liPfPil'lijiill |iiil!-l'lii!ii;!|il|:r:i;:viK|;;^^ i.'iiii^;l|iSll|'i^|!l:i:i :|i|^!:1||li^fii:i'::|il;ii;;^^ LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. BS 2407 .E883 1897 Essays concerning Jesus and His times /> OJi OCT 17 l'Ji4 ESSAYS Concerning Jesus and His Times BE:NG pages S-IS reprinted EROM volumes IV AND V, PAGES 401-536 OE VOLUME VI, AND PAGES 417-482 OP VOLUME VITI OF THE BIBLICAL WORLD lPubU9be& tot lEbc Bmerican llnstttute of SacrcO Xiteraturc BY Cbc 'aniversit^ of Cblcago press 1897 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART I. FACE I Map of Palestine ------- 3 II Studies in Palestinian Cxeugraph\-, Rev. Professor J. S. Rigors, D.D. ------- 5 PART II. PAGE III The Foreshadowingsof the Christ in the Old Testament, President William R. Harper, D.D. - - - - 401 IV The Times of Christ, Rev. Professor H. M. Scott, D.D. 413 V The Sources of the Life of Christ, Professor Ernest D. Burton - - - 424 VI The Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Rev. Professor A. C. Zen OS, D.D. - 433 VII The Ministry of Christ, Professor JVm. Arnold Stevens, D.D. - 444 VIII The Teaching of Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Rei'. Professor Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D. --------- 455 IX The Teaching of Christ in the (lospel of John, Rev. Pro- fessor Marcus Dods, D.D. - - - - - 467 X Jesus as a Preacher, Professor William C. Wilkinson, D.D. - - - 476 XI Christ in Art, /v'ev. Professor Rush Rhees - - - 49° XII Christ in Poetry. Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus. D.D. - 504 XIII The Song of Mary - - - - - - - 5 '6 XIV Christ in History, Principal A. M. Fairbairn, D.D. - 518 XV Helps to the Study of the Life of Christ, Professor SI/ a Her Mathetvs - - - - - - " " 5^4 XVI The Hall of the Christ at Chautauqua, Bisl/op J. H. Vincent, D.D. - - - - - - - -53° iv co.y'/vs.yvs X\'1I Svnojjses of Iiiiportant Articles: Jesus' Teachiiii^s al)out Himself. James Robinson — The In< aination and the Unity of Christ's Person. T. C. Jithcards (c. w . VOTAW) - - - - - - - - 534 PART III. PACE XVIII The ("hild Prophecies of Isaiah. W'iUiain R. Harper. D.D. 41; XIX The Storv of the Birth, Professor Geori^^e T. Piirres, D.J). 423 XX The Home of Our Lord's Childhood, Professor Geo/^e Adat/t Sill i til, D.D. - - - - - - - 435 XXI levvish Familv Life, /'/''^/<'X<-(^r /^/v/^-.^t" /A Hit r ton - 445 XXII The Child Jesus in VMwXxWii. Professor William C. Wil- kinson., D.D. - - - - - - - - 45S XXIII Christianitv and Children. Professor Charles R. Hen- derson. D.D. - - - - - - - 473 TIME OF CHRIST STUDIES IN PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY By the Rev. Professor J. S. Rig cs, D.D., Aulnun Theolijsjical Seminarx'. I. THE LAND AS A WHOLE. OxE of the marked characteristics of our Bible is that its contents are, in large part, history and biography. This fact makes its scenery of deep and lasting interest. While the chief purpose of all the record is spiritual, it adds not a little to the vividness of the lesson to be able to realize its material setting and estimate the force of physical as well as political environ- ment upon national or individual life. Paul \"eronese's great picture of "Jesus in the House of Levi," with its group of Italian faces and its palatial setting, may honor Christ, but, except in the honor it gives the Master, it is an untruthful representation Sober study of history and geography serves to check wrong idealizations and puts emphasis upon that which is really worthy and exalted. It will be our aim, then, in these studies, to get before us, as well as we mav, the picture of ancient Palestine as it was when our blessed Lord looked upon it. Geography pos- sesses an advantage over history in that all that touches the ph3-sical side remains in great measure unchanged. A ride today over the hills of Judea reveals to us the same general out- line of hill and valley, lake and stream, plain and desert. Never before could we look more intelligently upon these in the study of that which pertains to historical geography, for its problems have had and are still having careful scientific investigation That we may include in our picture the results of this work we have divided the studies as follows: (i) The land as a whole; (2) Judea; (3) Jerusalem; (4) Samaria; (5) Galilee; (6) The Jordan valley and the Perca. It is well to remember that much of the depiction of the land of Palestine given in the Old Testament is heightened by con- trast with the land of Egypt. The Nile makes Egypt, and on 5 6 THE BIBLICAL WORLD either sitlc of the strip of sj^reen that marks the reach of the fer- tilizing waters stretcli tlie solemn, desolate wastes of the desert. Over against the monoton\- of this level of life bounded on both sides by death stands the striking mountain scenerv of Judea and Galilee, the beauties of the Shephelah and the plains, the singular features of the Jordan vallev and the highlands beyond. If we should draw a rough outline maj) of the land like this below, it could be naturall}' divided into four parts, which are indicateil bv the numbered lines drawn tlown the maj). These correspond in order to the following j)h\sical characteristics: (l) the maritime plains; (J) tin- mountain district; (3) the Jordan \alle\- ; (4) The highlands on the other side of the Jordan. In order to get a clear conception of llu- l.iml as a whole, STUDIES' IN PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY / let us look at the general character of each of these. The out- line of Palestine is that of a truncated triangle — the upper part being cut off. From its northern line to its southern the dis- tance is about 140 miles, and at its widest part in the south it is not more than fifty miles wide ; the coast line is about 180 miles, long. Supposing our landing place Joppa, we should find ourselves, as we leave the beautiful orange groves at the back of the city, entering upon a broad plain, undulating in its surface and at such a level above the sea that its gently rolling hills reach a height of 200, sometimes of about 300 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. At the town of Ramleh in the part of this plain called the plain of Sharon there is a high tower standing, the remnant of a crusader church. Ascending this, one has a wide prospect over the whole plain from the slopes of Carmel on the north to the regions of Gaza on the south. This long reach, so significant in the varied history of the land as the high- way of armies from the south and from the north, is divided into three parts — that along the front of Carmel extending to the Crocodile River ; the plain of ."^haron, eight to twelve miles wide and forty-four long, extending to a line just below Ramleh ; the plain of the Philistines reaching on south to the river of Egypt There is no more pleasing view in Palestine, except over the plain of P^sdraelon. The greensward in the springtime abounds in flowers and the husbandman is busy preparing its productive soil for the harvest. Lydda is not far away amid its olive groves. Many sites of ancient towns can be pointed out toward the north and east. Toward the distant southern horizon one can discern the region of the Philistine cities Gaza, Gath, Ash- kelon. Ashdod, and Ekron, of which the site of Gath is alone uncertain. With the view of the distant mountains of Judah and Ephraim constantlv before one, the journey over this plain to Jerusalem makes a delightful introduction to the scenes of the Holy Land. Gradually the plain slopes upward as it reaches inward from the sea till it meets the Shephelah or low hills that stand before the mountains themselves. Sometimes this term is given to the whole region between the high mountains and THE B/PL/CAL WORLD the sea. The wortl is translated "plain" in the Septiiagint. In the restricted use of the term it marks those hills of limestone which present, as Dawson says of them, "low ridges not more than about 500 feet in height, with gentle slopes to the westward and more abrupt escarpments to the east." They arc cut with vallcvs and have played a deeply interesting [)art in the history of the land. The Rev. Geo. A. Smith calls attention to the fact that above the valley of Ajalon these foothills occuj)y a differ- ent relative position to the mountains near them, and that the name Shephelah did not j)robablv extend above the \'allev. Below this famous \allcv the hills are, so to speak, more inde- pendent of the mountains. "Altogether it is a rough, happ\' land, with its glens and moors, its mingled brushwood and barle\- fields ; frecjuentlv under cultivation, but for the most part broken and thirst\', with few wells and manv hiding places ; just the home for strong bordermcn like Samson, and just the theater for that guerrilla warfare varied occasionallv b}- pitched battles, which Israel and I'hilistia, the Maccabees and .Syrians, and Sala- din and Richard waged with each other." Right before us now in our journey across the land is that mountain wall which extends with but one break through the whole length of the land. Up and up the road mounts, with turns here and there that gi\'e the tra\eler \iews over all the mari- time plain and far out to sea, till we reach the ritlge which at the Mount of Olives is 2600 feet above the sea; on Newbv Samwil or Mizpah 2800 feet ; on the ridge of Hebron 3000 feet. These limestone mountains, which do not always reveal their own great height since the \allevs are also elexated, are cut in every tlirec- tion by water courses or separated by broader sj)aces which are utilized for farming or for oli\e gro\cs. The i)arren rocks, with their denuded siu'faces exposed to the sun and rain, are disap- pointing indeed. It is hard to reali/t.- when one tlrst sees them that they ha\'e been the witnesses of some of the most telling events of historw IWit aniiil them stood Jerusalem, Bethel, •Shechem, .Samaria, Nazareth, ami it is |)leasant to think that they were once nujre attractixe than now. as the\' certainU were when a respectable go\'ernment ga\ e both inspiration and i)rotec- STCD/KS L\- P. 1 LEST/XL I A' GEOGRAPHY 9 tion to all kinds of thrift. They were the strongholds of the people, and have always been spared much that came to the plains below. With their rugged faces and varying phases Christ was familiar from boyhood. In places now the scenery is wild and forbidding; again it is softened and beautified, as the diligence of the inhabitants has covered the rocks with olive groves or the valleys with grain. When we come to consider more closely the divisions of the country we can stop to mark definitely some of these features. Standing upon the Mount of Olives, one can see, in the dis- tance, far below him, the blue waters of the Dead Sea. As we go over the brow of the mountain toward Bethany we begin that steep descent which is to bring us to the third natural division of the land --the Jordan valley. The way from Jerusalem to Jeri- cho, in this valley, is certainh' "down." One descends over 3800 feet to the level of the inland sea, and so sharp is the change that in the x'alley we are in the region of the })alm tree and of all tropical fruits. The broad plain of the Jordan must once have been full of beauty, and the river, insignificant in itself but exalted in its associations, yet pours its turbulent waters into the Salt Sea. The cleft (we shall studv it later) down which the river comes from its sources at Banias and Dan has its greatest depth and width near the head of the Dead Sea, but all the way up, beyond the Sea of Galilee, it cuts the land into two distinct parts and in itself forms a notable feature of Palestine. The modern name for this lower, broader part of this cleft is "The Ghor." It is rich in biblical associations and well deserves sep- arate studv. "On the other side of Jordan" the mountains again go up to heights which exceed those in western Palestine and the pla- Mountain of Moab Plain of Sharon 31;'^ Division 4tii Division 10 THE BIBLICAL WORLD tcaus of the northern section of eastern Palestine are marked for tiicir fertility. Tiie scheme on the j)receding page, taken froiii a geological studv of the land w ill gi\e some idea of the wav over which we have come. If one looks at this central ridge as it runs north and south throusrh the land, it will ha\e this o;eneral outline: juJcA Samaria Thi.s outline trive.s tlie ridge to tlic l)ci,'iniiinL' has ofteiu r come from tiu- ])eoj)le within its borders than fr(»m outsiilers. Another matter ol interest is: II. ilu- \ariet\ of scenery and climate — mountain. j)lain. STLDIES IX PALEST7NIAX GEOGRAPHY II valley, gorge, desert, river, torrent, lake, sea, — everv varietv of phvsical configuration is here. From the heights of Judea one can see the snowy summits of Hermon, on whose sides are found the phenomena of an arctic clime. Within sight in another direc- tion is the tropical vallev of the Jordan. Jerusalem itself is no stranger to snow storms, and vet gathers from its hill slopes the fig, oli\e. and ])omegranate. Indeed, within the time of a single iournev through the land one may have manv of the features of a tropical, temperate, or arctic clime. How much this varietv has added to the beautv and power of the Scriptures we all know. Tt has made it, e\'en on the side of its phvsical environment, a book for the world. II. JUDEA. Passing from a \-iew of the land as a whole to the considera- tion of its parts, no more convenient division of western Pales- tine offers itself for our jnirpose than that found in the New Testament, viz., Judea, .Samaria, and Galilee. The line of divi- sion is, indeed, more than geographical, and for that reason we shall be called to look for a moment at the relation of people and einironment — the most interesting of all relationships in geographical studw Let us begin with Judea. This name by which we know the southern portion of the land has not always designated the same extent of territor^y. It has sometimes been the name of the whole land, including apjjarently parts beyond the Jordan (see Josephus, Ant., XII, 4:11); or again in a restricted sense it marks the southern portion of the mountain ridge below Samaria ; or again it denotes the tract extending from the Mediterranean to the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and from a line on the north passing just above Antipatris and deflecting northward near its western limit, to the mountain ridge below Beersheba. Its general outline in the time of Christ appears in the outline map on the next page. It had an area of 2000 square miles, if we include the plain ; without this and the .Shephelah. both of which in the time of the independence of the Jews were often not included, an area of about 1350 square miles. It is upon the central ridge — in the 12 THE BiniJCAL WORLD hill coiinti)- — that all the great ex'ents of both the Old ami Now Testament history took place. This is realK- the Jiulca of our sacred narrative ; hence in our studv we shall look at that tract nearly six't\' miles long from its northern boundary to Beersheba and from fourteen to se\'enteen miles witle. This portion can he naturally di\ided into the hill country, the desert, and the south countrw Imagine Nourself now upon the tower of the Mos(|ue upon the height of Newhs' Samuil I Mi/]iah) a few miles north- west of Jerusalem. As a great j)icture the land of Judea reaches out in all directions below you. On the right, a> \(»u look toward till- south, are the jagged gorges and steep jiasst-s which leatl down to tlu- Sln-phciah and the jilain. Hexond the low hills is the plain with all its fciiilitx- reaching to the sea, whose coast line is visible nearlx t^ ( iiinel. South of \oti aie the barren STUDIES IN PALESTIXIAN GEOGRAPHY I 3 monotonous limestone ridges of the land itself rising one behind the other to the highest line near Hebron. Broad valleys lie between these which are as featureless as the mountains them- selves. The scenery has little to commend it. One wonders how Judah ever found an adequate habitation among these inhospitable rocks. In these stony valleys, however, some grain was raised, and we have only to go down to Bethlehem to see how the hillsides were utilized. But, at best, compared with the lands we know, it is a weary land. Therein lies part of the secret of the history of its people. Over to our left lies Jeru- salem and the Mount of Olives ; on beyond in nearly the same direction lie the wastes of the desert, while all along the line of our eastern outlook runs the deep cleft of the Jordan and the mountains on the other side. The country itself is capable of strong defense and calculated to develop the sturdiest character in those who must defend it. Such is the view which may be had, from more than one summit, of the characteristic features of Judea. Its people have been a pastoral rather than an agri- cultural people except as thev have devoted themselves to the culture of the vine. Across the broken tract extending ten miles north from Jerusalem were the fortresses which once pro- tected the northern frontier. These were placed so as to cover the roads leading up from the Jordan, down from the north, and up from the passes on the western side — Michmash, Geba, Ramah, Adasa, and Gibeon. Each name suggests memorable events of the days of Judah, or of the Maccabees. The road from Jerusalem to Hebron keeps well up on the center of the ridge and presents only here and there any variation from that which meets us in the north. Among these " variations here and there" we must include Bethlehem and Hebron. The trav- eler turns from the main road about six miles from Jerusalem to enter the former city, which lies upon a rocky promontorv extending toward the southeast. It is not difficult to imagine the feelings with which one comes to that spot which, traditional though it be, may well be the real place of our Lord's birth. It is not in accord with our purpose to stop for any description of the buildings which cover it, or of the city in which it is. When 14 THE HIBLICAL WORLD one comes to the actual s[)ot, he wishes the trumpery of the priests out of the wav that he might see the place in its natixe simi^licitv. l)ut there it is before you. Justin Martvr in the mid- dle of the second centurv bears witness to it, and it is one of the few spots upon which different traditions converge. Once one could step out from it upon the brow of a hill that overlooks a beautiful \allev and wide fields bevond. Here one may see what was perhaps evident in man)- parts of the land. At the bottom of the valley are grain fields and olive trees with their welcome shade. Shepherds arc upon the distant hill slopes, while all up the sides of the xallcv itself are the terraces upon wiiich olive trees are planted. The scene — so peaceful and thrifts- — is in striking contrast to the desolate hillsides all around. Bethle- hem is an attractive spot, both for its sacred associations and for its j)icturc of thrift. The ai)[:)roach to Hebron gives the traveler some idea of the manner and value of the ancient \inc\ards. For a long way before reaching the city itself one rides past these \ineyards in the gently sloping valleys or on the terraces of the mountain sides. Here, nearly 3000 feet above the sea, the grapes are brought to perfection by the soft autumn mists. Nature all about is beautiful. Hebron itself, with its dirtv, superstitious, fanatical Mohammedan jjopulation, is the only blot upon the scene. The (juestion has once and again been asked, Was ancient Judea no more fertile than it api)ears today ? Hebron gives answer for all those regions where the vine could he nurtured and where water and soil would give any chance for tillage. "On the whole plateau the only gleams of water are the jjools of Gibeon, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hrhroii, and troni Bethel to Beershcba there are not even in its springtime more than six or seven tiny rills." It is only where the plateau breaks and a glen is formed that one can look for returns from labor. With the exception of tin- olixi- the whole land from Ji-rus;Uem to the \ieinitv of Ilcbion is treeless, and on beyond where tlie hills l)egin to descend toward the desert the same is true. The .South Country, with its uplands, has always been famous for grazing, and today thousands oi cattle are louml in this region. Water is g.itlicrcd in cisterns, .ind to thesi- the STrniES IX PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY I 5 shepherds and herdsmen come with their flocks and herds, repro- ducing the scenes of the days of the patriarchs. Not an inhabited town appears in this whole region, a fact which brings to mind the prophecy of Jeremiah, "The cities of the south shall be shut up and none shall open them" (Jer. 13:19). Beersheba, with its wells and nothing more, illustrates daily the scenes of centuries ago and the truth of this sad prediction. From this description of the gradual descent of the hills from Hebron to I^eersheba it will be readily seen that Judea was exposed on her southern frontier, but rarely did an invasion come from this direction. It was easier to go up either bv the way of the Dead Sea or west- ward to the Philistine plain ; opposition in the mountains about Hebron was a serious matter. Chedorlaomer took the former route ; the hordes of Islam the latter. The third feature of Judea which merits especial attention is the wilderness along the western shore of the Dead Sea. It is thirty-five miles long by fifteen wide, and it is difficult to convey to one who has not seen it its utter desolation. From the top of the great pyramid near Cairo the sharp line dividing the green fertile land which the river has made and the silent lifeless waste of sand that stretches toward the horizon is traceable for miles. There is a vivid contrast between life and death. Not cjuite so \'ivid in its dividing line but more so in the actual picture of desolation is the desert of Judea. The Sahara has the gentle undulation of a great sea bottom ; Judea's wilderness is the hideous contortion of rock ridges with gullies between them that blister in the sun and make hiding places in their parched caverns for wild beasts. The violent rents and racking that made the Dead Sea grorije itself are reflected in this broken, barren, blighted region of silence and death. As one well says of it : " It gave the ancient nations of Judea as it gives the mere visitor of today the sense of living next to doom ; the sense of how narrow is the border between life and death ; the awe of the power of God who can make contiguous regions so opposite in character. ' He turneth rivers into a wilderness and water springs into' a thirsty ground.' The desert is always in the face of the prophets, and its howling of beasts in the night watches, and its 1 6 THE BIBLICAL irOBLD (Irv sand blown niournfullv across their gorges, the foreboding of judgment." On its eastern side it ends in cliffs that strike down 2000 feet to the shore of the Salt Sea. A wild, degraded tribe of Arabs inhabits its southern part. who. b\' their sudden and unfricndlv appearings and as sudden disappearings, helj)s us to understand some of the exploits of David when he wandered here as "a partridge on the mountains." Here, in this desert, John the I^aptist prepared himself for his mission, going far enough into its solitudes to be alone with God; meditating under the bright stars of a Syrian sky upon the prophecy which was even then being fulfilled, and gathering into his thoughts some of the sternness of his environment that lie might face the mul- titude with the crv : "Repent! prepare the way of the Lord!" Here the Lord himself met and defeated the prince of desolation — an event which invests this wild haggard region with inij)crish- able interest. As with a glance we have seen the land of Judea. What did it do for those who dwelt within its borders r Tlie answer is not difficult. Its \'erv isolation would develop a sjjirit of patriotic zeal in case those who dwelt within it were called to its defense. Once and again this was a necessitv. Those mountain ])asses were formidable. l)ut they could be taken unless protected ; those barren rocks and shallow \alle\s would gi^'e nothing e.\ce|)t to toil and thrift. .Safety and sustenance were the outcome of cour- age and care. Both alike threw the peoj)le back constantly ujjon the necessitv of dej)endence upon (jod. On those high hills thev were kej)t with just that intermixture of trial antl securit\' which should fit them for his purpose. The glor\' of the temple, tcjo, was on those hills, and that passionate patriotism which ins|)ired the delermiiu-d resistance of tlu- Maccabees and the awlul struggle at Masada tells us s(imething of the characti-r-material formed amid those heights. The shadow side of all this was that bigotry which reached its climax in the refusal to listen for one moiHfnt to the voice of the lowly .Messiah. As far as the life and ministrx" of our Lord recordetl in the gospels are concerned tlu- |)Iace of cliiti interest is. of course, Jerusalem. Tlic piilures(|ue little town ot ik-than\-, just o\c-r the STrDI/-:s /X PALESTJX/AX GEOGRAPHY 1/ brow of the Mount of Olives; the Jericho road and Jericho itself; the town of Kphraim to which he fled from the jews, and supposed to be northeast of Jerusalem in the wild hill country ; the village of Emmaus, not surelv identified, but placed bv Conder at Khamasa, seven miles southwest of Jerusalem — these are the places mentioned in connection with his ministry in Judea. Bethlehem's honor we have alreadv noted. That possible fuller record of which John speaks might have told us of journeys to the plain and to Hebron and round about Jerusalem ; at any rate we can see the land as he saw it, and estimate its bearings upon those who, under favoring conditions, inhabited it. Its chief glory to our Master was that within its borders he was to accom- plish the will of Him who set apart its mountains for the training of a people out of whose midst he, the Messiah, came. That, too, is its glory in our e\"es. III. JEKUSALE>r. The interest of the traveler in Palestine climaxes as he goes up to Jerusalem. Eagerly he watches for the first sight of her walls and regictfulh' he turns awav from her streets and the hills and valleys round about her. \Vhoe\er goes intelligently need fear no despoiling of his idealizations, but rather may gain that vivid realization of the natural scenery of much of the Bible story that will alwavs gi\'e it freshness. We say "whoever goes intelligentlv," and that means two things, going with some con- ception of the present condition of the land and citv, and some acquaintance with the work that has been done in recent years helping toward an accurate determination of localities connected with Ihe history of both Testaments. There is perhaps no place on the globe where tradition and superstition have worked so well together. The city and the surrounding hills are full of "sites," and credulous pilgrims with no knowledge of the changes which an eventful history has brought about kneel at impossible shrines and listen to absurd identifications. The supreme interest of the city for a Christian is, of course, in its connection with the life of our Lord, and the purpose of this sketch is, as far as possible, to mark the outline 1 8 THE BIBLICAL WORLD of that which was the cit\' io him, aiul to show its difference from the Jerusalem of today. To help us we have, as the result of recent excavations and measurements, the establishment of the rock-le\els all about the cit\" and the definite settlement of some points of to})Ography which are of great \alue. To get some idea of modern Jerusalem, let us imagine our- selves uj)on the slope of Olivet east of the cit\'. As we look toward the west, we have immediately in front of us the large cjuadrangle of the moscjues of Omar and El Aksa, co\ering about thirtv-fi\e acres ; bevond to the north of this (piadrangle, and parth on the west of it, is the jNIohammedan quarter; on the hill at our right, and west of the Mohammedan quarter, is the Christian section ; south of this, and on the highest i)art of the citv, the Armenian (piarter, and adjoining this on the east, reach- ing from it to the western wall of the sacred (juadrangle, the Jewish quarter. Notable buildings appear on all sides amid indistinguishable dwellings. The mixture of minaret and tower, of church, con- vent, and sxnagogue makes evident the religious difterence of the city, which is comparativelv small, and as of old, "compacted together." Her streets are narrow and irregular, and not remark- able for cleanliness. There is yet no good water sujjply, and the inhabitants are generally jwor. Nevertheless, interest deej)ens as one studies the view and seeks to replace in thought the Jerusalem of other days. Rej)cated de\astations have changed the ajjpearance of the cit\- in some important respects, as have also changes in the line of the walls. By consulting the map, which exhibits the rock\- contours, one can see how the cit\ is placed. It rests on two promontories of rock formed respecti\'el\- bv the Kedron and Tyrop(».'on valleys on one side and this latter and the liinnom \alley on the wirst. Tlie Kedron starts on the north and sweej)s around past He/.elha and .Moriali and ( )plul. Tlu- Txropirou begins near the j)rcsent Damascus gate and runs southeast right through the citv sending off an arm which reaches nearly to the Jaffa gate, l^xcept in its lower |)ortion, this valle\- is not distinctly marked, and it is not strange-, for nearl\- fift\- feet of debris fill it up. The STUDIES L\ PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 19 present wall dates only from the time of Solyman the Magnifi- cent, 1542; buried beneath the rubbish of centuries lie most of the walls of the old city. di-UL SU^ v^y(./^^<'(j-Vc-^-^/^-^^-'^-' Ph. a-tuu£t.t^ . But the work of the last twenty-five years under the direction of the Palestine Exploration Society has done very much toward helping us to an accurate restoration of the Herodian city with which our Lord was familiar. The following facts are now beyond dispute: the position of Ophel, south of the present temple inclosure ; the direction and depth of the Tyropoeon 20 THE BIBLICAL WORLD vallev ; tlie name of the .southeastern hill of tlie citv — the upper citv ; the position of the pool of Siloani below the s])ur of ( )j)hel ; the location of the roval towers near the j)resent tower of Da\i(-1, in the first wall ; the southwestern anidc of the old "first" wall at the rock-scarf in the present Protestant ccmeterv on the Zion Hill; the position of the Tyropceon bridge leading to the roval cloisters of the temple, the position of the southwestern angle of the temj)le inclosure. These facts, together with the description of the rock-levels, put us in the wa\- of, at least, more intelligent discussion of the great problems yet in cpiestion — of these the greatest are these : (^/) the extent of the old city in the time of Christ ; {b') the area of the temple inclosure at the time of Herod's enlargement; (r) the site of Calvary. If wc could be sure of {a) we would also be a long way tow art! the determination of ic). That ancient Jerusalem was a far nobler citv than that which now fronts Mount ()li\et can be readilv believed when we think of the glorv of the tem[jle, of the jialaces and public buildings that rose uj) from the high city, and of the walls with their numerous towers and battlements. In the fifth book of the "Wars" Josephus gives the course of the walls before the destruction of the city in A. I). 70. Let us follow them as far as possible. The first began near the j)resent Jaffa gate and ran directly eastward along the northern K:(\'yKi of the hill of the upper citv (see outline) and emled at the wall of the temple. From the Jaffa gate it went southward along the brow of the hill facing the Hinnom vallev to the rock-scarf where it turned eastward, and "bending above the fountain Siloam" passed along the eastern brow of the hill near the line of the present wall where it crossetl o\er aiul came back along the edge (jf ()phel. It is but right to sa\ that the direction of the wall after leaving the rock-scarf on the southwestern angle is disj)uted. Conder, with others, makes it cross the Tyrop»ion just above the pool of .Siloam. while I.euin follows what st-ems th<- more likelv conjecture which we lia\e already indicated. The moment we attempt to draw tin- line of the secoml wall we must face the serious (juestion of the |)lace of the crucifixion. A second spot is coming more and UKue into dispute with the STUDIES IN PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 21 traditional site under the Holy Sepulchre Church — and that spot is the Grotto of Jeremiah, not far outside the present Damascus gate. Nearly all the data for determining" the direction of the second wall are wanting. Josephus says that it began at the gate Gennath, which is conjecturally located near the tower of Hippicus, and ran to the tower of Antonia. If for no other reason than the painful superstitions which crowd the whole interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that were sufficient to make us wish to find some quiet spot like the hill outside the gate as the place where the wondrous sacrifice was made. Herr Schick, who contends for the present site, makes the second wall turn sharply several times on its way to Antonia. The rock-le\'els again seem to call for a course which would include the Sepulchre Church, for with a sloping hill a wall would be a weak defense in proportion to its distance from the summit — and the position of the church is below the summit of the Akra ridge. As long as the actual remains of a wall in this region aie not clear beyond cjuestion one cannot be dogmatic regarding the site of Calvary, but the evidences of an old gateway found near the present Damascus gate and the line of rock-levels would well support the theorv that the line of the second wall passed north from near the tower of David along the ridge of Akra to the present Damascus gate and then turned along the ridge of Bezetha to the northwest angle of the temple area, i. c, to Antonia. This would make the present site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre untrue. It must be remembered that a long time had passed after the crucifixion before this site was fixed upon and honored with a memorial, and, as another has remarked, it was as eas\' to be mistaken about this as about the location of the place of the ascension which has always been pointed out as on the top of Mount Olivet. Furthermore, the grotto of Jeremiah answers to all the conditions of the Bible account ; especially so, if the present Damascus gate marks the site of an ancient gateway on the much-tra\'cled road toward the north. It was then without the walls, near the citv, near a leading thoroughfare, conspicuous, and formed like a skull. As we stood upon the 22 THI-: BIBLICAL WORLD clear, quiet spot under the open skv and (juitc awav from the noise and muninierv of traditional remembrance, our earnest feelings were onl\- too glad to second the judgment which makes this the most memorable place on earth — the actual scene of the crucifixion. As the three crosses stood upon this height, sixty feet above the road, thev must ha\e been visible from the housetoj)s all about Jerusalem. Singularl\- enough Jewish tombs have been disco\ered near bv, and though it cannot be identified it mav be that one of these was the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. If these conjectures are correct we can see from the outline that the general circumference of Jerusalem in Christ's time was dif- ferent from that of todav. Now the southern [)art of the ujtjjer city of Zion is outside the walls, and its area is occuj)ied in great part bv a cemetery. Ophel is no longer included within the citv and is but a barren rock. On the northeast the wall is cur\ eil further out and joins the temple area in a straight line and the area of Akra was not (juite as large. ( )nly a broken arch, Rob- inson's arch, remains to show the place of the l)ri(,lge which led across to the tcmj^le area. Indeed. h\ the filling uj) ot the Tyropteon all the ancient aj^proaches on the west sitle ot the temjjie area are obliterated. No wall now (li\ ides the cit\- as did the old "first" wall. The brook Kedron was deeper, and all the surroundings of the citv must have been more attracti\e than now. The Nvstus stood in the Tvroj){i'on west of the temjjle wall and the tower of Antonia probaljlv at the northwest angle (jf the great area. By different le\els one ascendeil to the Holy Place of the temjjle itself, and thi> inclosnrc- was enlarged bv Herod at the southwest angle. It is tlu- o|)iiiion ot Sir Charles Warrc-n and Captain CoikKt that the northeast angle began iumi' the present golden gate and followed the line ol the ridge in a north westerlv direction. .Such are the changes that eonie to light 1)\- modern exploia- tion and measurement. TIkn" give us some idea ol the general contour of the ancient citv and that is about all. At least twenty times Jerusalem h.is been besieged, and the rubbish, some ot which existi-d when Nehemiah rtbuilt tin- walls, h.is been heap ing ii|) so that near the soutlu-asti-rn angU- ol tin- present ll.uani STUDIES IX PALHSTIXIAX GEOGRAPHY 23 wall the i^reat stones of the foundation were found nearly eighty feet below the surface. Still the general position of the city is the same as when Christ saw it ; Olivet is watching above it as of old; Gethsemane cannot be far away from the traditional site. The deep vallevs run vet on both sides of the steep hills, and Scopus is vet seen toward the north. There below Ophel is the Pool of Siloam ; in the Kedron vallev is the old spring now known as the Virgin's Fountain- — -connected In' a tunnel with Siloam. Underneath all the citv are the great caverns whence rock was taken once for its buildings. One can look down into rock cisterns underneath the temple area, and the broken aque- duct exists which brought water from the Pools of Solomon. Roman, Saracen, Crusader, and the different peoples of modern time have built memorials upon these sacred hills. Estimated according to modern standards, Jerusalem has none of the requisites of a great cit}'. It is glorious only in memory ; for its associations its interest will be imperishable. May the good work but go on which has already so greatly helped us to a clearer knowledge of its topography. IV. SAMARIA. From the fact that the Land has its chief interest in its asso- ciations with our Lord, the traveler, as he turns his back upon Jerusalem to go northward, has generalh' in thought the hills and sea of Galilee. The vivid story of the svnoptic gospels makes these the objects of desire after Jerusalem. Samaria, with one possible exception, seems merely so much country to be passed over in order to reach Galilee. Before, howe\'er, the journev is finished, there is ample reason to acknowledge that this part of the land has its own imperishable interest on account of its phys- ical configuration and consecjuent historical associations. If some of the identifications of the Palestine P'und explorers hold, New Testament events add their ])art to the long, varied record of scenes enacted amid the plains and on the hills of this region. We can do no better in entering the land than to follow the m'odern itinerary, for it carries us through the heart of the coun- try and brings us face to face with its distinguishing marks 2 4 Till: lillUJCAL WORLD Over roads that arc utterly unworthy of the name we travel north- ward to Bethel, and the scenery is yet the same as that described in our study of judea. l^arren hills with narrow \alleys, and here and there some cultixation, mark our wa\-. We are still in the borderland. In a few hours, howexer, after lea\ing Bethel the scener\- has more variation. The mountains are yet rus^ged, and the roads are ston\- enough, but the valleys begin to open. There are more olive groves. What looked from the coast like a solid wall of rock forming one continuous sky line with the mountains of Judah pro\-es to be far less impenetrable and aus- tere. We are coming into the home of the old tribes of I^piiraim and Manasseh. Josei)hus does, indeed, describe Samaria as "entire!}- of the same nature as Judea, since both countries are made ujj of hills and valleys," but the descrij)tion is \-ery gen- eral. It is the different disposition of hills and \alle\-s which lias so much to do witli the peculiar history of this central por- tion. Samaria, Shechem, Bethshan- — one must know the spots ujjon which they stood to appreciate full\- their power and glory, their trials and disasters. The natural boundary between Judea and .Samaria is the present Wady Deir liallut — a water course which rising at Akrabeh ( the Accralji of Josephusi runs westward in a deepening ra\ine and empties into the Anjeh ri\er.' Eastward the boundar\- j)asse(l north ot the Kurn Surtabeh ridge tlu' northern boundar\- of the lower Jortlan plain- -and ended at the Jordan. The northern bouiuhuy was the southern edge of the ]jlain of ICsdraelon and a line extending to the Jordan close to liethshan or .Scytht)j)e)lis. The outline on |)age 25 will gi\'e the ])osition of these marks. Within these boundaries, exclutling Carmel, a space ot 1405 S(|uare miles was included. Professor Smith, in his Iltitorunl (jcoi^m/y/iy of the Holy Lh/kI, has einphasi/c-d the "openness" of .Samaria as com])ared with Judea. ;\s the traveler comes out u|)on the broad \alU'\- leading up toward .^luehein or enters the valley of the latter city itself, or rides about the great mound of .Samaria, this feature l)ccomes \erv striking. The road from the southern boundary, of which we h;i\e spoken, to the northern ' (./. l^>N,t>: Stiilannil I'til. I:\M«>- luiii, iSjd. p. (.7. STL'D/ES IN PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 25 frontier, is nearly all of it through these broad valleys, which are well tilled and yery fruitful. With only little climbing one passes from plain to plain up through the whole land. It is an easy road by the way of the plain of Dothan through into the plain of .Sharon. No steep defiles render j^erilous the entrance of an fttflist. $<»»»< S^^A^h'J^ enemy from the east or the west, and the hills in many places slope gently to these plains. This feature of the land has had much to do with its trouble in history. Take for instance the position of Shechem. It lies in a yalley which sweeps uj) from the plain of Sharon past Samaria, and is thus open on the west. On the east the Wady Farah opens in like manner a broad way to the Jordan. Beautiful as the position of the ancient city is, it is practicall}' defenseless. Hence the choice of Tirzah and Samaria and Jezreel as places of abode by the kings of Israel. About the strongholds in or near these broad yalleys so liable to inyasion haye been enacted many of the most stirring scenes of the land's history. .Samaria, on its mounds some 300 to 500 feet aboye the broad valley in which it stood, both invited and resisted the attacks of armies from the east and the west. ■ At least three of these easily ascended valleys run down to the Jordan on the east, while the gentle descent of the hills on 26 THF. HIBLIC.IL WORLD the west makes access to the plains behind them in no way diffi- cult. When war de})arted from them thev quickly responded to the hand of the husbandman, and i^ave to the land the appear- ance of Ljrcat fertility. The picture is now \i\id in the writer's memory of the field of i^rain that covered the plain east of Jacob's well, of the long lines of olive trees up the sides of the valleys, and of the \ineyards w ith their promise of rich fruitage, ."^amaria is a goodly land. \Vc think of it. j)erhaps, too often as the home of the hated ri\al sect of the jews, or it is linked with the memory of the extreme deeds of the Israelitish kings. Its very physical character made it. as one has said of it, "oftener the temptation than the discipline, the betrayer than the guar- dian of its own," and so on one side the picture is of fair fields and fine olive groves ; on the other of beleaguered cities and desolating struggles. The best point of view for a witlc outlook over the land is from the top of Mount Kbal. Its towering sum- mit reaches above the outline of the i)lateau seen from the coast, and tells one at that distance the position of Shechcm, which for beauty antl attractiveness is unsurpassed. Blount Ebal is 3077 feet above the sea level and 1200 feet above the valley. What Xebv .*^amwil is for a prosjjcct over Judea, this noble mountain is for Samaria. ( )n the north one can sec to the high hills oi (Gal- ilee on the left beyond the .Sea of Galilee, and back of them the snowy height of Hermon ; on the east beyond the Jordan gorge stretches the broad plateau of the llauran; on the south are the mountain luights above Hethel ; on tlic west the maritime jjlain with the nourishing cities of Ramleh, Ludd. and Jaffa, and beyond the l)lue sea. Nearl\- the same j)rosj)ect can be had from Mount Geri/.ini, though it is not (juite as full, as the mountain is some 200 feet lower. The jjlaces of historic interest are too numerous to note in an article of this length, but we must stoj) long enough to mark a lew that ha\-e especial interest in cf)nnection with our Lord's ministrw Just below us in the \alley is the site of Jacob's well one of the two or three sjxits in the land where -me can feel that he is actually upon a ])lace made sacred bv the Unowii presence of our Lord. Dr. I liomson has called oin .itteiition to tin- \(.i\ few i>laci-s connected with the STUDIES IX PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 27 Master's life and work which can be positivel}' identified. Tra- dition tries to mark the spot of every notable event, but, as if to render impossible, at least to intelligent pilgrims, the temptation to idolatry of places, the exact position of nearly every one is obscured or lost. We must content ourselves with general views and fasten our thought rather upon him. It is therefore with deep interest that one looks down into this deep well of Jacob, sits upon the curb, and recalls that great discourse which fell upon the astonished ears of the Samaritan woman. Jewish, Samaritan, Christian, and Mohammedan tradition agree about the site, and it remarkably answers to all the demands of both the storv of the Old Testament and that of the New. The well is now seventy-five feet deep, but was much deeper, since the bot- tom is filled up for many feet with stones thrown in by passing travelers. We had a drink of its cool, refreshing water, and coming to it about the same time of dav. "the sixth hour," after a long, warm ride we were able fully to enter into the descrip- tion in John. One lifts the eve now upon the fields in the plain of Moreh giving promise of the har\'est, and imagination readilv pictures the scene of the Samaritan woman, the wondering dis- ciples, and the curious people hurrving over from the near town of Sychar. This lies about half a mile away en the southeast slope of Ebal. It is a simple enough picture, but what wide- reaching truth was declared that day by this humble well ! Criticism, in its eagerness to prove that John could not have written the fourth gospel, thinks it finds indisputable proof here in this very scene, for there is "a verv significant mistake," we are told, about this town of Svchar. It is not known to us as in Samaria. Ever since the time of the Crusaders there has been confusion about the names Sichem and Sychar. But the earlv Christians placed Sychar a mile east of Shechem and Conder shows us how the Samaritan chronicle clears up the difificulty regarding the identification of the modern name "Askar" with that of Sychar.' Every consideration argues for the present identification, and here, as in other instances, it may turn out that John is accurate to a nicetv in all he savs concerning topog- 'See Qiiar. Slate incut Pal. Explor. FioiJ, 1S77. p. 149. 2S THE niBIJCAL WORLD raphv. At an\- rate here in this ojjcn \allcv under the slope of Gerizim with its Samaritan tem})le Christ declared that high truth about worship which shall vet do away with all exclusive temples and jniestlv ritual. This one sj)ot has the deej)cst interest for the modern traveler and well it may. Its natural setting, its clear identitv. its high associations give it worthy honor in the thoughts of all who are privileged to visit it. But there are possiblv still earlier gospel associations in this region. If one looks up the valley to the northeast, the eye falls upon the upper slope of the Wadv Farah which broadens and dee[)ens as it flows toward the Jordan. There are copious springs in this vallev and here has been located the ])lace of John's baptizing mentioned in John 3:23: "And John also was bai)ti/.ing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there." The last phrase is manifestly a necessary ])art of the description. It certainly would be superfluous to speak in this way regarding the Jordan. Ainun (identified with Aenon » is about four miles north of the head springs, and Salim three miles south. The jiroximitv of these two places points to the W'ady I-'arah with its broad \allcv and abundance of water as the place where John sounded his trumpet call to repentance and ba|)tized those who came. The common conception of John the Baptist's ministry is that it was near the wilderness and 1)\- the Jordan in the i)lains of Jericho. Thousands of j)ilgrims go each year to the supposed site of the baptism of Jesus across the plain from Jericho. Tra- dition has fixed upon this site, and for all lliat u c ]proach Carmel, was the camp of Sisera bv the pass of Kishon; around at our Utt. as u (.■ lac'c the STUDIES IN I\ ILES TIXIA X GEOGRA PH V 33 west, was the scene of Gideon's brilliant rout of the Midianites who were encamped just below the hill of Moreh, while Gideon was on the slope of Gilboa opposite ; just beneath us is the old camp of the Philistines at Shunem who gathered against Saul and defeated him on Gilboa ; there at Megiddo Josiah attempted the defeat of the Egyptian host and was himself defeated ; and south of us near Jenin was the camp of Holofernes. Near Car- mel were the camps of the Roman armies. Again, at the foot of the very hill on which w'e are standing was a strongholci of the Crusaders, and here, too, the French routed the Turks. And even now the Bedouins swarm up the valley of Jezreel and make themselves a terror. As we looked out upon the peaceful scene one bright, sunnv day when the laborers were busy in the fields and the charm of the whole landscape with its frame of moun- tains came completelv before us, it was difficult to realize that this peace had so often been broken by the terrible ferocitv of war. There is no other spot in the world quite like it. It has been "big with destinv." It has been compared to "a vast theater with its clearlv defined stage, with its proper exits and entrances," and the figure is striking, for the drama both of nations and of religion itself has had some of its most significant scenes here — so significant, indeed, as to suggest the symbolism of that greater conflict of the Apocalypse, "the battle of the great day of God Almightv .... when the kings of the whole world shall be gathered together unto the place which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon." In vivid contrast to all this is that (juiet yet thrilling scene of the gospels which was enacted here upon the very slope of the hill of Moreh — when the sad procession, just coming out of the gate of the city of Nain, was met bv the Saviour, and its mourn- ing turning into unspeakable jov bv the restoration of the widow's son to life. As we turn to go northward into the mountain district, two ways are open to us. Either we can go around Tabor and ascend to the plateau near the lake, passing the ruined fortress on Tabor which guarded this road, or we can take the road leading us directly to Nazareth. We take the latter, and soon find our- 34 i'^l'- h'Jh'/./CAl. WORLD selves clinibinu;' all the circuitous way which brings us into the very heart of the hills and to Nazareth itself. One cannot forget, as one looks upon the place, that here Christ spent the greatest part of his life, antl as the scene is characteristic of the hill country of Galilee, we may well stay b\- a while and study it. The present Nazareth is lower down the hill than was the ancient town, but whatcxer the changes in the j)lace itself the hills are there as Christ looked upon them. We can get our best yiew from the ridge back of the town, and our climb is rewarded by a prospect that is as yaried as it is interesting. Looking south, the whole western portion of the jjlain of Esdraelon is spread out before us, and on beyond it I\Iount Gilboa and the high hills of Samaria. As we face toward the south, on our right, beyond the hills, gleam the waters of the Mediterranean. Turning from the sea toward the north, our C3es fall upon one eml of the large, fertile plain of ;\sochis, and yet more directly north on the higher hills of upper Galilee, while oyer toward the northeast, we can discern the bortlers of the lake basin and the \alley of the Jordan, and far away in the distance snowy Ilermon. If wide prospect and noble scenery make their impress upon the mind, what a joy this scene must haye been to the opening mind of the Christ child I And that hilltop carries one realU' awav from what is called "the seclusion of Nazarelh." To have known anything of Jewish history must ha\e made one feel on that hilltop, back of the city, how close b\- it ail had l)een. Then, too, in any geographical stud\' of Galilee one must not forget the ])lace and importance of the great roads that crossed it ami their relation to the cities and yillages. Galilee was much m-arer thf life of the world than was Judea. ( )\er her great highways merchants were passing and repassing, sokliers were dispatched, officials journeyed. And some of these impor- tant roads were but a little wax from Nazareth. ( )ne of the great roads from l)amascus camr up fr(»m the Jordan to the plateau on the western side of the lake and crossed to Accho by Cana aiul .Sej)phoris ; another |)assed around Tabor, crossed the plain, and then wi-nt southwest to (ia/.a and I'.gypt. Is it su|)posal)le tint these came so near Nazan-th, ;inil \it it knrw nothing of all STUDIES IX PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 35 that such thoroughfares imply ? The more we have come to know of these great roads, the more we feel that the estimates of both Dr. Merrill and Professor Smith regarding Nazareth as being in the very midst of the life of its generation, rather than isolated from it, are worthy of consideration. As the latter has said, "The pressure and |)roblems of the world outside God's people must have been felt by the youth of Nazareth as by few others." There is a clear line of division in the mountain district itself. If one were to draw a line across the map from the upper end of the lake of Galilee to the coast, and then mark the mountains, he would find that all those north of the line were considerably higher. The average of those below the line is under 2000 feet, while above it there are those as high as 4000. This latter fact makes the scener}' of upper Galilee imposing, and yet it does not take the stern, forbidding character of Judea. Everywhere the land was fertile. The region all about Safed, "the city set on a hill," was marked for its fertility, and Josephus speaks of the land as "inviting by its productiveness even those who had the least inclination for agriculture; it is everywhere productive." One must take these, and other statements like them which could be quoted, into account when the matter of the population in the time of Christ is to be considered. For example, it is said that for sixteen miles about Sepphoris (a city not far from Cana) "the region was fertile, flowing with milk and honey." It is not surprising, therefore, that near the beautiful open valleys, and on the gentler slopes of lower Galilee, and on the hilltops in upper Galilee many cities existed. Josephus says that altogether there were 204 of them — the smallest of which numbered above i 5,000 inhabitants.^ This makes, indeed, a large population, but con- sidering the conditions of the land, its trade interests and its lake industry, and the packed way of living in the cities, this is not improbable.- How it all intensifies the picture which the gospel gives when it says that "Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the ■ Life, XLV. ^ See for other reasons Mkrrill's Galilee in the Time of Christ, pp. 64 ff. 36 THE BlBLlC.il. WORLD i^ospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness" (Matt. 9:35). In view of them, with their thousands of needy souls, he could j)athetically say, "The harvest trulv is jilenteous. but the laborers are few." Such, in brief, is the mountain district of Galilee — a land of valle\'s between beautiful hills; of mountains that arc imj:»osing but not l)arrcn ; of springs and water courses that were the \cr\- symbols of life ; of vines and fruit trees and grain fields that gave support to a great population ; of roads and caravansaries and places of customs that kept its j)eople in close touch with the world be\-ond ; of cities and tow ns that themselves teemed with acti\itv. In Galilee Christ mav ha\e learned far more of the world than we are accustomed to think. His meditations upon his mission and upon himself may have gained increasing" definiteness from the very enxironment of this busv, eager i)ro\-- ince. Nazareth was only six hours from Ptolemais on the coast — the port for Roman traflfic ; it was onlv two hours from Tabor. Xain, and Ivndor; one and one-half from Cana and Sej)ph()ris, and itself a city. It is not an extravagant supposition that Christ may have been in all of these neighboring cities during those vears of which we know so little. There is onl\- one j)lace on this mountain district besides Nazareth tliat is mentioned in the New Testament, and that is Cana. The modern tra\eler is taken to the \iliage of Kefr Kenna, and shown the waterpots and the place of the wedding scene. Another site claims the honor ot that imperishable incident, l)ut the position of Kefr Kenna on the road from Nazareth to the lake argues for it rather than for the other. hrom all that we know of the .Sea of Galilee the contrast between its present appearance and that of the davs when I'eter and John fished in its waters and Christ taught by its shores is sharp and saddening. It was our privilege to look down u|)on it for the first time from the I lorns of 1 lattin on a loveK' (la\' in .\pril, uluii the hills all about were covered with \erdure and tiie waters were as blue as the skv they refiecteti. We had prepared ourselves for (lisap])ointnu-nt . and had we gazt'd upon the scene a numtii or so later, wiien the hot sun liad witluTi-d tlie grass and taken .V Tl 'DIES IN PA LES TIXIA N GEOGRA PHY 37 awav the glory of the springtime, we should have had no such delightful memories of the whole region as we gained that day. Despite the desolate shores and the deserted lake surface it was charming, and, as the sun, toward e\ening, cast long shadows from the western hills across the still waters, and the coolness of twilight invited one to walk along the beach, we could under- stand how a rabbi might say. " Jeho\ah hath created seven seas, but the Sea of Gennesaret is his delight." What it was in Christ's time we shall see in a moment. The general shape of the lake can be best seen on the accompanying outline (p. 38). It is twelve miles long and about eight broad at its widest part. The hills on the western side close in u[)on it except in two places, viz. just below Tiberias and just abo\"e Magdala. There is quite a recession of the hills at the northeast corner and a narrow space runs nearly all alongr the eastern shore. From the source of the Jordan to its entrance into the lake the river has made a consid- erable descent, for the surface of the lake is about 680 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. In this great depression is a climate like that of the tro[)ics. One can see in a moment from the configuration of the shores how the lake is quickly and violently tossed by the winds. Down the gorges through which the streams find their way the cooler winds of the uplands are drawn as through funnels, and almost without warning they lash the lake surface and place anything upon it in peril. These sud- den violent squalls but repeat the "storms" which are the setting of some of the vivid events of the gospels. When we referred to the contrast of the present ap[jearance of the lake to that of Christ's day, we had in mind especially the life and thrift at that time everywhere apj)arent. Tiberias with its wretched poverty, and the miserable Mejdel ( ]\Iagdala) arc now the only places of human habitation, and one has no desire to linger by either of them. We had difficulty in securing a single boat to carry us over to Capernaum. The blight of the Turk is upon this fair region. What must have been the charm of the scene when, added to all its own attractiveness, there was that of hundreds of boats moving in all directions; of beautiful palaces with fruitful gardens all along the shore ; ->"^ :>'^ THE BIBLICAL WORLD of large towns full of activity and of highways busv with trade Nine or more cities stood on or near the shores, and every ])hasc of life was represented in them. The region of Gennesaret which begins at Magdala and extends along the lake, according ^1 >le which Herod the Great placed bv this fountain and grotto. What the fountain is to the region can be inferred from the words of another who describes the scene as it now is : " Exervwhere around the ruins is a wild medlev of cascades, mulberry trees, fig trees, dashing torrents, festoons of vines, bubbling fountains, reeds, and the mingled music of birds and waters." The traveler goes to this favored s[)ot, however, not so much because Herod and Philip l)uilt tem])les there, nor because the river begins there, but because the Lord came to it after the Galilean ministry was virtually over, and there, awav from the Pharisees and amid surrountlings almost whollv Gentile, received the confession of Peter whicli fullv declared him. I<"()r sex'eral days the Lord remained here, talking of the sad issue so soon to come at Jerusalem, and once, at least, he climbed some spur of Hennon, where, in the solemn stillness of its e.xaltnl retirement, he was transfigured before them. Usuall\- the mod- ern traveler Icaxes "the Land" behind him. as from this place he mounts the ridge of Hermon on the \\a\ to Damascus, and the last ])ros|)cct o\er the upper lordan xallex' out upon the mountains of upper Galilee and down toward tin- lake makes a happy conclusion of all his tlavs of deejily interesting sight see- inL(. ( )ur studv leads us to turn the other wav. and going down through olive groves and oak glades we conu- to the plain of the waters of Merom, and kee|)ing to the right wc pass the marshes and the lake itself, and come to the rocks that hem in the ri\er aftc'r it leavt'S thi> fust lake. We \\\\\v alreadx' made a lonsid- erable descent, for Panias is i i.}{) ft-et abo\e the sea, ami Merom onl\' \~ ^-^ feet. The lake of lluleh is about four mdes long, and two and three-(|uarters broad, and tlu' distauie from it to tlu- gorge is about two miles. ;\s soon as the ri\er strikes the edge STUDIES IN PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 43 '■'■"-'im^'^- 44 THE lUBIJCAI. WORLD of the narrow cleft between the [)iccij)itous hills which bound it on either side it plung-es downward in a foaming, seething torrent over a course of about nine miles and descends nearly 900 feet to the level of the Sea of Galilee. For some distance before it reaches the sea it glides with smooth current through the delta it has formed, and jjassing the site of Bethsaida Julias and the plain, enters the lake. This j)art of the river has no special biblical interest. The great Damascus road crosses it about two miles below Lake Huleh. Three times the perilous journev in a boat down the Jordan from the .Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea has been undertaken, and the interesting account of Lieutenant Lynch, U. S. N., the last who accomplished the task, in 1848. gives us a vi\id picture of the sharp turns, the frecjuent rapids, the dangerous rocks, and l)recij)itous banks which are found all down "the (ihor," as the Arabs call it. The valley differs in width and general character at different points, being for the first thirteen miles below the lake not more than four miles wide, then expanding to a width of over eight miles, which holds until we come to Tell .Sakut ( Succoth ) when it narrows again to about one mile and so con- tinues to the Wady Farah when it broadens out considerably again, until south of Kurn Surtabeh it oj)ens into the "Circle " of the Jordan reaching a width of fourteen miles. The great plains are therefore op])osite the \alle\' u liicli leads u]) to Lsdraelon and over against the road which leads past Jericho up to Jerusalem. Why should this fertile valle\- be called Aral^ah, or desert, and in the New Testament the "Wilderness" (I\Lark 1:4, ; ) ? Partly because of the heat ; j)artly because of wild beasts which infested it, and jjartly because of the reaches of unhealtln- soil in it, and the impossiI)ility of irrigating certain |)ortions of it. .^peaking ot this imp(jssibilit\- and ol the troubli- of wild beasts calls to mind the actual bed of the ri\er itself. h'rom llu- hills back of Jericho one can easily trace the course of tlu- ri\er through the j)lain b\- the t.imarisks and >emi-tropical Irt'es that fringe its shore, and these do not stand u|) clear from the common le\el of the plain, but are in a (le|)ression which, opjiosite Jericho, is 200 feet deep and sometinu-s one mili- i)road. In such a cut the STL'D/ES IN PALESTINIAN GEOGRAPHY 45 river finds its way all down the valley and the banks of it are mostly white marl. This is the space the river floods, and amid these trees and tangles of bush and brake wild beasts made their hiding places. This was "the pride of the Jordan," meaning the "luxuriance" of growth along its immediate banks. Upon this level the receding floods left the wreckage of driftwood and overturned trees, and their deposits of mud. And when you come to the river itself, its turbulent muddy current is anything but inviting. This is particularlv true of its lower portion. The bathing place of the pilgrims, as we saw it one bright afternoon in April, was no such quiet inviting spot as pictures have made it, for the reason that pictures can give little idea of the swift muddy current that at the time of harvest overflows the banks and then recedes, leaving behind mud and disorder. Indeed, the whole river compared with the broad, noble streams which we dignify by this appellation is unworthy of the name. In a land, how- ever, which knows only such water courses as find their troubled way down through mountain gorges it ranks among the greatest. In the vallev down which we have come to the opening of the Jericho plains there are several places of interest. On the plateau just south of the Jarmuk, which drains the Hauran, stood Gadara, the chief town of the "country of the Gadarenes.' Below, resting on a mound several feet above the level of the river and about opposite the slopes of the valley of Jezreel, was Pella, to which the Christians fled before the siege and destruction of Jerusalem bv Titus. At the point where the Jabbok enters the valley is placed Succoth, sacred to the memory of Jacob, and on the site of the modern Tell er-Rameh stood the large town of Livias and Julias. "All up the east of the river vou come across patches of cultivation, the projjerty of various Bedaween tribes on the highlands to the east." It is a pleasing view that opens to the traveler who goes "down from Jerusalem to Jericho" as he comes to the edge of the mountains over the plain. A large sweep of valley from the sea to the protruding mountains by Surtabeh on the north, and across to the hills of Moab on the east, is within the range of vision. What it might be if it were perfectly irrigated and a just govern- 46 THE B/JiL/C.U. WORLD ment gave protection to those who cultivate it I It is not a good place to live in, for the tropical heats are ener\ating, but it would nobly respond to diligence in cultivation. As it now is the dreariness of it but adds to the weariness in crossing it in order to come to the traditional spot on the Jordon, or to go to the shore of the Dead Sea. Oxer there, near the northern shore of the sea, may have been the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah ; right before us is the stretch of the Jordan that "rolled back," and "awav," that the host of Israel might come over. But the point of greatest interest is close to us at the foot of the moun- tains. Who could recognize in the name of the miserable, filthv village of er-Riha a form of the word Jericho'' Such, however, it is, and imagination has something to do to trans- form the wretched mud village into the statelv " Citv of Palms,' that flourished near 1)\- in the davs of our Lortl. Josephus speaks of it as a "divine region," and says that the fountain near by watered a tract " seventv stadia long by twentv broad, covered with beautiful gardens and groxes of ])alms of various species." There seem to have been three distinct sites for the citv at different times of her history. Joshua found it near the present fountain of Ain es Sultan ; in the time of Christ it was further south toward the \\ ad\- Kelt and nearer the direct road to Jeru- salem. The modern er-Riha commemorates the Jericho of the Crusaders. One onl\- has to remember that Herod li\ed much in Jericho to realize what kind of a citv came suddenlv to view as one neared the sharp descent into the xallev. Palaces, baths, and theaters reared their stately forms amid the beautiful gar- dens and palm groves. It was, as one has called it, "the gate- way of a province, the em|)orium for trade, the mistress of a great |)alm forest, woods of balsam, and \er\- rich gardens." Now there is not a trace of it. l^ark of tiie city, and forming part of the western wall of liir pi. tin is Mount (Juarantania, whose summit has ixcn fixed upon as the place ol t he tt.-m|)tation. It is, i){ course, a purely traditional site. These \ery iieights l)ack of Jericho have been one part of her weakness. The enervating climate has l)een the other, and oxer and o\er again she has become tiu- spoil of the concjueror. STUDIES IN PALESriNIAX GEOGRAPHY 47 It is a ride of several hours from the site of the ancient city to the Dead Sea, though its blue waters seem very near. As we come to the level of it we are nearly 4000 feet below Jerusalem, and 1290 below the level of the Mediterranean. Add to this the depth of the sea itself at the northeast corner, 1300 feet, and one gets some idea of this stupendous cleft that divides Judea and Moab. The Dead Sea is about fifty-three miles long and has an average width of nine or ten miles. It has no outlet, and that means much. The water escapes only by evaporation, anci either shows itself bv a haze over the glassy surface, or in mists that at times gather into clouds which break into terrific storms. The streams which pour into it all carry a bit of salt in solution. Down at the southeastern end a ridge of rock salt five miles long and 300 feet high adds its quantum of salt, and springs in the sea itself help to make the sea five times more salty than the ocean and fatal to all life. It is rightlv called the Dead Sea. There is no bodv of water like it. Like the mountains of Judea over against the plains of Jericho ; the wilderness over against the fertile valleys of Hebron ; snowy Hermon over against the plain of Gennesaret, it stands in vivid contrast to the Sea of Galilee whose waters it constantly receives. The rock walls on either shore go up over 2000 feet, and are pierced at intervals by deep gorges. These mountains stand splendidly against the deep blue of the sea itself, and if one will know their fascinating glorv, let him from the tower on Olivet watch the sun cast his light upon them toward the time of his sinking behind the western hills. Another has said that the history of this unique desolate sea " begins with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and ends with the massacre of Masada." It has almost nothing that is happy to tell us. The one incident of the New Testament which brings us near its coast is the shameless murder of John the Baptist, who, according to Jose])hus, was beheaded in the gloomy fortress of Machut in all this work the sins of the times and the profligacy of the j)eriod are dwelt upon, antl, seemingly, the prophets haxe little strength left with which to picture the ideals of the future. Amos preaches sermon after sermon upon the text " Punishment for sin."5 He publishes vision after vision, all of which foretell the coming of judgment and destruction upon the peoj)le." His pro[)hetic eve, however, sees beyond the coming of the Assyrian army and the devasta- tion which it shall work, and in the far distant future he l)eholds the tent of David which has been broken down, again restored;" the holy land full of harvests and conse(|uent ])rosperit\-, Israel gathered again from the four corners of the earth and restored to home. Hosea sees asclearU" as did Amos the coming destruc- tion ;^ he sees also what has not been seen so clearly before, the intense love of Jehovah for his peo|)le and his readiness to for- give.9 Hosea feels that punishment must come on account of the iniquitN' of the times ; but after this punishment has been executed, he beholds, as did Amos, the restoration ol Israel to her land.'° In all this j)eriod there has been slight thought of the (leli\irance from sin, because the minds of the j)eople are filletl with the thought and the need of the deliverance from an imme- diate calamity. This idea is so close as to (\\'\\c a\\a\ the mag- nificent conceptions of earlier days. On the other hand, it must ' I K^.s. 17, iS, ig. ■roi)ounded in them anvthingto be called new. The Christ or Messiah of the Old Testament had for ages been jn-eached or j)redicted in virtuallv equivalent terms. "Ye search the Scrijitures," said Jesus to the caviling Jews, "for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of fue." To two of his disci])les, so it is told us by Luke, Jesus, after his resurrection, lieginning from Mosis and trom all the prophets, interpreted in all the Scriptures the things concern- JES US A S PRE A CHER. 485 ing himself. In its essence, therefore, the doctrine of Jesus was not new doctrine, when he made himself the subject and the object of his own preaching. We have hitherto considered only traits in Jesus the preacher belonging necessarily to him, because he was such as he was in his person and character, or else because he was exclusively reli- gious in his aim. Let us now turn our attention to traits in him that might be regarded as more incidental, more separable from the person and character of the preacher, more a matter of choice on his part, choice that might conceivably have been different from what it was. We treat now of the hoinilctic Diclhod of Jesus. In the first place, it is ver^- noticeable that Jesus took advantage of the incalculable oratoric reinforcement to be drawn from fit opportunity . He hinged and jointed his instructions into particular occasions suggesting them, or at least making them at a given moment especially apposite. The gospel historians are faithful in enabling us to make this useful note as to Christ's method in preaching. Again, and in the same wise spirit of thrifty self-adjustment to occasion, Jesus, where occasion did not offer itself ready-made to his hand, would say something introductory to serve the purpose of an occasion. For instance, he would rouse attention and expectation, by providing beforehand, over against what he had to say, some antithesis to it, real or apparent. "Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil," is an illustration of this method on the part of Jesus. For we have here, not, of course, abrogation of civil law with replacement of it by lawless- ness, by anarchy — which, in the sphere of human govern- ment, the absolute )wn-rcsistancc in terms enjoined would be ; but simply a rhetorical device for commanding attention and strengthening impression. Indeed the whole series of antithe- ses from which our example foregoing was drawn, may be said itself to constitute an illustration at large of the point in teaching method here brought to attention. Jesus wished tO' enforce the high severity of the personal righteousness. 486 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. required in the kingdom of heaven. He does it most effectively bv contrast. He sets his own standard of ric^hteousness over against the imperfect standard maintained 1)\- the j)oj)ular religious teachers of his dav : "Except vour righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of hea\'en." This is the general statement, and then follows the series of instances in which Jesus j)oints out the imperfections, or the faults, of the moralitv taught, as from the Mosaic institutes, bv the best-reputed con- temporary doctors of the law. It is the homiletic expedient exemplified of teaching bv antithesis. Paradox was with Jesus another favorite expedient of teach- ing. Perhaps no other teacher ever made proportionately more use of this e.xj)edient than did he. You cannot understand Jesus without often making allowance for paradox in his form of expression. Jesus was sometimes even more frankl\- rlu-torical than has vet been shown or suggested. Take, for instance, that saving of his, "Whosoever shall break one of the least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." Here, manifesth", the rhetorical (piest of balance and antithesis, of symmetry and epigram, in form of statement, leads Jesus to sav what he did not desire to ha\^e taken in an absolutelv literal sense. Hyj^erbole is \et another rhetorical ex])edicnt freely used 1)\" jcsus in his discourse. Consider the tollowing: "If any man . . . hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, \-ea, and his own life also, he cannot be mv disciple." The vast, the immeasurable, claim on his own behalf which Jesus habituallv makes does not itself admit of oxerstatement ; but the just statement of it here made is made by means of overstatement the most cxtraordinarv. It is a case of Inperbole rendered niore lujierbolie through accumulation and climax. We must bi-ware, in tiie case ol U'sus, as thcolfjgiairs long ago ought to ha\i- done in the case ol the a|)ostle Paul, not to make dogma out ol inert- rhetoric. Till' pavidde was one more feature in the preaching method of Jesus; |)erha|)S the most comiuanding one of all. Certainlv no JESUS AS PREACHER. 48? one else ever approached Jesus in mastery of this teaching instrument. PLvidently this teaching instrument is one that may equally well be employed to throw light or to throw darkness on the subject of discourse. That Jesus employed it now for the one and now for the other of these two opposite purposes, seems implied in the narrative of the evangelists. "Opposite," I call these purposes. But even when Jesus employed the parable for darkening truth, we may be sure that the darkness cast was cast for the gracious end of awakening desire for light. Hearers that reallv wished light would be given light. It is not for a moment to be supposed that Jesus ever darkened men's minds with parable, when a different method of instruction adopted by him would have had on those same men's minds an effect more salutary both for themselves and for the general interests of the kingdom of God in the world. A further feature belonging to the homiletic method of Jesus was the just balance that he held between the two contrasted moods and tendencies of thought often designated, respectively, the optimistic and the pessimistic. Jesus was neither a pessimist nor an optimist, whether in his temperament or in his preaching. He mingled light and shadow, hope and fear. It cannot truly be said that either one of these two mutual opposites predomi- nated in Jesus, whether we regard him in his person or in his preaching. It is true, indeed, that toward the close of his earthly career, the animating hope, if ever such hope lived in his breast, of great and saving results for his nation and for man- kind, to flow from his preaching, seems to have suffered extinc- tion ; and the darkness, both of the doom impending over the guilty Jewish state, and of the end awaiting himself in Jerusalem, overshadowed more and more deeply his s})irit. The predictions, couched now in parable and now in straightforward statement, that issued from his lips, w^ere gloomy in the extreme. But even these were relieved with gleams of promise and of hope — for a remnant ; and the discourse of Jesus, as a whole, if not to be pronounced enlivening rather than depressing, was at least enlivening as well as depressing. To describe his preaching as mainly of a bright and cheering tenor, would be to make a 488 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. serious critical mistake of disproportion in judgment. He saw things as they were, and not under any glamour of rose color thrown upon them from a light and happy temperament in him- self. Solemnity is the j)revailing character impressed upon the teaching of Jesus. If it is once said that Jesus "rejoiced in spirit," that note of mood in him produces on the reader an effect of the exceptional rather than the ordinary ; and the joy attributed seems, even in the case of exception, to have been a joy impressively solemn in character. The church has made no mistake, all these Christian centuries, in conceiving her Lord as a Man of Sorrows and Acquainted with Grief. Accordant with the equipoise in Jesus between the sanguine and the des])ondent, in his way of regarding the world, is the even- handed justice with which he metes out his awards of praise and of blame. There is, however,— and it could not be otherwise if justice prevailed — a very noticeable predominance of blame over praise in the sentences from his lips. The note of rebuke, nay, even of heavy-shotted denunciation, is very strong (and this note not infrequently recurs) in the discourses of Jesus. Nothing could exceed the unrelieved, the red-hot, the white-hot, indigna- tion and damnation launched by Jesus against certain classes and certain individuals among his hearers. The fierceness indeed is such that it is j)lainly beyond the mark of what could properly be drawn into precedent for any other preacher. Jesus is hardly in anything else more entirely put outside the possibility of classification witii his human lircthrcn, than in the article now spoken of. Of the j)hvsical manner, that which ina\- he callcil elocution, in Jesus as j)reacher, we have absolutely no notice in the histories extant of him. Once or twice indeed it is noted that he looked round about him with anger at the hardness of heart disj)layed by certain hearers of his ; and once that looking uj)on a young man he loved him. Such hints, rare as thev are, stinuilate us to imagine that the features of Jesus were mobile and exjiressive during his sjjeech. One thing, however, we instinctively feel to be certain, that even in his most terrible in\ecti\es there was no violence of tone, of gesture, or of nianiu-r. II tidelity woulti JESUS AS PREACHER. 489 not permit him to appear relenting, equally, the quality of love in him would not permit him to be vindictive. In fine, and somewhat abruptly, by way of even doing to the present topic a seeming disparagement required by truth, it must be said that Jesus as preacher was in his own view nothing what- ever in importance compared with Jesus the suffering Savior. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me," he said, near the end, with a depth of meaning and pathos be^'ond reach of human plummet to sound ; and, at the very last, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for 7nany." What his preaching, even his preaching, had failed to effect, it remained for his obedience unto death, the death of the cross, to accomplish. His preaching itself thus acknowledged that his preaching alone was vain. Jesus as preacher preached Jesus as Redeemer by blood. He set herein an example which every faithful minister of his gospel, to the end of the age, must follow. CHRIST IN ART. By P R ( ) F i; s s t) R Rush R i i k k s , The Newton Tlieological Institution. When Euscbius was asked bv the sister of Constantine for a likeness of Christ, he reminded her that she could not expect a likeness of his unchangeable nature, nor yet of his glorified hu- manitv. The only possible likeness would be one of the frail human body, which he carried before his ascension. E\-en this last was unattainable, since the Christians could tolerate no at- tempt to portray him who was to them God manifest in the flesh. The scruples that controlled that early Christian feeling have long since vanished, and no di\'ine nustery, whether of the Trin- ity or of the Eternal "whom no man hath seen nor can see," has been unattempted by an art that has at least not lacked in dar- ing. And as one tm-ns from the attempts to picture the Master of us all, one is often mo\'ed to feel that the old reserx-e had adx'antages that might commend it to these latter days. We can- not think of Christ aj^art from the transcendent asj)ects of his nature, but how can they be portrayed ? What men mean for strength and dignity often appears only sternness. What they mean for boundless compassion appears effeminacy. Zeal too often becomes mere fanaticism. Or the effort to combine all his characters results in something ncitlicr human nor divine, at best an im natural symbol. It is gencralh' conceded that no tradition has came down to us concerning the personal a])pearance ot Jesus. Doubtless in the Hrst days the tlioiight of the gloritu'd Lord who wouhl shortl\- come again, left little room for intt-rrst in thi- form wliich he wore in the days of his humiliation. .\ desciiption |>ur|)orting t(j conu- from a contrmporar\-, I.entuliis, and which has greatly influenced modern attempts to ])ortray Jesus, is apaljjaljle forgery frcjm about the twelfth centiny. The so-called miraculous por- traits, said to have been imprintrd on cloths by Jesus as In- w ij)t(l 400 CHRIST IN ART. 49 1 his face with them, and to have been given one to Veronica, the other to Abgarus, are also apocryphal. In the writings of the first two centuries there is not a trace of any description of the Lord's appearance, excepting hints that relied avowedly on inference drawn from Scriptures such as Isaiah 53 :2, 3 and Psalm 45 12-4, or from incidents in the Lord's own life. In fact there were two SYMBOLS FROM THE CATACOMBS. diametrically opposed conceptions current in the Church, defended by passages from the Old Testament such as those just cited, the prevailing opinion in the earlier time being that the Lord's personal appearance was at the best without beauty ; while another judgment believed that he was "fairer than the children of men." Though indulging these guesses as to his appearance, it is not strange that the early Christians shrank from the idea of a picture of Christ. Their revolt from idolatry, and a care to give no ground for the charge that they were simply devotees of a new idol would operate to prevent their making pictures of their 492 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. Master. Furthermore the second commandment was not unnat- urally felt to forbid the making of any image of the " Word made flesh." And had they had the impulse so to use art to honor their Lord and assist their devotion, the associations of the only art they knew with the excesses of idolatrous worship, and with the debauchery of heathen life, would make it seem an unfit hand- maid for religion j)ure and undefiled. Yet the early years were not without some artistic expression. At first the ventures were most modest. On the grave of some Christian, or the stone of some seal, or the walls of a chamber in the catacombs, symbols began to aj)})ear. Commonest among these symbols are the fish and the monogram. The fish had the double advantage of representing in itself various Christian ideas such as baptism, and the gathering of the soul into the church ; and of carrying in the Greek form of its name an anagram of many names of Christ.' The monogram dates in its develojicd form at least, from the time of Constantine. It consists of a combination of the first two letters of the Greek word X/oio-rds. A rarer form is a combination of the initial letters of the two names 'It^o-oSsX/oio-tos. These doubt- less grew out of a use of the simple X with a possible double refer- ence to Christ and the cross. To these [)ure symbols were added symbolic scenes from the Old Testament, such as the history of Jonah, typifying the resur- rection; that of Daniel in the lion's den, and the three children in the furnace, setting forth the same fact ; Moses striking the rock, to suggest Christ the fountain of living water ; the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, to suggest the sacrifice of Christ. Heathen mythology also furnished symbols, the most conunon being Orpheus charming the beasts, to suggest Christ's restoration of harmony to the creation. With these symbols there a])i)ear two others drawn from the New Testament, namely the Lamband the Good .She|)lu'rd. This last is perhaps the fa\-orite one of all. It is found on the walls of the catacombs of St. Callistus and of St. Priscilla.as well as in other ancient cemeteries and on early sar- cophagi. While the idea C(Mues from the New restanuiit. the type » IXeTS -'It/o-oO? Xpto-rds, OfoO 'Ti6s, 'Ztj3T})p. Jesus Christ. Cod's Son, Saviour. CHRIST IN ART. 493 of representation is so like heathen pictures of Apollo feeding the flocks of Admetus, or of Hermes the Ram-bearer, as to sug- gest that the Christians have merely consecrated a current type. One possible evidence of this indebtedness appears in the fact that in some of the pictures, as in some heathen prototypes, a goat or kid takes the place of the lamb. This substitution was not, however, unthinking, since in one picture the Shepherd with the kid stands between a sheep and a o-oat. It is doubtless a confession of faith in the wide mercy of the Saviour, and perhaps a remon- strance against the rigor of the Montanists.' In these pictures the Good Shepherd is a young man, beardless, with a classic face. This too was an inheritance from the pre-Christian days. But it seems to have suited the ideas of the Christians, for when we find them venturing on more than a symbolical representation of the Lord, this type of face is the one adopted. Christ is so pictured in several scenes taken from the gospels, — notably the raising of Lazarus, the scene at Jacob's well, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, — as well as in pictures of the Lord on his judgment throne with the books before him. It would seem ' See the beautiful sonnet by Matthew Arnold. He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save, So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried : " Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave." So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant Church ! of love she felt the tide Stream on her from the Lord's yet recent grave. And then she smiled ; and in the Catacombs, With eye suffused but heart inspired true, On those walls subterranean, where she hid Her head 'mid ignomony, death and tombs, She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew — And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. 494 TIfK BIBLICAL WORLD. that by this young and vigorous type of face the Christians wished to express their belief in the victorious immortality of their ascended Lord. There is something of exultation in their conception, which shows that the notion that Jesus was without comeliness, was applicable in their thought to the state of Christ's humiliation only. It is clearly the Lord of life and glorv rather than the Man of sorrows that meets us in the Catacombs. The scruple against portraving the Lord having passed, dif- ferent t\pcs of picture became current according as one or another conception of Jesus was upjjcrmost in the mind. We ha\'e seen that the earlv pictures suggest the glorious Lord, now at the right hand of power. Towards the fourth century the beardless face gave way to one with a beard, and of an older aspect. The idea that the appearance of Jesus was plain or e\'en repellant was one that the growing spirit of asceticism in the church eagerlv adopted. And as this spirit laid hold on the church's life, a change came over the representations of Christ. Graduallv there became current a tvpe of face haggard, full of grief, marked bv suffering, a type emj)hasizing strongly the sufferings and the humiliation of Christ rather than his present glorv. This face is older than the earlier tvjje, and is bearded, the hair also being long and parted in the middle. This conception soon became a tradition in the church, and any de})arture from it was held to savor of sacrilege. It is known as the HNzantine tyjje and is found in most old mosaics and in man\- old paintings. The beard antl the long hair naturall\' fit with the notion that Jesus, like John the Hajitist, was a Nazarite. These actually apjjcared independently before the de\elopment of the H\zan- tine type, and, in fact, are now characteristics of the artistic ideal of the Christ head. Some of the early bearded rej)rescnta- tions of Jesus retain the beaul\' anil vigor of the smooth-faced youth. In tiie jnctures of Jesus, in fact, tlifferent conceptions of him found differing expression ; and it is interesting to note that the two so-called miraculous portraits rej)resent the rival tvj^es, the uncomely and the beautiful, that connected with the name CHRIST IN ART. 495 of Veronica giving the thorn-crowned man of sorrows, while the Abgarus picture shows a bearded face, youthful and fair.' This diversity of conception was an inevitable result of the loss of all record of Jesus' actual appearance, and also of the transcendence of his nature as it is set forth in the New Testa- MOSAIC HEAD OF CHRIST IN THE CHURCH OF ST. APOLLINARE, RAVENNA. ment. The incarnation, involving as it does the union of the divine and human, is beyond the power of man to comprehend. Much less can he picture it. All that is possible is an apprehen- sion, more or less adequate, of one or more features of that sur- ' For the early period see especially Bishop Westcott's essay, The Relation of Christianity to Art, in his Commentary on the Epistles of St. John, Macmillan, and in his Essays in the History of Religious Thought in the West, Macmillan, 1891. See also Archdeacon Farrar's, The Life of Christ as Represented in Art, Macmillan, 1894, and Mrs. Jameson's The History of Our Lord in ^r^, Longmans, 1865. 496 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. passing Person. This has been proved by the course of Christian thinking on the person of Christ. It is evident in the course of Christian art. The types of representation are not confined to the two which early became current. The development of Mariolatry carried with it a practical if not avowed transfer of the characters of gen- tleness and compassion from Jesus to Mary. From the eleventh centur}- on, the Last Judgment came to be a familiar subject for artistic representation. One readily recalls the frescoes of Orcagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa, many paintings by P"ra Angel- ico, that of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, that of Tinto- retto at Venice, and the lurid pictures of Rubens at Munich. At first Mary was represented only as one of those at the side of the Lord. Later, however, she appears in the attitude of an inter- cessor, seeking to soften the rigor of the offended Christ who, as Mrs. Jameson says, appears rather as prosecutor than as judge. This last perversion of truth has not escaped criticism even from adorers of Mary. But it shows how the pictures of Christ are the register of the artist's conception of him. The breaking with tradition that came with the revival of learning led to a general abandoning of the stereotyped concep- tions that were ruling sacred art. A note of reality entered into it that was fresh and individual. This appears plainest in the representations of the Madonna, in whom human beauty and ten- der motherhood assert their rights as over against the unearthly mode of representation that had removed her far from common life. Unfortunately the interest of that day found so much more to its mind in the Virgin than in her Son, that pictures of his face are relatively rare. In such as exist, however, the new individuality of concei)tion aj)pears. Reference to Michael Angelo's Last Judgment has already been made. The commanding figure of the Lord, stern and terrible, visiting vengeance on the sinful world, is at least original. if we rr])ucliale the conception as false in its severity, losing as it does all thought of "the Lamb in the midst of the throne," we must acknowledge its clearness and force. The artist has made it till his conception unmistak- ablv. The break with tradition, however, did not issue in a gen- CHRIST IN ART. 497 uine realism. The Lord, however his face and form were con- ceived, was pictured in the midst of ideal or distinctively modern and European surroundings. The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, the Miracle at Cana by Veronese, the Blessing of Little Children bv Rembrandt, not to mention the earlier and more formal works of Fra Angelico, do not carry us to Palestine and the first century ; rather they are altogether ideal compositions, or Jesus is placed in an Italian or German environment, — the general scene, the type of face, and the halo or nimbus with the conventional garb serving to identify the Lord. In this, sacred art followed the method pursued in all the painting of the time. Doubtless the archaeological question hardly occurred to these men. In so far as in painting Christ they were consciously expressing a belief rather than reproducing an ancient scene, the archaeological consideration would be indif- ferent to them. Not until our own day has sacred art called in archaeology to be her handmaid. The modern study of the life of Jesus, in connection with its social and material conditions, has awakened an interest in the Bethlehem stable, and the Nazareth home, the hillsides by the sea of Galilee, and the Holy City with its temple and palaces, as they actually appeared when our Lord knew them. We are interested to know what he wore, what kind of books he read, how schools were conducted in Nazareth, and what sort of service they had from Sabbath to Sabbath in the synagogues. Inquiry into these things has given a whole mass of new material to artists who will attempt to picture Christ. And artists have not been slow to use the material thus given. We now have a picture of the Visit of the Shepherds to the Bethlehem stable, by Le RoUe,^ that gives a new reality to the record of that first Christmas morning. Holman Hunt spent many years of study in Palestine to enable him to tell the stor}^ of the " Boy Jesus in the Temple." The more familiar picture represents the moment when Mary has found him and is leading him away as he says: " How is it that ye sought me ? " ' See illustration on page 438. 49S THE BIBLICAL WORLD. There is another that is known to the public only through an engraving published in the Contemporary Review for August, 1890, and reproduced in Archdeacon Farrar's recent book, The Life of Christ in Art. It represents the boy considering the questions of the Doctors. The engraving is not at first sight attractive, but it repays study because of its minute accuracy of detail. One longs to see the original. When these pictures of Le RoUe and Hunt are called realistic we must not think of them as lacking in ideality. Thev suggest at once the tran- scendent nature of the subject they present, and that not only by the use of the halo. They are marked by a reverence and high spiritual insight that makes their realism simply a contribu- tion to our knowledge of the Word made Flesh There are other realists whose religious feeling is not so true. Undeniably great as is Muncacsy's " Christ Before Pilate,"^ fine in its details, and most strong in its conception, yet the face and figure have more of the fanatic in them than suits the Friend of publicans and sinners. Even less satisfactory, though immensely sug- gestive, are the Galilean scenes of Verestchagin. The environ- ment in these pictures is excellent, and so far as it goes the repre- sentation of Jesus is instructive, but it fails to go under the surface and discover what Matthew Arnold called the sweet reasonableness of Jesus, not to mention the more transcendent qualities that no painter can depict, but which may give a j)icture an atmosphere full of " the sense sublime of something far more deej)ly interfused." Even more noteworthy than the strict realistic development in religious art is the movement represented at its best in Ger- many by Von Uhde and Zimmermann, and less attractively in France by Bcraud. The aim of these artists seems to be " to represent Christ and the New Testament events as present day actualities." Vx\V/. von Uhde is called the apostle of the move- ment. Having resigned a commission in the German army, he studied jjainting in Munich and Paris, and in 1S.S4 e\hii)ited his Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me. He had chosen lor the scene a German peasant's hf)use. and the children that were 'See illustration on page 410. ^^^^HB\jl.i-iJ ^Pcj ^^^ ''T^^^^H ^^^^^^BI^Sh'^^^i^jK^^^^^I 1 ^\ f^: ^Fy-^-^^^^^^^B j Lii Mi 1 1 500 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. crowding about him were German children. All was conceived with great reverence, and executed powerfully. The picture at first aroused severe criticism, but it has made its way into high fa\or. Mention mav be made of a Holy Night, of which a copy was published in the Christmas number of TJie Century for 1 89 1, in which the same peculiarities appear. Especially inter- esting are the intensely modern cherubs that are introduced into the picture. Prominent among others of Von Uhde's works is a Last Supper.' The scene is a German peasant house, the table and its furnishings are very modern, though of humble sort ; the group of disciples consists of humble German folk, — plain, poor, but most earnest. The moment chosen is that of Judas' departure, and Jesus seems about to institute the Supper. The grief and consternation of the disciples, together with most loving attentiveness to whatever he will say, are wondcrfullv set forth. There is much more in the same spirit from this artist. The one unsatisfactory thing in his work is the Lord's face. It lacks the force we demand in it. It is not equal to the rest of Herr von Uhde's conception. This last criticism does not lie against another artist of the same school, — Ernst Zimmermann. One of the most satis- factory of recent pictures is his Christ and the Fishermen.* The moment depicted seems to be that when Jesus says to Peter, " From henceforth thou shalt catch men." The scene is a lake side. The fishermen have left their boat, and the Lord is speaking with the oldest of them, while all listen with intense interest. The Lord's face is in profile, which may account for its satisfactoriness, leaving, as it does, something for each devout imagination to sup])ly. But the serious earnestness, the con- sciousness of a high mission, that ai)j)ear in it, as well as the affection and strength apj)arcnt in the wav the hands lie on the old man's arm, show that the artist has a deep and clear thought of Christ. Much the same figure and character aj^pear in his Christus Consolator,^ where Christ is seen bringing healing to a dying boy, who lies on a j)allct in a chami:)er jiinchcd by ' See the illustration on page 4(;tj. 'See the illustration on page 477. 3 Sec llic iliustratinn on page 500. CHRIS T IN ART. 5 1 very modern poverty. Much the same reverence and some of the like power are to be seen in L'Hermitte's Friend of the Lowly;' or, as it is sometimes called, The Supper at Emmaus. It has become familiar to very many through its exhibition in Chicago and in Boston. The leading French representative of this movement, Jean Beraud, while strong and most original in his work, is not so satisfying. In his choice of scenes and his treatment of them there is an element of criticism of modern life that has been well termed sarcastic. Criticism life clearly needs, but these introductions of Christ, and especially of Christ and his cross, into Parisian surroundings are at first sight repellant. However, it must be remembered that the crucifixion was Jeru- salem's condemnation for its blindness and hypocrisy, far more than its execution of a disturbing enthusiast, and that these pictures are a powerful sermon addressed to modern pride and godlessness. The hopeful feature in all this movement is that it is evidently art with a message, and that a most earnest one. It has taken hold on some aspects of truth concerning the Lord, it has felt their universalitv, and in this way it most forcibly asserts their pertinence to our day, and our day's need alike of Christ's rebuke, and of his tenderness and inspiration. In idea, though not in method, there should be associated with these last mystical realists, a group of men who in method follow more nearly the older lines of representation and, in pic- turing Christ, go for details of architecture and dress partly to a knowledge of archaeology, but more to a fertile and chaste imagination. They may be called the idealists pure and simple. Of these Hoffmann is the easy leader. His pictures are so well known that it is necessary only to call attention to one that has recently been reproduced in photograph. It is Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. The face is the same that has become familiar in this artist's work ^ and the story is sweetly and profoundly told. Plockhorst, whose Good Shepherd is familiar, is of the same school with Hoffmann. It is probable that we 'See illustration on page 517. ' See, for instance, the cover of this number and the frontispiece. 502 THI'. nilil.lCAI. WORLD. should class with \\\v work ol tht-st- idi-alisls also a rcniarkahie picture ot tlu- " 1 i-niptat idu " \i\ (i. Coniicclius. It is siniplx' a ilohlc Vacv wrapped in iiilt-usi' tiioug'ht — note llow tlu- k-tt hand j^rips tlu- w list whiU' the sui^ni-st ion ol eas\' empire whieh eonu'S Iroin tlu' l)i'\il who sc-eks to put a iiowii on lesus' head, reveals the leasoii loi' the intense' i;'azt' which tells ol battle W'.'iu^'ini;' in the heart. llie realit\ ol " sulleiin^' " in tc'niplat ion. tom'tluT with conipK-tc- Ireedoin troin the taint ol tlu- least surrender, are in,ii\ elousl\ pictured here. I low intei-estin^' it would he to consider the work ol Rosselti and Millais and Hurne- Jones, ol the new Russian school led by Nicholas (ia\-, ol' Morc-lli in ltal\, and Carl liloch ainonL;" the Scaiidina\ians! Hut the aim ol this paper is not a history, only a hint at some t)l tlu- relations ol Christ to art and some ol" the ways men ha\o ihoseii to drpict him. .Siuh a consideration leaves tlu- coiuiction that it is wi'll that w (.■ ha\i' no cop\- ol his earthU' features, it is well that dillerent conceptions ol him seek expression in piciun-s. {'"or oui lac-k ol an autlu-ntii' [)rotrait forces a closer stud\' of that other portrait found in 1 he gospels, to which l'.us(.-l)ius conniu-iuK-d his h'anpress. .And tlu' dixersity ol ri'pie.sriitations forces us to ciitit'isi- the concept ions that have so found expri-.ssion. ami Uads to the disco\'er\' that Christ is too larL;'e for our full comprelu-nsion, ami that whiU- our heads arc- |)u/./.linjj;' (jver the problem his nature has si-t to our thou^'ht, our hearts can largely and fri-el\ approi)riate him. THE TEMPTATION. —CORNICELIUS. CHRIST IN POETRY. By the Rev. P'rank W. Gunsaulus, D.D. Chicago, Illinois. The dictum of Plato concerning good poetry has not lacked for impressive testimony to its truth, in the influence of the cen- tral fact of history, as it has touched upon that art and in the attitude of the poetic art itself to the fact — the incarnation of God in Christ. Said the Greek philosopher: "All good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems, not as works of art, but because they are inspired or possessed." Remember- ing what a feeble apprehension he had of the radical significance of Jesus Christ in the life and hope of man, we are not surprised at the method with which Matthew Arnold dealt with human problems, and the alleviations he offered for them. It is not too much to say that he furnishes an example of how surely even the most poetic fact of all time missed the {privilege of enlarging and harmonizing one of the voices of our own time, because his spirit would be neither "inspired or possessed " by it. Mention is made of this fine figure in the history of that poetical literature which refers to Christ, because, at the outset of the study, it is well to reflect that the first thing demanded by Christ, either for salva- tion or for poetic representation, is the open soul, the child-spirit — something capable of being "inspired or possessed." This caj)acity for being "inspired or possessed" Christ himself acknowledged that he must have before he might bless or redeem, "We are saved by faith." From poet to poet Christ has gone in vain, "because of their little faith." Matthew Arnohl was a musician with fine and ex(|uisite ear for truth and beauty and gotjdness, with a voice of somewhat thin (]uality and yet of sure- footed mastery, as he attempted his characteristic trel)le-tones, preferring minor to major, his whole personality dominated by such high intellectual power and such preconceived theories as to what is indeed "the song with which the morning stars sang 504 CHRIST IN POETRY. 505 together," that the deep and universal theme and strain which reached its complete expression in Jesus Christ pleaded in vain at the portals of his soul and therefore could not either "inspire or possess him." He was a Greek, questioning, acute, wise, and sad. Plato was Greek, and more, — for he was so human as to be a prophet of the Christ, as were Isaiah and Virgil. The differ- ence between Plato and Arnold may be seen in the comparison of the statement of Plato with that of Arnold, when this more recent thinker tells us that "poetry is the criticism of life." One, in pre-Christian days, touches the essential method of Christ- finding and truth-getting by pleading for that receptive, open- souled hospitality for experiences by which he may be "inspired or possessed;" the other, in Christian days, reverts to a method by which even the highest pre-Christian truth was missed. In those days men possessed themselves in self-contained and impe- rious calm. The poet is always the organ of a voice and a theme above him. The place of Jesus Christ in the world's poetry may only be partially intimated here ; but a few of the illustrations of how the poetry which has worshipped him has been saved and exalted by him are possible in such a brief excursus ; and from them it is clear that Christianity has never been able to undo its essential nature by violating its own spiritual method. On the other hand, it has uttered itself on the lyres of the greatest poets because, not so much by the genius of this world alone, but by the genius which is open to the whispers of the universe, the highest souls have been the humblest. Therefore they have been so " possessed and inspired" that his divine glory has made their song immortal. The poetry of Christianity may say, "I am apprehended of Christ that I may apprehend" the meaning of the world, the sig- nificance of man's life and struggle, the immeasurable hope and destiny, the open secret of Omniscient God. Only as any poetry is the result of the mutual life of mind and heart, as they are "inspired or possessed," by truth revealed to man, as he is influ- enced by plans higher than man's limping thought, is it a worthy "criticism of life." Only as any poetry records the supreme spirit- ual events, not unreasonable but above the ken of reason alone, and 506 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. visions of being to which men \wa.\ aspire, is it, or can it be, a true "criticism of life." Jesus of Nazareth, as Saviour and Master, is life's truest, because life's most hopeful and sympathetic critic, flooding life's realm and process by the radiance of himself, at once man's revelation of God and God's revelation of man. His presence in the plan of God, in the universal movement, leading "to that divine far-off event Toward which the whole creation moves," his existence and influence in the groaning system of incomplete creation as the Reason which was from the beginning and will be the Reason for it all at the consummation, his [)rogress through the life of man's up-looking and seeking spirit, the hope of him which was the inevitable product of the soul as it was constituted and led bv God through the evolution of its life antl ideal- — • these are within, if they have not created that melodious rune which sings in the changing mass called nature. Poetry wit- nesses that these have made the "mighty riddle of that rhythmic breath" in the world of man's thought and sentiment which "suffers him not to rest." Poetry is the art which taj:)s this cen- tral, elemental stream which "flows through all things," and, listening to its harmony, finding that it has disco\'ered and has been made rluthmic with the musical theme, the |)oet's soul obeys, because it is "inspired and possessed" bv this imj)erati\e cadence. When it expresses its experience with all j:)Ossible fit- ness the result is undving verse. Therefore the psalmists and prophets were men almost neces- sarily poetic. Poetry came when a Jacob wrestled until the break- ing of the day with what seemed the incarnate Infinite, though it were called u\\\\ an angel ; or wluii, like Moses, a luie luinian eye, looking through flame and feeling that truth or goodness may not be binned, had listened to the Paternal in a burning acacia bush ; or when, with the hot blast of life's problem burst- ing from a fiery furnace one saw a form like unto the Son ol God ; or when out (jf an abyss of des])air a soul, like Job's st)ul, cries for a daysman that shall stand l)etween God and man ; or when a lawgiver, knowing tlu- inipott-nce of .Sinai to govern men, looks CHRIST IN POETRY. 507 ever so vaguely for a lawgiver whose law shall have an authority like that of Calvary, toward whose altar all other altars seem to lean. Whatever opinions one ma}' entertain as to the supernat- ural element in Hebrew prophecy and psalmody in the sacred writings, it is impossible to suppose that minds willing to be "inspired or possessed," who are therefore poetic in temper and method, should miss the fact that nature and life are persistently enthroning a human manifestation of the divine, and that a Christmas-day is drawing nigh somewhere and somewhen. Virgil's fourth eclogue is to Christian poetry what Plato's vision of the "God-inspired man" is to Christian prose. It does not at all change the value of that poetry which, in the elo- quent lines of Isaiah and other Jewish seers, exalts Christ, that we discover a noble propriety in the poem written on Virgil's tomb by a Christian singer ; Dante himself might well acknowl- edge that the pagan, Virgil, had made him a Christian, as the Florentine sings to the Roman, " On toward Parnassus thou did'st lead My faltering steps, and in its grots I drank ; And thou did'st light my wending way to God." Beneath all the shadowy dreams of Israel and throughout all the expectant adoration of Messiah which sang its hope in the lines of prophet or bard in Hebrewdom, not less than in that "still sad music of humanity" which rises to the lips of pagan poetry, a true philosopher of literature and religion will see man obedient and hopeful in the presence of great symbolic ideals pointing Christward. These are the crude ore of poetry. Humanity has in all loftiest hours, when higher ideals have hurried men away at the cost of losing lower ideals, "drunk of that spiritual rock which followed them ; and that rock was Christ." This min- strelsy has glorified the Redeemer. It was not strange that at the birth of Jesus the seeds of song garnered from the past should sprout and bloom instantly in the sunnv day of that first Christmas. The old Hebrew verses melodious on the lips of those who had waited long, the o'erheard wafts of psalmody of God's messengers, were gracious and divine overtures to that vast oratorio of Christmas-song in which saint and martyr, mys- 508 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. tic and hero, ecstatic monk and poetic queen, have prolonged the harmony until the days of Kirke White, Keble, and Phillips Brooks. From Christmas-time to Christmas-time new song- movements have entered into this verse. The age of Ignatius is not more different from the era of the Salvation Army than are the resonant lines that tell of the birth of Christ. Human pain has told its character and quality in the new adaptation to human deliverance which poetr)- has found in the Christ-child. Indeed, this constant changefulness of human circumstance and want has made the pictures of every event in Christ's life completer and truer; and each song, enshrining in its worship any place in his career on earth, in the form of hymn or poem, has made him no less the king of all the ages because in it he has appeared so adorable in a special age. This fact gives an age its characteristic Christian poem. Dante's " Inferno "is to the poetry what the "Stabat Mater Dolo- rosa" is to the music of the Middle Ages; what the "Magna Charta" of the Norman Barons is to the politics; what Thomas A'Kcmpis' "Imitation of Christ" is to the prose; what Angelo's "Moses" is to the sculpture; what the Milan Cathedral is to the architecture; what St. Bernard's "Sermons on the Crusade" are to the eloquence ; what Fra Angelico's angels on the walls of St. Mark's, Florence, are to the painting of the same worshipping twilight time. The "Stabat Mater" is both literature and song, and it is not only, as it has been characterized, the most pathetic, — it is the most characteristic hymn of mediaeval time. It is an illustration of what fortune befalls a great emotion and experience as they take their memorial form in hvmnology. Emilio Cas- telar speaks of the Middle Ages — that time of mingled light and shadow between the date of the fall of the western end of the old Roman empire and that of the revival of learning — the long thousand years of gloom between the death of the old and the birth of the new civilization — as the Good Friday of human history. This hymn is that dark day's intcrj)retali()n in melody. Dante himself was the loftiest of the j^rophets of that larger Christ-portrait which he did so much to give to our modern poets, in order that they may bring it nearer to completion. CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR. —ZIMMERMAi\i\ . 510 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. Toward that complete picture each age's care or sorrow con- tributes something. The first Christmas was prophetic of that perpetual Christmas morning which is constituted by human his- tory, when Christ's re-coming in divinely "possessed and inspired" humanity shall bring the Kingdom of God, and domesticate here below the City of God " that cometh down out of heaven." He said.: "It is expedient for you that I go away." " I will come again and receive you unto myself." Ever}^ succeeding age per- ceives and acknowledges this divine exj)etliencv. In a sense deep and significant, throughout his whole career on earth, Christ was trying to get his followers to see how God yearns to possess and inspire men. He regarded himself as the head of humanity. He would not separate himself from the race, even so far as the worship of his disciples suggested. "Worship God," he said, "My Father — he doeth the works." But he bound them to himself in the high j^rivilcge of their being recipients of the divine. This they share with him. He even went so far as to say, "The glory which thou gavest unto me, I have given unto them." He gave men power to become the sons of God, and he had revealed the possibilities of sonship. In this he was beginning that process of persuading his disciples to be "inspired and j:)ossessed " of the divine life, as he was, — a process which he continued and made uKjrc nearly sure of comj)letion when he said : " It is expedient for you that I go away." He wished men to live by the Spirit He knew that in sending the Spirit he would send into man's life the soul of a di\'ine society which would be slowly formed in the society of men l)v their obedience to the things of his, which the sj)irit would show unto them. Thus would he prepare for and accomplish his own second com- ing "with clouds and great glory." This continuous event — the second coming of our Lord — may, or may not, issue in a single sublime crisis. This is not the place to discuss that jjrob- lem. It, however, certainly is occurring. The j)romise he made is actually l)eing fulfilled; and it is in this new coming ot Christ, as a power by which men's thoughts and sentiments and purposes are "inspired or ])ossessed," that j)oetry finds ample themes, its situations of genuine nobility, its utterances of fairest prophecy. CHRIS T IN POETRY. 5 1 1 Indeed, the history of the development of the Christ-idea as Redeemer and Lord of humanity, the judge of all the earth, and the express image of God's person in history, may be found only in this form of literature. He has given to poetry its true epic movement, reaching a more heroic dignity in each age ; he has invested its labors with the task of uttering fitly the eternal drama of man ; in his presence in life and struggle the lyric voices have caught for themselves the purest and clearest tones, and, espe- cially in recent verse, poetry has proven her profound instinct for truth by running far in advance of theological statements and becoming prophetic of a more Christian orthodoxy. The two poets whose dust has recently been entombed in Westminster Abbey have been more vitally effective in enthroning Christ Jesus than all the divines of Westminster ; and the singers of that Christianity whose Christ is coming again in every form of righteousness and peace to make the creature, man, a S07i of God, are leading more worshipers to Calvary and Olivet than even the framers of the historic confession and catechism. So, con- fining ourselves to one illustration, we may perceive how the liv- ing Christ is greater even than the historic Christ, as he is pre- sented by another age's highest poetry. If we compare John Milton, "organ-voice of England," with Robert Browning, who has a voice of less volume and richness of tone, we readily find that the Christ of " Paradise Lost" or " Par- adise Regained" is as much less influential amidst the sovereign- ties of time and eternity, as the merely historic Christ is far removed from that perpetual human problem in which the ever- present Christ is creating a continuous and freshly-born Christmas day as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Taine is quite right in noting that much of the spectacle and movement of the divine in Milton's poetry was conditioned, if not produced, by the times of Charles I. of England. It is not a confession, either of igno- rance or irreverence with regard to the great Puritan, to say that lofty as was his genius and rich as was his music, thev never touched the deeps of the human problem nor did they reach the moral altitudes in which yearning and buffeted humanit}' has at length found peace with God. To a soul asking the questions 512 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. suggested in " Hamlet " and " Faust," not less than to a spirit perplexed with Lucretius or yEschylus, the splendid coronation of Jesus of Nazareth in Milton's best verse seems external and objective, not to sav theatrical. The questions of life and time that pulse in the speech of the heart of man, until it grows a little weary of the trumpet-strains of IMilton, are not modern or ancient queries ; they belong to the soul of man and are uttered insist- ently whenever the soul has dared to reflect. Adam and Eve, " imparadised in one another's arms " are less interesting to the mind of man, as he feels for a Christ, than some spiritual Samson, " Fallen on evil days and evil tongues, With darkness and with danger compassed round." But even a Christ for Samson is not sufficient. Doubtless Goethe was right ; one of Milton's poems has "more of the antique spirit than any other production of any other modern poet," but it is not antiquity, or modernity, of spirit by which poetry, at length, has been gladlv led to crown Jesus of Nazareth ; it is the ageless and permanent spirit of man which, by elemental asso- ciations and needs, is destined to find a way to God. It would not have been enough if, when in his day Milton had met the queries of Giordano Bruno which still echoed at Oxford, or after the poet's visit to Galileo, he had been less wavering between the Copernican or Ptolemaic systems ; the truth is that life has gone deeper and higher ; it has grown larger needs, and the Christ answering to its thirst is greater. It is not true to say that our age has little else than "This vile hungering imj)ulse, this demon within us of craving." The Christ shining in each age's poetry, in s])ite of the age's limitations, has made a new and larger ])ortrait of man's Saviour necessary in the next age. He himself has confronted the soul's instincts — "Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet the master light of all our seeing — " and it is He who has said to the greater hopes which arc children of greater sjM'ritual struggles: "If it wire not so, I would have told you." CHRIS T IN POETRY. 5 I 3 The life-hunger which feeds upon the Christ of Robert Browning's poetry is not entirely the product of the two centu- ries lying between the date of " Paradise Regained" and the date of "Saul;" still less will the excellence of Browning's product account for the fact that it does, while that of Milton's does not, woo man's soul to adoration of the Christ. Browning's "Saul" is greater than any figure of Milton's verse, not as a creation by a better writer of rhymes, but only as a discovery of what is in man's heart and life, and of what no intervening centuries may make, namely, the hunger of the soul for redemption. The eye- glance of Browning brings to light the elemental facts in view of which there was " a lamb slain from the foundation of the world." It is the redemption of his poetry — this Christ-thirst — which cries with 3'oung David : " O Saul, it shall be A face like my face receives thee : a Man like to me, Thou shall love and be loved by, forever! a hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ stand ! " This poem illustrates the force of the ageless, preexistent and post- existent Christ, no more than does one of the poems of Browning which is full of a classical atmosphere. It is more significant than that in which Milton learned of Virgil. In the poem, "Cleon," the modern singer has not so much reproduced the accent as the spiritual experience which speaks out of the weary and unsatisfied heart of ancient life. Its tone is both modern and ancient. The poet's feeling is as old and young as the soul. Cleon cannot avoid uttering his prophetic words that cry for Christ, even though he may despise Paulus and stand pledged to honor the dumb Zeus. The value of such an offering as is this poem to the worship of Jesus lies not less in its swift, bold portrai- ture of the real Christ than in its perception of the fact that paganism in any soul, ancient or modern, has the agonizing need which was experienced at that hour of the Greek decadence, Mrs. Browning more lyrically sings of the vacant world when Pan was dead ; but Robert Browning alone has left a vivid portrait of the soul of man at that hour when, Cleon-like — poet SM THE BIBLICAL WORLD. painter, and artist in method and in thuuglit — the soul looks Christ-ward through mists of death, saving, as if to Him who brought life and immortality to light — " I dare at times imagine to my need, Some future state revealed to us by Zeus, Unlimited in ca])ability For joy, as this is in desire for joy. To seek which the jov-lumger forces us." So does poetry rear her motlest rose where Christ answers the thorniest doubt. Milton had no such temptations or doubts to be met by his genius for faith, antl therefore he could not offer such a portrait of what is essential in Christ. Browning sings : " Why come temptations but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his feet?" and " I prize the doubt Low things exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark." Each age's Christ creates, by disj)lacemcnt of ideals born of need, a larger area of doubt around the fact of faith. Browning's age has apprehended a reality more nearly as great as is the Christ of God, because of its greater necessities. I^^\erv new age is a new Christmas-dawn for the eternal Christ — "the Word which was from the beginning," who is also the "reason of God" at the end of all things. In this lies the important contribution to Christian theology which, as has been confessed by the most influential devotees of dogma, such poems as "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," and "A Death in llic Desert," have made in our time. In all these j>oems, there is a witness to the fact that the new faith in Christ's ])ower and work is an evohition out of the older. Even Milton hinted at a faith that evil " .ShaJI (III its back recoil And mix no more with goodness." Dante himself, at an earlier j)eriod, had suggested such a jMcturc of Christ as made Milton's achievement in |)oetry and faith pos- sible to his hand. .Xnd, earlier still. X'iigil, thi- master of the I*"lorentine, in that poitrx which, hifore the historic Christ, CHRIST IN POETRY. 5 I 5 anticipated the presence of the real Christ, had sung so deeply that Dante acknowledged him as master after thirteen centuries had slipped away. He refers to Virgil as he sings : " The season comes once more, Once more come Justice and man's primal time. And out of heavenly space a new-born race A poet by thy grace and thus a Christian too." It is this intimate acquaintance which he has with the real needs of man, deeper than any utterance of the time of Virgil, Dante, or Milton, that gives Browning such a relationship with the dom- inant harmony that works through the discords of all times, — a harmony uttered completely only in Christ. In the three last mentioned poems from his muse, nothing is lost because he has in mind a Strauss, a Darwin, or a Renan, or even some stagger- ing superstition, puerile in its second childhood, — each of these is a force in our troubled age. He simply places all these beneath the throne of Christ and makes them bow before the manger-cradle. Life is evermore the "chance o' the prize of learning love," and it is our noblest possibility "To joint This flexile, finite life once tight Into the fixed and infinite." Where is this infinite, or where is this finite jointed thus? How shall he learn to love? The answer is given in Christ. Helpful was the light, And warmth was cherishing and food was choice To every man's flesh, thousand years ago, As now to yours and mine ; the body sprang At once to the height, and stayed : but the soul, — no ! Since sages who, this noontide, meditate In Rome or Athens, may descry some point Of the eternal power, hid yestereve ; And, as thereby the power's whole mass extends. So much extends the aether floating o'er The love that tops the might, the Christ in God. It is this Christ in the song of universal being \yhich makes the poet's rhyme, in which over all and in all and above all is 5 1 6 THE BIB Lie A L 1 1 'ORLD. revealed God in Christ, so that we see Him even on the unsub- stantial glory of nature itself. Another rainbow rose, a mightier, Fainter, flushier, and flightier, Rapture dying along its verge ! Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge, WnosK, from the straining topmost dark, On to the keystone of that arc? He was there. He himself with his human air. Ebe Sontj of nDaii>. /1C>\2 soul &otb maiinifv} tbc TLorD HnD m\2 epirit batb rcjotccD in Q>^^ mv? Saviour; yor Ibc batb rc0ar^cD tbc low estate of Ibis ban^matJ>;; - ifor, bcbolD, from bencefortb all iicncratious sball call me blessc5. jfor Ibc tbat is micibtx} batb Oone ereat tbincis for me HnD Ibolv? is Ibis IRamc. 2ln& Ibis mcrcx} is unto cicnerations anJ) generations Of tbcm tbat feau Ibim. Ibe batb sbown strencitb witb Ibis arm, 1bc batb scattereD tbe prouO bg tbe imagination of tbcir bearts, 1be batb put Down princes from tbcir tbroncs BnD batb cvaltcD tbcm of low Dciircc! 1f.-)c batb fillcD tbc bungrv witb iiooC> tbincis "HnD tbc ricb batb II-ic sent empt? awav?! Ibc batb bolpcn Ibis servant llsrael Chat U^c miiibt remember mercv Os Ibc spohc unto our Jfatbers) CowarDs ilbrabam anC* bis secO forever. H I ID 5 CHRIST IN HISTORY. Bv PKiNcirAi. A. M. Faikhaikn, Mansfield College, Oxford. General characteristics of Christ's place in history — Supremacy of the man over the Jew — Brotherhood of man his gift — A moralizer and hionan- izer of religion — The maker of moral vien and the elevator of society. Two things are characteristic of Christ's appearance in history ; first, the limited and local conditions under which he lived, secondly, the universal ranges and jicnetrative energy of his posthumous influence and action. There are founders or reformers of religion whose influence has endured longer than his, for thev lived before him ; but there is no one who has been in the same quality or degree a permanent factor of historical change. The philosopher that is wise after the event may love to discover the causes or exhibit the process by which he passed from the mean stage on which he lived for three brief and troubled years, to the commanding position from which he has, for nineteen centuries, not only reigned over, but absolutelv governed ci\ilizcd man. But one thing is certain, neither the science which thinks it can exj)lore the future nor the statesman- ship which believes it can control tlic present could ii.ue before- hand divined or predicted the result. His life throughout its whole course was void of those circumstances that appeal to the normal imagination, and, without any doubt, his sudden passage from an (jbscure life amid an obscure j)er(.eminenfe 5'8 CHRIS T IN HIS TOR V. 5 1 9 in the hard and narrow racial conditions under which he was formed and within which he lived. But our special concern is not with the emergence of the most universal person out of the most parochial conditions, it is rather with the modes and results of his historical action. These were retrospective as well as prospective, for his characteristic power of universalizing whatever he touched is illustrated by the respects in which he is distinguished from his own people. He was by blood and inheritance a Jew ; all that the past brought to his race it brought to him, all that it brought to him it might have brought to his race. But the two cases are very different. In the hands of the Jew the whole inheritance remained racial, the book, the worship, the religion, the deity. The race with its beliefs and customs and legislation is the most wonderful example in history of distribution without absorption, of separate existence combined with universal diffusion, a people whose racial unity and continuit}' have been secured and perpetuated by their extinction as a nation. The most broken and scattered, they are yet the most united and exclusive of peoples, with all their historical possessions their own rather than man's. But where they have specialized Jesus generalized ; what he retained of the Hebrew inheritance became through him man's, and ceased to be the Jew's. The Old Testament read through the New is not the book of a tribe but of humanity. The idea of a people of God translated by the term church becomes a society coexten- sive with man. Jehovah, seen through the consciousness of the Son, is changed from the God of the Jews only into the God and Father of mankind. In a word, he transformed his historical inheritance, universalized it, breathed into it a spirit that made it independent of place and time and special people, ambitious only of being comprehended by all that under it all might be comprehended. This power to universalize what he inherited expresses an intrinsic quality of his personality ; it is as it were, in spite of the strongly marked local and temporal conditions under which it was historically realized, without the customary notes of time and place. He became through the reality he was an ideal to 520 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. to the world, conceiv^ed not according to birth or descent but rather according to nature and kind. He impersonated man, and because of him man ai)j)eared to the imagination as at once a unity and an indi\idualitv. These are now among our most formal and even conventional ideas, but thev can hardly be said to be ideas the ancient world knew. In it nationality was too intensclv realized to allow unitv to h^ concei\'ed. Each people was to itself a divine creation, the offspring of its own gods, guarded by them, alone able to worship them, the gods as acutely separated from the gods of other peoples as the peoples from each other. And as there was no unity there could be no affin- itv ; where there was no community of nature there could be no common mind or bond of brotherhood. As the absence of the sense of unitv affected the outer relations of peoples, so the want of the idea of individuality affected the inner life of societies. It meant that there was no sufificient notion of the value or worth of man. Hence in the Oriental monarchies the dumb millions were but instruments of the so\ereign will, to be sacrificed without scruple, as beings with no rights or hopes, whether in building a royal tomb or buttressing a tyrant's throne. Even in states where the idea of liberty was clearest and most emphasized, it was liberty not of men but of special men, mem- bers of a class or a clan, Greeks or Romans. Freedom was their inalienable right, but it was necessarily denied to Helots or to slaves. Thus, without the sense of human in(li\i(lualil\-, there could be no rational order in society, and without the feeling of unity no orderly progress in the race.- But from the conce[)tion of Christ's person the true ideas sprang into immediate and potent being, though, as was natural, the lower idea of unity was active and efficient before the harder and higher idea of liberty. The belief in a person wlio was equally related to all men involved the notion that the men wlio were so relateil to him were ec|ually related to each other, and the conception that he had died to redeem all, make all appear of equal value in his sight and of equal worth before God, who indeed as the God of Jesus Christ could know no resj)ect of person. For in Christ there was neither lew nor Greek, bond nor free, but only one luw man. CHRIS T IN HIS TOR V. 521 And what has been the historical action of these ideas ? They have set an ideal before the race which it feels bound to realize, though it may step with slow and labored reluctance along the path of realization. The pity for the suffering which has created all our hospitals and agencies for relief, the love of the poor which seeks to ameliorate their lot and end poverty, the sense of human dignity which hates all that degrades man, the pas- sion for freedom which inspires whole societies and abhors the privileges and prerogatives of special castes, the equality of all men before the law which makes justice copy the impartiality of God — these and similar things are the direct creations of the Christian idea of Christ. Though they have not as yet been fully realized, still they have been conceived; they are ends towards which history in its broken way has moved, and dreams which society feels it can never be happy till it has embodied. And what do these things represent but the most potent factors of all its order and all its progress which history knows ? Connected with this is the degree in which he has at once moralized and humanized religion. It was on the side of moral- ity that the ancient religions were most defective and inefficient. The gods were too self-indulgent to be severe on the frailties of man. Indeed no polytheism can be in the strict sense moral, for where the divine wills are many, how can they form a sovereign unity ? And so jwhile there may be worship, there can never be obedience as to a single and absolute and uniform law. As a consequence philosophy rather than religion was in the ancient world the school of morals, and its morality, though exalted in term was impotent in motives, a theme of speculation or discussion rather than a law for life. And we have further this remarkable fact that in the interests of morality philosophers in their ideal state or normal society restricted the area of religion as regards both belief and conduct. Two ancient religions indeed held a place of rare ethical distinction — Hebraism on the one side. Buddhism on the other, but the dis- tinction was attended by characteristic defects. Hebrew morality was the direct creation of the Hebrew Deity. Religion was obe- dience to his will, and his will was absolute. Men became accept- 522 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. able in his sight not by " the blood of bulls and goats " but by doing justly, loving mercv and walking hunibh- with God. But this morality was too purely transcendental ; in it man stood over against the Almightv will as a transient creature, and will as such is too cognate to power to be an elevating or alwavs benef- icent moral law. We can see this in the exaggeratt;d echo of Hebraism which we know as Islam. There the divine will that has to be obeved is but a will of an Almightv Arab chief who delights in battle, who glories in victory, whose rewards are for complete devotion to his service and his commands. Neither religion jjroduces a reallv humane svstem of ethics, nor is such a svstem consistent with a |nire transcendental deism. On the other hand Buddhism is strictly human alike in ethical standard and motive. Buddha is the ideal man and right con- duct is the behavior that pleases him. He is pitiful and so pity of human miserv is the note of the good man. But simply because there is no transcendental source or motive the ethics of Buddhism are pessimistic. Thev are possessed with the j)assion of pitv, not w ith the love of salvation or the belief in the good of existence that binds a man to do his utmost to save men and ameliorate their lot. Now Christ represents the transcendental ethics of Hebraism and inmianent ethics of Buddhism in potent union and harmonious efficiencv. The man he lo\es is a man made of God, worthy of his love, and ca])able of his sahation. The God he reveals is one manifested in man, glorified by his obedience and satisfied with nothing less than his holiness ; thus while the glory of God is the good of man, the chief end of man is the glorv of God. In a word the ethics of Christ have more humanitv than Ikiddha's, more divinitv than the Hebrew. Thev have so combined these as to make tjf the service of man and the obedience of God a unit\-. This has made the religion an altogether uni()ue power in history, has turned all its motives into moral forces which have worked for amelioration and j>rog- ress of the- human race. This last |)oint may be illustrated by the number and the variety of the moral men Christ has created. His church is a society of such men. It is scattered throughout the world, and CHRIS T IN HIS TOR V. 523 wherever it is, there live persons pledged to work for human good. It is hardly possible to overestimate the worth of a good man to an age or a place. He who creates most good men most increases the sum of human weal. And here Christ holds undisputed preeminence. There is to me nothing so marvelous as his power to awaken the enthusiasm of humanity. Organiza- tion may have done great things for ecclesiastics, but the supreme things accomplished in the history of Christendom have have been performed by souls Christ has kindled and com- manded. The church did not strengthen Athanasius to stand against the world ; Christ did. What comforted Augustine was not the policy of the Eternal Citv, but the sublime beauty of the Universal Christ. Francis of Assisi was vanquished by his love, and all our early martyrs and saints, all our mediaeval mystics and schoolmen bear witness to it, while the devotional literature of the church, its prayers, its hymns, the books that live because alive with love attest the preeminence and the permanence of personal devotion to Christ. In keeping a continuous stream of holy and beneficent men in the world he has affected the course of history, the movements of thought, all the ideals and all the aims of man. His name is thus a term denotive of the richest moral forces that have acted upon the lives of men. If we can- not love him without loving the race or serve him without being forced to the beneficent service of man, then his place in his- tory is that of the most constant factor of order, the cause of progress and the principle of unity. In all things he has the pre- eminence ; in him has been manifested the manifold wisdom of God. Over hearts and lives he reigns that he may in the ways of infinite grace subdue all things unto himself. HELPS TO THE STUDY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. By S H A I L E R Mathews. The University of Chicago. The last few years have witnessed an extraorclinai\- re\i\al in the historical study of the New Testament. Since the days of the fierce attacks upon current religious beliefs by the so-called Tubingen school, there has been a steady advance in both the amount and the character (jf investigation given to the times during which Jesus lix'cd, and the records that describe his words and deeds. Manv of these works ha\'e been outgrown or superseded b\- later studies, i)ut each has contributed something towards a completer knowledge of the times and the country, the social environment, and the course of thought in which Jesus and his biographers lixed. In the list below only such works are mentioned as both embody the results of recent scholarship and are believed to be especial Iv adaj)ted to the use of pastors and unprofessional stu- dents of the New Testament. It does not include works of purely historical or technical interest, or those written in a foreign language. I. The Times of Christ. The chief literary source of all works under this head is Josephus, whose histories, the Antiguitics of the Jews, the Wt7rs of the Jews, as well as his other writings, contain about all that is to be known of this prriod within tlu- limits of raKstiiie, except what mav be derived from the stuily of arch;eolog\'. The arrangement of much of his material is, howe\er, not the best, and on many other grounds it is advisable to sui)plenKnt his account with the work of sonu- modern writer. HELPS TO THE STUDY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 525 Fairweather, Wm., From tJie Exile to the Advent. (In the series of Handbooks for Bible Classes.) Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons. Pp. 210. Price, 80 cents. An admirable little text-book, giving succinctly an account of the Jewish people from the deportation under Nebuchadnezzar till the death of Herod I. Few references are given to other works, but the author has evidently read the most recent authorities. Waddy-Moss, R., From Malachi to Matthew. London : Charles H. Kelly. Pp. xiv. 256. This little handbook attempts "to do nothing more than outline the history of Judea in the centuries that elapsed between the prophecy of Malachi and the event that forms the first theme of the New Testament." The author has rigidly kept to this aim, refusing to be led off into details, and, on the whole, has maintained a very good historical perspective. The treatment of the Maccabean period is especially good. It is not thrown into the form of a text-book, and its style is good. It unfortunately is not sup- plied with a bibliography. SchOrer, E., TJie Jczvish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. Division I. The Political History of Palestine, from B. C. 175 to 135 A. D. 2 vols. Division H. The Internal Con- dition of Palestine and of the Jewish Peo]:)le in the Time of Jesus Christ. 3 vols. New York : Chas. Scribner's Sons. Price, ^8.00, net. This monumental work by Schlirer has made all other histories almost superfluous. In no other account of the jjeriod is there to be found such wealth of learning and such admirable arrangement of material. Its use of sources is exhaustive, and the work everywhere displays astonishing power in grappling with perplexities. Each section is preceded by a full bibli- ography, and all statements are substantiated by reference to authorities. In the first division of the work the author has given solutions to many geo- graphical and chronological problems, besides compressing into reasonable space the account of the events of the period. The second division is especially concerned with the civil and religious institutions of the Jews, as well as the literature of the two centuries which the work covers. Especial attention is also given to rabbinism in its bearing upon the New Testament. No attempt is made at describing the social life of the times. In certain cases, perhaps, Schiirer has a little too readily yielded to certain chronolog- -ical difficulties of the gospel record, but in general his attitude is remarkably impartial, and at times in effect, if not in purpose, apologetic. 526 THE BIBLICAL WORLL^. Stapff.k. E., Palestine in the Time of Christ. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son. Pp. xii. 527. Price, S2.50. This work is a most exasperating combination of fact and fiction. It needs severe revision. Yet, on the whole, it is about the only single volume in English which gives anything like a respectable account of the entire life- — ^ political, social, religious — of the Jewish people in the days of Jesus. Many of its errors are those of carelessness, and sometimes are so ludicrous as to be detected bv any attentive reader. Its use of the Talmud is consid- erable, although uncritical. Seidel, M., /// the Ti)ne of Jesus. New York : A. D. V . Ran- dolph & Co. Pp. 188. xx\-. Price, 75 cents. Probablv the best account in small compass of the heathen and Jewish world in New Testament times. It is especially good in its descriptions of the political and religious institutions of the Jews. Edersheim, a., Sketehes of JeicisJi Soeial Life. Chicago: F. H. Revell & Co. Price, Si. 25 A popular, though scholarlv little work, descriptive of the habits and customs of the Jewish peojjle in New Testament times. Merrill, .S., Galilee in the Time of Christ. New York : W'hitta- ker, 1885. Price, Si. 00. A lielpful little volume of especial value from the personal investigations of the author. The general conclusion is favorable to the statements of Josephus in regard to Galilee in the first century. Delitzsch, v., Jewish Artisan Life in the 'Ti?ne of Jesus. New York: P\ink & Wagnalls. Pp. 91. Price. 75 cents. Tliis little volume contains a great amount of intorniation in regard to the industrial life of the common peo])ic in tht.' time of Christ, and is written in an interesting style. II. The Geography of Palestine. Hlndmkson, a., Palestine. (in tiic series ol I lamlhooks tor Bible Classes.) Edinburgh : T. 6y: T. Clark. New N'ork : Chas. Scribner's Sons. Price.-, Si. 00. An admiral)le liandbook, well up to d.-itc .hkI L'fnci;illy accurate, l)oth in description and maps. HELPS TO THE STUDY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 527 Smith, George A. The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. London : Hoddu & Stoughton. New York : A. C. Arm- strong & Son. Second ed., 1895. Pp- ^xv. 692. Price, An exceedingly stimulating volume. Not only is it a thesaurus of the best results of modern exploration in Palestine, but, as in no other volume, is the history of the land interpreted by its physical characteristics. Especial commendation should be given its maps. To read this volume is the next best thing to a visit to Palestine.' Its literary style is attractive although somewhat diffuse. Stanley, A. P., Sinai a?id Palestitie. New York : A. C. Arm- strong & Son. Pp. 641. Price, $2.50. This classic in scriptural geography is by no means superseded by the work of Smith. In its descriptive and suggestive power it still is among the best modern works that attempt to show the relation between a people's history and their physical environment. In general, also, its identifications are accurate and its maps and colored plates helpful. III. The Life of Jesus. Stalker, J., The Life of Jesus Christ. Various editions. Pp. 167. Price, 60 cents. A scholarly, and in every way delightful work. It is especially adapted to use in bible classes. Farrar, F. W., The Life of Christ. New York : E. P. Button & Co. Pp. XV. 472. Full of fervid rhetoric and deep religious feeling. It is characterized by the author's generous scholarship and liberality. It is of especial value in helping the student to realize keenly the circumstances of his Lord's life. Andrews, S. J., The Life of Our Lord. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1891. Pp. xxvii. 651. Price, $2.50. Altogether the opposite of the preceding in its avoidance of all literary effort. As a result it is not easily readable, but is of the utmost value because of its exhaustive essays upon harmony, chronology, and geography. By all means it is the most scholarly production along these lines of any American, scholar. No student of the gospels will neglect it. ' A review of this work will be found in the coming January number of the Biblical World. 528 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. Edersheim, a., The Life atui Times of Jesus the Messiah. New York : A. D. F. Randolph & Co. 2 vols. Pp. x.xvi. 698; xii. 826. Price, $6. 00. This is the most exhaustive study on the times of Jesus thus far jjroduced by an English scholar. Its chief defects are the absence of any critical examination of the sources, occasionally poor e.vegesis as well as poor har- mony, and an excessive pietism. But the merits of the work outweigh these defects. Viewed as a series of essays upon the customs and habits of thought suggested by the life of Jesus it is masterly and invaluable. If one were to own but one life of Jesus, it should be Edersheim's. Weiss, B., The Life of Christ. Eng. trans. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 3 vols. Pjj. xvi. 392, 403, 428. New York : Chas. Scribner's .Sons. Price, $9.00. Especially valuable for critical examination of the sources and deep spiritual insight. Though not so versed in rabbinical learning as Edersheim, Weiss is one of the greatest critics and exegetes. No one can be in touch with modern methods in the study of the gospels who is unacquainted with his critical position, however one may accept some of its applications and corollaries. There is great need of a life of Christ that shall combine the critical processes of Weiss and the Jewish learning of Edersheim with the literary excellencies of Stalker. IV. The Teaching of Jesus. Bruce, A. B., The Kingdo)n of God. New York: Chas. Scrib- ner's Sons. Pp. XV. 343. Price, $2.00. As satisfactory a treatment of the central teachings of Jesus as exists. Like all of the author's works it is characterized by critical processes and deep religious reverence and insight. IIoKTON, Robert P\, TJic TcncJiitig of Jesus. London: Isbistu, 1895. ^'P- '^■i'i- 287. Price, 3s. 6d. Dr. Horton tells us frankly that his lectures are based on Wcndl's Ihid/Wi^ of Jrsus, and Beyschlag's New Testatnent Theology, with an effort to su|ii)iy that which is found lacking in them And now our recommendation is, that if anyone has set to read these books, he should read Dr. Horton's first. — Expository Times. Wendt, II. II., The Teaching of Jesus. New \'ork : Chas. Scribner's S(M1s. 2 vols. Pp. 40.S, 427. Price, S4.50. An admirable translation of the greatest systematic study of the teachings of Jesus thus f;ir |)rmlucfd in C'.crmany. It is marked by all the excellencies of HELPS TO THE STUDY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 529 German scholarship, but is free from most of its faults. It is characterized by conservative exegesis, acute analysis of the gospel records, and reverent regard for truth. It goes far more into details than the work of Bruce, and it exhibits more completely the processes by which its results are gained. Its greatest defects are seen in its treatment of the Johannine account of Christ's teach- ings. Fairbairn, a. M., TJic Place of Christ i/i Modern Theology. "That mine of learning, masterly historical generalization, and rich sug- gestion has given new strength to the Christian consciousness throughout the English-speaking world ; and the longer it is read the more generation of ideas it will be found to be." — George A. Gordon, in CJirist of Today, p. vi. Beyschlag, W., The Theology of the New Testament. A review of this great treatise, so far as it is concerned with the teaching of Jesus, is found on another page. THE HALL OF THE CHRIST AT CHAUTAUQUA. By Bishop John 1 1. V i n c e n t. Cliautauqua Office, Buffalo, N. V. The central thought of Christianity in this age is Christ — his person, his life, his teaching, the sj^iritual dispensation which he founded. It has not always been so. Men ha\c exalted doctrine, |)hilosophv, sacraments, ceremonies, j)riesthoods, eccle- siastical constitutions — everything but Christ himself. Men who study manhood look now to the man of Galilee. Men who study theology seek now "sound words, even the words of the Lord Jesus." The critical study of the New Testament tends to exalt its one all-dominating character. And this is well. Men who can- not understand philosophy can understand biography. When they are not able to accept the systematic creed-forms, dogmat- ically taught by doctors and councils, they are able to hear the wise sayings of the One who walked with his own disci[)les over the hills and through the valleys of Palestine. They see him on the human side. They study hini in the light of ancient life. He is a man again — a teacher, a friend. Aj^proaching him from the human side they are prepared for the deeper, the loftier revelations of the spiritual kingdom for the manifesta- tion of which he became llesh and dwelt among us. More than ever df) the scholars turn with delight and enthusiasm to the study of this "great phenomenon." More than ever the special- ists of the hiljlical schools turn to the stu(l\- of the Christ as foreshadowetl in proj)hecv, as re\eale(l in liistorw as I'eported in literature and glorified in art. At Chaulau<|ua, Christ and his gospel ha\e C()nstitut(.-d the center of all teaching from the lust (la\- until the j)resent, and it is now |jroposi'd to ])lant in the center of the Chautauijua grounds, in the midst ot all otiiei' buildings at this lural uuixer- sity, a teni])le especially consecrated to the- stu(l\- of his liU- and 5.^0 THE HALL OF THE CHRIST A T CHA UTA UQUA. 531 teachings, his relations to the age in which he lived, his influence on the race as developed in successive civilizations and the great schools of thought which have been created or inspired by his presence in the world. This building is to be called the Hall of the Christ. It is to be a class room for the study of Christ by various grades of pupils, from the little children for whom while on earth he showed such delicate fondness, to the profoundest scholars who may meet to investigate the problems in philosophy, in philology, in literature, in art, in social and political life which are created or illuminated by his marvelous personality and ministry. The building is to be used for no other purpose whatever but to set forth the one idea — the germ and fruition of all great religious ideas — The Christ. Children will be encouraged to take a simple course of reading and study on which they must be examined before their admission as students in the Hall of the Christ, and this to create a greater interest on their part and to emphasize the value of the opportunity to which they are admitted. A generous philanthropist who is famous for noble gifts and whose name will in due time be announced has made the first contribution of ten thousand dollars toward this project. The Hall of the Christ will occupy one of the most central, eligible and beautiful sites on the Chautauqua grounds. The building will be constructed of substantial material, and will be the most permanent and impressive in appearance of any building in that city by the lake, so solidly constructed that it may last for cen- turies, and capacious enough to accommodate on special occa- sions an audience of at least five hundred students. A room will be set apart for a library of the lives of Jesus and for a selection from the most able discussions which litera- ture furnishes relating to his person, ofifice, work and influence. Another room will be devoted to a collection of the best engravings and photographs of the great pictures and statues representing Christ — the contributions of the great artists of the ages to the interpretation of his personal character. It is hoped that before long a copy of Thorwaldsen's famous statue of Christ may be placed within the building. 532 THE BIBLICAL WORLD. An occasional rcxcrcnt and beautiful scr\icc of worship to the Christ will be held, with all that music and devotional litera- ture and the spontaneity of personal j)iety ma}- contribute to this end. The instruction to be given in the Hall of the Christ will be of the most thorough character, prosecuted in the spirit of rev- erent love, emploving the latest results of the most critical stutl\', that students looking eagerlv antl discriniinateh' into the letter of the four gospels may come more fullv and more heartily to appreciate him who spake as never man spake and whose name to this day is above every name. The Hall standing in the center of the Chautauqua grounds will continually represent the central idea of Christianity and exalt him who was in his earthly life the Friend of the friend- less, the Saviour of the sinful and whose gos[jcl and sj)irit are today the most effective jjromoters of true social and political reform, and which are daily building uj) a civilization founded upon the broad doctrines of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. It is the aim of the projectors to make the building j)lain but impressive, Grecian rather than Gothic in stvle, suggesting as little as possible the "ecclesiastical" and emphasizing the true relation between Nazareth, Jerusalem, Rome and Athens, the alliance between the highest attainable human culture and the holiest jiersonal character that e\er shone upon earth, in jnirsuance of the thought that all culture, all material actixity, all science, all philosojjhy, all literature, all art, all reform, all hope for humanity must center in him. Another feature of the Hall of the Christ w ill be the j)r(-)\i- sion of memorial windows and tablets devoted to the nieinor\- of departed friends— the Chautau(|uans of all the years since its founding. These windows designed I)\' a skillful artist will conimein(;rate the various events in the lifi- of Christ from the Annunciation to tlu- Ascensicjn. In front of tlu- Hall it is expected that there will hv a por- tico, and from it two arms or semi-circular porches will exleiid enclosing a space in which now and tlun a large audience may THE HALL OF THE CHRIST AT CHAUTAUQUA. 53; be convened to listen to addresses or sermons. These architec- tural "arms" will represent in cenotaphs and statues the great characters of the Old Testament by which the Hebrew people were prepared for the coming of the Christ, while on the oppo- site side shall be represented in similar fashion the great char- acters of profane history who were in their times a light unto the world and a preparation for the coming of the Man of Nazareth. This dream of a building will certainly become a substantial reality. Shall we have a word of suggestion concerning details from Chautauquans and others interested in the plan ? IHL CHRIST CHILD. —MURILLO. synopses of important Brticles, Jesus' Teachings about Himself. By Rev. James Robertson, D.D., in his recent book, Our Lord's Teaching, pp. 31-40. Jesus presented himself as a problem to his countrymen, and after he had been manifested to them for a sufficient time, the testing (juestions he put to his disciples were these: "Whom do men say that I am?" and "Whom say ye that I am? " On the answer to this latter question it depended whether Jesus would find material for the foundation of a church ; and when Peter answered well, his Master accorded him solemn praise (Matt. 16: 16, 17). In one respect there was great reserve in his teaching about himself. Not till near the end of his ministry (Matt. 16: 16, 17 ; 26:63, 64) flifi he openly avow himself, or allow himself to be declared the Messiah, the Christ. Often before, indeed, the consciousness of such a greatness showed itself in inci- dental sayings (Matt. 7:22, 23; 12:42; Luke 14:26; John 6:35; 8:12; ii;25; 14:6). But he long withheld from the Jews the plain announcement that he was the Christ. Obviously he did so because this title had been so tarnished and carnalized in their thoughts that he would have been quite mis- understood, and his death would have come before he had had time to win true disciples by his life and teaching. Two names he used, the one with equal freedom in Judea and Galilee, The Son of Man ; the other, mostly in his debates with the Jewish leaders at Jerusalem, The Son of God. Both of these were — so far as meeting the expectation of the Jews went — incognito titles. Jesus took neither of these names from the Old Testament for use, because it was an understood equiva- lent for the Messiah ; they were not recognized by the people as distinct Mes- sianic titles. They came from his own heart, the expression of his own con- sciousness of himself. The first title, the Son of Man, conveys two chief truths, the reality of the humanity of Jesus, and the uiii(]ueiiess of it. He expresses by it the possession of true human nature, his comnmnity of feeling with men, his sharing in human affections and interests, his true experience of human life, his liability to temptation, his exposure like other men to hunger and thirst, suffering and death. And at the same time he thus described himself as the uni(|ue and ideal man, the man in whom humanity is summed up, and the " fulness of the race made visible," the Head and Representative of all men. The second title, the Son of God, imi)lies the reality of his son- ship, and the unicjueness of it. These truths Jesus most frccjuently pressed upon his Jewish op|)oiients in Jerusalem, as recorded in the fourth gosi)el, with a view of proving himself the Son by laying o|)en to them his actual and constant filial intercourse with God, in the beauty and perfect naturalness of 534 ^ YNOPSES OF IMP OR TA NT A R TICLES. 535 it which could not be feigned. There is, indeed, in much that Jesus says about his intercourse with his Father, nothing different in kind from that son- ship with God which is possible for us, and is familiar in the experience of all true children of God. But there is a manifest difference in degree. His intercourse with the Father is perfect, complete, and unmarred by sin. All that Jesus says or does he knows to be of God. He is the Son as no one else is, from the perfection of his communion with God, and from the complete- ness with which his sonship is realized and constantly lived out. The terms in which this communion is described seem to require the doctrinal faith in which we have been brought up, that Jesus is of one essence with the Father, and one in eternal being with him. In many passages he speaks so that nothing short of this seems implied (John 16:28; 17:5; 8: 58 ; perhaps 10: 30 ; 20: 28). Our faith in Jesus as the Eternal Son of God may stay itself not only on the unique communion with God which we see him enjoying, but on his own belief and claim and testimony. It is not meant that there are no other grounds for this great faith. There is also the apostolic teaching thereto. And perhaps if the faith of most Christian people were closely inquired into it would be found to rest largely on their own experience. They have felt the change and blessing which have reached them through communion with Jesus to be nothing short of divine. He has to them, as it has been expressed, "the value of God," and they cannot give him any lower name than that of the Eternal Son. C. W. V. The Incarnation and the Unity of Christ's Person. By the Rev. Principal T. C. Edwards, D.D., in the Expositor, October 1895, pp. 241-261. As the fulness and the glory of the incarnation lies in the true, divine personality of the Logos, so also the self-sacrifice which the incarnation implies is the act of the same Logos. The initiative in the incarnation must be ascribed to the Logos ; that initiative is an ethical act, a "becoming poor" (2 Cor. 8:9), based upon a change of metaphysical condition. The apostle calls it a self-emptying (Phil. 2:6), which is a word so extreme and emphatic that we must beware of making the fact that it is unique a reason for refining it away. It was not in dying on the cross that the Son of God began to sacri- fice himself, but in assuming human nature into union with his Divine Person ; not as if the assumption of itself involved humiliation, for then the humilia- tion of our Lord would continue forever. But his incarnation involved his divesting himself for a time of the form of God and taking upon himself, instead of the form of God, the form of a servant. It is true that he had already obeyed his Father's command by incarnating himself ; and, even previously to the act of incarnation, he was already from eternity ideally, though not actually, a servant, when he was king. But now he took the form and position of a servant, in which form it was not competent for him to assume the kingship without dying to regain it. 536 THE BIIUJCAI. WORLD. The doctrine of the self-emptying of the Logos is found in Origen {Hoin. in Jer., I., 7), among the Fathers, But it was not favored in the early church, owing to the influence of Athanasius, and to the extreme and con- fessedly heretical form in which it was thought to be presented bv ApoUinarius. But the words, "in the likeness of men," refer to the humiliation of the Logos incarnate. In the Trinity the Second Person is, in idea, human ; but tlirough incarnation he assumed actually the //7^;/'m;////(v condition, though he continued to be God. In this century we are indebted to Thomasius {Christi Person und Wtrk, 1886) for the first elucidation of the kenotic theory. Dr. Bruce has subjected it {Uuiniliation of Christ, Lect. I\'.) to very clear and most power- ful, but, to my mind, not convincing, criticism. In the first place, he says that, according to the Thomasian doctrine, the incarnation involves at once an act of assumjnion and an act of self-limitation, the former an exercise of omnip- otence, the latter the loss of omnipotence, and asks, Are such contrary effects of one act of will compatible? But there is no contradiction here. In the creation of the world God passes from a state of quiescence to a state of activity ; the incarnation is a Divine Person, withdrawing himself from activity that he might be subject to infirmity. In the second place, Dr. Bruce acutely observes that the depotentiated Logos seems superfluous, because it implies that he has been reduced to a state of helpless passivity or impotence. But the kenosis consists of two successive steps. The first step was the laying aside the form of God, and this act the apostle dates back in the pre-incarnate state of the Logos. It was an infinite act of self-denial, than which a lesser would have been impossible to him, as well as incajiable of being revealed as an ethical example to men. Then, when he had divested himself of his metaphysical omnipotence as Son of God, and was "found in fashion as a man," he humbled himself — an expre.ssion properly applicable only to a man or the Logos as man — and he humbled himself more than would have been possible to any mere man or angel, however perfect, and however much aided by the .Spirit of God. For our Lord's moral omnipotence still remained to him, and the helj) of the Spirit was added, which enabled him to become obedient unto death, yea the death of the cross, and constituted his obedience redemptive — priestly and sacrificial. In the third place, Dr. Bruce objects that the kenotic theory introduces a Ijrcak in the consciousness of the Logos as God. This holds good only against certain forms of the doctrine. Quies- cence does not mean annihilation. All that is essential is that the Logos did not in any way or measure hamper the free a(tivit\' of the humanity. .\n omniscient or omnipotent man, not in need of the unction and |)ower of tlie S])irit, is inconceivable, but a perfectly just and loving man, having tiie Spirit, is not. If the divine side of the complex personality of Christ is the initiatory and |jroductive element, the human side is the regulative. Among English theologians who accept the doctrine of the kenosis are Canon Gore {/uini/>/on Lt'iiiires, 1891, Lect. \'I.) and l'rin( i|)al I'airbairn {Christ in Mottirn J'hio/oj^y, p. 476). C. W. V^ +.-ita i Mi %. hiji' v:^Ti J'^ u *: mmm 1 T ■ "^i:^ ■ P^'^ u m; ' wm^^ '^^' %^^^m V LH^ iffl-wh- - Bta i lJIHwv >f 'wSkSi r*^ ^hI ■ ;^-^ )^l.%rlH 1 THE BIBLICAL WORLD CONTINUING The Old and New Testament Student Volume VIII. DECEMBER, I 896 Number d THE CHH^D PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH. By W I L L I A M R. Harper, The University of Chicago. The child IiiDiianuel. — The child Maher-shalal-hash-baz. — The Prince of Peace. — The shoot of Jesse. It is in Isaiah, after all, that we find the pictures of the com- ing Messiah most vividly portrayed. However it may be explained, we must recognize our dependence upon this prince of the prophetic order for many of those wonderful artistic delineations which bind together indissolubly the Old and the New Testament, the foreshadowing and the reality. At this time we are to think only of those conceptions of the great deliverance, yearned after so earnestly by the prophet and described bv him so pathetically, which have as their central figure a child. We may not forget that a true appreciation of these pictures is only to be gained by a careful study of the other pictures painted by Isaiah, which have other figures in the center and of which the background is something very different. But at the risk of inadequate, or even wrong, interpretation, we shall confine ourselves to the child-picUires. These are well known : The child, Immanuel, Isa. 7 : 7-10 ; the child, Maher- shalal-hash-baz, Isa. 8 : 1-4 ; the Prince of Peace, 9:1-6; the shoot of Jesse, 1 1 : 1-9. 417 41 8 THE BIBLICAL WORLD I. The chilli I)}iinanucl. — Lsa. 7:7-10. It is 735 1^. C. Assyria, whose powerful influence has ahxadv been felt again and again by the nations on the Palestinian seaboard, is threatening Syria, Israel, and Judah. Remember the geographical location of these three nations, and, as well, the route which Assyria must follow in order to reach Jerusalem. In an invasion, .Syria will suffer the first attack ; and Syria and Israel, now closely con- nected, will be in sore straits if Assyria should attack them in front while Judah is an enemy in the rear. Since Assyria's com- ing is certain, Syria and Israel unite to force Judah into triple confederacy. But Judah 's king, Ahaz, thinks it a better policy to make terms directly with Assyria and thus avoid the danger of in\'asion. To force the alliance of Judah, Syria and Israel lav siege to Jerusalem. The city is panic-stricken. The royal court is in terror. The king, while engaged in an insjjection of the water supply of the city, is confronted by Jehovah's prophet Isaiah, who brings with him the boy Shear-Jashub, a name of good omen (a remnant will return) to those who believe in Jeho- vah ; of ill omen (only a remnant will return) to those who are faithless. " Aha/,, " says Isaiah, "be calm and ([uiet, have faith in Jehovah, and the two kings who threaten us shall not accom- plish their jjurpose. If you will believe and trust Jehovah, all will be well." Trust in Jehovah at this time meant independence of Assyria. Could one trust in Jehovah and at the same time make an alliance with a foreign power and in making that alli- ance accept as all-powerful the gods of that foreign power? I low Ahaz received this first message we learn indirectly from the record. He was deaf to the words of the prophet. The next day comes or the next week, and again Isaiah aj)proaches the king in order to jjersuade him of the truth of the message sent from (jotl. This time it would seem that the message is deliv- ered inside of the jjalace, in the very presence of the royal family. " Ahaz," says Isaiah, "you would not believe my former message from Jehovah ; I come again. Let me give you a sign which shall be evidence of this truth ; a sign to he wrought in heaven or in hell according to your command." Hut Ahaz, the hypocrite, already in alliance with Tiglathpileser, will not ask a sign. He THE CHILD PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH 419 will not, so he says, put Jehovah to the test. The prophet, freed from all restraint, burning with righteous indignation, utters words which are intended to strike terror to the heart of the royal family : '< Hear now, O House of David, is it too little for you to weary men that ye weary my God also? You will not accept my proposition to give you a sign of the truth of Jeho- vah's message, therefore Jehovah himself shall appoint you a sign. Behold, a yoiuig ivo}iian sliall conceive and bear. a son a?id she shall call his name Lnmanuel} For before the boy shall know how to refuse the evil and choose the good (that is, before he is, let us say, four or five years of age) the land of whose two kings (that is Assyria and Israel) thou art in terror shall be deserted. If thou, O Ahaz, will trust in God, he will give evidence of his presence and your enemies shall not harm you. But if you will not believe, ruin shall come upon Judah as well as upon Syria and Israel at the hand of Assyria." It was a promise of a new regime, a new political situation, dependent, however, upon the steadfastness of Ahaz's faith. The picture maybe briefly sum- marized : In the distance Assyria, laying waste the territory of Syria and Israel ; in Judah a child, the manifestation of Jehovah's presence, guarding as ruler and protector the interests of Jeho- vah's kingdom ; Judah herself in peace and contentment because of Jehovah's presence. Was the picture realized? Not in the time of Ahaz, for Ahaz was always faithless. 2. The child Malier-shalal-hash-baz. — 8 : 1-4. It is 73^ B. C. No change has yet come in the political situation. The people, to whom the prophet's words addressed to the king, have in all probability become known, need further assurance of the message. There is still time for repentance and a turning toward Jehovah. The message came from Jehovah to the 'The prophet does not have in mind (i) the wife of Ahaz, the child being Heze- kiah, who was to be provisionally an evidence of God's presence {cf. C. R. Brown, in Journal of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, Vol. IX, 1890, pp. 1 18-127), nor (2) the unmarried daughter of Ahaz [cf. Nagelseach in Lange's Isaiah) whose disgraceful condition is thus revealed by the prophet, or (3) the prophet's own wife, Immanuel being the son of Isaiah as well as Shear-jashub (so many), nor (4) any young woman who in the near future may conceive and hear a son {cf. Chevne, Introduction to Isaiah). 420 THE BIBLICAL WORLD prophet. "Take a large tablet aiul write on it in j)lain characters ' Swift-spoil, speedv-prey.'- Secure reliable witnesses in order that in future times the writing may be attested." The prophet we understand, obeyed the order given. About this time the prophet's own wife conceives and bears a son. By the command of Jehovah he is given for his name the inscri[)tion of the tablet. " For before the boy shall know how to cry 'my father' and 'my mother' (that is, before he is fifteen or eighteen months of age) they shall carry the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria (that is, the two kings of whom Ahaz was afraid) before the king of Assyria." It was in 732, a vear or so later, that Tig- lathpileser destroved Damascus and carried two of the northern tribes into captivitv. 3. Tlie Prince of Peace. — 9:1-7. The time of Tiglathpileser's invasion is one of darkness and sorrow, captivity and blood- shed. It is easy to conceive the feelings of Judah and Jerusalem when the news comes that Damascus has fallen and a portion of Israel has been carried away into caj)tivity. In this time of gloom and deep shadow the pro])het ])reaches of the great light which shall shine. In this time of grief and dismay he preaches of exultation and jov, the jov of har\-est and the joy of dividing the spoil. In this day when Israel has first come to feel the yoke of Assyria, he s])eaks of the time when this burdensome voke shall be broken. In this day of destruction and warfare he tells of a time when all warlike instruments shall be destroyed. But the people whom he addressed must regard him as a vision- arv. How can these things be r It is true that the destruction of warlike instruments will niai/ifsi(nis, 19. THE STORY OF THE BIRTH 43 I fore, cannot be regarded as a legend due to the influence of Gentile ideas upon Christian tradition. It must be accepted as part of the original apostolic testimony : and since the notion of a God-begotten man was utterly foreign to Jewish thought,' the Jewish Christian origin of the narratives becomes a cogent evidence of their historical value. The suggestion, e. g., of Holtzmann,^ that the legend arose out of an Essenic antipathy to marriage, is utterly incredible, first, because these very gospel narratives conspicuously honor marriage, and, secondly, because in the Old Testament, whose influence appears so strong through- out the story, marriage and offspring were regarded as an honor to Hebrew women. Finally, the incorporation of the story in Luke's gospel attests that it was also the common belief of Gentile Christians too. The preface to that gospel assures us that the evangelist believed himself to be introducing no novel- ties. He desired to give Theophilus a full and orderly account of the things in which the latter had already been instructed. Hence there should be no hesitation in admitting that among the apostolic Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, the belief in the facts concerning the birth of Jesus, as these are given in our gospels, was general. With that class of objections to the gospel story of Christ's birth which arises from disbelief in the miraculous, we are not here concerned. Such criticism is to be met on philosophical, rather than historical, grounds. But objections to the story are often drawn from the silence elsewhere upon this subject of the New Testament itself. We are reminded, for instance, that Christ never alluded to his miraculous birth or to his birth in Bethlehem, though both would have been reasons for believing in him as Messiah. He was known as the Nazarene, and the Carpenter's Son (Matt. 13:55; Luke 4 : 22 ; John i : 45). The earliest disciples betray no knowledge of the story of his birth (John I : 45); neither do the people of Nazareth (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 4 : 22) nor of Galilee in general (John 6 : 42), ' See Stanton's Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 377. Drummond's Jeiv. Mess., p. 294. ^ Hatid Kommentar. 432 THE BIBLICAL WORLD nor the peoi)le at Jerusalem (John 7 : 27), nor their rulers (John 7:42-52). In explaining his power he never appealed to his mirac- ulous birth, but to the spirit with which he was filled {e.g. Matt. 12 : 28), or to the Father who was with and in him (John 5 : 36 ; 14 : 10). Still farther, the language and conduct of his mother and family have been deemed inconsistent with the story of his birth. Mary's surprise when she found him in the temple (Luke 2 : 48) ; still more her apparent interruption of his work (Mark 12 : 46); the belief of his friends that he was beside himself (Mark 3:21), and the unbelief of his brethren in his Messiahship (John 7: 5) appear to some incompatible with knowledi^e of his miraculous birth or of the angelic annunciations with which it is said to have been attended. But it may be said in reply that any public appeal by Jesus for faith on the ground of his birth would have been useless as well as injurious to the chief purpose of his ministry; useless, because none would have believed it, and it would only have aroused the tongue of slander to impeach his mother as well as himself; injurious, because his determined purpose was to evoke a faith based on sympathy with his ethical and religious teaching, not on mere wonder at his miraculous deeds. The latter, indeed, were credentials, but not because of their miraculous character alone, but because of their ethical character also (see, ^.^••., Matt. 12:24-32; John 10 : 24-26) . It would therefore have been wholly out of keeping with his method to have appealed to a fact which not only was not a public one but was one whose religious significance only api:)ears in the light of a complete knowledge of his person and work. As to his mother, we are expressly told that she "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). The child's life of (juiet obedience fully accounts for her surprise at finding him in the temple, and her very awe over his origin, combined with the evident mystery that attended his mission as well as with the dangers that had threatened him in his infancy, wouUl lead her and Josejjh to preserve their secret in silence, not speak- ing of it at first even in the family circle itself. There is nothing whatever to show that Mary ever doubted his Messiahshijx Her language at the wedding at Cana (John 2 : 3, 5) distinctly implies THE STORY OF THE BIRTH 433 the contrary. On the other hand, the claim of Davidic sonship appears universally known ; since this rested, as Matthew shows, on his being known as Joseph's son and heir. But we are further reminded that according to the Acts and the epistles, the apostles, when the time for the preaching of Jesus came, do not appear ever to have alluded to his mirac- ulous birth or to his birth in Bethlehem ; still less do they appeal to it ; while the rise of the legend can be explained, it is said, on dogmatic grounds. It may be questioned, indeed, whether the language of Paul, "born of a woman" (Gal. 4:4). especially when taken in connection with the following phrase, "made under the law," does not imply familiarity with the narrative given in Luke of Christ's birth and infancy; but we are not anxious to press the point.' It is sufficient to observe that neither in their preaching, any more than in that of Christ himself, was the story of his birth fitted to serve the purpose of proof of his Messiahship. That needed a public fact, attested by witnesses, and this was found in his resurrection. Neither was it the purpose of the epistles to relate the story of his life. The allusions in them to his deeds on earth and even to his teaching are comparativel)' few. It implies, therefore, an entire misapprehension of the purposes and needs of apostolic testimony, and is an unwarrantable use of the argument from silence, to discredit the narratives of the evangelists by the absence of reference elsewhere to their story of Christ's birth. Nor can the rise of the story be fairly attributed to dogmatic tendencies. We have already observed that its Jewish Christian origin precludes the explanation of it as a myth. Its rise out of dogmatical influences likewise cannot be shown. Here the silence of the epistles does become significant. The onl}- known dogmatic tendencies which could have produced the story, were desire to establish the divinity of Christ, or his sinlessness, or Paul's doctrine of the second Adam. But these doctrines are maintained and defended in the epistles without any reference to the miraculous birth and wholly on other grounds. There is, therefore, absence of proof, just where proof ' See also Rev. 13 : i, etc. 434 THE BIBLICAL WORLD might be expected, that belief in these doctrines led to the con- struction of the evangelic story. That story, as we glean it from the first and third evangelists, carries us back historically to the heart of the apostolic age, and has no reasonable explana- tion except that it records the general belief of the apostolic Christians. It would seem to be only the fair conclusion that, in this matter as in regard to other incidents of Christ's life, their belief rested, as Luke expressly says his did, on the testi- mony of those who "from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word." But must we not admire the delicacy of touch with which the outlines and principal features of the story are recorded? There is no coarse attempt to satisfy vulgar curiosity. There is no effort to portray the miracle in glaring colors or with fantas- tic detail. The permanent, religious value of the facts is kept in the foreground. Yet how appropriate is the setting of the story! If the lowly surroundings of the Child of Bethlehem befitted his mission as the Son of Man and Man of Sorrows, so the royalty of his inheritance and the homage of angels and wise men befitted his kingship, and the glowing piety of the circle amid which he was ushered into the world befitted his holy character and ])osition as the j)romised Redeemer of Israel. Where was it appropriate for Messiah to be born except in the bosom of a household where the old revelation maintained its power? And yet he was not the product of that household nor of Israel. He was not merely the perfect fruit of Hebrew faith and culture. He was more. He was incarnate God, who him- self assumed a human nature. What then was more api)ropriate than that his entrance into ilcsh should be supcrnatiu-al ; that even the piety of Israel should be made to ap])ear insufficient to produce him ; that he who was afterwards to be known as the God-man should combine in the \er\- manner of his birth the indications of his heaNcnU- as well as of his earthh- origin? THE HOME OF OUR LORD'S CHILDHOOD. By Rev. Professor George Adam Smith, D.D., Free Church College, Glasgow. The village in Israels history. — The sitiiatio7i of Nazareth : — lower Galilee ; the basin in ivhich the town lies. —The view from the hill. — The great roads. — The me})iory of revolutions. Lr is remarkable how many of the greatest lives in Israel were drawn from her villages or from the still more obscure and lonely edges of the desert. Apparently the one great career which sprang from the capital was Isaiah's. He, wherever born, was Isaiah of Jerusalem ; rooted and grounded, pervasive and supreme, within those walls whose security he maintained to the end to be the one indispensable basis of God's kingdom upon earth. But in this identification with the city Isaiah was alone. Jonah came from Gath-hepher, Amos from Tekoa, Hosea from some part of Galilee or Gilead, Micah from Moresheth in the Shephelah, Nahum from Elkosh (perhaps another village of the Shephelah or possibly of Galilee), Jeremiah from Anathoth, John the Baptist^ from the deserts, and Jesus Christ from Naza- reth — a village so unimportant that it is never mentioned in the Old Testament, even among the crowded lists of the tribal bor- ders, very close to one of which it must have lain, and so desti- tute of the natural conditions of a great city that, with all the religious distinction which came to it nineteen centuries ago, Nazareth has never grown beyond a few thousandjnhabitants. The site and surroundings of Nazareth have been so often described that it is impossible to add another account which shall not be for the most part a repetition. I shall perhaps best fulfil the task assigned me if I first give the impressions, shared by so many travelers, of the secluded basin in which the village lies, and of the broad views opening from the edge of it, and if I 435 436 THE BIBLICAL WORLD then add the particular features of the district which two visits have emphasized on niv own mind. Between the plain of Esdraelon and the sudden range that lifts upper Galilee to a high tableland, lower Galilee consists of three or four parallel vallevs running eastward from the Levant to Gennesaret and the Jordan. It is a limestone country, too porous for large streams, but with a soil and a rainfall sufficient for considerable fertilitv. It is full of thriving villages, but without the occasions of a large citv, excc})t at the seacoast or beside the lake. The long valleys, however, and their position between the Fhcenician seaports and the busy Greek life across Jordan, gathered in our Lord's day a large volume of traffic, to guard which fortresses and other military posts were easily raised on the crags and ridges that are scattered across the whole region. Lower Galilee was thus an intensified miniature of all Palestine. Scores of villages, too humble and aloof to attract the armies or caravans which crossed that central land in almost constant procession, nevertheless afforded to their rest- less inhabitants a view of the great world from the Mediter- ranean to Arabia, with all the tokens which the former offers of a still greater world beyond, and granted them an almost imme- diate issue upon the courses of some of the main currents of his- torv. Nazareth occupied one of these withdrawn, yet wonder- fuUv ojjen, positions ; rather more hidden from the outer land than most of her sister villages, but within an hour of the world's highways that ran across the land. Nazareth lies upon the most southerly of the ranges of lower Galilee, just above the plain of Esdraelon and over against the .Samarian hills. It is almost the first Galilean vil- lage which the traveler reaches coming north through the country. On this edge of Esdraelon, which is here some 350 feet above the sea, the hills rise abru])tly for 900 or lOOO feet more. You pierce them bv a narrow and winding pass, which, on the other side of their first summits, suddenh- breaks upon the lower end of a valley, a shallow, tilted basin among the hills. At the uj)pcr, the western, end of this vallcv, which is about a mile 438 THE BIBLICAL IVORLD long and half a mile broad, the town of En Nasara spreads up a steep slope crowned by the highest summit of the district, the Neby Sa'in, with a small chapel to the Moslem saint after whom it is named. The ancient Nazareth j^robably hung a little higher up the hill, but still within touch of the one well of the neighborhood, that springs in the center of the modern town. The white houses of Kn Nasara are partly visible from one or two points across the plain on the slopes of Little Hermon,* but from nowhere else outside the basin. The trunk road crosses Esdraelon near the mouth of the winding gorge that leads up to the village, but the caravans swing sleepily past unaware of its existence. From the north it is wholly shut off by the ridge of Neby Sa'in. So also, if I remember aright, the view from the village itself is, excej^t for a glimpse or two, limited to the basin. The basin in which Nazareth lies is drv and grav. There are a few gardens below the town and some trees around, and especially above it. All the rest is limestone rock and chalky soil, with the glare of summer dulled by the sparse grass and thistle, very cheerless in wet or dark weather, but in spring flushing into great patches of wild flowers. It is a quiet hollow under an oj^en heaven, a home with all its fields in sight, keep- ing the music of its life to itself. To the shepherd watching from the hill each of the few village houses must have been marked : the teacher's, those of the various elders, the SNiia- gogue, the inn, the baker's shop, and the carpenter's ; here the noisy groups about the well, there the children jjlaying on the street; there would hardlv be a marketplace. Outside there were the village graves, the threshing floors, the rubbish heaps, the rocky paths with their very occasional travelers ; flowers, trees, and birds, the sheej) and goats, j)erhaps a bird of j)rev sailing lazilv over, or a fox stealing in the nooncKn- stillness across the gray hillside. But climb to the edge of tlu' basin, clinib especially to the ridge of Neby Sa'in above the village, and this {|uiet, self-con- tained \alley, that from its center sees heaven covering nothing ' Si- 1 III'.KI.ANI) : rnlrUim-: tlif (i/oiy of nil /.