and where the people had not flocked to accept the healing blessings which accompanied him. Then began a journey which led him’ through many of the cities and villages of Galilee, preaching the welcome tidings of the coming of the Kingdom of God.’ No doubt the procedure was similar to that followed at Nazareth. Every community had its synagogue, its place where all the Jews gathered and could readily be addressed in crowds at almost any time. Thither he went, there he read the scriptures and interpreted them, announcing their fulfillment and the early coming of the Kingdom. The difference This incident, considered with the great power of sugges- tion which he exercised, which is rarely possessed by any ex- cept persons of dominating physical appearance, lends ground to the inference that Jesus was probably a man of unusual stature and commanding appearance, with great, physical strength. Such a fact would also explain the statement “he could not be hid,” in Mark 7:24, and might have something to do with the effect his appearance had upon John the Baptizer. See note 12, p. 29. 3Mark 6:6; Mathew 9:85; Luke 8:1-38. 92 JESUS THE Man in response from that at Nazareth, however, must have been great. All Galilee, aroused by the preach-. ing of Jesus and his healing wonders, reports of which had been spread before him throughout all this country, was already in a ferment and, not re- strained by the memory of previous personal con- tact and consequent doubt of his authority as were those of Nazareth, ready to accept the good tidings as he announced them. With him went the twelve, daily becoming more and more saturated with the message, daily, as they saw the wonders of healing which he performed upon the suffering people who flocked, to him, more and more convinced of his authority and of his supernatural power. Rapidly they were becoming prepared for the task which he was about to lay upon them. With them also went several women, who had been healed of infirmities and mental dis- turbances by faith in Jesus’ healing power: Mary, a woman of Magdala, who had been healed again and again of a mental disturbance which probably returned upon her as soon as she lost the soothing influence of Jesus’ immediate presence; Susanna, of whom we have no other information; and Joanna, 2, woman of important position, the wife of Chuza, the steward or treasurer of Herod, and others, un- named.” This little procession which walked from city to village, from village to city throughout Galilee, con- ‘Luke 8:1-3. THe Four THrovucH GALILEE 93 stituted a most extraordinary little society of its own. Convinced of the approaching end of the world with which they were surrounded, they had lost all interest in the ordinary affairs of life. They were without occupation other than the preaching of the coming of the Kingdom, and were consequently with- out income. Their only means of support was the generosity of these women, whose gratitude and whose delight in the words of Jesus caused them to finance the physical needs of the little group. Inas- much as Joanna was not likely to have been per- mitted to accompany the expedition without the con- sent of her husband, which consent would have been very improbable had Chuza himself not believed the message of the Kingdom, it is interesting to specu- late whether the treasury of Herod himself may not at least indirectly have been the source of part of the funds which sustained the preacher and his com- panions.’ The response to his preaching was not without dis- appointment to him. Indeed, it is likely that it must have been in many instances tremendously disap- pointing. True, the people crowded about him to be healed by him; they listened eagerly to the words of promise which he spoke to them; but the repent- ance, the change of heart, which he sought and which he desired above all things from those who heard him, was conspicuously lacking. No doubt in the course of his preaching a tremendous number of 3It was probably during this period that the incident described 94 JESUS THE MAN people came within reach of his influence, drawn from all over Palestine. But the people for the most part accepted his benefits, listened to his words, recognized him as a good man and a prophet and then, not sufficiently lifted out of themselves to cause them to forget the unsubstantiality of such a hope, went on their way about their ordinary af- fairs. Of the numbers who listened to his words, the percentage that accepted and acted upon them was all too small. We recall his words in the Sermon on the Mount ‘* Narrow is the gate and straightened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it.’? We find him at another time bitterly up- braiding the cities in which his greatest wonders were performed: “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ButI say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judg- ment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day! of judgment, than for thee.” And from this time appears a new note in his preaching, manifesting a consciousness that ke has in Luke 7:11-17 occurred. This was the supposed raising from the dead of the widow’s son at Nain. The circumstances are very similar to the raising of the daughter of Jairus, and the essence of the event probably identical with that of the Capernaum “raising from the dead.” *Matthew 11 :20-24. Tue Tour THrovucH GALILEE 95 been criticised, opposed, attacked, and that his mis- sion may not be without personal danger to himself and his followers. Those who did accept him were for the most part the poor, the ignorant, the unlearned; the practical, intelligent, and substantial part of the population gave him the hearing of eager curiosity, but with but few exceptions refused to be dominated by his tremendous enthusiasm. All of them desired that which he announced to be about to come to pass; all of them hoped for it at some time; perhaps a large percentage of them were influenced by his profound confidence, his wonderful words and his marvellous healing capacity to believe that it was near at hand; but few of the practical and well bal- anced part of the population were able to follow him in the practical application of his ideas. The present was too real to them, too valuable, to be lost sight of in the glittering promise of a glorious fu- ture, immediate though the promise might be. But the unlearned and poverty stricken, those to whom this life furnished little and promised no more, were far readier to accept the hope which he held out to them, and to abandon a present which had little value to them for a future which promised the hap- piness which reality denied them. A glimpse of the appeal which moved that ignorant, suffering popu- lation to its very depths is given in his words uttered at this period of his preaching :’ "Matthew 11 :25-30. 96 JESUS THE Man “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for J] am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The need of the people with whom he came in contact moved Jesus profoundly. Sick and suffer- ing, standing as he believed in the shadow of an event which was of supreme and eternal importance to them, ignorant and heedless of the danger in which they stood, countless in numbers so that the impos- sibility of his reaching them all in time was apparent and overwhelming, his heart went out to them in deep compassion. They seemed to him wandering in danger, scattered, with no one to guide them, no one to warn them; as sheep astray without a shep- herd. He said to his companions, ‘‘The harvest in- deed is plenteous but the laborers are few; pray ye, therefore, the lord of the harvest that he send forth laborers to the harvest.’” If all these multitudes were to be warned to flee from the wrath to come, he must have help; he could not possibly do it alone. ’Matthew 9 :36-38. CHAPTER VIII SENDING OF THE TWELVE The Twelve had now been with him long enough and were fully enough advised of the nature of his message that they could be called upon to help him. Oppressed with the conviction that time was moving too swiftly and that speedy action was absolutely necessary if any considerable part of this sinful population was to be saved, Jesus now divided up the Twelve into six groups and started them through- out the villages to bring the message to those whom he himself was unable to reach. The Jewish cast of his conception of the Kingdom at that time, its immediate nearness, the uselessness of any practical considerations in the expectation of its early appearance, the bitterness of the condem- nation which he believed to await those who re- fused to hear his message, and his realization of the impossibility that the rich and powerful could ac- cept it are all plainly apparent in the instructions which he gave to the Twelve as he sent them out: “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and charged them say- ing, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, say- ing, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, 1Matthew 10:5-23. Cf. Mark 6:8-11; Luke 9:5-5. [97] 98 JESUS THE MAN raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely ye received, freely give. Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy of his food. And into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter, search out who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go forth. And as you enter into the house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it be not worthy,*let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, as ye go forth out of that house or that city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: flor they will deliver you up to coun- cils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you; yea, and before governors and kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s Sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come.” Apparently at this time his expectation was that the appearance of the Kingdom was of daily, almost hourly, probability. Recalling the experience of John the Baptist, as well as his own troubles at Capernaum, he continued by calling attention to the SENDING OF THE T'WELVE 99 dangers which they should undergo, with the promise of full reward for persistence through them :’ “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household! Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be re- vealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light: and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim upon the house tops. And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, him I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.” Perhaps a reflection of his disappointment in the attitude of his own family towards him is to be seen in his explanation of the disturbance which would necessarily follow upon his teachings: “Think not that I came to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that doth not *Matthew 10 :24-39. 100 JESUS THE Man take his cross, and follow after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.’” As the Twelve departed on their mission, Jesus with the remainder of his little company continued through other villages, still preaching his good tid- ings.” By this time information of what was occurring in Galilee had penetrated even within the prison walls which restrained John the Baptizer. Some of the disciples of John who continued to have access to him brought him word of this new preacher whose message was the same as John’s, and whose words were supported by unheard-of wonders of healing.’ John was absolutely convinced of the truth of his own message of the immediate coming of the Kingdom. His expectation looked forward to the coming of one after him whose power was to be far greater than his own. Was this man, concerning whom these marvellous stories were brought to him, in truth John’s successor, the true forerunner of the coming Kingdom? Deeply anxious and desiring to be relieved of uncertainty he asked some of his *Verses 38 and 39 are evidently of later origin. The refer- ence to the cross could have been made only after the event had given significance to the cross; to this extent the language has certainly been modified by the ideas of the early Christians who preserved it. V. 39 is taken from Jesus’ great call for followers to go with him to Jerusalem after Caesarea Philippi, as recorded by Mark 8:35. ‘Matthew 11:1. STuke 7:18-35; Matthew 11:2-19. SENDING OF THE T'WELVE 101 visiting disciples to go to Jesus with the message— ** Are you the one who should come or must we look for another?’’ The messengers found Jesus in one of the Galilean villages, surrounded by the afflicted, many of whom were healed of their sickness and their disorders in the presence of the messengers from John. This was a question Jesus could not answer directly with- out revealing to those about him the secret he had carried locked up in his own consciousness since that fateful day at the fords of the Jordan. Yet he did not wish to leave John’s inquiry unanswered. He said to the messengers, ‘‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good tidings preached to them, and blessed is he who shall find no occasion of stumbling in me.’’ The reference was to a well known Messianic pass- age from Isaiah’ and was intended to convey to John, who would recognize it and its significance, the proof that the Kingdom was indeed near at hand and a suggestion as to the meaning of Jesus’ per- sonality. Immediately following the departure of the messengers, he spoke to the crowds surrounding him of the greatness of John and identified him with Elijah, the great prophet whose coming must precede the actual appearance of the Kingdom.’ The mul- Isaiah 35 :3-6. "Matthew 11:12, which has caused so much discussion among 102 JESUS THE MAn titude, large numbers of whom had been baptized by John, welcomed these statements and his interpreta- tions of the meaning of John’s personality, but as usual, the Pharisees and lawyers were in the crowd and rejected this idea as they had come to reject all other phases of Jesus’ preaching. Neither the crowds nor the Pharisees seem to have sensed in the eryptic reply any indication of Jesus’ own belief that he was the Messiah. This message must have come just prior to the death of John at the hands of Herod. How long the 'T'welve were engaged in their journey among the towns and villages of Galilee, we cannot tell; it could not have been long. In the meantime Jesus had continued his own preaching and in some of the many villages which crowded Galilee, probably far to the north, near Bethsaida, the Twelve presently returned to him. the commentators— Schweitzer says “it resists all exegesis”’— (The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, p. 111) is merely the statement that force is being applied to prevent the coming of the Kingdom or to those who were seeking to bring it in. It might better be translated “From the days of John the Baptizer un- til now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and violent men overpower it.’”’ This, in regard to John, was a mere state- ment of a fact well known to his hearers, and admitting the practical certainty that either force or the apprehension of force was the cause of his departure from Capernaum, it was just as applicable to Jesus and his message of preparation for the King- dom, CHAPTER IX Herop Seeks His Arrest—EHxitrzt From Herop’s DoMINIONS Up to this point Jesus’ movement had developed without serious conflict with the civil authorities. The resentment of the Pharisees had not brought him into actual conflict with the general government. True, their opposition probably had stirred up the local authorities and broken up his movement at Capernaum, but so far as we know it had stopped with that result. We have no record of any attempt to arrest him before this time. But from this time on he was destined to be in continuous personal danger from the government under which he lived. Beginning first with astonished interest in the stories told about this new prophet of the Kingdom, growing out of a vivid memory of John the Baptist, the attitude of Herod Antipas, the prince to whom he was subject, soon developed to bitter and more bitter opposition until finally Herod became the dominating factor in Jesus’ death. Herod Antipas at this period was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. The latter territory lay to the east of the Jordan, extending to the borders of Ara- bia and lying to the south of a territory ruled by a brother of similar capacity. The exact authority which was vested in him under the title of Tetrarch [103] 104 JESUS THE Man is not precisely ascertainable, but it is clear that it involved in a general way most of the prerogatives which were exercised by his father, Herod the Great. Both Herod, the father, and his sons Herod Antipas, Philip and Archelaus, who jointly inherited his au- thority, held that authority by gift of the Roman Sen- ate. To Herod the Great was granted complete royal power with a general loyalty to the Roman Em- pire as sole limitation. His authority throughout the area later governed by his sons was complete and ab- solute. Herod Antipas was at one time intended by his father to be his sole heir. Shortly before his death, however, Herod, who in his later years was in continual turmoil with his children, became angered at Antipas and in a will bequeathed his kingdom to Archelaus instead.” But when Archelaus went to Rome to receive the confirmation of his authority at the hands of the Roman Emperor and the Senate, the family and friends of Herod also went and pre- sented the claims of Herod Antipas to the throne.’ Augustus, after giving the matter full consideration, finally divided the kingdom among the three sons,’ giving to Archelaus Judea and Idumea with an in- come of 400 talents per annum; Galilee and Perea to Herod Antipas with 200 talents, and the area to the northeast of this territory to Philip with an an- nual revenue of 100 talents. This limitation upon 1Josephus Antiq. XVII, viii, 1. "Id. XVII, ix. "Id. XVII, xi, 4. Herop Seeks His ARREST 105 the income was apparently the only limitation upon the royal authority which they thus inherited, al- though the name of king which their father bore was withdrawn, Archelaus being called Ethnarch and the other two Tetrarchs. Apparently the Roman au- thorities retained the prerogative of levying the tax- es, with the requirement that these local princes should have only the specified amount, the remain- der being turned in to the Roman general treasury. Herod Antipas accordingly held the power of life and death over his subjects, without accountability to any other authority whatever, except possibly in eases of its great and violent abuse. He seems to have been a diligent administrator, who kept his unruly subjects well in hand.’ It is obvious that this was no easy task. This crowded population, domi- nated by a religious idea which was more than half political and which led them to believe that any authority other than that of God himself as repre- sented through their High Priesthood was a usur- pation, generally ignorant and emotional to a vol- canic degree, stubborn, full of an inherited pride of race, filled with a never-ending hope that at some time the hand of the oppressor would be withdrawn from them and that they should again resume their position as a proud and imperial people, were enough to try the mettle of the firmest and most com- petent government. *Archelaus had been deprived of his ethnarchy for such rea- sons, See Josephus Antiq. XVII, xiii, 2, SJosephus Antiq. XVIII, ii, 3. 106 JESUS THE Man It is evident that any one who kept them in hand and maintained the public peace must be quick to recognize and prompt to restrain any manifestation of public tumult. We have seen already how promptly and effectively Herod dealt with the ex- citement instituted by John the Baptizer. He did not perceive at that time that he had overlooked a still more vigorous personality who would take up John’s movements where he left it off and make it a still more dangerous source of disturbance. The work of Jesus until now he had ignored, if in fact he had any knowledge of it. The attempts of the Phari- sees to cause his officers to take action against Jesus at Capernaum because of his violation of the Jewish ceremonial law had probably remained a local matter. Herod, who had been brought up as the son of the king of the Jews, was probably a Jew in his religious attitude, but was nevertheless too wise a governor to be easily stirred into action by a local disturbance over a purely ceremonial ques- tion. But the wide reach of this movement devel- oped by the operation of the Twelve brought the matter to his attention in such a manner that it could not be wholly ignored.’ The reports of this new excitement brought to him by his officers reminded him vividly of his experi- ence with John. When the great prophet of the wil- *Herod’s presence in Jerusalem during the passover at the time of Jesus’ arrest and excution (Luke 23:7) was no doubt for the purpose of participating in that religious festival. "ark 6:14; Matthew 14:1; Luke 9:7. Herop Seeks His ARrrRgEstT 107 derness was arrested he had been carried to a fort- ress owned by Herod on the borders of Arabia.’ There he had been held for some time, the purpose of Herod apparently being merely to restrain him and thus to avoid the turmoil he was raising. Apparently he was at times brought before Herod himself in order that the ruler might hear his message, to which Herod’s Jewish outlook responded to some degree. Herod listened to him with interest and pleasure and no doubt would have held him safe for some time had the personal animosity of his wife not been roused against him.’ This woman, evil genius not only of John but later of Herod himself,” was Herod’s sJosephus Antiq. XVIII, v, 2. *The story as told in Mark 6:17-29, Matthew 14:3-12, 1s sup- plementary to that told by Josephus in that Josephus gives the cause of John’s arrest and the chief reason for his death, while Mark, and Matthew after him, give an additional, and perhaps the immediate reason for his death. The Josephus story is as follows: “Now when others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly moved by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. Ac- cordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious tem- per, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.” The reasoning reported here was no doubt the same as that applied to Jesus by Herod. The writers of the gospels, men not acquainted with government, could not under- stand political motives, but found the explanation for the acts of the authorities in motives that. would have been sufficient to persons of their own sphere of existence. To them Herodias’ motive was ample to explain what happened to John. “Josephus (Antiq. XVIII, vii. Wars II, ix, 6) relates how the 108 JESUS THE Man niece, a grand-daughter of Herod the Great. She had earlier been married to his brother Philip,” but had abandoned Philip for Antipas. This criminal pro- ceeding had aroused the violent antagonism of Her- od’s Jewish subjects. Herodias, a woman of pow- erful will and personality, apparently was little in- fluenced by what her subjects thought. But evi- dently during some of these interviews of John the Baptizer with Herod, in which no doubt Herodias herself was present, John, who always was strenu- ously earnest and outspoken, had particularly re- buked Herod and Herodias for the crime they had committed and were daily perpetuating. The out- spoken language touched Herodias at a point on which women are especially sensitive and unforgiv- ing and aroused in her an antagonism which ceased not so long as John was alive. Taking advantage of a temporary desire on the part of Herod to grant a favor to her daughter who had pleased Herod and his company when she danced before them at a ban- quet, Herodias had demanded and received from Herod the head of John the Baptizer. This could have been only a very short time be- insistent ambitions of Herodias finally drove Antipas to Rome requesting that he be made a king, instead of which he was ban- ished to Lyons, where he died. “Probably not Philip the tetrarch but another of the numer- ous sons of Herod the Great, Herod whose mother was the daugh- ter of Simon the high priest and who lived at Rome. Josephus in Antiq. XVIII, v. 1, tells the story of the process by which Antipas secured her from his brother. Since this brother is called Herod by Josephus and Philip by Mark, it is customary to call him Herod-Philip, as Herod Antipas was the name of the tetrarch. Herop Seeks His Arrest 109 fore the news came to Herod of this fresh outbreak of preaching of the immediate approach of the King- dom of God.” The messages which came to him were identical in character with the earlier ones concerning John. The same reasons which caused him to arrest John immediately aroused him to in- terest in this new prophet. Even more general in scope throughout his dominion was this movement. In addition to the teaching of Jesus himself, six pairs of men were traveling throughout the cities of the tetrarchy, vigorously proclaiming the impending end of the world and coming of the Kingdom of God, frequently reenforcing their words with wonderful cures, giving a reach and a power to the message which not even the burning words of John could have procured. This was no small problem for any government. No prince who cared to maintain the public peace could permit the continuance of this movement among a volatile population such as Herod ruled. It “Mark (6:14ff) locates the receipt of information by Herod between the time when the twelve went out and their return. No mention of the presence of the twelve occurs in the report of the message from John to Jesus, and if the philippic against Caper- naum, which is placed in immediate connection therewith by Matthew, is correctly located there, it took place subsequent to Jesus’ departure from Capernaum. Consequently it is extremely likely that the messengers from John came while the twelve were away on their mission, and it is so located in this study. On this basis he would have been alive a bare few days before Herod had news of the new preaching. Herod’s immediate asso- ciation of it with a risen John indicates that John’s death was very fresh in his consciousness, again supporting the idea that it was very recent. 110 JESUS THE Man | would be only a little while until these people, filled as they were with the centuries-old Messianic hope, irritated as they were with the imposition of hated taxes, would be worked into a frenzy that would end in popular tumult which could be quelled only at the expense of much bloodshed. Quite naturally Herod desired to put a stop to it. Jesus learned of this purpose of Herod’s which could only mean personal disaster to himself, be- fore the return of the Twelve. Through Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s chief financial officer, he had access to the intimate plans of his sovereign, and no doubt information of Herod’s intent came to him almost as soon as it was decided. When the Twelve did return to him at some point near the sea- shore, north of Capernaum, full of delight with the results of their preaching, announcing that the de- mons had been subject to them and obedient to their commands, that they had healed the sick in his name, and that the word had been heard by many, he immediately took them apart to a desolate place, out of Herod’s jurisdiction” and consequently out of danger from this sudden threat on the part of the civil authorities. The work of the Twelve had produced its natural result. The excitement was again at fever heat. Jesus and his disciples in their withdrawal tvok a boat and went across the north part of the lake, into the mountainous section immediately adjacent At this point the Jordan and the sea of Galilee marked the eastern border of the dominions of Herod Antipas. Herop Seeks His Arrest 111 to its northeastern shore, near the City of Beth- saida.” But the Galilean multitudes who were eager to hear him and to experience his healing power, foreseeing the place to which he was going, hurried around the north end of the lake, no doubt gathering many additions from the surrounding villages as they went, and were near Jesus’ hiding place almost as soon as he and his party arrived there. ‘‘And he came forth and saw a great multitude and he had compassion on them because they were as sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.’’ At the close of the day he distribut- ed among the multitude who were gathered about him on the green grass of the hillside what was probably a ritualistic meal, symbolic of common participation in the coming Kingdom;” perhaps un- der the influence of their own belief in his super- natural knowledge and power, and the subsequent “Mark 6:30-383; Matt 14:18; Luke 9:10-11. “This is the explanation given by Schweitzer. (The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 168ff). It is based upon the similarity in details with the last supper, except for the exaggeration he be- lieves to have grown out ofi the failure of the crowd and even of the disciples to understand its true significance, and the conse- quent expansion of the tradition into the story of a full meal for thousands out of practically nothing. This incident, with that recorded in Mark 8:1-10, which is apparently a duplicate of the same story grown into a sufficient variant to appear to be a rec- ord of a separate event, are the most obscure and uncertain of explanation in the whole story of Jesus. The explanation that it was an experience of hypnotic nature, is unsatisfying because of the large number of persons participating. The Schweitzer explana- tion is the most probable. All we can be sure of is that in some manner and for some purpose, at the end of a day of teaching of the Kingdom, he distributed food among the multitude. 112 JESUS THE Man expansion in the report of the event, the facts were later developed in the popular opinion into a story of miraculous feeding of the multitude by expanding a scanty supply into ample abundance of food. At the close of this ceremony he required his dis- ciples again to enter the boat and to row up the lake shore to Bethsaida, where he would presently come after he had sent the multitude away. The already powerful conception of his extraordinary power was further heightened by an experience of the Twelve which followed.” After Jesus sent the multitude away he remained alone for awhile in meditation. Meanwhile the northwest evening wind, which prevails during the summer months,’ sprang up with exceptional vio- lence. The men in the boat labored at the oar, but were unable to make satisfactory headway against the direct headwind,—so little in fact that some three hours later, when Jesus followed them up the coast on foot, he found them still struggling in the wind. They were so near to the shore that even in the darkness he could see them, probably held close in by the violence of the storm. Jesus, thoroughly familiar with these waters, walked out in the shallow water towards where the boat was laboring in the waves. To the startled men, not expecting to see him so, and %’Mark 6:45-52; Matthew 14 :22-33. “At the northwest part of the lake there is a low point in the girdle of hills which encircles it. Through this the diurnal in- shore breeze from the Mediterranean sweeps every evening dur- ing the summer, sometimes with tempestuous force. EXxILE FROM HeErop’s Dominions 113 already impressed with a sense of his extraordinary greatness and control over natural phenomena, he seemed in the darkness to be coming to them walk- ing on the waters. Shortly after he reached them and climbed up into the boat the wind ceased and in a little while they reached their destination. But the story that Jesus had walked upon the waters and had stilled the waves went out generally through- out the section, to add to the already well developed conviction that this was a man different from other men, with a power which must be the power of God Himself acting through him. Bethsaida was outside of Herod’s territory, sub- ject to his brother Philip. Here Jesus might have been safe, but for some reason he returned to the west side of the lake to the place known as Gennes- aret, a short distance north of Capernaum, where the level plain between the lake and the foot of the mountains broadens to an expanse several miles in width.” Here he was immediately beseiged as be- fore by crowds that brought to him the sick to be healed by a touch or a word. But his stay here was brief, for he was quickly reminded anew of the oppo- sition he had incited among the ruling class, and its undoubted danger to himself. Among the crowds gathered to meet him were representatives of the Jewish government from Jerusalem, Pharisees and lawyers, who had come to verify the reports con- cerning him which had now made their way into the ’Mark 6:53-7:23; Matthew 14 :34-15 :20. 114 JESUS THE Man Jewish capital. Observation by these strict cere- monialists led to fresh criticism because the dis- ciples of Jesus did not observe the tradition of the scribes which prohibited all Jews from eating with- out first having made themselves ceremonially clean by diligent washings. An inquiry from these tradi- tionalists as to why his disciples had abandoned the traditions of the elders led him into a vigorous at- tack upon the whole traditional system of the Phari- sees. With incisive language and convincing ex: ample he showed them the hypocrisy of a system which cast aside the fundamental commandments of the law and substituted therefor a body of tra- dition, contrary to the law.” ‘‘And the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with defiled hands? And he said unto them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Ye leave the commandments of God, and hold fast the tra- dition of men. And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death: but ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest be profited by me is Corban, that is to say, a gift, ye no longer suffer him to do aught for his father or his mother; making void the word of God by your tradition which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye. And he called the multitude to him again and said unto them, Hear me all of you, and understand; there is “Mark 7:1-23; Matthew 15 :1-20. EXxILE FROM HeErRop’s DomINnIonsS a BR hea nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which proceed out of the man, are those that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was entered into the house from the mul- titude, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Perceive ye not that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, it cannot defile him; because it goeth not into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the draught? This he said, making all meats clean.” And he said, That which proceedeth out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of man, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, las- civiousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” It was evident that Jesus’ preaching of the King- dom and the teaching of the Pharisees could not maintain themselves side by side. The vivid con- ception of Jesus which saw the whole world and all the evil and rubbish it contained about to pass away, could not possibly be contained within the artificial and complicated ceremonials of the Pharisaic sys- tem. Not merely were these ceremonial require- ments useless to people who would in a little while be in the immediate presence of the Most High, but the hypocrisy and the casuistic reasoning upon which ~This last remark, an aside of the writer, undoubtedly made with polemical intent, is evidence of the extremely early date of Mark, as the controversy over the ceremonial uncleanness of meats offered to idols or not lawful under the Mosaic law, did not continue past the first generation of Christians. It also gives support to the tradition that it is a transcript of the story of Peter, as the question of the cleanness of all meats was one of peculiar interest to him. See Acts 10:9-48; I Cor. 8; Acts 15. 116 JESUS THE Man they based their system aroused a tremendous an- tagonism in the mind and heart of the man who above everything else was sincere. This meeting, the biting language which he used in replying to the Pharisees, and the hostile reaction which un- questionably followed upon their part, must have been entirely convincing to him that there could be no safety for him in surroundings where both they and the emissaries of Herod were active.” Accompanied only by the twelve accordingly, he left the vicinity of Galilee and sought complete se- clusion in the cities sixty miles further to the north along the coast of the Mediterranean, in the same neighborhood where the great prophet Elijah once centuries before had concealed himself from the king who sought his hfe. In the neighborhood of the cities of Tyre and Sidon Jesus attempted to con- ceal himself.” This fact would indicate an iIncreas- ing vigor in the hostile activity of Herod, no doubt again stirred up by the Pharisees and lawyers, to apprehend him and put an end to the confusion he *This whole incident is probably out of order at this place, It evidently belongs in that first period of controversy with the Pharisees in Capernaum, when they, although beginning to be hostile, were still seeking information as to his reasons for his variations from the traditional law. After the breach recorded in Mark 38:6, their attitude was rather one of direct hostility than of inquiry. The more likely connection is for 7:24 to follow 6:56; Jesus probably went directly from Bethsaida to Tyre. The heal- ings probably occurred on his way to Tyre. The effect of the change, however, is insufficient to justify modification of the Sequence given by Mark, which is the sheet anchor of any con- nected reconstruction of the story. *Mark 7:24; Matthew 15:21. Eixtne From HeErop’s Dominions ay was causing. The search pressed him so closely that he was apprehensive, even in the foreign city of Tyre. But whether from the striking character of his appearance or from the extent to which he had already become known, ‘‘he could not be hid.’’ His was a personality to which concealment was impos- sible.” To Tyre and then to Sidon he went. How long he stayed we do not know, but since he failed in his purpose of concealment it was probably not very long. But during this period he had an opportunity to indicate the extent to which his Messianic con- ception was identical with the conception of his people, and yet how far he was capable of readjust- ing it upon a broader basis. In one of these cities a Canaanitish woman came to him and begged him to perform a cure upon her daughter. To us who think of the Gospel as be- ing as broad as the world his answer is startling in its strangeness. ‘‘I was not sent’’ he said to the woman, ‘‘but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel. It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.’’ His message and his heal- ing power were for the children—the Jews; others were dogs. But even with this reply, the woman’s quick mind gained for her the coveted kindness. ‘*Yea, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.’’ ‘‘For this saying,’’ he an- swered, ‘‘The devil has gone out of thy daughter.’’ “Numbers from Tyre and Sidon had joined the multitudes which followed him about Capernaum (Mark 3:7,8) and some of them naturally immediately recognized him. 118 JESUS THE MAN ‘And she went away to her house and found the child laid upon the bed and the devil gone out.’’ It is entirely possible that at this time began the change in his ideas which first admitted the possibility of others than Jews sharing in the benefits of the King- dom, and finally resulted in his announcement of an universal faith, a withdrawal of the Kingdom from the Jews who refused it, and its gift to another peo- ple, bringing forth its fruit. But in these alien cities he found no peace. Pressed by the urgency of his message to the lost sheep of Israel, the shore of the sea of Galilee drew him as a magnet. Even as a fugitive he must be nearer. Back to the East from the Mediterranean coast to the territory of Philip, through the community of towns known as Decapolis, he came again to the east side of the sea of Galilee.“ Again surrounded by a multitude eager for his message and his heal- ing, but still seeking to avoid publicity, he proceed- ed by boat across the lake to Magadan in the parts of Dalmanutha.” But he was not safe. Probably with- *Mark 7:31-87; Matthew 15:29-31. The story of the feeding of the four thousand, which follows in both gospels, is in all probability a variation of the one previously described. If not, it is identical in character with the first one and is subject to the same explanation. The story of the healing of the deaf man, told only in Mark 7 :32-37, which emphasizes his caution to those who saw it that they should not reveal it (note the contrast with the healing of the demoniac at Gerasa, where he told the man who was healed to go publish to his friends and relatives what great things had been done for him) indicates his continued sense of danger and desire to prevent new notoriety from bringing the attention of the authorities to him. *Mark 8:10; Matthew 15:39. No attempt to locate Dalma- EXxILE FROM HeERop’s Dominions 119 in the actual limits of Herod Antipas, he was at least very near, near enough to be in danger if Herod’s officers should become active. The crowds again surged to him, and no sooner had he begun teaching and preaching again than the Pharisees from Jerusalem reappeared, hostile as before, this time heckling him in a new way. ‘‘Show us a sign’’ they said, ‘‘of the truth of these great things you are teaching. Show us a sign from heaven.’”™” This was an attempt directly to shatter his in- fluence with the people. This demand for proof of the truth of a message that the people were accept- ing and believing upon the bare word of Jesus, was expected to show them the unsubstantiality and lack of foundation of the expectation which Jesus was urging upon them. Jesus in the face of this de- mand made no attempt to convince the Pharisees or the crowd for whose benefit the question was asked. In their presence he healed no one, and did not indi- nutha and Magadan has been successful. Sanday (Sacred Sites of the Gospels p. 22) repeats the suggestion of Tristram that it may have been on the west side of the lake, between Tiberias and Magdala, in a valley called by the dragomans “wady Dal- manutha.” This would satisfy the necessity of the boat trip from the east side and then the second trip “to the other side,’ which ended at Bethsaida. That he came back into the neighborhood of his earlier activity is evident from the promptness with which the Pharisees appeared. *Mark 8:11-13; Matthew 16:1-4. According to the Talmud, the test of a true prophet consisted in demanding a sign. “But whence is one aware that he is a true prophet? In case he gives him a sign.’”” Gemara to Mishna VI, chapter X, Sanhedrin. In this instance they were applying the legal test to him. 120 JESUS THE Man cate that the healing which he had previously done was a sign from heaven. This continued, per- sistent unbelief and hostility disturbed him deeply, but he merely dismissed the hostile Pharisees with an expression of contempt :* “He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say it will be fair weather: for the heaven is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowring. Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven, but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall be no sign given unto it.” Apparently the attempt of the Pharisees to dis- credit him with the people failed entirely. But he was convinced anew of his danger. These continuously hostile Pharisees, in the neighborhood of a prince who was energetically seeking to arrest him, and with whom they were actively cooperating, con- stituted too great a threat, so he and the faithful Twelve again entered into the boat and went across the sea to Bethsaida. That he was fully cog- nizant of the double character of the danger in which he stood is shown by the warning against the Pharisees and Herod, the two sources of the now ever-present threat to them and to him, which he gave his followers on the way.” At Bethsaida, also now too near the territory of *“Matthew 16:2-4; Mark 8:12. Mark 8:14-21; Matthew 16:5-12. For the first recorded time he spoke sharply to the Twelve because of their inability to com- prehend his hidden meaning. Perhaps the strain was telling upon him. EXILE FROM Herop’s DomrInions PAL Herod, his stay was brief.” Up to the north this time, again entirely away from Herod’s dominion, some thirty miles into the territory of Philip they went, into the Jewish villages surrounding the new Greek city of Caesarea Philippi.” ~The story of the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26) or rather in one of the villages near the new Greek city which Philip had built there and renamed Julias in honor of the wife of Tiberius, gives an added instance of the caution he was showing. Instead of sending the cured man to tell of the great blessing which had come upon him, he sent him away to his home, forbidding him from even entering the village again. Bethsaida was too near to Herod’s territory for an ex- citement to arise about him with safety. *Mark 8:27; Matt. 16:18. CHAPTER X CAESAREA PuHiuiePpI—THE T'wELVE RECOGNIZE JESUS AS THE MrsstanH—He DETERMINES TO GO TO JERUSALEM The condition of Jesus’ mind during the period just described is not difficult to comprehend. This interruption of his program by Herod had been en- tirely unexpected. The coming of the Kingdom as he had foreseen it had in it no provision for inter- ference by the earthly authorities which it was to replace. Whatever else he may have expected, he could not reasonably have assumed that he would be permitted to announce the coming of the Kingdom for a little while, and that then presently, he, the Son of God, should be found abandoning his preaching and hiding as a fugitive, even outside of the confines of the Jewish territory. No doubt during this period of seclusion, when he was not so pressed by the demands of the people and when he had more time to meditate, he thought long and earnestly upon the conception of the King- dom and of the Messiah as it had been given to him. Again and again he must have canvassed those prophecies which were believed to be applicable to the Messiah and which he, now that he believed him- self to be the recipient of this divine gift, must have applied to himself. In all the Messianic prophecies, [122] CAESAREA PHILIPPI 123 he would have found nothing applicable to such a situation as that in which he found himself. Did his confidence in his mission waver? We can- not tell. Certainly such a wavering under similar conditions would be natural in any other man. But at any rate his meditations upon such questions seem to have reached a crisis during this retirement into the regions surrounding Caesarea Philippi. As they were traveling on the way among these villages, these questions forced themselves to the surface. Up until this time, there is no indication that he was ever disposed to be affected by the opinions of people concerning him. His interest was in saving them; what they thought about him had been of no consequence. But at this time, perhaps disturbed by uncertainty as to whether, since his ex- perience was so far from his expectation, his con- ception of himself and his mission was after all be- yond doubt, he began to ask his disciples about the opinion of the public concerning him. ‘‘Who do men say that I am?’’ he asked one day as they were on the road.’ Their answer was uncertain. He had deliberately refrained from speaking of the part that he believed he was to occupy in the coming Kingdom. [ven to the direct inquiry of John the Baptizer he had re- fused to give a direct answer. The people had natur- ally been led to form their own conclusions by their observation of what he said and what he did. These opinions were varied. Some, said the disciples, ‘Mark 8 :27-30; Matt. 16:13-20; Luke 9:18-21. 124 JESUS THE MAN thought he was John the Baptizer arisen. This of course was a natural inference, with them as it had been with Herod, because of the identity of his an- nouncement of the immediate coming of the Kingdom with that of John the Baptizer. Others, having in mind the forerunner of the Kingdom, as foretold by the prophet Malachi,’ thought that he was the fore- runner himself and said ‘*He is Elijah.’’ Still others, less influenced by the Messianic prophecies and the belief in the immediate coming of the Kingdom, but impressed by his personality and his preaching, said that he was one of the prophets; that is, that he was a new prophet similar to the prophets of the ancient days. Even the twelve, their attention directed by Jesus himself to the coming change and the neces- sity of saving the lost multitudes from the terrible Day of the Lord, had never had any reason to de- termine precisely their opinion of their leader. None of their answers were satisfying. They did not measure up to the exalted conception of his own person which he had retained since that memorable day at the fords of the Jordan. These ideas fur- nished no assistance in reestablishing the conviction which his difficulties tended to disturb. But perhaps those who had known him best and had seen him most closely and who understood him as the others had no opportunity to understand him, might see more clearly. ‘*But who say ye that I am?*’ he asked. Either because he was quicker to speak or because "Malachi 4:5. CAESAREA PHILIPPI 125 more clearly than his fellows he had comprehended the thoughts and the character of his leader, Simon spoke promptly for the rest of the apostles. Close contact with this extraordinary character, daily observation of his wonderful works and words, had brought Peter, ever ready to see the miraculous and to interpret everything in the light of that tendency, to an opinion of him which he could express only in the highest conception with which he was familiar. The question of Jesus crystallized the conviction which had been growing in him, until now unformu- lated. A great light burst upon him; the whole won- derful experience became clear. ‘‘Thou art the Anointed One,’’ he cried, ‘‘the Son of the Living God!’’ The course of centuries was determined by those words of Simon. Under this assurance, the confi- dence of Jesus in the certainty of his mission solidi- fied, became as adamant. Up to this time he had revealed to no one that experience at the Jordan or the conviction which had come to him from that ex- perience. He was certain that from no human source could Simon have acquired this extraordinary idea. The inference was unescapable. Only from the same God who had revealed it to him had this revelation come to Simon; and if God had revealed it also to Simon, the revelation to himself must be genuine. It was confirmation, irresistible, con- elusive, of his own conviction. His relief and the joy that he found in this con- firmation is revealed in the triumphant words with 126 JESUS THE MAn which he greeted this assurance from Simon. ‘*Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah! for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.’’ Therefore it must be certain and true; no longer would any doubts dis- turb him. Continuing, he expressed the firmness of his purpose to continue and carry out his program, despite all the opposition of the powers of evil that had risen up against him and interfered with him. ‘‘And I also say unto thee that thou art a rock’ and upon this rock I will build my assembly of the chosen of God and the gates of hell shall not overcome it.’’ This was a turning point in his life. The decision announced so positively was not modified, but with- out wavering or uncertainty controlled his actions absolutely during his few remaining weeks. With it came a new factor, changing the character of his thought and actions from that time on to such an extent that they seem almost those of a different man. Up until this time he had looked forward to his own full participation in the change of the age, though possibly without determining precisely what part he was to play in it; but now, in the face of the present bitter opposition by the religious and civil authorities in whatever part he was to play, his thoughts had already begun to turn to those prophe- cies which foretold the humiliations and sufferings which the Messiah must undergo. It was evident sGreek petros, petra. It is the translation of the Aramaic word which Jesus actually used, kephas. CAESAREA PHILIPPI LAG from his present’ experience that if he was to go forward to the completion of his task, if he was not to abandon it, he must be prepared to meet and endure whatever the authorities desired to inflict upon him. Convinced anew as he was that he was the Chosen of the Father, with an essential and necessary part to play, he no longer hesitated, but from this point he went forward without any doubt that pain, humiliation, suffering, probably death confronted him in fulfilling his destiny. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah, which, while always referred to the Messiah, was generally ignored in the popu- lar conception of his part in the looked-for King- dom, now no doubt pressed upon his consciousness as the truest representation of what his own ex- perience was to be. Cautioning his disciples that the secret which he had heretofore kept in his own consciousness should still be a secret to all others, he began to reveal to them these new ideas. ‘T'o their amazement he who had heretofore taught them that the Kingdom of God was to appear immediately with wonders and signs and marvelous change in all things and that he and they were to be partakers in the blessings laid up for the chosen of God, now began to tell them that before the great change could come it was going to be necessary for him to suffer many things and to be humiliated and mistreated and perhaps in the end to die.’ ‘Matthew 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22. 128 JESUS THE MAN His new statements seemed to them contradictory and unreasonable; so much so that the same Simon who shortly before had announced with such con- fidence that he was the Messiah, now took him aside and began to contradict what he was saying, and to say to him, ‘‘Far be it from thee, Lord, this shall never be unto thee.’’ Such an idea seemed prepos- terous, impossible; it was contradictory of all they had seen of his power, of all the things that they had come to believe from their association with him and the teaching they had heard from him. How could such things happen to one who could still the storm, walk upon the waters, cast out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead? Even the rebuke which he administered to Peter seems not to have affected this attitude of mind, for during all the experiences through which he afterward led them they seem never to have abandoned the ideas of the earlier days of the preaching, when he opened to them the doors of expectation of immediate participation in a Joy- ous Kingdom of God, made all of good and happi- ness, But the effect upon Jesus was definite. All un- certainty was wiped out in the assurance that God had revealed his Messiahship directly to another be- side himself, and his thorough-going, logical and sincere mind began to face frankly the reconstruc- tion which was necessary in order to make his ex- pectations square with the facts as he now found them. Another thought no doubt was prominent in this CAESAREA PHILIPPI 129 new conception of his destiny which now took posses- sion of Jesus. From the beginning he had preached the coming of that wonderful day when the Son of Man should appear upon the clouds with great honor and glory; should come with his angels and separate the good from the bad, the sheep from the goats; and should say to the chosen: ‘‘Come_ ye blessed of my Father’’ while he sent the wicked away into everlasting darkness, into punishment where the state of mind was best expressed by ‘‘wailing and gnashing of teeth.’?’ But as he medi- tated upon this feature of the Messianic expectation, universal since the days of the writer of the book of Daniel, he must have realized that for him to fulfill that expectation some great change must intervene. It was obvious that under the con- ditions which then limited him he could not pos- sibly come upon the clouds of heaven; yet as the Messiah he must so come. How was this to be? The new conception of a Messiah who must suffer solved the problem for him. It might be that before the change could entirely take place there must be an intervention of death; after which he would ascend into heaven in a new form, in which he would be able to come upon the clouds as the Messiah must do. These two conceptions governed his course there- after. He determined, despite the opposition of Herod and of the Pharisees, to complete his destiny ; to fulfill those prophecies which must come to pass before the Kingdom of God could descend upon men. That this might, probably would, mean to him 130 JESUS THE Man suffering, humiliation, imprisonment, perhaps death, deterred him not at all. Before the chosen could have the joys of the Kingdom of God he must per- form his part and undergo that which was written of him. And this, in the renewed assurance grow- ing out of the confident statement of Simon, he pro- ceeded to do. : Not only upon Jesus did this episode have effect. The influence of the words of Simon upon his associ- ates was very great. Such a conception once ex- pressed took firm hold upon minds already deeply impressed by the greatness of Jesus’ personality, and could not afterwards be avoided. It naturally took hold of their attention to the practical exclusion of other subjects. The tremendously increased place which he now took in their ideas is shown by an in- cident which occurred a few days later. Jesus took Peter and James and John with him up into a high mountain apart from the others and there, perhaps partly under the suggestion of their own expanded conception of him, perhaps partly as a result of the same power of suggestion from him by which so many marvels were wrought among the multitudes in other places, they underwent an amazing experi- ence. As they looked at this man, who had now be- SMark 9:2-13; Matthew 17:1-13; Luke 9:28-36. This ecstatic experience was probably similar in basis to that of Jesus himself at the time of his baptism. Concentration on the great new idea which had come to them, that the Messiah was already present with them, would readily absorb their entire consciousness and eventuate in such a vision as the story describes. The record is in accordance with recognized psychological laws. It is unde- ee Og -\r— t CAESAREA PHILIPPI 131 come to them an embodiment of divinity itself, he seemed to be transfigured before them; his garments eleamed, appearing exceeding white, brilliant past the power of any earthly agent to whiten them. And suddenly appeared with him two persons whom they immediately assumed to be Elijah and Moses, and who seemed to talk with Jesus. Filled with astonish- ment and adoration, Peter was again ready, this time with a suggestion that they make permanent arrangements for the convenience and abode of the wonderful master and his two visitors. But as other visions, it suddenly passed away. A cloud seemed to overshadow them, and out of it again were heard the words which had so overwhelmed Jesus at the Jordan: ‘*This is my beloved Son.’’ But suddenly the cloud and the glistening garments too disappear- ed; the vision passed completely; they were alone with Jesus. In our day, and among people of our type of mind, such an experience, vivid though it be, would be analyzed and soon understood for what it was,— a purely subjective experience, an ecstatic vision, an apparition, which had its source in the operations of their own minds, influenced perhaps by an objective suggestion of the powerful personality with whom they were in contact. But to these three fishermen, who had no scientific knowledge by which to check such an experience, it was absolutely real; it never niably the experience of Peter as he told it in the presence of Mark; John’s vision and James’ may conceivably have had other characteristics. 132 JESUS THE Man occurred to them to doubt its verity. Jesus himself, cautious the while, required them to say nothing about this vision, but its effect upon them was most profound. They did not realize that it had grown out of the opinion of Jesus that they already formed and their intense and exclusive attention to this compelling new idea. To them it was merely absolutely conclusive proof that that conception was true beyond doubt. From that time forward their attitude towards him was controlled by the firm conviction that he was superhuman in his nature and his authority, and whatever he did and said took on with them cor- responding power and meaning. They themselves now apparently for the first time began to meditate more deeply upon the conditions and the circumstances surrounding the coming of the Kingdom and of the Messiah. Now that the belief that Jesus was truly the Messiah had become firmly fixed in their minds, they were puzzled about some matters. As they went down from the mountain they in- quired about the apparent lack of the most charac- teristic feature in the common expectation of the Messianic appearance ‘‘ How is it,’’ they said, ‘‘that the scribes say that Elijah must first ecome?’’ So long as the exact nature of Jesus’ own person- ality had not been determined, that was a question that needed no answer, because the stage which the process of the coming of the Kingdom had reached was not known to them. But now that the Messiah CAESAREA PHILIPPI 133 was already here, where was the great forerunner? Jesus’ answer wag ready and explicit. ‘‘Elijah’’ he said, ‘‘indeed cometh first and restoreth all things and of the Son of Man it is written that he should suffer many things and be set at naught. But Elijah is already come and to him also they have done whatsoever they would.’’ The disciples now realized that he was speaking of John, and this momentary doubt too was laid at rest. John’s impression had been great enough to justify such an idea of him, it completely fulfilled the con- ditions of the problem; and Jesus’ answer satisfied them entirely. Krom this time on they were certain that the Messiah was actually here and that the change in the age and the actual Kingdom of God could be expected at any moment. Awe-inspiring, arousing the most vivid hopes and fears, such a con- viction must have been overwhelming to them.’ It now became clear to Jesus that at any danger and at any cost he must go up to Jerusalem to com- °The healing of the epileptic child reported as immediacely fol- lowing in Mark 9:14-29, Matthew 17:14-20, Luke 9:37-43, is sim- ilar to the numerous other cases of “casting out devils” described in the gospels. But the careful reader will recognize the com- pletely developed attack and perfectly normal recovery of con- sciousness after the attack had run its course. There is no nec- essary evidence of any actuai curative or even alleviative effect from the command of Jesus. Everything that is reported could have taken place just as well without the intervention of any ex- ternal factor whatever. An interesting side light is the impatience manifested by Jesus at the demand made upon him (Mark 9:19, Matthew 17:17, Luke 9:41). To one who was now steeling his soul for the supreme sacrifice in order to bring in the Kingdom, the continuous demands for benefits pertaining solely to this age were becoming irksome. 134 JESUS THE MAn plete the prophecies concerning the Messiah. The Messianic prophecies largely revolved about Jeru- salem. Many of them could be fulfilled in no other place. Since he believed that he must fulfill these prophecies before the Kingdom could come, the con- clusion that he must go to Jerusalem was inevitable. Judging from the way he carried out this purpose, he must also have kept in mind the possibility that after all he might be able to fulfill the prophecies and bring the Kingdom to pass without the inter- vention of his death. Perhaps when he appeared. in Jerusalem, among the chosen people of his Father, they, as had the people of Galilee, might recognize him, flock to him, fulfill the law and the prophets, and bring to pass the Kingdom that was to be. He did not desire to go to Jerusalem alone. To deal single-handed with the opposition and resist- ance of the Pharisees and the aristocrats, whom he now knew to be deeply hostile to him, would be impossible. Besides, in the great event which he expected to take place there he desired as many as possible to participate. So ealling together the Twelve, together with the crowds who, here as else- where, followed him eagerly, numbers of them fully convinced of the truth of his message, he earnestly invited them to accompany him. He did not con- ceal from them the hardships and dangers into which he was about to lead them, but showed them the use- lessness of avoiding peril at such a time. For, as he again assured them most explicitly, the Kingdom CAESAREA PHILIPPI 135 of God was about to come with power and those who were not willing to acknowledge him now, in that great day he would not acknowledge before the heav- enly Father :’ “And he called unto him the multitude with his dis- ciples, and said unto them, If any man would come aft- er me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? For what shall a man give in exchange for his life? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also shall be ashamed of him when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, there are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power.” Such an appeal to such an audience could not fail to be deeply effective. From that time he had a nucleus about him, gradually increasing with the passage of the days, of men and women who were prepared in all respects to follow him into whatso- ever circumstances he should lead them. "Mark 8:34-9-1. The reference to the cross is an unconscious reflex into the story of a factor which had no place and no meaning until after the via dolorosa and Calvary. CHAPTER XI THe Marcy To JERUSALEM Filled with this renewed determination, Jesus now cast aside his apprehension of Herod and returned to Galilee, there among the crowds which a short time before had followed him to find other follow- ers on his trip to Jerusalem. This was to be a su- preme attempt. Through his appearance in the cen- tral city of the Jewish people and the announcement of his message, supported by the wonders that he would do in their presence, surrounded by the mul- titudes who were to share with him the coming Kingdom, he would secure recognition for himself, change of attitude upon the part of the Jewish popu- lace and a surrender of the nation to the will of God. This would usher in the Kingdom at once. Or if he should fail in that, by his death, which he knew would be sure to follow such a failure, he would ful- fill the prophecies of the suffering of the Messiah and by his resurrection and return upon the clouds of Heaven, would nevertheless bring to men the Messianic kingdom. Never did other human being entertain so high a purpose; and the firmness, the unselfishness, the nobility, the utterly heroic atti- tude with which he carried it out have bound the hearts of humanity to him with unbreakable bonds of admiration and affection. IMark 9 :30-32. [136] Tue MarcH To JERUSALEM 137 First he busied himself in Capernaum, making preparations and secretly gathering together those Galileans who would accompany him to Jerusalem. He had been away from Galilee long enough to be temporarily forgotten by the authorities and for the immediate energy of their attempt to seize him to have ceased, but good sense required that no oppor- tunity be given for the officers of Herod to lay hands upon him before he had his plans completed and his followers about him. His immediate followers had not yet become in even a slight degree adjusted to Jesus’ change of attitude. They were ready to go with him to Jeru- salem, but they expected that at Jerusalem the King- dom of God would be revealed, and Jesus would come into his authority. Since the recognition of his Messiahship near Caesarea Philippi their whole attitude toward him had changed. From that time on we find an element of fear mingled with awe in the reverence which up until that time had been their prevailing sentiment in their re- *Mark 9:33; Matthew 17:22. The Greek verb used in the par- ticipial phrase translated in Matthew 17 :22 “And while they abode in Galilee” is correctly rendered by the marginal translation of the Revised Version “while they were gathering themselves to- gether in Galilee.” This verb occurs in one other place in the New Testament, Acts 28:3, and is there translated “had gathered.” In classic Greek it always has the same or a similar meaning, never the meaning “abide.” Such an interpretation would never have been placed upon it here had the translators kept in mind the meaning of this new purpose of Jesus and the character of the expedition he was organizing. The secrecy with which he was op- erating is shown in Mark 9:30. This is the first time he had vis- ited Capernaum since he left it just prior to his visit to Nazareth. 138 JESUS THE MAN lations with him. This man whom they now be- heved to be the Anointed of God, who througn the power of God was to perform wonderful things and exercise divine power as the vice-regent of God him- self in the new Kingdom which was about to dawn upon them, had become to them an entirely different personage from the preacher who had been an- nouncing the kingdom or the gifted and sympathetic man who was able to heal diseases and cast out de- mons. No wonder they became afraid. It was because of no fault of Jesus that their con- fidence in the complete and immediate success of their expedition was not shaken. While the crowds of his followers were gathering themselves together in Gali- lee, Jesus again told them that the Son of Man would be delivered up into the hands of men, that they would kill him, and that on the third day he would arise again. This conception did not neces- sarily mean that he sensed a failure of his mission. To him it was apparent that it might become neces- sary for his death to occur as a phase in the coming of the Kingdom of God. Looking at it from that distance, with the full confidence that following such an event, if it did occur, the promise of God would still be completely fulfilled and that he would return, perhaps in new form, changed so as to be able to come upon the clouds of Heaven, the antici- pation of death itself had little terror for him. If it was necessary for this to occur in order that the *Mark 9:82. Tue Marcu To JERUSALEM 139 gates of Hell should not prevail against the little band which he had called out from the midst of the lost world (that is the real meaning of the Greek term which has been translated ‘‘church’’), he was entirely willing to undergo it. But this conception seems not to have penetrated the minds of the twelve even after his numerous repetitions of it. The supreme confidence in the coming Kingdom which Jesus still maintained seemed to them to mean only the triumphant coming of the Kingdom as they had previously comprehended it, and failure and death had no part in it. The two conceptions they were unable to reconcile, so they simply put aside Jesus’ statements concerning his death, just as Peter had done when Jesus mentioned it the first time. This attitude was emphasized by the feeling of fear before referred to; they did not press their inquiries about this matter upon him for the express reason that they were afraid to do so. This fear may also have been heightened by a change of attitude upon the part of Jesus himself. Beginning with this time, an increasing hardness in his own attitude appears. It was impossible that this should not be so. No man could steel himself to undertake an enterprise which had for a very pos- sible, even probable, termination his own death, without a definite hardening of purpose and a con- centration of attention which would compel him to ignore and cast aside less important matters. The’ ‘Luke 9:51. 140 JESUS THE MAn expression of one of his chroniclers that ‘‘He set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem,’’ indicates that perhaps timid attempts were made by some of his followers to induce him to abandon this dangerous plan. There would be no reason to eall attention to the determination which he showed if there had been no opposition of any character to reveal the force of this determination. His whole at- titude at this time must have been similar to and a continuation of that determination which he re- vealed when he told Peter and the T'welve ‘‘The gates of Hell shall not prevail.’’ The continued expectation of his close folluwers that he was about to establish some type of kingdom in which they were to participate is shown by an incident occurring while they were still in Galilee. Perhaps in his own home, (the expression is ‘‘while he was in the house’’ or ‘‘at home’’) he asked them the subject of a discussion that he had observed among them upon the way.’ They hesitated to reveal the fact, which he had already observed, that they were arguing about precedence, trying to determine which of them in the Kingdom which was about to be established was to be the greatest. He did not rebuke them, but calling them all together he gave them an object lesson which should have been sufficient to indicate to them how far they missed his conception of the coming Kingdom. He took a little child and set him in the midst of them and said ‘Matthew 18:1-14; Mark 9:33-37; Luke 9:46-48. Tue Marcu To JERUSALEM 141 —‘‘*Unless you become as little children, you cannot even enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. He that shall humble himself as this little child—this one shall be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.’’ That is, there was no room in the coming Kingdom for the greater or the lesser, but only for those who received the gift of God humbly as a little. child. There was to be no authority except the authority of the Son of Man, which was not to be shared. This idea was not maintained without modification, as will be later seen, but presented as it was, it should have raised doubt in the minds of the Twelve as to whether their personal, selfish hopes were to be fulfilled in the new Kingdom. There is no reason to doubt that the followers of Jesus at this time universally held the opinion that the meaning of his coming, of the Messiahship which they had now come firmly to believe, was the in- stitution of the material and earthly kingdom of the Jews, which had been expected for generations and which constituted the never failing text for their prophets. It seems that with the possible exception of John the Baptizer, Jesus alone in his lifetime arrived at the spiritualized conception of a true kingdom of righteousness which should consist primarily in the presence of God and of a relation of love and confidence between him and those good people who by their virtue and their trust towards God should be able to endure through the change and be a part of this Kingdom. Both John the Bap- tizer and Jesus had preached that the essence of the 142 JESUS THE Man preparation for the Kingdom was a change of heart, which should be revealed in an attitude of love to- wards men and towards God; but this conception was so revolutionary, so far above the current idea of the Messianic kingdom, which was purely a sel- fish Judiastic hope, nationalist and exclusive in its nature, that it required years of meditation upon the part of even his closest’followers to enable them to realize its true meaning. There is no basis for an opinion upon the number of followers with whom he finally set out from Gal- ilee to go to Jerusalem. We only know that they were numerous, that they included the twelve and the women who had accompanied him through his Gahllean trip. Probably they included believers from all parts of northern Palestine, but with the Galileans predominating. We ean understand how it was possible to gather this body together without exciting the suspicion of Herod. The Jewish Pass- over was near at hand, and it was customary, for purposes of safety, comfort and companionship, for families and neighborhoods to join themselves to- gether to travel up to Jerusalem. At that time each year a very large percentage of the entire Jewish population of Palestine abandoned their business and went up to the racial capital to participate in the greatest of all the Jewish festivals. The roads to Jerusalem were full of such caravans, some of them very large; consequently a body of people such as Jesus gathered would be able to make this trip without exciting the interest and the suspicion THE Marcu To JERUSALEM 143 of the authorities which under other circumstances they would have been sure to arouse. Whatever the original number, they were speedily augmented by additions from every direction. When they set out, or shortly afterwards, Jesus sent out seventy chosen followers, to go in pairs into all the towns and villages through which he would pass on his way to Jerusalem, to announce the coming of the Kingdom and the purpose of this expedition, to make the necessary arrangements for their comfort, and to prepare those who were in sympathy with the purpose of the expedition to at- tach themselves to it’. These thirty-five pairs of men moving rapidly in advance through city and town, announcing anew the message of John and of Jesus, that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, that a multitude was coming on the way to Jerusa- lem to usher in that Kingdom, to a people already familiar with this message and in a large part con- verted to it, could not fail to swell the numbers of this array. For such a trip as he proposed two roads were in general use. One was by way of the Valley of the Jordan on the east side of the river, followed by the steady climb up from the Jordan through Jericho, some three thousand feet in ten or twelve miles, to ®Luke 10:1-24. Luke has included here much of the material used by Matthew and Mark in connection with the earlier sending of the Twelve. The looseness with which he assembled his mate- rial is shown by his inclusion here (evidently incorrectly) of the upbraiding of the Galilean cities (10:13-15) which also occurred mucb earlier. 144 JESUS THE MANn Jerusalem; the other, more directly south through Samaria along the irregular summit of the ridge which forms the back-bone of western Palestine, up- on the high point of which Jerusalem itself was situ- ated. It seems to have been Jesus’ plan to take the hill road, but upon the first attempt to pass through a Samaritan town the Samaritans, seeing that his face was set to go down to the hated Jerusalem, re- fused permission either to pass through or to se- cure the necessary food.’ The new spirit which filled the Twelve, who thought they were now on their way to take over the control of the world, with the com- plete divine power at their command, is revealed by the question of James and John—‘‘Do you desire that we bid fire come down from Heaven and con- sume them?’’—an inquiry which showed their own unwillingness to brook opposition, as well as their present opinion of the power of their leader. The inquiry evoked only a rebuke, but the attitude of the Samaritans which had caused the question changed the course of the journey and Jesus and his followers turned to the east along the borders between Samaria and Galilee to take the other road. Numerous incidents of the journey are told.” For "Luke 9:51-56; 17:11; Matthew 19:1. The attitude of the Samaritans may have been caused by a realization of his purpose and an unwillingness to complicate themselves with the authori- ties by giving aid and assistance to such an expedition. ‘Luke carries most of this material. Indeed, by far the largest element in the third gospel is the chronicle of this expedition and the report of the numerous discourses delivered on the way. ‘“Q” evidently was largely composed of this material. It is not eare- =. PO ee Ee * te ogra ohy - = Oo ND ee oe Tuer Marcu To JERUSALEM 145 the most part the healings which characterize the early months in Galilee are now lacking. But some of the most illuminating of his parables and dis- courses were delivered during this march. He seems again to have been harassed by emissar- ies of the Pharisees who mingled in the crowds of his followers and attempted to put him at a disad- vantage. Another time under the urgings of those same skeptics, who insisted that he tell them just when and where the Kingdom he was promising would appear, he said:” “And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The Kingdom fully organized, however, and with it is mingled much iaterial from the earlier months of his preaching, parts of which Matthew includes in the Sermon on the Mount and the great series of par- ables delivered on the seashore at Capernaum, together with a sprinkling of the discourses and discussions which occurred in the temple at Jerusalem. There is no sequence whatever in this part of Luke; apparently he assembled the material before him with- out any definite system or idea of chronological order. Such in- ference as can be drawn from: it indicates that “Q’ was a disor- ganized collection of the sayings of Jesus, without reference to connection or sequence in time, and that Luke merely inserted parts of it bodily, without attempt to unscramble it, or to place each saying or discourse in its proper relation to the narrative of Mark. Mark mentions only six incidents which occurred on the way; Matthew follows Mark closely. Consequently, with most of the material contained only in Luke, and that interspersed with material plainly belonging to other periods of his career, there is no means for determining an absolute sequence for this trip. Many events are described which transpired between the time he left Galilee and his arrival at Bethany but the order is unde- termined. There is no reason for believing that the order of these events which this book follows in the text is correct, or even more nearly so than others that could be proposed. ‘Luke 16:14. ~vTjuke 17 :20-36. 146 JESUS THE MANn of God cometh not so that it can be observed; neither shall they say, Lo here, or lo there!. for behold, the king- dom of God is in your midst.” And he said unto the dis- ciples” Thy days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, Lo, there; Lo, here! go not away nor follow after them. For as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part of heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall the Son of Man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. And as it came to pass in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and de- stroyed them all. Likewise, even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. After the same manner, it shall be in the day that the Son of Man is revealed. In that day he that shall be upon the house top, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away: and let him that is in the field, likewise not return back. Re- member Lot’s wife. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men on one bed; the one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding to- gether; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.” That is, the Kingdom is not a matter of location, subject to observation, a place to which one ean go, but a condition which is in the midst, everywhere, and which appears suddenly, without warning, not subject to observation or prevision. When the Son “Note how he speaks freely to his disciples, with reserve to the Pharisees. Verse 25 looks like an insertion of a saying of another time; here it only breaks the thought. VQuke 14:25-33. Tue Marcu To JERUSALEM 147 of Man comes on the clouds of heaven, the Kingdom will appear everywhere at once, just as the lightning appears all over the sky at once. The importance and danger of the enterprise upon which he had embarked seemed to grow upon him. He soon realized that these tremendous multitudes, which were flocking to him along the way and in every village through which he passed, were in large part composed of people who did not compre- hend the seriousness of their undertaking. His de- mands upon his followers became more rigid, more diffeult of compliance, but still more consonant with the nature of the enterprise. For instance in one place we are told:” “Now there went with him great multitudes; and he turned and said unto them, If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” For which of you desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down, and count the cost, whether he have wherewith to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath laid a founda- tion, and is not able to finish, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, as he goeth to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first, and take coun- sel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and asketh conditions of peace. So therefore, *Verse 27 is another instance of a transfer of post-crucifixion language back into the language of Jesus. 148 JESUS THE MANn whosoever the be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” And at another time: “And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my fatner. Jesus said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead: but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God.” “And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the king- dom of God.” A realization of the hazard of his situation, in which he was in constant danger from the agents of Herod, and could find no place of safety, is shown in another remark— “And as they went on the way, a certain man said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.” Another instance of his idea of the extent to which everything must be abandoned in order to enter into his Kingdom is found in his language to a young ruler among the Jews, who as Jesus and his multi- tudes were passing ran out to meet him.” “And when he was going forth into the way, there ran one to him and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the com- “Luke 9 :59-62. *Tuke 9 :57-58. *Mark 10:17-22; Matthew 19:16-22; Luke 18:18-23. } THe Marcu to JERUSALEM 149 mandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor thy father and thy mother. And he said unto ‘him, Teach- er, all these I thave observed from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But his countenance fell at the saying, and he went away sorrowful: for he was one that had great possessions.” Much light is thrown upon the character of the erowds who were following him by the comments of Jesus to his disciples upon this incident :* “And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his dis- ciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” The inference to be drawn from this is obvious. The multitudes which by this time were grown so large that they were trampling upon one another in their attempts to approach near to Jesus” were com- posed of a type similar in general to those who thronged to him during his first months in Galilee. This is naturally to be expected, because of the char- acter of hope which Jesus held out in his promise of the overturn of existing conditions. Those who “Duke 12:1. 150 JESUS THE Man were rich and powerful, to whom the existing order was more satisfactory, did not find the same motive to follow Jesus in such an undertaking as did the poor and weak, to whom Jesus’ message opened a door of hope hitherto completely closed. This situa- tion prevailed for a long time, for we find Paul twenty years later writing that—‘‘not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.’” The conversation which followed the visit of the young ruler also throws additional light upon the nature of the hope entertained by the Twelve, a hope in this instance at least to some extent supported by Jesus. Observing the refusal of the young ruler to take the advice of Jesus, to leave his possessions and to follow him, Peter began to say: ‘‘We have left all and followed thee. What then shall we have?’’ Jesus’ response was astonishingly specific: “Ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and every one that hath left houses or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundred fold and shall inherit eternal life.” It is small cause for wonder that the multitudes of the poor and distressed, long filled with the belief that all this relief was surely to come at some time, and now subject to the new belief that the man who 1 Cor. 1:26. *Matthew 19:27-29; Mark 10:28-30; Luke 18 :28-30. Tt ey THe Marcy To JERUSALEM 151 was leading them down to Jerusalem was really about to fulfill these promises, should have flocked in thousands to one who so boldly offered such tremen- dous rewards for following him. Filled with this spirit and still unrepressed by the incident in Galilee when the twelve attempted to de- termine who should be greatest among them, per- haps even in entire ignorance of this event, the mother of James and John, the two most ambitious members of the Twelve, as they approached the end of their journey came to Jesus and made a new re- quest, asking that when he should come into his Kingdom, one of her sons should be permitted to have the place upon his right and the other on his left.” His refusal to promise them the two places of highest honor was coupled with an expression indicating that in his own mind he had not fully worked out all the things which were to occur. ‘‘*To sit on my right hand or on my left hand,’’ he said, ‘‘is not mine to give, but is for them for whom it has been prepared.”’ His assurance of his Messiahship seemed in this in- stance to be limited to his own personal part; he had not decided who, if anyone, would share his personal glory, though in the previous instance he had not hesitated to assure Peter that at the end of the world the twelve should occupy their twelve thrones, judg- ing the twelve tribes. The great influx of new additions raised a ques- tion in the mind of his earlier adherents as to wheth- "Matthew 20 :20-28. Loe JESUS THE Man er their place in the Kingdom was to be divided with the neweomers. Evidently, if there were to be more participants there would be less for each in the ma- terial kingdom which they all expected and it seemed unfair that those just joining them should enter it on the same basis as those who had been with him from the beginning. Jesus, who desired that all who were willing should enter with him, attempted to al- lay this feeling by the parable of the householder, who paid all those whom he employed to work in his vineyard the same,” without reference to when they began work, and justified the householder as doing what he desired with his own: “Many shall be last that are first, and first that are last. For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that was a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing in the market place idle, and to them he said, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you; and they went their way. Again he went about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out. and found others standing; and he said unto them, Why stand ye all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye into the vine- yard. And when even was come, the lord of the vine- yard saith unto his steward, Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from; the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a denarius. And when “Matthew 19 :30-20 :16. Tue Marcy To JERUSALEM (ays the first came they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received every man a denarius. And when they received it they murmured against the householder, saying, These last have spent but one hour, and thou hath made them equal unto us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he answered and said to one of them, Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with me for a denarius? Take up that which is thine, and go thy way; it is my will to give unto the last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? or is thine eye evil because I am good? So the last shall be first and the first last.” The roads were filled with parties of pilgrims on their way to the Passover, and at least in the earlier stages the party of Messianists had escaped ob- servation. But by this time Herod’s government had again become aware of Jesus’ activity and were correspondingly active in their attempt to seize him. Certain of the Pharisees, perhaps apprehensive of the result of the march of this great multitude upon Jerusalem and seeking by arousing his fears to dis- suade him from his purpose, now came to him and told him of his danger, advising him to ‘‘get thy- self hence for Herod seeks to kill thee.’’* He was now within Herod’s territory and subject to certain arrest if he should be found. He was not ignorant of his danger, but he was fully embarked upon an undertaking from which there was to be no turning back. ‘‘Go tell that fox’’ he said to those who brought him the information, ‘‘behold I cast out de- mons and perform cures to-day and to-morrow; the “Luke 13 :31-33. 154 JESUS THE MAN third day, I end my course. Nevertheless I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow and the day fol- lowing for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.’’ The probability of his death was definite in his mind, but it was also a definite part of his concep- tion that this death, if it was to occur, must take place in Jerusalem. He seems now to have begun to realize that the expectation of the multitude was too definite; that they were confident that the King- dom of God was immediately to appear in material form and were in no sense prepared for the events which he saw might possibly, even probably inter- vene before that consimmation. To prepare them for possible disappointment, he now delivered to them a parable, which clearly reveals his own ex- pectation of his departure (his death), his return, and upon his return his exaction of an accounting both from followers and from those who would not receive him :* “He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to re- turn. And he called ten servants of his, and gave them ten pounds, and said unto them, Trade ye herewith till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent an ambassage after him, saying, We will not that this man reign over us. And it came to pass, when he was come back again, having received the kingdom, then he commanded to be called unto him the servants unto whom he had given the money, that he might know what they had gained by *Tuke 19:11-28. Tre Marcy To JERUSALEM Woo trading. And before him came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath made ten pounds more. And he said unto him, Well done, thou good servant: because thou wast found faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said unto him also, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layest not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. He saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked ser- vant. Thou knewest that I am an austere man, taking up that which I laid not down, and reaping that which I did not sow; wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, and at my coming I should have required it with interest? And he said unto them that stood by, Take away from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds. I say unto you, That unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. But these mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. And when he had spoken, he went on before, going up to Jerusalem.” Near the northern shore of the Dead Sea, the road turned west and began the rapid ascent into the mountainous country of Jerusalem. Through Jericho, vivid with the traditions of a thousand years, they went on their way up toward the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives; a band of thousands of men and women, at the front of whom marched the Twelve with the determined figure of Jesus himself leading them all. As they approached the end of this strange journey, its seriousness and its danger gradually impressed itself upon them all. This delib- 156 JESUS THE MANn erate attempt to take possession of the great city of Judaism, which seemed so simple to them when they were still in Galilee, confident in the super- natural powers of their leader and in the assurance of the prophets, when it now was near its com- pletion became a colossal undertaking.”. The Twelve themselves were amazed and the great mass who crowded behind them were afraid, but there was no weakening in the purpose or in the forward move- ment of the man who walked grimly and steadily be- fore them, who had already determined to give up his life if it was necessary, to fulfill the prophecies and bring to the world the Kingdom of God. He again advised his disciples of the personal disaster which awaited him, but there wag no hesitation as he went on toward it. *Mark, 10:32-34, Professor Turner (The Study of the New Testament p 62, 1) finds “fa serious difficulty in the exegesis of these verses,”’ which disappears as soon as they are taken in their literal meaning. The classic idea, that only the twelve accom- panied Jesus to Jerusalem, misses the heart of the whole transac- tion. No one who has followed the story to this point will have any doubt that any attempt to change the text as Professor Turner suggests, so as to eliminate the mass of followers, will do absolute violence to the facts as shown in the entire record from Caesarea Philippi on. ; CHAPTER XII Tue Messtanic Entry To JERUSALEM On Friday night previous to the week which has been the focus of the eyes of the world to a greater extent than any other similar period in its history, Jesus abode at Jericho, about sixteen miles from Jerusalem, in the home of a rich publican named Zaccheus. This man was no doubt one of those to whom some of the seventy had spoken, for Jesus seemed to recognize him at sight, and said to him, ‘‘This day I must abide at thy house.’’ Evidently this occurred according to a prearranged plan. It is likely that arrangements of this kind were part of the duty of those who were sent ahead of him. At any rate we have record of instances during this trip where Jesus was entertained by persons of import- ance, which indicates that advance information of his coming had been available. Even without the record it would be entirely reasonable to presume that so formidable an undertaking would have been carefully planned, the stages marked out, and pro- visions made for housing and food. 1Tuke 19:1-10. "Luke 11:37; 14:1-24; 19:1-10. Luke 14:1-6 however, while placed among the events of the march, probably occurred much earlier, for the Sabbath question had its prominence much earlier, and unless he traveled extraordinarily slowly, he could not have spent a Sabbath on this march. It very likely occurred during the Capernaum period of Mark 3:1-6; Matthew 12:9-14. These three look like variants of the same story. [157] 158 JESUS THE Man On Saturday night they halted near the village of Bethany, on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, a great hill which fronts Jerusalem on the east. Here dwelt a family of two sisters, Martha and Mary, and a brother, Simon, whose hospitality has made them famous through all generations. It is not possible to be certain, but it is likely that Jesus spent the night at this home. Mary, especial- ly, seems to have been impressed by the message of Jesus and to have become deeply attached to him.’ From the village of Bethany around the southern side of the hill, down its western slope, across the deep and precipitous gorge called the Brook Kidron and through the eastern gate to the Temple, was some two miles. On the morning of Sunday, Jesus prepared to carry out his plan to fulfill a well-known prophecy concerning the coming of the Messiah. In the Book of Zechariah, the prophet, (c. 9:9) is a passage which was universally believed to de- scribe the coming of the Messiah to his holy city: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh unto thee; he is just, and saved; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass.” The belief in the necessity of the fulfillment of > Luke 10:38-42. That he at least partook of the evening meal there is indicated by the statement in vy. 38 that he entered into the house while they were “on the way.” This could not have occurred after the Messianic entry of the next day, and must have been subsequent to the stay at Jericho. Bethany was a good day’s journey from Jericho for a multitude composed of all ages and both sexes,—some 18 or 14 miles, with an increase in eleva- tion of 3000 feet. Tue Messtanic Entry 159 this prophecy was no doubt one of the reasons which caused Jesus to undertake the trip to Jerusalem. Many other such prophecies, believed to be appli- cable to the coming of the Messianic kingdom, must have pressed upon his consciousness as obligations upon him. In order to bring in the Kingdom, he be- lieved he must first fulfill all the scriptures appli- cable to the Kingdom. No doubt the disciples who had been sent before had made arrangements for this occasion. At any rate, arrangements had been made by someone. He sent two of his disciples into a neighboring vil- lage’ with instructions to bring with them an ass which had never yet been ridden, which they would find tied there, assuring them that the owner would promptly give permission upon the disciples making the statement which had previously been agreed up- on as a signal. This was carried out according to the plan; the disciples cast their garments on the back of the beast, and Jesus sat thereon and with his fol- lowers in procession both behind and before him, in the midst of a multitude began what has generally been described as the triumphal entry, but which should be more accurately described as the Messi- anic approach to Jerusalem. The crowds in advance of him threw their gar- ments in the road as he started down the steep slope ‘Matthew 26:54, 56; Mark, 14:49. SMatthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:29:38. Evidently Jesus spent the night at Bethany and sent to Bethphage for the colt. 160 JESUS THE MAN at the lower part of the Mount of Olives. Others went into the fields thereabout and pulled branches from the trees and brought them to cast into the way. As they went they chanted a chorus—‘‘ Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; blessed is the kingdom that com- eth, the kingdom of our Father David; hosanna in the highest.’’ The very language of this chant is found in one of the Messianic psalms.’ It was another of the Messianic prophecies that must be fulfilled, and since it was sung by everybody in the procession, had no doubt been chosen by previous plan. It an- nounced in distinct terms their expectation—that ‘‘the kingdom of our Father David cometh;’’ that the age-long promise to their race was about to be fulfilled. For it is certain that at this time Jesus’ mind was full of prophecies which he must fulfill and that he was engaged in deliberately fulfilling these proph- ecies with the purpose that all the things which were required to occur prior to the coming of the King- dom of God should occur and thereby the Kingdom be permitted to come. It was this spirit of willingness to spend himself to the uttermost in order to bring about the King- dom of God, or to remove obstacles which might pre- vent the coming of the Kingdom of God, which gave ‘Psalm 118:26. This psalm was of much interest to Jesus. We find him again quoting this language as he leaves the temple and using y. 22, 23 in his arguments with the Pharisees in the Tue Messianic Entry 161 to these last days their wondertul value, and makes him the most heroie figure of all the ages, the high- est example of devotion to an unselfish ideal. The entrance of this multitude with Jesus at its head stirred the city to its depths.” We could wish to know how many there really were to justify the tremendous effect he had upon the city, and the in- timidation which they imposed upon the Jewish leaders the next day. Luke speaks of them as being many thousands, so great a crowd that they trod upon one another, much earlier in the course of the journey. It can readily be believed that those who followed him in on the evening of that eventful Sunday must have been genuinely an immense mul- titude as measured by the standards of that time and place, running high into the thousands, and suffi- cient to overflow the city and place its population and authorities in extreme apprehension. Except to the most important and best informed of the authorities, who had been advised of his pre- vious activities, Jesus was at this time unknown to the people of Jerusalem, as his entire work had been done in Galilee. The population who watched the surging multitude crowd through the streets and about the temple area inquired and demanded eag- erly who this might be. The answer from the mul- temple. As used by the multitude it did not indicate that they looked upon him as the son of David; it merely indicated that they were expecting the immediate coming of the kingdom of David and with it the long expected son of David to be its head. "Matthew 21:10, 11. 162 JESUS THE MAN titude was, ‘‘This is the prophet Jesus, from Naz- areth of Galilee.’’ It is interesting to note that even yet the belief that Jesus was the Messiah had not been com- municated by Jesus or by the twelve to the multi- tude. Even those who had followed him from Gal- ilee to witness at Jerusalem the change of the age and the coming of the Kingdom of God when asked who he was, responded—*‘The prophet, Jesus,’’— not ‘‘the Son of God,”’ or ‘‘the Anointed of God,’’ or even ‘‘The Son of David.’’ At the time of Peter’s confident statement at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus had cautioned the twelve not to make it known that he was the Christ, and they had followed the instruction well. In the minds of the multitude he entered Jerusalem as the an- nunciator of the Kingdom, not as the Anointed One. He was still ‘a prophet as one of the prophets.”’ This procedure had involved a large part of the day. Jesus entered into the temple, looked around about on all things there, observed the conditions prevailing; but now that the day was well spent, withdrew and returned to Bethany,’ leaving for the morrow the achievement which would make it the most triumphant day of his life. ®Mark 11:11; Matthew 21:17. CHAPTER AIT He Takes Possession OF THE TEMPLE With the new day, Jesus returned from Bethany to the Temple. Where the multitude who accom- panied him had spent the night, we have no informa- tion. We may perhaps be permitted to wonder whether they remained together as a more or less compact body, returning with Jesus to Bethany and encamping over the Mount of Olives, or were scatter- ed throughout the streets of Jerusalem. But from the extent to which he was able to over-awe the temple authorities, it is evident that they were with him when he returned to the temple the next day. The system of structures which was known un- der the general term ‘‘the temple’’ was an immense institution. It was situated on the summit of the ridge which constituted the eastern section of Jeru- salem, extending north and south between two deep valleys with almost precipitous sides. The top of the ridge in its natural state was not large enough to accommodate the buildings of the temple, so it had been artificially extended. Stupendous walls of immense stones had been constructed from the Our information as to the construction and appearance of the temple is drawn from Josephus, the Talmud, and the many references in the Bible. In his study of “Jerusalem in Bible Times” Dr. Paton has assembled all this information with full references to the original authorities. A wonderful pictured re- construction of the Temple according to these authorities is con- tained in Dr. Sanday’s “Sacred Sites of the Gospels”. [163] 164 JESUS THE Man bottom of the valley to a height even with the sum- mit of the hill, a height reliably represented to have been over four hundred feet. The space between these walls and the hill itself was partly made into chambers for various uses appurtenant to the temple, and partly filled in, so that upon the top there was finally furnished a level space that might be roughly described as three city blocks square, a total of approximately nine blocks. In the midst of this space, somewhat nearer to the west side of it, raised some distance above the level of the rest of the platform, was the temple itself, facing the east, a marvelous structure, 150 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 150 feet high, built of blocks of white marble, partly sheathed over with plates of gold. Surrounding it at different levels were the dif- ferent courts, the Court of Priests, the Court of Israel, and the Court of Women. About this central mass of structures was the spacious Court of the Gentiles, separated from the inner courts by a bal- ustrade 414 feet high, within which Gentiles were prohibited from entering under pain of immediate death. Surrounding the entire structure, on the north, east, and west, at its outer margin, was a porch 45 feet wide, formed by two rows of white marble columns almost 40 feet high, supporting a cedar roof; on the south was a similar porch, twice as wide, supported by four rows of columns, and two stories high. This broad porch on the south was known as the ‘‘royal porch,’’ the one on the east as ‘‘Solomon’s porch.’’ At this time these He Taxes PossEssion OF THE TEMPLE 165 porches were under reconstruction; they were de- stroyed by fire during a tumult in the time of Arch- elaus’ and were not entirely rebuilt until the time of Nero. This spacious structure, consisting chiefly of open area, was obviously capable of containing an immense number of people, and was the focus of the entire Jewish race. Hither at the time of the an- nual feasts, such as the present occasion, when the Passover was very near at hand, came Jews from all over the world in countless numbers, one esti- mate placing the total number of visitors present at one time at more than two million, seven hundred thousand people.’ Inasmuch as one purpose of all these visitors was to have some sacrifice performed on their behalf, an immense organization of priests must have been maintained for the purpose of conducting these sacrifices. Kach sacrifice was a specific act, requiring for its completion the slaughter of a bird or an animal, according to the purpose of the sacrifice and the financial condition of the person offering the sacrifice, as determined by the complicated ceremonial system of Moses. These people, who had come from almost every quarter of the inhabited globe in order to have these sacrifices offered for them, must supply the animals, which un- der the circumstances it was for the most part im- possible for them to bring with them. Therefore they ORCDHUS, VW Arseliy ill, Antiq: AVIS, sy 1, 25 ibid. XX) ix3c7. *’Josephus, Wars VI, ix, 38. 166 JESUS THE MAN must secure these animals after their arrival in Je- rusalem. The most convenient place to acquire them would naturally be in the neighborhood of the temple itself, and because of that fact an immense business had been built up in the temple area, under the di- rection of the leading priests, and for their profit. Booths were operated throughout the Court of the Gentiles from which the visiting Israelite could pur- chase the sacrifice required for his purpose. As a necessary adjunct thereto, a system of money chang- ing was built up, whereby the foreign money brought by the visitors from all over the world might be con- verted into the current coin of Jerusalem and made available for the purchases and for the gifts which were to be deposited in the temple treasury. It requires no stretch of imagination to compre- hend that the prices at which this service was ren- dered would be exorbitant, or that such prices would arouse the keenest criticism and antagonism from those who were subjected to them. The conduct of this business had made the family of the High Priest and of the other Jewish family which was in continuous competition with it and which shared in this business, immensely rich, and had done as much as any other one thing to arouse against the priestly class the antagonism which was shown in the speech of John the Baptist and of Jesus throughout Galilee, and which was no doubt approved by their hearers. The Jew’s eagerness for gain is proverbial and was no less during the age we are describing than it is to- day. The priesthood among the Jews was an occu- He Taxes PosskESSION OF THE TEMPLE 167 pation determined by inheritance,’ which required no more religious enthusiasm and no more keenly de- veloped moral sense than any other occupation. There is no reason to assume that stricter honesty prevailed in all the countless transactions which oc- curred within the temple area than prevailed in sim- ilar transactions out in the body of the city itself. So great had this business become that it was the dominating feature of the temple. The whole temple area was permeated with the atmosphere of com- merce. At this time, on Monday before the Passov- er to be celebrated on Saturday, we can easily pic- ture to ourselves the accumulating mass of animals and birds in preparation for the gathering crowds, and the confusion and noise incident to the vast business. Into this unreligious, selfish, commercialized insti- tution Jesus had come to complete the requirements preliminary to the coming of the Kingdom of God, and to inaugurate that Kingdom. Here he expected his message to be heard and hoped that the multitude of the Jerusalemites and the other Jews would hear him, and with a changed heart believe the good tidings and so open their lives to God, that the Kingdom of Heaven would come upon them. But it was obvious that in such an at- mosphere as this, it would be impossible to secure a hearing. Among such surroundings there was no ‘The decendants of Aaron were priests, all of whom were drawn from that tribe. 168 JESUS THE Man possibility that an ideal conception such as he of- fered could receive consideration. His soul burned within him as he saw the extent to which those who led the destinies of Israel had failed of their high opportunities and responsibili- ties. Here was no religious feeling; here was only cold, selfish, sordid commercialism. With him was a multitude sufficient to support him in any action that he might undertake, and he did not hesitate.’ Making a scourge of small cords, and enforcing his demands both by the power of his presence and by the weight of the multitude of his followers, ready to apply force if necessary, he ordered those who were conducting the offending institution to leave the temple enclosure. ‘‘Itis written,’’ he said, ‘*My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.’” This was not done gently. Where the offenders did not move rapidly enough, he overthrew the tables of the money changers and the booths of them that sold the animals, and speedily swept the whole mass, birds, sheep, cattle, dealers and bankers with their attendants out of the temple enclosure. He did not stop with the mere removal of the of- fending dealers and bankers. He took over the con- trol of the entire temple enclosure. To do this he must have over-awed by his presence and the num- ‘Mark 11:15-18; Matthew 21:12, 138; Luke 19:45-48, ‘Isaiah 56:7. ‘Jeremiah 7:11. He Taxes PosskEssion OF THE TEMPLE 169 ber of his followers, even the priests who were in charge of the temple, and the police through which they maintained order. For this day at least, they were all thoroughly terrorized and subdued. Jesus and his followers were in complete control of the entire temple area, and would not permit any man so much as to carry a vessel through the enclosure. For this one day at least, the temple was held sacred for the purpose for which it was founded,—that of the worship of God. Whether this was a part of the plan of Jesus in coming to Jerusalem, or merely the outgrowth of a sudden flash of anger at the outrage which he saw being perpetrated, we cannot tell posi- tively, but in either case, he was at least temporarily successful. For that day, he was the supreme power in the center of the Jewish nation. Surrounded by great crowds of enthusiastic followers, all others ei- ther swept out of his way or subdued into silence and acquiescence, he maintained control of the temple, the heart itself of his people. It is quite probable that the event was a part of his plan. Judg- ing from his expressions of disappointment later, he seems to have expected that he would here find the same type of recognition which had greeted him in his journeys through Galilee, hoping that through the submission of the entire nation to his demands, acting as he believed himself to be as the direct rep- resentative of God, the nation would repent and make itself fit for the coming of the Kingdom, which should then appear. Information of this audacious stroke and its sue- 170 JESUS THE Man cess speedily swept over Jerusalem. Not only were the dispossessed priests and the High Priest, the head of the nation, whose authority was thus flouted, filled with amazement and anger, but another au- thority, which had been as freely set at naught, was immediately informed and deeply interested. Herod Antipas also was a visitor in Jerusalem at this time. True to his Jewish bringing up, he came with the other thousands of Jews to the central city of that race to participate in this most sacred of its festivals. As the word quickly sped from lip to lip who Jesus was and whence he came, it was most natural that the dispossessed and temporarily intimidated priests should hurry to Herod with in- formation concerning the confusion and damage his unruly subject and his followers were making.’ He and his officers were no doubt little less aston- ished than were the chief priests to find this Galilean preacher, who only a short time before had been a fugitive from his authority, exiled into foreign parts, all at once in Jerusalem at the head of a multitude great enough to over-awe the most power- ful authorities of the Jewish nation, and actually in physical control of the great temple itself. The situation was an emergency and called for immediate action on the part of the authorities. But for this day they were unable to act to any ad- ®’The representatives of Herod were present with the priests on the next day when they exhausted their ingenuity in their at- tempt to trap him. The information probably reached Herod on Monday. Matthew 22:16. He Taxes PosskssIon OF THE TEMPLE 171 vantage. ‘'he thing had come upon them suddenly and unexpectedly and they were unprepared to cope with it at once. They immediately determined to de- stroy this—as it seemed to them—upstart adven- turer, but the purpose was much easier to arrive at than its fulfillment. Herod, outside of his own ter- ritory, was without authority and was not on good terms with the Roman officers in Jerusalem. The Roman procurator, or governor, Pilate, was a man who was entirely out of sympathy with the Jews, refused to become interested in the numerous local disturbances which arose among them, and would not participate in any matter in which he was not al- ready personally interested, unless it involved some infraction of his own orders or of the general Roman laws. Without such help they were entirely unable to meet Jesus with force, for the multitude cf his followers was greater than the limited physical force which they could instantly muster. In the mean- time Jesus stood in the temple and preached his message to the assembling multitude, who now crowded about him. As the word went about con- cerning him, and what he had done in the previous months of Galilee, those who had come to the feast as well no doubt as the inhabitants of Jerusalem, brought their sick and blind and lame to him in the temple and he healed them.’ Impressed with the events of the day, a great exaltation possessed the multitude and the same results that occurred among *Matthew 21:14-16; Luke 19:39, 40. Alea JESUS THE Man the crowds of Galilee naturally followed. Many of those who had ailments of various kinds were so im- pressed by the personality of the great man who spoke to them and whom they had just seen in ac- tion, and by the enthusiastic and contagious confi- dence of the crowd about them that they became re- lieved of their disorders, unconscious of their pain and limitations and felt themselves participating in their own bodies in the divine power which they now were sure issued from the person of Jesus. Surrounded as he was by these multitudes who hung upon his words, the priests and temple author- ities, Jealous and resentful though they were, and determined to destroy him, could find no way to come at him.” They heard the children in the temple repeating the chant they had heard their elders shout—‘* Hosanna to the Son of David.’’ The priests recognized the meaning of this ery; the Messianic implication contained in it was obvious and it arous- ed in them intense indignation. Those priests who were near him and observing him closely called his attention to it, saying, ‘‘Hearest thou what these are saying?’’ But he, convinced that the great Messianic prophecies were now being fulfilled, con- fident because of his success that God was truly with him, that the multitudes were turning towards him, and through him towards the Most High, eried ‘‘ Yea, Yea, I tell you that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will ery out.’’ *Luke 19 :47-48. Her Taxes Possession OF THE TEMPLE 173 The day ended. Surrounded by his faithful fol- lowers, he again withdrew to Bethany, filled with the consciousness of success, confident in the hope that his expectations were to be fulfilled. He felt no need to protect his success by arrang- ing to hold the control of the temple; God would protect it. To him this whole procedure was the assurance of the coming of the Kingdom, which no devices of men could prevent. CHAPTER XIV Tue ARGUMENT IN THE TEMPLE—THE AUTHORITIES TRIUMPH With the return of the day, Jesus returned early to the scene of his triumph. No doubt surrounded still by the multitude, which over-ran the temple en- closure, he prepared to continue his discourses of the day before, announcing the coming of the King- dom. But the temple authorities and chief priests, who had recovered from the panic of the day before and were unwilling further to surrender possession of the temple to him, met him at once with a challenge.’ ‘‘By what authority’’ they said ‘*doest thou these things? Who gave you this authority?’’ Apparent- ly all the authority of the nation was present to make this challenge; the temple officials, the lawyers, the chiefs of the priestly order and the members of the Sanhedrin, the great national court. The question was a dangerous one for Jesus. If he admitted that his action had been without author- ity, he certainly would have lost his influence with the multitude, which had recognized and supported the authority which he had assumed. His attitude upon the previous day had been imperious, superb, an assumption of an authority superior even to that of those in charge of the temple. To have admitted *Mark 11:27-33; Matthew 21:23-27; Luke 20:1-8. [174] Tur ARGUMENT IN THE TEMPLE 175 that he had no authority, would have been to undo all that he had accomplished, to drop immediately to the level of an interloper, not entitled to be support- ed and consequently, of course, certain to be aban- doned. Upon the other hand, if he claimed an au- thority, he would immediately bring himself into conflict with the government of Pilate. The Roman governor would not interfere in the religious squab- bles of his subjects but would have been very prompt to act had any one appeared attempting to exercise an authority independent of the Romans.’ And Jesus could not claim that he held any authority from Pilate. Instead of answering directly, he did a much more effective thing. He turned the situation upon his an- 7To understand this situation and much of the course of the next few days it is necessary to remember precisely the relation between the active governmental factors. Since the deposition of Archelaus, son of Herod the Great and brother of Herod An- tipas, Judea and Samaria had been an imperial Roman province, governed by a procurator responsible to the emperor. This gov- ernment had not suspended the Jewish municipal government from their control over their temple, but had deprived the Jewish auth- orities of the power to inflict the death penalty without confirma- tion of their sentence by the procurator. The Jewish government was conducted by a council of seventy, known as the Great Sanhe- drin, assisted by several inferior tribunals, also called Sanhedrin, with smailer and varying numbers. The high priest was president of the Sanhedrin and consequently of the nation. The Sanhedrin was largely composed of priests, and they operated according to the Mosaic law as developed and expanded by the scribes or law- yers. The temple had a police force under the direction of the High Priest subject to the Great Sanhedrin, and the Jewish au- thorities were apparently permitted to operate the peace officers of the city so long as they were able to prevent tumult. The Ro- man government maintained a force of soldiers in the Castle 176 JESUS THE Man tagonists by a move that placed them in turn upon the defensive. ‘‘I also ask you a question,”’ he said, ‘Cand if you answer my question, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things.. The bap- tism of John, whence was it? from Heaven or from men ?’’ This was a poser. The questioners in their turn debated how to reply to him. The problem of John was a difficult one for them. In the popular excite- ment raised by him, they had maintained their bal- ance, and had not accepted his Messianic message as true. They considered the whole movement begun by him as a people led astray by an enthusiast. But they were in the minority. Most of the Jews of all classes believed that John was a true prophet. They reasoned with themselves—‘‘If we shall say of Antonia, a short distance from the northwest corner of the temple and directly connected with it by a protected gallery. Herod had no governmental authority whatever in Jerusalem; he was in the position of a visiting potentate, whose powers when at home were practically equivalent to those of the Roman procurator in Jerusalem, and who consequently was entitled to every courtesy from him. Great numbers of his Jewish sub- jects, especially from Galilee, were in Jerusalem every year at the Passover, and as they were the most unruly and turbulent of all the Jews they were frequently in conflict with the Roman authorities. One such instance had occurred shortly before the arrival of Jesus’ multitude and Pilate’s severity had produced a strained relationship between him and Herod. (Luke 13:1; 23:12). The Jerusalem population, especially during feast times when the city was crowded with visitors, was given to frequent and violent tumults, which frequently were ended only by the use of great violence by the Romans in suppressing them, and a consequent increase in the rigidity of restrictions placed upon the Jews. Some of them cost lives into the thousands in their sup- pression. THe ARGUMENT IN THE TEMPLE 177 this baptism was from heaven, he will then ask us, Why then did you not believe him? But if we shall say from men’’—the fear of the multitude, present and practically surrounding them, came over them. It would not be safe in that crowd to deny that John was a true prophet. They did the only safe thing. They said, ‘‘ We do not know.”’ Jesus was released from his uncomfortable situa- tion. If they were unable to answer his question, he was under no obligation to answer theirs. ‘‘Nei- ther do I tell you,’ he said, ‘‘by what authority I do these things.”’ This opposition was not what Jesus had expected. The success of the previous day, when everybody had recognized his authority, even the priests and temple authorities themselves being subdued and silent in the presence of the overwhelming force which he presented, had given him a right to expect that to-day all Jerusalem would be ready to accept his message as had Galilee. This unexpected and antagonistic greeting, indicating unquestionably that the rulers of the nation would not admit his authority, aroused intense feeling in him. His was not a nature that readily brooked opposition. Be- heving as he did that he was the Messiah, the chosen of God, the idea of opposition, of resistance to his will, was discordant and obnoxious in the extreme. Wherever, in the record of his brief career, we find him in contact with critics or opponents, we find evi- dence of irritation and anger, just as in this instance. In addition, no doubt on this occasion the author- 178 JESUS THE Man ities had taken advantage of the night to make them- selves safe against any repetition of the experience of the day before. Then they had been taken by sur- prise, with no expectation of any such outbreak as he had without warning aroused in their midst, and did not have enough guard or police to present any effective opposition to the program which he so promptly carried out. No doubt upon this day the temple was fully guarded. We are told nothing about the presence of the merchants or the bank- ers, but it can readily be assumed that they were back in their accustomed places with enough pro- tection to prevent a new disaster like the other. Prudence prevented them from any attempt to ar- rest him, surrounded as he was by the multitude of his followers, but their desire and their purpose were plainly apparent. The bitterness rising in him at this change in his circumstances speedily showed itself in his language. Instead of speaking further to the multitude, he turned upon the priests and the authorities who were opposing him. In three wonderfully vivid figurative discourses, he began to show to them that in the coming Kingdom of Heaven they should have no part. ‘‘Even the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you,’’ he said. **The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits there- Of *Matthew 21:28 -22:14; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19. The Tue ARGUMENT IN THE TEMPLE 179 The priests and the Pharisees in their turn, as they listened to this bold attack upon them, were still more incensed and more desirous than ever to seize him. But the multitude that then filled the temple was still predominantly composed of the friends of Jesus. The priests and their officers were in a small minority. They might resist an at- tempt upon his part, but it was not safe to attempt to lay hands upon him; they would do well to pre- vent a repetition of the scene of the day before. It was evident that with their own authority they would not be able to handle the situation; even under the changed circumstances it was unsafe. So their leaders left the temple and sought counsel with the servants of Herod. That prince, eager up- on his own part to gain possession of the man who for months had been troubling him in Galilee and Perea, entered readily into consultation as to the best method to use in dealing with the problem. He, outside of his own tetrachy, visitor in the dominions of another potentate, with whom at that time he was on very unfriendly terms, had no power of his own to furnish in dealing with the problem. But the crafty intelligence of himself or of some of his fol- lowers proposed a plan which would enlist the only power capable of dealing with the situation; this is, they planned together to bring him into conflict with the Roman authorities. vineyard narable is founded on Isaiah’s vineyard parable, found in Isaiah 5:1-7. *Mark 12:13-17; Matthew 22:15-22; Luke 20:20-26. 180 JESUS THE Man The fact that Jesus and his followers were from Galilee suggested an easy method of doing that. Galilee was the home of the bitterest and most per- sistent opposition to the Roman authority and the Roman taxes. It was perfectly rational to suppose that a Galilean, the leader of a tumult of this type, was a participant in the Galilean spirit of resist- ance to the Roman tribute. It was upon this precise point that the Roman authority was most jealous and most rigid. Let him but declare that it was un- lawful to give tribute to Caesar, and the Roman legions would be brought upon him as soon as a message could be taken to the Roman governor. Accordingly, emissaries of the joint conspiracy scattered themselves among the multitude which sur- rounded Jesus, apparently listening with interest and approval; and then when the opportunity pre- sented itself, they proposed their question, pref- acing it with an unctuous compliment intended to disarm him and allay suspicion. ‘‘Teacher, we know that thou art true, and of a truth teachest the way of God, and carest not for any one; for thou regard- est not the person of men. Is it lawful to give trib- ute unto Caesar or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give?’’ This again was a two-edged sword. This Rom- an tax was the bitterest part of the humiliation of the Jews. Not only was it burdensome, but it seemed to the Jews a direct usurpation of the au- thority of God, to whom alone they owed their al- legiance and their substance. It was a continuous Tur ARGUMENT IN THE TEMPLE 181 reminder of their degradation as a people, that they must take money that they believed they owed only to God, and pay it over to a heathen foreign prince. One of the greatest causes of the unpopu- larity of the classes which ruled Jerusalem was the fact that they were compelled to be unwilling but ef- fective assistants of the Empire in securing the sub- mission of the people to the collection of this hated tax. If Jesus should say that this tax was lawful, his influence with the crowds would not last a mo- ment. Those who had so enthusiastically followed and aided him would be ready almost to turn upon him and destroy him, for not one of them but be- lieved most intensely that the tax was unlawful and an abomination. Upon the other hand, if he should say that the tax was not lawful, he would instantly be in the hands of his enemies, for the Roman sol- diers with Pilate the governor were housed practi- cally at the very corner of the temple enclosure, and it would have required only time for the infor- mation to be carried to Pilate that the leader of a tumult in the temple was proclaiming the tax to be unlawful, to find him placed under arrest for trea- son to the Empire. Jesus instantly divined their purpose and for the second time that day he showed a quickness of wit and a skill in avoiding a dilemma which have never been surpassed in any re- corded experience. ‘*Why do ye make trial of me, ye hypocrites?’’ he said. ‘‘Show me the coin in which the tribute is paid.’’ They showed him a denarius, a little Roman silver coin which carried 182 JESUS THE Man the bust of the Emperor together with an inscrip- tion. ‘‘Whose is this image’’ he said, ‘‘and whose 1s this superscription?’’ They answered ‘‘Caesar’s.’’ Then came the astonishing response, utterly differ- ent from anything that his enemies had expected :— ‘‘Render then unto Caesar the things that are Cae- sar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. As a response to their question, it was perhaps not frank, nor direct. It was not properly a reply to the query that had been addressed to him. But the inquiry had not been made for the purpose of infor- mation or enlightenment, but solely for the purpose of entangling him in difficulties. As an avoidance of this difficulty, as an answer which offended nei- ther the ruler nor the people who hated him, it was a masterpiece and those who had set the trap for him departed astonished and disappointed. Foiled in their attempt to ensnare him upon the po- litical side, some of the Sadducees’ attempted to break his position by causing him to appear ridicu- *The Pharisees and Sadducees were at the same time the two great political parties of the Jews and two hostile schools of religious and philosophical thought. The Pharisees were for the most part Messianists and idealists; the Sadducees were prac- tical and materialistic in the extreme. The Sadducees were not adherents to the spirit of the great legal and ceremonial system built up by the Pharisees; to them the whole law was contained in the five books of Moses and they refused the doctrine of the resurrection which the Pharisees had developed with the Messianic idea. The high priest and his chief supporters were Sadducees. For the most part the actual rulers and those who were in closest relation with the Roman authority were Sad- ducees, who were more nearly practical politicians, able to trim their sails to the wind, than their more theoretic and idealistic compatriots. THE ARGUMENT IN THE TEMPLE 183 lous and absurd before his followers. Hig apparent readiness to answer questions naturally suggested this method to the city-bred priests, who assumed that this countryman, probably unlettered and un- learned, would be at a loss in a contest of wits re- quiring skill in the scriptures. So they proposed to him a problem incident to his teaching of the resur- rection of the dead, which was an essential part of the Messianic belief, and which no doubt he had taught to the crowds in the temple the day before. In this they were completely disappointed and they too were sent away by a scriptural quotation to which they had no reply.’ Likewise, the Pharisees, the class who prided themselves upon their superior dialectical skill and their knowledge of the law, when they found that the countryman had been too much for their Sad- ducee associates, essayed in turn to demonstrate his ignorance by a new question.’ So one of their lawyers stood up and asked him, ‘‘T'eacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’’ Here there was no equivocation. Without hesitation came the great and profound answer, the definite statement of Jesus’ religious conception, which even until this day comprehends the deepest statement of religious truth which can be made: ‘*Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might and with all thy soul and with all thy strength. This is the first and *Mark 12:18-27; Matthew 22:23-338; Luke 20:27-40. "Mark 12:2834; Matthew 22 :34-40. 184. JESUS THE Man the great commandment. And a second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’’ This scribe was evidently sincere and unable to refuse approval to the truth when he heard it. His reply, ‘‘ Thou hast well said, Teacher,’’ brought from Jesus the direct announcement to him of the 1mme- diate nearness of the Kingdom in which he immedi- ately assumed this scribe believed fully, and for which his answer showed him to be prepared: ** Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.’” He now turned upon his discomfited hecklers the same method they had been using upon him. He asked them ‘‘ What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?’’ And when, in accordance with the cur- rent conception and the commonly quoted scriptures, they replied ‘‘ David’s,’’ he crushed them by quot- ing the well known Messianic expression: ‘‘How then doth David in the spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand while I put thine enemies under thy feet? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?’” This they were unable to answer, to the delight of the common people, who to their pleasure in the message of the coming Kingdom added their satis- faction in the discomfiture of the hated Pharisees and priests.” ‘This was more an announcement of the nearness of the King- dom to a man whom he believed to be fitted for participation in it than a statement to him of that fitness. *Matthew 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44. “This dislike of the Romanizing rulers was much greater Tue AvuTHORITIES TRIUMPH 185 But all this battle of wits, which no doubt had oe- cupied most of the day, could not conceal the fact that the rulers were again in possession of the tem- ple, that they did not accept either the person or the teaching of Jesus, that they were seeking every method to arrest him and destroy him. He had evidently failed. A longer stay was useless, and would speedily become unsafe for him. He prepared to abandon his attempt and depart. But before he left the temple for the last time, he turned to the assembled multitude and in the presence of the now triumphant Pharisees and rulers of the people de- livered to them a final excoriation, the like of which has seldom, if ever, fallen from the lips of man, saying :” “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat: all things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe; but do not ye after their works; for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievious to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: for among the rebellious Galileans, who had never become recon- ciled to the Roman domination and who bitterly resented any recognition of it by their own rulers, Other causes of resent- ment, growing out of their excessive ceremonialism, their hypoc- risy, their dishonesty and covetousness, are revealed in the num- erous discourses of Jesus. What record we have of John’s words indicates a similar attitude towards them. “Matthew 23:2-7, 138-26. This discourse is much abbreviated in Mark 12:38-40, Luke 20:45-47. Luke has scattered parts of it through various places in his gospel, none of them appropri- ate for them. Matthew 23:8-12 is absolutely foreign to the rest of the discourse and should have no place init. It may be either a result of careless assembly upon the part of the author of Matthew, or an interpolation by an early scribe. 186 JESUS THE Man they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the bor- ders of their garments, and love the chief place at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutation in the market places, and to be called of men Rabbi. ‘““But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is become so, ye make him two-fold more a son of Gehenna than yourselves. “Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that hath sanctified the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that igs upon it, he is a debtor. Ye fools and blind: for which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? He therefore that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And he that sweareth by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain out the gnat, and swallow a camel!” “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. ‘““Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which appear beau- THe AUTHORITIES TRIUMPH 187 tiful outwardly, but are inwardly full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye witness unto yourselves that ye are sons of them which slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell? “Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel, the righteous, unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” The bitterness of feeling which is revealed in this terrific denunciation is not difficult to comprehend. That morning he had entered the temple, confident of his success and believing that the Kingdom of Heaven was ready to appear, through the voluntary submission of the nation to the will of God. At night he was leaving the temple, defeated, discour- aged, certainly in personal danger; all of which change was directly chargeable to these Pharisees and scribes, who not only refused to enter into the Kingdom themselves, but also by their action and in- terference had prevented those who desired to enter in and were ready to enter in, from entering. From 188 JESUS THE MANn Capernaum to Jerusalem these cold, skeptical cere- monialists had continually interfered with him and with his message, and now at the end, when the goal was in sight, they had again thrust themselves be- tween the people and the Kingdom. These sentences which cut, burned, and seared, leaped like living fire from a great and well-founded indignation. He realized as he was departing that the hope of a quiet, peaceful arrival of the Kingdom by the turn- ing of the hearts of the people towards God and the acceptance by the nation of himself and the Kingdom which he would bring in, was past. It now was ap- parent that that great and terrible Day, of signs and wonders, tribulation and destruction, must precede the coming of the Kingdom. These evil powers which resisted the coming of the Kingdom must be destroy- ed out of the world before the world could be ready for it. | Looking out from the lofty structure which over- looked Jerusalem, he saw in imagination the trouble which was coming upon this fated city, which had now refused the only method that was open to it to avoid these tribulations. Tears came to him as he said :” “Tf thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the day shall come upon thee, when thine UQuke 19:41-44; Matthew 23:37-39. Luke times his discourse at the conclusion of the Messianic entry, when there was no evi- dence whatever that Jerusalem would refuse his message. It is entirely out of place there. The only time when such a statement could be appropriate is that given by Matthew as located in the THe AUTHORITIES TRIUMPH 189 enemies shall cast up a bank about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. O Jerusalem, Jeru- salem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee! How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth until ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Disappointed and bitter of spirit, he was leaving the temple with the express purpose of leaving the eity itself and returning no more until the actual coming of the Kingdom. This rebellious city, which had refused to join in the chorus chanted by his fol- lowers on that day when he entered it, was to see him no more until it too should fully join in the Messianic greeting—‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’’ Apparently he intended at that time to leave Jerusalem, perhaps to return to his own Galilee, where the people believed in him with hearts ready for the Kingdom. Forgetting his previous difficulties in his tense emotion, he perhaps did not realize for the moment that for him there was no place to go. Here in Jeru- salem sought by the Jewish rulers, there in Galilee text, or possibly a short time after, when he sat on the Mount of Olives, looking back over the city. This last suggestion has to recommend it the fact that Luke places it in the same location. though at a different time. The time given in the text, however, seems more likely. The two reports are evidently parts of the same discourse. 190 JESUS THE Man hunted by Herod, his condition was the same. Doubly true now was the striking expression with which he had greeted that enthusiastic follower who came to him in Perea, ‘‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.”’ CHAPTER XV ‘*WuHeEn SHALL THESE THINGS Br, anpD WHat SHALL Br THE Sien?’’ As Jesus and his followers went out from the temple, probably down through the eastern gate, to pass over the Mount of Olives to Bethany, some one of the Twelve who accompanied him, impressed by the grandeur of the tremendous structure they were leaving, called attention to that gigantic monument to the constructive capacity of Herod. They were quite justified in their admiration, for it was one of the wonders of the ancient world. Standing almost five hundred feet in the air, surrounded on at least three sides with sheer walls of massive stone, sur- mounted by those beautiful colonnades and dominat- ed above all by the majestic outlines of the temple it- self, its dazzling white marble rendered even more dazzling by its covering of sheets of pure gold, it was a sight that could not have failed to excite emotions of awe and delight in the soul of any one who looked upon it, especially if he was a Jew. ‘*Teacher,’’ said his companion, as hundreds of thou- sands of others had said, ‘‘behold what manner of stones and what manner of buildings!’’ The mind of the dispossessed enthusiast was not open to the emotions of admiration which moved the souls of his companions. He was filled instead with the vision of disaster and cataclysm which had [191] 192 JESUS THE Man come to him as he had looked out over the doomed city. Fully realizing now the unavoidableness of the distress which must come to this city before the Kingdom of God could descend upon men, he thought of it not in terms of wonder at its present greatness, but in pity for the distress that was to come upon it. ‘‘Seest thou these great buildings?*‘ he said; ‘‘there shall not be left here one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down.’” Forecast of destruction of evil men and things out of the approaching Kingdom of God was not new to the Twelve. Such forecasts, however, had not heretofore included the idea of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which in the current Mes- sianic idea were to become the central point of the world. Standing there in direct sight of that tre- mendous pile and of that wonderful city, this answer seemed contradictory both to facts and theory, and aroused a great surprise and curiosity. The temple was immense, solid, tremendously substantial. The announcement of its coming destruction was hard to believe. A desire arose in them to hear this fore- cast made more specific. The little crowd proceeded on down the steep hill- side, across the Brook Kidron, up around the south- ern shoulder of the Mount of Olives along the road by which only two days before they had entered the city in the midst of the shouting multitude. As they passed around the brow of the hill, Jesus stopped to ‘Mark 13:1, 2; Matthew 24:1, 2; Luke 21:5, 6. WHEN SHatu THESE THincs Bre? 193 rest, and looked back over the city he was leaving. As he sat there on the hillside, overlooking the tem- ple, the four followers who had been most intimate with him during the past months came private- ly to him to ask him more particularly about the startling statement which he had made as they left the temple. ‘‘T'ell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign when these things are about to be accomplished ?’’ In reply to this question he began a_ discourse which was to dominate the thought and the expecta- tion of the millions who were to become his fol- lowers in the next few decades, and which even to- day, almost two thousand years later, fills the minds of a great number of earnest people.’ T'o these his intimates, he revealed in detail his conception of the cataclysm which he now believed was to come upon the world with the approaching change of the age. Now that the hope that the na- tion would peacefully turn to its God was completely destroyed, his mind reverted to the other conception of this terrible event; the conception which no doubt was held and preached by John the Baptizer, and which both he and John had drawn from the pro- phetic books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Zecha- riah, together with the book of the vision of Enoch. These things he had read and meditated upon until they had acquired definiteness and precision in his *Mark 13:3-37; Matthew 24:3-25:46; Luke 21:7-36. 194 JESUS THE Man mind, and a certainty almost, if not quite, sufficient to dominate the actual facts of his existence. Of all the recorded discourses of Jesus, this one is the most difficult in which to be certain concern- ing the language actually delivered. Of the books written about Jesus which constituted the basis of the life and thought of the early Christians, the rec- ords of this discourse had the greatest fascination for them, for upon it was based their hope for the immediate return of Jesus, bringing to the faithful the rewards of their fidelity. More than any other part of his recorded words it influenced and it was influenced by the hopes and experience of the early believers, and into it there- fore crept more of the unconscious modification and interpolation which attempted to adjust his words to the circumstances in which they found themselves. Some expressions in it are certainly not the words of Jesus himself; others probably are not; but out of it it is easily possible to gather in fairly clear and distinct outline his conception of the destiny of the world and particularly of Jerusalem. His exact idea cannot be better expressed than in the vigorous, picturesque words in which Matthew has reported it: “And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray. WHEN SHatu Turse Tunes Bz? 195 “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes, in divers places. But all of these are the beginning of travail. Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation and shall kill you and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then many shall stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall lead many astray. And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the king- dom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come. “When therefore ye shall see the abomination of deso- lation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, (let him that readeth understand) then let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains: let him that is on the house top not go down to take out the things that are in his house: and let him that is in the field not return back to take his cloak. “But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or Here; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you beforehand. If therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the wilderness ;— go not forth: Behold, he is in the inner chambers ;—be- lieve it not. For as the lightning cometh from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming 196 JESUS THE Man of the Son of Man. Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. “But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of trumpet, dnd they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. “Now from the fig tree learn her parable; when her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh. Even so ye also, when ye see all these things, know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away till all these things be accompished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the son, but the Father only. And as were the days of Noah, so snall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in thosé days which were before the flood they were eating and drink- ing, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them away; so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. Then shall two men be in the field; one is taken and one is left; two women shall be grinding at the mill; one shall be taken, and one is left. “Watch therefore, for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. Therefore be ye also ready: for in an hour that ye think not the Son of Man cometh. “But when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE? 197 his glory: and before him shall be gathered all the na- tions; and he shall separate them one from the other, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison and ye came unto me, “Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee, or athirst, and gave thee drink, and when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me. “Then, shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hun- gered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer, say- ing, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not min- ister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life.” We may venture to skeletonize this conception, as follows: 1. There shall be many attempts upon the part of false Christs. 2. There shall be wars and rumors of wars. 198 JESUS THE Man 3. There shall be famines and earthquakes. 4. There shall be false prophets. 5. The gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world. 6. The abomination of desolation shall be seen standing in the holy place. 7. There shall be great tribulation such as has never been and never shall be again. 8. The sun and moon shall be darkened and stars shall fall to the ground and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 9. Then shall the tribes of the earth mourn. 10. Then shall the Son of Man come upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 11. He shall send forth his angels and gather to- cether the elect. 12. Then the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory and all the nations shall be gathered be- fore him. 13. He shall separate the good from the bad. 14. The bad shall go away into eternal punish- ment but the righteous into eternal life. This conception was in general that of all Mes- sianists of his time who were familiar with the Mes- Sianic writing and prophecies. In one respect how- ever, it was immensely different. We can see in his statement that ‘‘The gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations,’’ the idea that the coming Kingdom held promise for all the rest of the world as well as for the Jews. At the beginning of his preaching, the WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE? 199 message had seemed to him to come only to the House of Israel. Beginning perhaps with the realiz- ation ot the opposition of the leaders of his own race, he had finally arrived at the belief that he hurled in the teeth of the chief priests and the Pharisees when he realized finally that they had rejected him and his gospel of the Kingdom: ‘* The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and shall be given to a na- tion bringing forth the fruits thereof.’’ Heretofore it had been enough that the gospel should be preached to the sons of Abraham; but now it had at last be- come evident that it must also be preached to all the nations of the earth. His conflict with the leaders of his people had led his great soul to break the con- fines of a narrow nationalism and to make his King- dom of God a kingdom broad enough to include the righteous of all the world,—all those who would bring forth the fruits thereof. He must himself have been most profoundly af- fected by this recital of his great conception. In the light of these coming stupendous events, his an- ger and disappointment must have been driven away by emotions far deeper and more permanent. Es- pecially must he have been affected by one phase of this conception, which becomes most significant in the light of the attitude which he maintained towards the experiences which he subsequently underwent. All the early part of his program as announced in this discourse contemplated his absence. He was not to be present; there was to be opportunity for false Christs to arise and deceive his own people. 200 JESUS THE Man His disciples were to be disposed to look for him in many places, in none of which he would be. Then finally he was to come to them upon the clouds of heaven and perform his great function as the An- ointed of God, to be the judge of the world. The question as to how this was to come to pass he had no doubt solved before. He was then present in the world. Before this could come to pass he must go out of the world and assume a position which would permit him to come upon the clouds of heaven; that is, he must ascend into heaven. How ‘else could this come to be than that he should die, be raised from the dead, and exalted into heaven? The mere recital of such a discourse as this must have caused him to realize how futile had been his hope that these things could come to pass peaceably and quietly by the submission of the Jewish na- tion to him and to his message. At any rate, from this time on he was dominated by the confident belief that his death was at hand, and that it was a necessary part of the plan for bringing in the Kingdom. He seems to have had in his mind no resistance to this consummation. Leaving the western slope of the mountain, he passed on to the village of Bethany. It must now have been evident to all his followers that the at- tempt to dominate the nation had failed and that the hope for the immediate appearance of the King- dom was at an end. We hear no more of the Gal. ilean multitude surrounding him, but his little in. ner circle of devoted followers still were faithful. WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE? 201 During the next day he remained in quiet seclu- sion in Bethany. His opponents in the city were far from quiet however. Rendered more determined than ever by his bold avowal that they were to be excluded from the Kingdom, and by the magnificent denunciation delivered before the multitude with which he had abandoned the scene of his triumph, the Jewish rulers met in the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, and planned for means to seize him and put an end to the disturbance which his presence had created. They were still handicapped, however, by the pres- ence of the multitude of his followers and of the added multitudes which were pouring into the city for the ceremonies of the Passover, large numbers of whom were Messianists and could easily be drawn into the maelstrom of a Messianic outbreak. They decided that they must wait until after the feast was over and these multitudes had scattered back to their homes, lest they create in this voleanically emotional crowd a tumult they would be unable to control.’ ®Matthew 26:3-5; Mark 14:1 2; Luke 22:1, 2. CHAPTER XVL. Tar Supper At BETHANY AND THE BETRAYAL During the day Jesus was practically in hiding. It is reasonable to suppose that his followers, scatter- ed throughout the city, and without the coordinating influence of the presence of their leader, became dis- organized and discouraged. It was now evident that the dream was past. Jesus had had his great vppor- tunity and at one moment had seemed within touch- ing distance of the goal they were all seeking. But now that he was to all intents excluded from the temple, when it was evident that the authorities were in full control both of the temple and the city and had definite designs upon his life, it must have been obvious even to the most devoted enthusiast that the hopes with which they had come to Jeru- salem had become impossible of fulfillment. The mass of his followers may have been absorbed into the crowds coming to participate in the Pass- over. To a great number of them, however, the complete destruction of their hopes must have prov- ed to be a source of severe difficulty. This crowd which had followed Jesus was no or- dinary Passover crowd. They had come to the city with a definite purpose and a definite expectation. They were sure that immediately after they arrived at Jerusalem the Kingdom of God was going to ap- [202] THE SUPPER AT BETHANY 203 pear. In view of the character of the hope with which they were obsessed, they would not have at- tempted to make adequate preparation for an ex- tended stay in the city. The immediate passing away of the world in which they then lived, which they con- fidently expected, made such a preparation unnec- essary and the attitude of mind which caused them to join themselves to this great procession would naturally have prevented them from making such preparation. The complete failure of this program placed this array of the poor and the distressed of Galilee, stranded in a great city, face to face with a very serious economic problem. Great numbers of them must have been needy in the extreme when they left their homes in Galilee to undertake this trip. They had now been away from their homes not less than eight days. The problem of mere existence must all at once have become to numbers of them imme- diate and insistent. On that Wednesday night Jesus and the Twelve, together with some others, partook of the evening meal in the home of those two women of Beth- any. It was asad event. Every one present knew definitely of the failure of their great hopes and of the uncertainty which now confronted their beloved 1Luke 19:11, *Mark 14:3-11; Matthew 26:6-16; Luke 7:36-50. The story as told by Luke varies materially from that given by Matthew and Mark, but is evidently the same. Luke, as in so many in- stances, has not hesitated to modify Mark’s record, and has as. 204 JESUS THE MAN leader and themselves. By this time he had be- come completely adjusted to the changed condi- tions, and had determined to stay in Jerusalem and undergo the humiliation, distress, and death which he now realized he must undergo in order to fulfill completely the prophecies concerning the Messiah. No longer did he speak or think of leaving the city; he was determined to stay and complete his destiny down to the last moment of humiliation and suf- fering. The faithful few who still clung about him must also have realized to some extent the danger which he faced. The possibilities of the situation they had seen in the attitude of the authorities the pre- vious day in the temple and by this time they were fully acquainted with the iron determination which animated Jesus, and prevented him from de- parting to avoid those possibilities. Oppressed with this realization, as they reclined at table one of his women followers, perhaps Mary herself, one of his hostesses who was so tenderly at- tached to him, came behind him with a vessel of precious, fragrant ointment, and with tears of sor- row began to anoint those beloved feet and to wipe them with her hair. This act, strange to us western- ers, but perfectly natural under the customs and sembled with it material which had no connection with the main story. The essential elements are identical in all three of the stories, and in some respects the variants are supplementary. Simon the host, and the woman haying an alabaster cruse of pre- cious ointment which she poured upon the person of Jesus, are the essential factors and are identical. THE SuPPER AT BETHANY 205 conditions which prevailed at that time and place, revealed not merely her love for him, but the great sorrow which filled her heart as she realized dimly but surely the trouble and suffering which lay ahead of him. It was a gracious and affectionate act and the spirit which actuated it no less than the fragrance of the nard itself must have filled all the room and the already crowded hearts of those who reclined about their defeated leader. But in one of them at least it struck a discordant note and thereby hur- ried the disaster which they all anticipated. Judas, a native of Kerioth (the word Iscariot is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ‘‘Ish Kerwoth,’’ man of Kerioth) was apparently recover- ing from the wild hope and belief which had led him thus far and was beginning to look at things with a more rational mind. Apparently he was more practical than the others; one account makes him the treasurer of the little band composed of Jesus and the Twelve and the women, which would indi- cate that he was more accustomed to commercial and financial transactions than the others. A perfectly reasonable inference would lead to the conclusion that he was more practical by nature and conse- quently, although like them swept off his feet by the powerful belief in the coming of the Messianic king- dom in which they had all been brought up from their earliest childhood, nevertheless more prompt to re- cover from the domination of an unbased hope and even from that of a powerful personality. As he was 206 JESUS THE MANn more materialistic in his make-up, his expectations relative to the Kingdom were more material than those of the other disciples, and his disappointment at the nonfulfillment relatively greater. He was be- ginning to think that this entire procedure of theirs had been merely an unsubstantial hope, practically impossible of consummation; and that Jesus, sincere as he was, overwhelmingly powerful personality though he be, was mistaken in his expectation and had led his multitudes to expect what could not oc- eur. No doubt, too, his practical mind must have been disturbed by the distress in which he saw num- ‘bers of the people who had so joyously followed them down to Jerusalem only to meet with this tre- mendous disappointment. In the face of these facts, this expensive and use- less tribute to one who he thought had not only fail- ed but had led them into this distressing predica- ment, grated intensely upon him. In the face of the need with which they were surrounded, why this use- less waste? Something must be done. Instead of wast- ing time and money in further useless adulation, it was time to do something practical to help these poor people to get back to their homes. ‘‘Why was not this ointment sold,’’ he asked, ‘‘and the money given to these poor?’” The question was heard by Jesus and brought *John (12:4-8) definitely identifies the complainer with Judas, but probably as a conclusion drawn from the synoptic gospels,— a conclusion naturally to be drawn by anyone who reads them closely and observes the immediate connection of the going away THE SUPPER AT BETHANY 207 from him a sbarp rebuke to the too practical Judas. He understood the sorrow and apprehension which swelled the heart of this woman and knew in his own soul how thoroughly it was justified by the facts. Judas’ failure to share her feeling or to sym- pathize with the sadness which filled his leader, aroused in Jesus a momentary irritation. He spoke sharply to his unsympathetic follower. ‘*Why trouble ye the woman?’’ he said, ‘‘for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For the poor ye have always with you, and whensoever ye will ye can do them good, but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could; she hath anointed my body beforehand for the burying, and I say unto you that wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.’’ This rebuke and the apparent absence of prac- tical Judgment upon the part of the man whom he had now come to recognize as only a man, broke the last shred of loyalty which bound the man of Ker- ioth to Jesus. Perhaps he came to think that the continued activity of this man, obsessed as he was with a sense of his own greatness and with a hope incapable of fulfillment, with his tremendous pow- er to communicate the same exalted hopes to others and to lead them into the most impossible situations, of Judas with the rebuke of Jesus. Matthew and Mark, how- ever, indicate that there were others who participated in the feeling of Judas, even though they did not take the rebuke of Jesus to heart as he did. 208 JESUS THE Maw constituted a threat of possibilities which should not be hazarded. Perhaps he believed that with Jesus still active, these multitudes could not be prevented from following him into situations promising even more serious distress, while if he were deprived of the power to lead them, they might return to their senses and leave Jerusalem for their homes. Per- haps the anger at this outspoken rebuke in the pres- ence of numbers broke a self-control which was al- ready seriously strained by the trying circumstances and the disappointment through which they were passing, and sent him in indignation to seek revenge for the affront thus thrust upon him. But whatever the reason, after this rebuke Judas rose from the table and went across Olivet into the city, sought the chief priests whom he knew to be seeking for Jesus to take him, and told them that he would find an opportunity to deliver Jesus to them quietly, apart from the multitude, where a tu- mult could be avoided. This proposal was exactly what the Jewish au- thorities desired. The only thing which hitherto had prevented them from arresting him had been the impossibility of accomplishing precisely what Judas now proposed to do for them. Wherever they had met Jesus, he had been surrounded by the multitude of his followers. Evidently they were unaware of his abode in Bethany. They had decid- ed that their only possible method was to wait until the crowds were gone and even this carried with it the possibility that Jesus himself might go with the THe BeETRAYAL 209 crowds and thus defeat them completely. Here was an opportunity to accomplish their purpose immed- iately and conveniently, so they were glad to give Judas money for the information which he prom- ised to bring.’ Judas’ absence must have been noticed. From Bethany to Jerusalem and return required consid- erable time. Also, unless Judas was very greatly gifted in concealing personal feelings, the deep emotions and the change of attitude towards Jesus which drove him out into the night on a mission of this kind must have revealed themselves in his coun- tenance. Jesus must have observed it and have realized the meaning of this absence. The time of the Passover was approaching. It was a solemn time for all Jews and its celebration was a ceremony in which all who were at Jerusalem always participated: This great ritualistic meal, the greatest of all the Jewish celebrations, was a meal prepared and served under very rigid rules, cele- brating the emancipation of the Jews from their Egyptian bondage and the especial care of God for them under greatest danger. Whatever the circum- stances surrounding them, it did not occur to the Twelve that they would not participate in this great racial feast, so the next day they made inquiry of Jesus concerning the arrangements he desired to be made for participation in this ceremony. It was al- ‘Luke 22:3-6. 5Mark 14:12-17; Matthew 26:17-20; Luke 22:7-13. 210 | Jesus THE Man ways a group ceremony, participated in by the fam- ily, or by a group of close friends. Jesus sent them to the home of one of his follow- ers in the city, who, he was assured, would provide for them the facilities which they lacked. Follow- ing his instructions, they went away, found the place and made the preparations. They found an upper chamber, large and commodious, probably the home of the mother of John Mark, then a very young man, who afterwards became the biographer of the man who now suddenly entered his home and his life. In the preparations of the day, Judas, as the financier of the little band, fully participated, for the success of his undertaking required that nothing be done to arouse the suspicion of his associates. Jesus again remained in seclusion during Thurs- day, but with the arrival of the night, which made it safe for him again to enter into the streets of the capital, he came with the Twelve into the city to the upper room which had been prepared, and sat down to an evening meal. Much has been written about this meal in the attempt to determine whether or not it was the regular Passover meal. Apparently it was not, but was merely an evening meal eaten by them together in the room which had been prepared for their occupancy during the entire period of the Passover.° ‘The Passover proper was not eaten until the next evening, after the death of Jesus. The meal itself as reported does not show the required characteristics of the Paschal meal. See Ex. 12 :3-14. Tue BETRAYAL PATI Fully conscious as he now was of the certainty and the nearness of his approaching death, this assem- bly about the table with his faithful friends must have been tremendously impressive to Jesus, and his seriousness was reflected through him to his disci- ples. They had not yet completely realized the cer- tainty of the approaching catastrophe, but in him was no doubt. He had realized the meaning of the departure of Judas the evening before, and an eye sharpened by apprehension could not have failed to divine from Judas’ acts during the day and at this meal itself, the extent to which he had accomplished his purpose. As the time passed, this conviction grew into certainty and he announced to the gather- ed Twelve that one of those gathered there with him, even one who dipped with him in the dish, would be- tray him.’ His companions, already depressed and sorrowful, with their confidence even in themselves disturbed by the events of the past few days, began to inquire of him sadly—Lord, is it 1? It was a nat- ural inquiry, but Jesus did not identify the man who was thus to injure them all so deeply. Instead he merely repeated his statement, ‘‘It is one of the Twelve, one who dippeth with me in the dish, one who is eating this meal with me.’’ Had he been explicit in his reply and pointed out the man who was to do this deed, it is probable that it would never have taken place. The temperament which caused those TMark 14:18-21; Matthew 26:21-24; Luke 22:21-23. The sug- gestion in Matthew 26:25 that Jesus revealed to Judas himself his knowledge of his perfidy is not contradictory of Mark 14:19. 212 JESUS THE Man two sons of Zebedee to be called sons of thunder, and which tempted them to call down lightning from the heavens to destroy the Samaritans who declined to let them pass through their village, would probably have made that contemplated betrayal an impossi- bility. The disciples all reassured him of their lasting fi- delity, but his keener realization of the situation in which they were placed and the impossibility of their making their protestations good left him undeceived. He knew that he must pass through his trial alone. To the insistence of Peter he merely said, ‘‘This very night you will deny me.’’ Still secure in his secrecy, Judas presently rose up again to leave, this time to complete the work he had planned the day before. He did not leave, how- ever, until he was assured that Jesus with the few most intimate of the Twelve would presently leave in their turn to go to a place previously visited by them on the side of Olivet. There was no doubt in Jesus’ mind as to the mean- ing of this departure. The consciousness that the great crisis of his life was at hand pressed down upon him with overwhelming force, Confronted with the terrible fact, for a moment even his powerful purpose wavered. The multitude of his followers were still in Jerusalem. He had about him a faithful few. Was it not possible per- haps to reassemble his followers, to meet force with force and overcome it? Recalling to his disciples THe BETRAYAL pA bs the day upon which he had given them a command and sent them forth and the success which attended them, he said—‘‘When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked ye anything?’” Remembering the glorious days of achievement and success, they said ‘‘Nothing.’’ ‘‘But now,’’ he said, ‘*T bid you otherwise; he that hath a purse, let him take it, likewise a wallet, and he that hath neither purse nor wallet, let him sell his cloak and buy a sword. For I say to you that this which was written must be fulfilled in me: He was reckoned with trans- gressors ; and that which concerns me hath an end.”’ The disciples did not respond instantly to this new and strange attitude. They probably did not fully comprehend the meaning and purpose of what he said but a hurried inventory discovered that among them were already two swords which they showed to him. But the wavering was only momentary. He had already recognized the futility of that course. ‘‘It is enough’’ he said. His disciples were scattered and unwarlike; beside, his original purpose reassert- ed itself. He must submit to the inevitable. It was time to depart, but before they rose from the table, realizing the certainty and immediateness of the coming separation, he took bread and broke Luke 22 :34-38. "This quotation from Isaiah 53 (v. 12) indicates that this great chapter from the greatest of the Hebrew prophets was al- ready deeply seated in his mind as the true answer to his problem. It is the key to his actions for the few remaining hours of his life. . 214 JESUS THE Man it and gave to his companions and likewise wine, saying to them—‘‘I shall no more drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it new with you in the Kingdom of God.’ He was about to enter into his death as into the door of the coming Kingdom. Across the quiet city, over the bridge which joined the city with the temple hill, over the two deep val- leys and the intervening temple hill, followed by the faithful eleven, and perhaps by others, almost cer- tainly by the young Mark, he went to the garden of the wine press, on the slope of the Mount of Olives. Matthew, 26 :26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:17-20. Compare note 14 to Chapter IX. It is entirely reasonable to admit the possibility that among a group to whom the passover had the great place it held with all Jews, the confidence in their partici- pation in a new kingdom in another world would express itself in a spontaneously developed ritualistic meal, symbolical of the repasts of which they should partake together in the coming King- dom, which had continued among them from time to time for months before. To this possibility Matthew 26:29 adds enough to make it a probability. After Jesus’ death and the reflection of his disciples upon it, especially after the development of the atonement theory of Paul, all of which had occurred before the earliest of our gospels was written, it was hardly possible to pre- vent the entry of the factors which changed the significance of the ritual. “Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26; Luke 22:39. CHAPTER XVIL. Tuer ARREST AND THE INQUISITION. Leaving all but three at the entrance, he took Peter, James, and John and went further into the garden, to gather his courage and confirm his de- termination for the ordeal which he knew was now near at hand.” The three companions, wearied with the strain of the past few days and with the lateness of the hour, speedily fell asleep, but Jesus himself remained alone in prayer and in wrestling with his own soul. Confronted with the immediate realiza- tion of the death for which he had long been pre- pared in purpose, even his tremendous will was not sufficient to prevent the physical revulsion against dissolttion. Even his absolute confidence in the glory that lay beyond the grave could not prevent his shrinking from the experience which the whole phys- ical nature of man is organized to avoid. He realized the necessity of his death and the tremendous conse- quences, not merely to himself, but to the whole world, which should follow upon it; nevertheless he prayed: ‘‘ Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me.’’ But through all the terrible ex- perience, alone in the silence and darkness, he was able to maintain his great purpose unshaken. Mark 14:32-36; Matthew 26:36-39; Luke 22 :39-42. (215] 216 JESUS THE Man If 1t was in truth the will of God, he was submissive to it. ‘*Not as I will, but as thou wilt, O my Father ; if this cup cannot pass away except I drink it, thy will be done.”’ Meanwhile Judas had been prompt in carrying out his plan. The chief priests had immediately placed under his guidance a force sufficient to make sure of arresting the disturber. Accompanied by the po- lice foree left to the’ nation, the officers of the eity and the temple guards, armed with swords and clubs, he was on the way across the valley of the Kidron. He carried with him the total authority of the nation, as represented by the orders of the chief priests and the elders of the people, in other words, of the Great Council.” They had no right to expect a large number to be with Jesus at this time, or any armed resistance whatever, nevertheless they took no risk and brought a large number to make certain of success. Even as Jesus was waking his sleeping companions this multitude of officers appeared in the garden, led directly to the spot by Judas. Judas came in advanee, the crowd of officers, how- ever, following close behind. The plan contemplat- ed the arrest of Jesus alone; evidently the Twelve had not been sufficiently prominent in the proceed- ings in the temple to arouse any special interest in them. The Jerusalem authorities were making the same mistake that Herod had made in the case of John the Baptizer; they assumed that if they arrest- *Mark 14 :48-52; Matthew 26 :47-56; Luke 22 :47-53; John 18 :1-11. THE ARREST AND THE INQUISITION Ay ed the leader, the crowd of enthusiasts would drift away and the whole incident be speedily forgotten. Just as in arresting John they left Jesus, so in ar- resting Jesus, they overlooked the men who took up his movement after him and led it into immense- ly greater proportions than anything that he per- sonally developed. What would have occurred had they decided to take the Twelve also, what the future history of the world might have been, we cannot hazard a guess; certainly it would have been tre- mendously different. Judas expected to find him surrounded by a small band of his followers, and to avoid the arrest of the wrong person in the indistinctness of the night, he had agreed with the officers upon a signal which should identify the man they were to take. The noise and the lights and the confusion of the crowd had by this time thoroughly aroused the little group. Unable to find them immediately, the officers pro- ceeded to search the grounds. Concealment, if in- deed intended, became impossible. As they ap- proached the secluded place where Jesus and his three companions were, Jesus asked them ‘‘ Whom seek ye?’’ ‘‘ Jesus of Nazareth,’’ they replied. Jesus knew that his time was come. His hour of depression and shrinking from his destiny was past. Confronted with the fact, his soul rose to the occasion. Stepping from the darkness out into the flickering hight of the torches and lanterns, he said: ‘‘I am he.’’ The majesty of the personal ap- pearance of the man who suddenly presented him- 218 JESUS THE Man self before them profoundly affected even that body of experienced officers. No doubt they were influ- enced in some degree by the stories of his super- natural powers which by this time must have been thoroughly circulated through the city, and at this unexpected appearance, they shrank back together as though confronted with a sudden danger. But Judas, now thoroughly disabused of his former be- lief in the supernatural character of Jesus, was not affected by the familiar sight. Going forward he saluted his betrayed leader in the eastern manner, with a kiss, the agreed signal of identification. ‘* Judas,’’ said Jesus, as he looked upon the man who had been his intimate companion and daily associate for months, who had shared with him his exalted hopes, who had accompanied him in his wanderings to escape arrest and who was now turning him over to his bitter enemies to be destroyed, ‘‘betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?”’ If the question indicated uncertainty as to the meaning of this greeting, or as it is more commonly interpreted, a rebuke to Judas for using a greeting of affection as a means of betrayal, the response upon the part of his three companions who now saw the meaning of this proceeding, was very different. One of those two swords which the twelve had found in their possession in that upper chamber in the city, was in the hands of Simon Peter. Perhaps he remembered that remark of Jesus in the upper cham- ber an hour or two ago. ‘‘Lord,’’ he eried, ‘‘shall we smite with the sword?’’ Drawing the sword, he Tue ARREST AND THE INQUISITION 219 struck at one of the officers, a member of the house- hold of the High Priest, and cut off an ear. No doubt a seramble ensued as the officers laid hands upon Jesus and perhaps engaged momentarily in combat with his belligerent follower, but Jesus stopped what was too evidently an unequal struggle. ‘“‘Put up your sword,’’ he said to Peter; ‘‘for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.’’ He recognized clearly that if his followers attempted to meet violence with violence it could mean nothing but destruction for them. Beside, such violence was entirely unnecessary. He was the Son of God; if it were not God’s will that he should undergo this ex- perience and fulfill the scriptures, God himself would intervene without the help of men. ‘‘Think- est thou,’’ he said to Peter, ‘‘that I cannot beseech my Father and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? but how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?’’ Turning to the crowd of officers who surrounded him, he said ‘‘ Are ye come out as against a robber with sword and staves to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and ye took me not. But all this is come to pass that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.’’ It was apparent to his follow- ers that resistance was useless. The danger was manifest; each took counsel for his own safety and all fled into the darkness. His captors according to instructions led Jesus to the house of Joseph Caiaphas, who was at that time the High Priest, where a great number, perhaps a 220 JESUS THE MANn majority of the leading men of the nation and its ereat council, had gathered, awaiting the return of the arresting party, to examine this Galilean dis- turber when he should be brought.’ Such a preliminary examination was very neces- sary for their purposes. They were determined up- on the destruction of this man, but so far they had no ground upon which to bring a charge against him according to either their law or the Roman law, which would justify putting him to death. So they brought Jesus into the room where this assembly of the great of the Jewish nation were gathered, and proceeded to interrogate him, and to examine such witnesses as could be procured to support an accu- sation against him. They asked Jesus first concerning the meaning of his movement; that is, of his disciples and of his teaching. This information he refused to give. To the inquiry he responded, ‘‘I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in the synagogues and in the temple where all Israel comes together. I have not spoken in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they all know what I said.’’ In the room, conducting this examination, were a number of men who had listened to him and had disputed with him in the temple, and whom he recognized. Probably the larger portion of the company about him were present on that fateful Tuesday, two days ago, when they had upset his °Mark 14:53, 55-64; Matthew 26:57, 59-66. THE ARREST AND THE INQUISITION DOT plans to make the temple the center about which should gather the new Kingdom of God, and had listened to his terrible denunciation of them when he left the temple that night. His remarks were not merely an expression of unwillingness to speak; the futility of a statement made by him under such cir- cumstances was apparent. But the information which these men had concern- ing him, while sufficient to arouse their deadly an- tagonism, was not sufficient to support a verdict of death, and such a verdict was what they desired to secure. This was not an official meeting of the court; it was merely a search for evidence which they could use when the matter was presented to the court. So they sought other testimony which might make their case against him a capital one. This search also was ineffective. They brought before them many persons who had seen him and heard him in the temple and who told various stories of what they had seen and heard there. But the statements of these men were contradictory and indefinite. Some of them, probably garbling and falsely combining statements made by him during those two exciting days, claimed that they heard him say that he would destroy the temple and replace it within three days with another one made without ‘Identification of this night meeting as a regular session of the Sanhedrin, at which sentence was passed, is impossible in the face of the plain provisions of the Jewish law governing crim- inal proceedings as handed down in the Talmud (Sanhedrin, Mishna I, Chapter IV), It is enough at this point to call at- tention to the requirement that criminal trials must both begin 222 JESUS THE Man hands. But even on this point, their statements did not agree and, even if they had agreed, it would still not have been sufficient ground upon which to ask for a verdict of death. In a new attempt to induce Jesus to give testi- mony against himself, or to clarify the statements that had been made so that they might be usable against him, the High Priest now demanded of Jesus what he had to say to the charges. But Jesus re- fused to answer. This whole procedure was little more than an application of what in modern times has been called ‘‘the third degree’’ by these high authorities of the Jews to this defenseless man, and the lofty determination of Jesus refused to permit him to bandy words with them. Beside, he believed that he was fulfilling that great prophecy of Isaiah— ‘‘He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.’” The demands and end, and must conduct the discussion, in the daytime. A night trial was an impossibility under the Jewish criminal law. This, however, did not prevent a search for evidence and prep- aration for a trial, at night. This is what occurred at the house of Caiaphas. It may also be suggested that the Sanhedrin had a chamber of its own on the temple mount, where it held its ses- sions of all kinds, Such a trial would not have been held in a residence. ‘Isaiah 53:7. His statement to the twelve in the upper cham- ber after Judas had gone out, quoting from this great chapter, together with his twice repeated statement in Gethsemane rela- tive to the necessity of the fulfillment of the prophecies, fully justify the conclusion of the text that he was moving in a con- sciousness saturated with this prophecy. Tue ARREST AND THE INQUISITION as that he testify concerning himself were met with un- broken silence. They were still without a charge which they could take before the council and upon it demand his death. They had exhausted their material, and at the end of the investigation they were still without the de- sired means of destroying him. But Caiaphas finally found a question which moved him and which gave them the desired weapon against him. Except in conversations with the twelve subse- quent to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus never admitted to any one that he was the Christ. This, his great secret, he had kept locked in his own breast from the time of its conception at the fords of the Jordan, ex- cept that time with those most intimate with him, and he had even then most earnestly impressed upon them the necessity that they too should reveal it to no one. To the multitudes he had remained a prophet of the Kingdom; perhaps a fore- runner of the Messiah, perhaps Elijah, but it had not occurred to the crowds to whom he spoke during those months that he himself was the Messiah whose future coming he was preaching. Even in the tem- ple, when he was exchanging hard questions with the Pharisees and the lawyers, he made no claims about his Messiahship; he merely asked his opponents their opinion about the Christ. The priests, however, had heard the Messianic chants of the crowd which entered the city with him, 224 JESUS THE Man had heard him approve their repetition by the chil- dren in the temple, had been nonplussed by his in- quiry as to who was the Christ. Probably for some such reason, the idea came to the High Priest that this man, whose bearing was so majestic and whose assumption of authority was so superb, meant by the eryptic expressions by which he denominated himself, referring to himself as the Son of Man, and speaking with supreme assurance of the temple as his Father’s house, might entertain even this colos- sal conception of his own personality. If this was true, and he could be induced to make his claim in provable form, the handle they desired presented itself to them. Claim of the Messiahship was an anti- Roman claim, an assumption of an authority not subject to Rome, a practical equivalent of treason against Rome which would be expected to effect his destruction as soon as he was reported to the Ro- man governor. Whatever the source of the idea, the High Priest now stood up before Jesus and made his last attempt. ‘‘I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the son OL; God? There was no means to compel Jesus to answer. The same silence which he had maintained up to this time would have carried him past this emer- gency, and would have left his enemies without means to encompass his death. They could have gone before their great court perhaps with a charge upon which he might have been punished, but his death THE ARREST AND THE INQUISITION 225 would still have been beyond their reach. But this appeal, couched in the language used by the High Priest, even though it came from the lips of one who sought his death, evoked in him a response which would not permit silence. To fail to assert his di- vine relationship in such a presence and in the face of such a demand, would have been unworthy of the high conception and was indeed impossible. That he knew the danger involved in such a claim is mani- fested by the way in which he had concealed it for these many months, but even in the face of the death which now confronted him, he met the challenge boldly—‘‘I am.’’ Such an announcement, from a man situated as he then was, must have struck that assembly of ration- alists as indescribably incongruous and ridiculous. No doubt this amazing statement was met with ex- pressions of incredulity and contempt. Jesus him- self was not insensible of the contradiction between his statement and the apparent facts. He too, had met it, but had solved it by his conception of the nec- essary humiliation, death and resurrection of the Messiah. And in the presence of their contemptuous unbelief, he proudly reasserted himself. ‘*‘Never- theless I say unto you that hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Jehovah, and coming on the clouds of Heaven.’’ This proud and supremely courageous announce- ment was worthy of the high conception upon which it was based. In his exaltation, he had passed the 226 JESUS THE MAN restraints of his usual speech and claimed this great relation to God, using the unspeakable Name. But it had given his enemies the hold upon him for which they had been seeking. As a sign that blasphemy had been committed in his presence, the High Priest rent his garment as required by the law, and eried, ‘*He has spoken blasphemy: what further need have we of witnesses? Now that you have heard the blas- phemy, what think you?’’ All present agreed that he ‘Undoubtedly the assertion of Jesus must have included the sacred name—Jehovah. Under the Jewish law it was impossible to commit blasphemy unless this sacred name was used. The claim to be the Messiah was not blasphemy. Talmud, Mishna VI, Chapter VII, Sanhedrin: “A blasphemer is not guilty unless he mentioned the proper name of God (Jehovah)’.. It was custom- ary for all Jews whenever they used the name of God except where they were testifying concerning blasphemy and where the exact language must be proved, to use some pseudonym, usually a word containing the same number of Hebrew letters as Je- hovah; the words Adonai in common practice and Jose in legal discussions were such words. The word translated into “dyn- amis” in Greek and on to “Power” in our English text, was un- doubtedly the true Name instead of the pseudonym. It is notable that “Power” in this sense is not used elsewhere in the New Test- ament; also, that the word Jehovah does not occur in the New Testament. Mark, the source of this story, was a Jew, and had the Jewish feeling towards the ineffable Name. In the Gemara to the Mishna last quoted, it is explained “It was forbidden to ex- press the name Jehovah in any case whatever, except in that of the High Priest in his worshipping on the Day of Atonement; and even then when the people heard this expression they used to fall upon their faces.” ‘Talmud, (Gemara to Mishna VI, Chap. VII, Sanhedrin) states the law thus: “The rabbis taught: there is no difference if one hears it from the blasphemer himself or from the witness who heard it from the blasphemer— he must rend his garments.” Numerous instances of rent garments expressing great emotion occur throughout the Old Testament. In this instance, however, the high priest was fulfilling a legal formula. THE ARREST AND THE INQUISITION 227 had made himself liable to death, the punishment provided by the law for the offense. The object of the gathering was gained; the charge to be presented to the Sanhedrin was ready. They waited only for the morning to bring him to formal trial before the great court of the Jews upon the charge of blas- phemy. CHAPTER XVIII. Tue TrIAL BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN AND THE ConvICTION. For the preliminary investigation at the hands of Caiaphas and his friends, the gospel writers had two possible sources of information. By one account John, one of Jesus’ most intimate followers, was present. He and Peter had followed at a distance while Jesus was being brought from Gethsemane to the palace of Caiaphas, and afterwards had come in- to the building itself. John, according to this account, was an acquaintance of the High Priest, and on suf- ficiently intimate terms to be admitted to the house. Here he would have heard the entire proceeding which he would have reported later to the others of the Twelve. Peter also, waiting near-by in the court of the great house, might have been near enough to hear the most of the proceedings. Two other men, Nicodemus and Joseph, who later became well-known members of the Christian community, were members of the Sanhedrin, and were probably called to this night gathering. They, too, no doubt later revealed to their Christian associates the details of what took place during this fateful night. But of the proceed- ings in the formal and legal trial which took place in the council house’ on the temple mount the next ‘For the location of the council house, see the discussion in Schuerer 23, III 4. [228] THe Traut Berore THE SANHEDRIN 229 morning they had no information. To this house none of the Messianists had entrance and besides it was no longer safe for them to follow that closely; and it is entirely possible that both Joseph and Nicodemus, fully advised of what was going to take place, know- ing that their contrary vote would be useless and would subject them to danger, and yet being out of sympathy with the proceeding and unwilling to vote to convict him, absented themselves from the trial entirely. The details of all the various legal pro- ceedings with which the few remaining hours of the life of Jesus were enmeshed are accordingly known to us only in very sketchy, incomplete form. The men who reported these proceedings, the men who wrote about them, even the men who became inter- ested in them, were for the most part entirely igno- rant of legal procedure, as well as without access to the detailed facts. The legal technicalities govern- ing such procedure were incomprehensible to them as well as of little interest to them, even if they had known them, and it is not to be expected that they could be accurately reported. But the essential facts are clearly and explicitly stated, and some of the lacking details can be supplied by inference from the known procedure in the Jewish and Roman courts, and the operation of human nature in all times. This daylight trial was an official trial, conducted before the Great Sanhedrin of seventy-one members, *Talmud, Sanhedrin, Chap. IV, Mishna I. “In the matter of a false prophet, or a high priest, if they have to be judged for 230 JESUS THE Man in accordance with the forms of the Jewish law gov- erning procedure. Such a trial could not be held during the night, but, in order to add speed to the proceedings, and have the death of Jesus accom- plished before his Galilean multitude could be in- formed about it and raise a tumult for his release, as well as to avoid the ceremonial difficulties in- volved in carrying the matter over the Sabbath, the Sanhedrin was called together as early as it was day. The proceedings in this court were brief. The charge was blasphemy and the testimony supporting it was beyond contradiction, as the witnesses were the High Priest and many members of the Council themselves. The procedure was simple and the time involved was only such time as was necessary to ful- fill the required forms and to take a vote upon the verdict. This could be only one thing,—that he was guilty. This they could not legally do upon this day as their laws required that one accused might be acquitted on the same day as his trial, but where he was not acquitted the court must be adjourned be- fore night and the vote taken on the next day.’ a crime which may bring capital pusishment, a court of seventy- one judges is needed.” We have already seen the Pharisees ap- plying the legal test to him as a false prophet in Perea before Caesarea Philippi. Blasphemy was punishable by death. See Leviticus 24:16. *Talmud, Sanhedrin, Chap. IV, Mishna I: “In the latter (criminal cases) the decision may be rendered on the same day to free him, but not to condemn him until the next day; and therefore, cases of capital punishment must not be begun on the eve of Sabbath or a legal holiday.” This was now Friday morn- ing, the eve of the Sabbath: so this provision also was ignored, THE CoNVICTION 231 Their emergency was great, however, and they failed to observe this limitation. However, now that they had convicted him and found him worthy of death, another step was neces- sary. This step was outside of their control. Under the gradual tightening of the Roman authority over their nation, the power to inflict the death penalty, even for crime, had been taken from the Jewish court into the hands of the Roman procurator. The Jewish court could indeed try and condemn, but it could not execute. So perhaps for this reason they ignored the time limitations which they might have observed had they had the power to execute their own decrees, and as speedily as possible they rose in a body and brought Jesus before the Roman pro- curator to ask for the ratification of their judgment.’ Now for the first time they bound him, an indication of his new legal status, as a convicted man.” *Mark 15:1; Matthew 27:1-2. Luke 22:66, 23:1. In 22:67-71, Luke transfers into the trial proper the proceedings which Mark and Matthew place in the preliminary investigation, all mention of which investigation he omits. ‘Not a strict legal conclusion, but the binding clearly indicates a change of status. CHAPTER XIX. THe Hearinc anp AcquitraL Brerore Pirate—THE Herarinc Berore Herop—THE CoNnDEMNATION The Roman authority at that time was exercised in Judea, Samaria and Idumea by Pontius Pilate, who had then been procurator for about six years. He was a competent but severe administrator, who in his dealings with his subjects, the most refractory and uncontrollable of all the subjects of the emperor, was stern and hard to the point of cruelty. He had no respect for the religious prejudices of the Jews, and was contemptuous in his disregard of their de- sires and demands. By this time the antagonism be- tween himself and the Jewish authorities, which later led him into difficulties that caused his deposi- tion and exile to a little town in Gaul, was already well-developed. To this man the crowd of Jewish councilmen pro- ceeded with their condemned victim in their midst, from the council-house to the Praetorium, probably the castle of Antonia,’ where Pilate was staying dur- "His capital was at Caesarea. He apparently found Jerusa- lem disagreeable and came only upon special occasions. Some students think that when in Jerusalem he lived at the old palace of the Maccabees at the west end of the bridge crossing the Tyropoeon, (the great chasm on the west separating the temple from the city) but his relation to his Jerusalem subjects was such as to make it decidedly safer for him in the castle. The Greek word used is the equivalent of the Latin Practorium of [232] THe Hrarinc BErorE PmatTE 233 ing his visit to the capital of the Jews. The distance was short, only a few hundred feet. It was the day before the feast of the Passover, at a time when they must remain ceremonially clean according to the law of Moses, in order that they might be permitted to partake of this ceremonial feast. Accordingly when they came to the house of the foreign governor, they remained without, and asked that he come out to them. They presented to Pilate their judgment of condemnation against Jesus and asked that it might be ratified and Jesus put to death. ‘* What is the accusation against him?’’ asked Pilate. This re- quest for the details of the matter was apparently unusual; Pilate was probably accustomed to approve such sentences as a matter of form without looking too carefully into them. The response of the Jews was colored with surprise: ‘‘If this man were not an evildoer,’’ they replied, ‘‘we would not have brought him to you.’’ ‘‘Take him yourselves then and judge him according to your own law,’’ said Pi- late. The Jews replied ‘‘It is unlawful for us to put any man to death.’” which it is a transliteration. This word meant a structure at Rome, the quarters of the Praetorian guard, much more nearly equivalent to the Castle of Antonia at Jerusalem than to any palace. "This entire paragraph is based entirely upon John (18 :28-32), and carries with it the inference (not clearly stated anywhere) that the priests proceeded first to secure action upon their own sentence. The first question of Pilate and the answer of the priests indicate that Pilate already had something before him, a request for definite action, when he came out. Were this not 234 JESUS THE MANn Nevertheless, to Pilate, since it was clearly neces- sary, they now presented their accusation. The Jewish leaders, knowing Pilate’s antipathy towards themselves and his contempt for their religious laws, were unwilling to risk their case upon the ground upon which they had convicted him. They saw that for some reason Pilate was in an unaccommodating mood, and that they probably could not prevail upon him without presenting to him a real crime against the Roman law. So they began to accuse him on this basis, saying, ‘‘We found this man perverting our nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar and saying he himself is an anointed king.’” These charges, substantiated, would really be vio- lations of the Roman law, and Pilate examined into the truth of the statement. Up until this time he true his opening inquiry would have been “What do you desire?’ He knew what they desired,—confirmation of a sentence and exe- cution of one condemned by them. This episode can be eliminated entirely without affecting succeeding events, as the blasphemy charge and even the trial before the Sanhedrin is not again re ferred to in any of the gospels. It is retained here as the logical and probable link between the action of the Sanhedrin and the Roman hearing. The whole proceeding before Pilate and Herod, however, can be accounted for upon the supposition that the change of purpose took place in the Sanhedrin trial itself; that the Jewish councillors recognized then the impossibility of securing the death of Jesus upon any charge based solely upon the Jewish religious law and decided to proceed from the first before Pilate by charging him with crimes against the Roman laws. The John story seems the more probable and is inserted here for that reason, even in the face of John’s clearly demonstrated historical inaccuracy almost everywhere else. 3Luke 23:2-5. Tue Herarine Berore PILATE 20 had paid little or no attention to the prisoner. In- asmuch as the proceeding was merely a request for a ratification of a sentence already passed and was not a formal trial, he did not follow the process of calling witnesses and taking testimony. He merely went back inside the praetorium, had Jesus brought to him, and asked him about the matter. Of those charges mentioned, the most important considering the state of the Jewish mind, was the charge that Jesus claimed to be ‘‘an anointed king.’’ No Roman governor could afford to overlook any one who by claiming to be a king might arouse this nation into rebellion. ‘‘Are you the king of the Jews?’” he asked the man who now stood before him. Jesus had not heard the discussion between the elders of the Jews and Pilate. He wondered at the source of this inquiry. Was this another inci- dent where his Messiahship had been divinely re- vealed to another? ‘‘Sayest thou this of thyself?’’ he asked, ‘‘or did others tell it to you concerning me?’’ Pilate answered, ‘‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done?”’ Jesus said, ‘‘ You say truly, I am king, but my Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world then my servants would fight, that I should not be delivered to the rulers; but my Kingdom is not of this world.’’ Pilate, experienced in events and men, as he ‘Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3; John 18:33-38. 236 JESUS THE MAN looked upon the countenance of the helpless man before him, realized that he was not a leader of any armed rebellion. His face and his language alike proclaimed what he was,—a religious enthusiast. The antagonism of the Jewish rulers, despite all their legal accusations, was evidently based on some religious difference. Pilate went back to the waiting crowd. ‘‘I find no fault in this man,’’ he said.” The confirmation of their death sentence was refused. Ordinarily this might have closed the matter but this time the Jewish rulerg were insistent. They began to modify and make more specific their charges. ‘‘He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even unto this very place.”’ Pilate was not influenced by this new statement. The matter was closed so far as he was concerned. But when he heard them mention Galilee, he in- quired whether he was a Galilean. Galilee was out- side hig jurisdiction and this man would then be- come a subject of Herod, and responsible to Herod for whatever he had done.’ Just at this time, there was serious friction he- SLuke 23:4; John 18:38. ‘Matthew 27:12-14; Mark 15:3-5; Luke 23:5. Matthew states that Jesus answered nothing, either to the accusations of the priests or to Pilate. Mark’s statement that “Jesus no more answered anything” leaves room for the conversation with Pilate described by John. "Luke 23: 6-12. Tue Hearinc Berore PIAtTEe 208 tween Herod and Pilate.” Herod, it is true, was in Jerusalem at this time, brought there by the great Jewish feast, of which he as a Jew partook, but the relation existing between him and the Roman gov- ernor was hostile. Perhaps this had grown out of an incident mentioned in the gospels; Pilate at a previous feast had slain a number of Galileans in the midst of their sacrifices, a procedure which no doubt aroused deep resentment upon the part of Herod, who considered it an affront to him as their ruler. The situation between the two authorities at that time was one which would naturally breed dis- cord. Jerusalem, under the control of Pilate, was the religious capital of a large percentage of Herod’s subjects, who, in large numbers, went many times during the year to this city and were prone to dis- turbance and riot. This furnished a constant possi- bility of conflicts with the authority of Pilate and consequent quarrels over jurisdiction, as Herod claimed authority over his own subjects and denied Pilate’s right to put them to death. It occurred to Pilate that this was an opportun- ity to placate Herod. This Galilean, whom he now believed to be harmless and the victim of the relig- ious prejudice of the priests, he would send to Herod and permit him to handle the matter him- self. This would both relieve Pilate of trouble with the insistent priests and please his neighbor ruler *Luke 23:12. *Luke 13:1. 238 JESUS THE Man by the deference thus shown to his authority over his subjects. He could reasonably assume that Herod, who had shown himself jealous of the safety of his subjects when in Jerusalem, would take care to protect this man from the unjustified attempt upon his life by the Jerusalem authorities. This procedure did not require much time. Pi- late, naturally impatient, was unsympathetic with the purposes of these priests, and had acted promptly with little deliberation. Their prisoner again in their midst, the crowd speedily passed over the bridge and through the city to its northwestern corner, where in an ancient palace, acquired by Herod the Great, his children now lived when they visited Jerusalem. It was now open day and none of Jesus’ disciples dared to follow him to this place; consequently we are again at a loss as to the details of the proceed- ings here. Surrounded by enemies only, in the midst of a crowd all of whom hated him and eagerly sought for his death, Jesus went before his legal prince. The arrival of this man before him gave Herod much satisfaction. Besides the personal recogni- tion of his authority contained in Pilate’s action, which was in itself pleasing and the cause of the removal of the friction which had heretofore exist- ed between the two men, he now had before him the man for whom he had been seeking for months throughout his territory. Here was the trouble- Tse Hrarine Berore PATE 239 maker who had set his entire realm by the ears. He had for some time been determined upon the death of this man” and this gave him the opportunity which he desired. Jesus was fully aware of this determination and to the persistent inquiry and in- terrogations by means of which Herod sought more light upon his teachings and the movement which he had aroused, he answered nothing. Though Herod’s determination needed no support, it was fortified by the accusations of the chief priests and scribes who stood before him and vehemently ac- cused Jesus. The proceedings before Herod did not constitute a trial. The Herods were all careless of human life and for the death of a trouble-maker which had al- ready been definitely determined, only the oppor- tunity was necessary. But after all, even though Jesus was Herod’s subject and in his possession, both were still outside Herod’s dominion, within the jurisdiction of another power, which conse- quently retained the authority to inflict the death punishment. Herod might find his subject guilty of crime, but for him to attempt to exercise in Je- rusalem the complete authority involved in perform- ing an execution would have been as great an af- front to Pilate as Pilate’s complete assumption of authority over Herod’s subjects had been to Herod. The courtesy extended to him by Pilate he now re- turned to Pilate. He sent Jesus back to Pilate with “wTuke 13:31; Mark 3:6, 240 JESUS THE MAN the information that he considered him worthy of death.” Before his departure on the journey back across the city, Herod’s soldiers, knowing his con- demnation and perhaps influenced by the trouble to which he had put them in avoiding their search for him through Galilee, expressed their contempt of him and his vaulting claims by clothing him in gorgeous raiment, the purple of royalty, and cover- ing him with abuse arid mockery. Pilate was not pleased when the problem which he had thought himself rid of came so speedily back “Luke’s statement (23:11) is scarcely broad enough to sup- port this statement if taken without confirmatory evidence. Pilate’s statement concerning Herod’s decision (v. 15) directly contradicts it. But the acts of Herod and his soldiers toward Jesus (v. 11) were not such as any potentate would perform or permit to be performed towards a subject whom. he found guiltless. They are rather acts of mockery towards one found guilty. And several facts are conclusive evidence that Herod was jointly re- sponsible with Pilate for Jesus’ death. Peter (Acts 4:27) places Herod first, charging “Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles and the people of Israel” with that which had been done. Igna- tius (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, 1:5) states specifically “He was also truly crucified by Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tet- rarch, being nailed for us in the flesh.”” The fragment of the apocryphal “Gospel according to Peter”, little if any later in origin than Ignatius, places the entire responsibility upon Herod, Furthermore, it could scarcely have been otherwise. The Jeru- salem episode had made Jesus not less dangerous to Herod’s peace, but more so. If Herod was seeking him to kill him be- fore his attempt upon the temple, he would now be seeking him with the same purpose but with double earnestness. The state- ment of Pilate to the crowd “No, nor yet Herod, for he sent him back to us” is obviously an attempt to put a color on Herod’s act which would be useful to Pilate’s shrewd intent to avoid ful- fillment of Herod’s purpose. There is nothing in our knowledge of Pilate which would indicate that it is impossible that he would distort the facts if such distortion would serve his purpose. THE CONDEMNATION 241. to him. He had seen through the hollowness of the charges brought by the priests before him and had recognized the matter for what it was, a quarrel over a religious question. He of course had not known of Herod’s previous trouble with Jesus and of the months-long search for him to put him to death. He had believed that by sending Jesus to Herod he had taken him out of the hands of the priests and placed him under the protection of his own ruler and that Herod, as he had objected to Pilate putting his subjects to death for disturbance in connection with their feasts, would be glad to prevent the priests from doing the same thing from similar cause. He was surprised and disappointed to find the whole matter back upon his hands with the added complication that Jesus was now con- demned by his own ruler. But Pilate was stubborn; he had decided that these priests ought not to be gratified by the death of this man and while he hesi- tated to give new affront to Herod, he sought some way to avoid the difficulty that had been created by Herod’s action. The procession composed of Jesus and his Jewish accusers in their two trips across the heart of the city had now gathered about them a crowd of the general population of Jerusalem, no doubt aug- mented by visitors for the Passover. Still attempt- ing to avoid the ceremonial uncleanness incident to entering a heathen habitation on this Day of Prep- aration, the Jewish officials remained on the out- 242 JESUS THE MANn side in the passage leading from the temple to the Praetorium. The soldiers of Herod, who had re- turned Jesus from Herod to Pilate, took him within the Praetorium. The presence of the multitude with the priests gave him a suggestion as to a way out of his difficulty. It was the custom with Pilate upon each feast day to gratify the populace by releasing to them some prisoner whom they demanded.” Under the condi- tions which existed in Jerusalem, with a foreign ruler controlling a population of alien instinct which hated him profoundly, there were a great many political prisoners, and this custom of Pilate’s was no doubt the means of allaying much disturbance by the satis- faction which would come from the release of some loved leader, The priests in their charge against Jesus had com- plained that he perverted the people. The inference then was immediate, that if the people had their way Jesus would not be under arrest, and if they could be consulted, would demand that he be released. Of course this custom was known to Herod, and to Herod’s request for the death of Jesus it would be a perfectly sound reply that the people had demand- ed him and that it was necessary for Pilate to re- lease to them whomsoever they demanded. The idea was natural and reasonable. He had no reason to suspect that it would fail to operate. In- "Matthew 27:15-25; Mark 15:6-15; Luke 23:18-25; John 18 : 39-40. THE CoNDEMNATION 243 deed, anyone, under the existing circumstances, would have expected it to work perfectly. If Jesus was a sufficiently popular leader to arouse the peo- ple into a tumult that had brought him into conflict with the authorities of his nation, certainly he would be popular enough with the populace for them to de- mand his release in order to save his life. Here he seemed to have an opportunity to do three things: to save an innocent man, to please his troublesome Je- rusalem crowd, and to displease the Jewish priests and national leaders, for whom he had only dislike and contempt. Accordingly he came out to the crowd and spoke to them with great shrewdness and subtlety, empha- sizing to the multitude in his address to their rulers the reason alleged by the authorities in seeking the death of Jesus. ‘‘ You brought me this man as one that perverts the people. Now I have examined him and found no fault in him in the things in which you accuse him, nor does Herod, for he has sent him back to me. He has done nothing worthy of death. Therefore I shall scourge him and release him.’’ To his astonishment, this proposal met with no welcome whatsoever among the crowd. Pilate did not know that this was not the multitude that had been under the influence of Jesus. The crowd that were before him were not the Galilean Messianists or the limited number of Jerusalemites who had be- lieved on Jesus in the few hours when he spoke in the temple. They probably knew almost as little about 244 JESUS THE Man Jesus as did Pilate himself, further than that he had come into Jerusalem at the head of a crowd of Gali- leans, had committed violence on their merchants and bankers, had driven the lawful authorities out of the temple and taken possession of it. Their attitude to- wards Jesus was practically as hostile as that of the priests themselves and for much the same reason. Had Pilate, as he thought, been appealing to the mul. titude which Jesus had led, his proposal would have met with instant and joyous response, and he would have solved his problem. As it was, it fell upon ears utterly unresponsive, upon men who not only cared nothing whatsoever for Jesus and rather wished him ul, but who also had a favorite of their own whose release they were that day seeking. In Pilate’s prison at that time was a man who had been the lead- er in one of the popular tumults which were frequent in the city, and who in that tumult had committed murder. Evidently he was very popular among the Jerusalem multitude, for to Pilate’s astonishment the whole crowd began to shout, ‘* Away with this man and give us Barabbas.”’ Puzzled at this astonishing turn in affairs Pilate asked them ‘‘What then shall I do with the man whom you call the king of the Jews?’’ Perhaps they might demand him in addition to Barabbas, under which circumstances he would no doubt have released them both. But the priests, distributed among this crowd in large numbers, had added their own venom to the dislike of the mob. The merci- THr ConDEMNATION 245 less cruelty which lurks in every mob came to the surface. The cry suggested by the priests was the response to Herod’s question: ‘‘Crucify him!’’ they said. Pilate was amazed at the contradictoriness of the situation. Here were the priests demanding the life of Jesus because he was leading the crowd astray. And behold here was the crowd demanding his death just as vociferously as the priests themselves. In bewilderment he demanded what the cause of this strange condition might be, ‘‘Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise him and let him go.”’ There have never been any more violent and turbulent mobs than the Jerusalem mob of those days. Sudden and volcanic in its passion, violent in its action, stubborn and difficult to subdue, when it had become thoroughly aroused usually resisting to the point where many troops and much bloodshed were required to quiet it, no one who had had ex- perience with it would lightly stir it up. And this one was speedily becoming worked up into a passion. They disliked Jesus to begin with. They were offended because Pilate had attempt- ed to pawn him off on them as their one great annual gift in the place of their own beloved par- tisan. And now that they had indicated their pref- erence, it irritated them to see Pilate persisting in his refusal to recognize their desires. They be- gan to shout more vociferously and more violent- 246 JESUS THE MAN ly ‘‘Crucify him! crucify him!’’ If they acted as they did on other recorded occasions, they began to throw dust in the air and to cast off their garments and to shout in their rage.” The interest which Pilate had taken in Jesus was not sufficient to cause him to undertake any great personal trouble in his behalf. So far as ordering the death himself, or himself ratifying the sentence of the Jewish council, he had refused to do it, and probably would have stood out against any pres- sure they might have seen fit to bring. If the mob had grown sufficiently unruly he would have done as he had frequently done before; he would have brought his troops upon the mob with clubs or weap- ons and even at the cost of many lives if necessary have compelled them to respect his will. But in this instance he had surrendered the jurisdiction of Jesus to Herod. He was at this time under ob- ligation to Herod to carry out the sentence which Herod had pronounced against him. He had mere- ly appealed to this multitude with the hope and expectation that it would demand from him a be- loved leader and give him a sufficient explanation to Herod for not carrying out his sentence. Now that the multitude had refused him he was unwill- ing to take any further responsibility in the matter. Let Herod’s sentence against his subject take its course. The responsibility was not his and he would not assume any further burden about it. “Acts 22:22, 23, THE CoNDEMNATION 247 Pilate had lived among the Jews for a good many years and was familiar with the operations of the Jewish mind. He did not consider himself respon- sible in this matter and wanted them thoroughly to understand that he did not. He understood the Jewish mental habit which found it difficult to com- prehend abstractions and required vivid objective phenomena to impress upon them truths which to our modern mind would seem perfectly easy of com- prehension. He used a method which had been fre- quently employed by the prophets of the ancient Jews and which was no doubt common among the Jews of his own time, that of a symbolic represen- tation of the idea he desired to convey. He had water brought to him and before the multitude he washed his hands. This was not his sentence. ‘‘I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man.’’ Then he gave orders that Barabbas be released to the multitude, and that Jesus be sent to crucifixion. CHAPTER XX Tue CRUCIFIXION. The tragedy rushed quickly to its close. The soldiers took Jesus into their quarters to prepare him for his crucifixion. Apparently the cruelty which revealed itself in the treatment imposed upon him by Herod again appeared in the inner court of the Praetorium. Already he was clothed in purple which Herod had placed upon him in derision be- fore he had sent him back to Pilate. First he was subjected to the terrible scourge. Then to carry out the cruel jest the soldiers placed him upon an extemporaneous throne; some soldier who thought that his royal appearance was lacking without a crown, proceeded to plait one of thorny branches and thrust it upon his head; another placed a reed in his hand for a sceptre. Then they knelt before him in mock obedience, saying ‘‘Hail, king of the Jews!’’ following the obeisance with a blow to ex- press their contempt. Pilate saw this spectacle and was impressed with the pitifulness of it perhaps as well as with the bearing of Jesus himself, who through the whole heartless procedure maintained unbroken silence, and, relying upon his unshaken confidence in the value of his terrible experience as a fulfillment of "Matthew 27:26-30; Mark 15-19; John 19:1-16. [248] Tuer CRUCIFIXION 249 the Messianic prophecies, probably even a compar- ative serenity of countenance. Pilate was seized anew with the hope that perhaps this multitude which had refused to demand that he free Jesus, if they could see him in his present condition, might take pity upon the man whom, he thought, thev once had followed as a leader; might demand his release and give Pilate an opportunity to grant it without offense to Herod. So he brought Jesus out before them, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment, with the terrible marks of the scourging and the abuse that he had just under- gone apparent. ‘‘Behold the man,’’ he cried. The spectacle was pitiful enough to have moved almost any other type of crowd. But cruel even under ordinary circumstances, this multitude was now filled with animosity and hatred. The piteous appearance of the man before them excited no pity but only an increased demand for his death. ‘‘Cru- eify him! crucify him!’’ they eried. To this ery of the mob the Jewish officials now added another and more personal appeal to Pilate. They observed how earnestly Pilate was seeking to find means to avoid carrying out the sentence against Jesus. ‘‘If you release this man,’’ they said, ‘‘you are no friend of Caesar’s. This man calls himself a king; Srey, one who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.’ This put an end to Pilate’s efforts. He not merely saw the uselessness of expecting anything from 250 JESUS THE Man that crowd for the advantage of Jesus but at the same time realized that the political possibilities growing out of the situation might become perilous to himself. He returned Jesus to the hands of the soldiers. The time for jesting was over; Jesus’ cross was ready. They clothed him again in his own garments and took him away to the place of crucifixion.’ He left the Praetorium carrying his own cross ac- cording to the custom; but weakened by the effect of the terrible Roman scourging, and the abuse he had undergone, he was unable to support its weight. Unwilling to carry it themselves the soldiers seized upon a stranger from the country passing along the street and impressed him to carry the instru- ment of torture. As they passed through the streets of the city, great multitudes followed them. The proceeding had profoundly stirred the entire city, and by this time, about noon, the most of its inhabitants had attached themselves to the crowd to see the spectacle.’ Among this crowd were some women of the city, whose hearts were not so hard as those of the great mass about him and who, as they saw this young man passing to his death, wept and lamented him in the noisy fashion characteristic of the Jews. This wailing awoke again in Jesus the emotions *Matthew 27:31-32; Mark 15: 2021; Iuke 23:26; John ab aaah a by gs *T Kei 2h eed e. THE CRUCIFIXION Pray that had filled him when from the temple he looked out over the city and saw coming upon it the doom which he believed to be inevitable. Even in the hour of death he was still possessed by his sub- lime conception of the fast approaching end of the world. Turning to the women he said ‘‘ Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- selves and for your children. For behold the days are coming in which they shall say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never gave suck!’ Then shall they begin to say to the mountains ‘Fall on us’ and to the hills “Cover us.’ For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’’ With him went two other condemned men, con- demned perhaps for participation in the same out- break for which Barabbas had been arrested. The world has long desired to identify the place to which they led these three. From the nature of the topography of Jerusalem and its environs, it must have been somewhere along the ridge to the north of the city. The name of the place, in Hebrew Gol- gotha, in Latin Calvary, means ‘‘the place of a skull’’ and with the assumption that this indicated some hill shaped like a skull, various places have been pointed out by different writers as the probable locality. There is no definiteness about any of these Opinions, however, and we only know they took them to some place near Jerusalem and there crucified them. 252 Jesus toe Man The three were crucified near together, the cross of Jesus between the other two.’ According to the custom of placing above the head of the malefactor the accusation of crime for which he was being pun- ished, the charge which Pilate had dictated was placed upon the cross. The language of his accu- sation was ‘‘ Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.”’ Carrying as it did the accusation of no crime, it ex- pressed with subtle irony the contempt of Pilate for the people he governed, as well as for the priests who he thought had sought the blood of this man for no legal cause. The priests appreciated the rebuke contained in it and sent to him to ask that it be changed to read ‘‘He said, ‘I am King of the Jews’,’’? which would indicate that he had commit- ted the crime of treason. But this matter was not complicated; it was entirely within Pilate’s author- ity, and he refused to accede to the wishes of the priests. ‘‘What I have written I have written,’’ he replied. As a measure of mercy, before the actual cruci- fixion began the doomed men were offered a drink of wine mingled with a drug which had a narcotie effect. This Jesus refused. He was not willing to blunt his faculties for the experience he was sure he was about to meet. He expected to go directly into the heavens. The doomed men were stripped of their clothing *Matthew 27: 35-38; Mark 15: 24-27; Luke 23:33, 38; John 19 : 18-22. THE CRUCIFIXION 203 before they were nailed to the cross. The custom gave the garments to the soldiers who performed the execution; Jesus’ garments were divided into four parts, the ownership of the woven inner gar- ment being determined by the casting of lots. Then the soldiers sat down by the crosses to watch their victims die. The merciless cruelty of the priests who had ac- complished his death followed him even to the last hour. The multitudes that passed by jeered at him, saying ‘‘If thou art the son of God come down from the cross;’’ the chief priests likewise mocked him, saying, ‘‘He is the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe on him; he trusteth in God, let God deliver him now if he de- sireth him.’” Likewise of the two insurrectionists who were crucified with him, one jeered at him saying, °° Art thou not the Anointed One? save thyself and us.”’ But one of them, evidently familiar with the teach- ing of Jesus and perhaps a believer in him, said ‘‘ Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy Kingdom.’’ Even yet the confidence in his mission and in the early coming of the Kingdom was unshaken. To the man who hung dying with him he answered, ‘‘ Verily I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Para- dise.’? The death which now confronted him im- mediately with inevitable certainty was only the ‘Matthew 27: 39-44; Mark 15: 29-32; Luke 23: 35-43. 254 JESUS THE Man gate through which he should pass into the heavens and to the joyous state of the blessed from whence he would speedily return bringing the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples of Jesus were all thoroughly dis- persed. The eleven were in hiding in the city where they were now being sought by the chief priests be- cause of a rumor that was circulated throughout the city that they were attempting to burn the temple. The multitude of his Galileans were forever scat- tered. Buta few of the women, less suspected, and consequently in less personal danger, watched the whole proceeding from afar.’ The satisfaction of the Jerusalemites was sudden- ly changed to fear, for an eclipse now covered the face of the sun and darkness enshrouded the city. It was so intense that many were unable to find their way about the streets without falling, others earried lanterns. This darkness continued until three o’clock when the sun again came out, much to ‘John 24:27 cannot be historical; it contradicts not merely the language of the synoptists, who state that the women watched from afar (Matthew 27:55, 56; Mark 15:40, 41; Luke 23: 49) but it is psychologically so improbable as almost to be impossible that John and these timid women could have been crowded in among the soldiers and the hostile Jewish rulers, practically con- versing with him. The Gospel according to Peter even if apoc- ryphal, is more probable in this instance. It states that Peter “and my companions was grieved; and being wounded in mind we hid ourselves: for we were being sought for by them as mal- efactors and as wishing to set fire to the temple.” This great soul went to his end spiritually alone, not as Socrates surround- ed by loving friends and disciples, but amid the jeers and abuses of his enemies. THE CRUCIFIXION 255 the relief of those who had begun to fear the mean- ing of this phenomenon, occurring simultaneously with the crucifixion of the man who had claimed to be the Son of God. About three o’clock Jesus, who had maintained his silence throughout these hours of torture, cried out in the words of the psalmist, ‘‘ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’” No doubt with the pass- ing of his strength and the gradual diminution of consciousness the keen sense of the nearness of God which he had continually kept with him and which had been his sustaining support through the whole terrible experience, began to lose its power. The haziness of approaching death was upon him, and he felt that he was indeed forsaken. To one who knew not the language, the Aramaic words he uttered bore a decided resemblance to a ery for Elijah. Even the foreign soldiers who served Pilate had become familiar with the name and meaning of Elijah, and one soldier who heard the ery construed it to be a call for Elijah. He knew the nature of the charges against Jesus and in curiosi- ty began to wonder what this could mean. He saw the fainting condition of the dying man; he ran and sat- urated a sponge with sour wine, placed it upon a reed, and put it up to his lips with the hope that it ™atthew 27:46; Mark 15: 34. The words are quoted from Paras. L: 8As they come to us through the Greek they are not exact transliteration of the Hebrew. 256 JEsus THE Man might refresh him and sustain him for a while. ‘Let be,’’ he said, ‘‘let us see whether Elijah comes to take him down.’’ But it was of no avail. The end was come. Jesus uttered a loud ery’ and gave up the ghost.” *The words given by Luke (28:46) and John (19:30) are entirely different and both contradict both Mark and Matthew and all probability. ~The strictly human life of Jesus necessarily ends with his death. The story of the resurrection, the experiences of the Twelve, the development of the Christian group in Jerusalem and elsewhere and the genesis of the conviction that the man who was the central figure of this striking episode could be none other than God himself, require another study and are not properly a part of this book. FINIs Sie, eee, el pee EO i eae a ae = « a hs et ogre ae oe thet tcl cat 2» IMI iii i) = = © & ® & ™ &§ © © © N T- O 7 i ee | ait Viadt THE THT Hi } I 1 i} Wi Hi q ) i HAR | eRURER aly ili i H i H {