i MM— —M— IMI ■ t»«wwr^fq«r<|«^t^wty^r^..-..T^-<^.^ M mtmmm Life -OF Christ Lange iiiiiiiiiiimiuwwtv ♦yjEzwaaoj*.* mmnmmimhmmmwmi a.-J4.-i.'B'J>^W|!<,'ratvaBr)gp^ f' HMMI MM gSirviTJ^.^;; /2 ,ic. a 2- iFrom X\\t ICtbraro of ,Spqueatl|pJi be I|im to tl|p ICibrarg of Mrtnc^ton ®h]?olxintral &fmtttar^ IF THE LIFE 0^^^^ THE LORD JESUS CHRIST: A COMPLETE CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE ORIGIN, CONTENTS, AND CONNECTION OP THE GOSPELS. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF J. P. LANGE, D.D., PROFESSOfi OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. EDITED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES, BY THE REV. MARCUS DODS, A.M. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON AND CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. MDCCCLXXII. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINUURGH AND LONDON CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. THIRD BOOK. PART I.— THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW; OR, THE REPRESENTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST SYMBOLIZED BY THE SACRIFICIAL BULLOCK. PAGE Sect. 5. Jesus submits Himself to the Baptism of Jolin, and is by him acknowledged as Llessiah, and glorified as the Son by the Father in Heaven, ..... 1 6. The Temptation in the Wilderness. Our Lord's Victory over Satan, ....... 3 ♦ 7. The Confirmation of Christ's Renunciation of the World. His appearance in despised Galilee. The Unostentatious Com- mencement of His activity. Its Great Efi"ect, . . 7 8. The Sermon on (the top or summit of) the Mount ; or, the Fundamental Laws and Outlines of the Righteousness of the true Kingdom of Christ, as the true Development and Ful- filment of the Old Testament Law, in contrast to its false Development in the Maxims of the Degenerate Old Testa- ment Economy, in the Theoretical and Practical Corruptions of it by the Scribes and Pharisees, .... 9 9. The Revelation of the Essential Royal Power of Christ and His Kingdom of Heaven in the Miracles which He per- formed, .... . 27 10. The First sending forth of the Disciples, and the Instruction which our Lord gave them in its Signification for all Times, ....... 36 11. The decided Manifestation ol the great Conflict between the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of His People, . . 43 12. The Unfolding of the Kingdom of Heaven in seven Parables, .53 VI CONTENTS. PAGK Skct. 13. The Messiah Banished and Expelled from His own Country, and the distant Journeys He then takes, . . .60 14. The First Founding of the New Testament Church in con- trast to the Old Testament Church in its Degenerate His- torical Form, ....... 70 15. Preparation for the last decisive Entrance of Christ into the Holy City ; or, the Unfolding of the Fundamental Laws of the New Church, or the Kingdom of Heaven, in contrast to the Social Principles of the corrupt Hierarchic Church, . 76 16. The Entrance of the Messianic King into His City, and His Royal Residence, the Temple ; and the unfolding of the grand outlines of His Royal Court on Earth, in contrast to the Princely System of the Old World, ... 92 17. The Great Contest of the Messiah with the false Dignitaries of His Kingdom in the Precincts of the Temple : His Spiritual Victory and His Outward Retreat, . . 98 18. The Messiah, before being judged by the World, represents Himself to His Disciples as the Judge of the World. The Announcement of the Judgment of the World in its different Stages : the Destruction of Jerusalem ; the Woes of the World ; the End of the World, . . . .108 19. The Sufferings of the Messiah ; or, the Judgment of the People of Israel and the World on the King of the Jews, . . 1 16 20. The Messiah in His Resurrection, coming forth in His Eternal Royal Glory — His Great Victory, His Endless Kingdom, His Message to the World, and His Peace, . . .130 PART II.— THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK ; OR, THE REPRE- SENTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST SYMBOLIZED BY THE LION. Sect, 1. General View and Distinctive Characteristics, . . . 133 2. The Beginning of the Gospel. John the Baptist appears as the Forerunner of Christ. Thereafter Christ Himself appears, . . . . . . .135 3. The First Actions by which Christ, on His appearing, straight- way reveals His Divine Power, .... 137 4. Tlie First Conflict of Jesus Christ with the Scribes and Pharisees, . . . . . . .140 5. The First Withdrawal of Christ before His Antagonists. The increasing Reverence and Enthusiasm of the People for Him, The Extension of His Sphere of Operation, and the Choosing of the Twelve Apostles, . . . .143 6. The Decisive Public Conflict of Christ with the Pharisees of Galilee, .... . . 145 CONTENTS. VU PAGE Sect. 7. The Reserve of Christ as shown in the Use of Parables, . 147 8, The Enhanced Manifestation of the Glory of Christ by Mighty Miracles, in which He reveals His Dominion over the Powers of Nature, the Kingdom of Spirits, the Domain of the most concealed Sufferings, and over the Power of Death itself, . 150 9. The Restraint laid on the Power of Christ in His Native City of Nazareth, and His Kingly Doings among the People of all Galilee, ....... 154 10. The Direct Hostility to Jesus exhibited by the Scribes from Jerusalem, and His Public Declaration against their Tradi- tions. His Journeys beyond the Land through the Heathen Border Coimtry of Phoenicia, and through the predominantly Heathen Regions of Decapolis, , . . .158 11. Jesus is constrained to Leave Galilee. His Return over the Sea, and the Distinct Announcement of His Approaching Death, ....... 162 12. The Departure from GaKlee, ..... 166 13. The Sojourn of Jesus in Perea, . . • . .169 14 The Departure of Jesus to Jerusalem, .... 172 15. The Journey from Jericho to Jerusalem, . . .173 16. The Cleansing of the Temple ; the Decisive Struggle ; and tlie Farewell to the Temple, . . . . .175 17. General Features of the Announcement of the End of the World, 180 18. The History of the Passion of Jesus, .... 183 19. The Risen Lord in the Evidences of His Power, . . 191 PART III.— THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE ; OR, THE RE- PRESENTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST SYMBOLIZED BY THE FORM OF A MAN. Sect. 1. General View and Distinctive Characteristics, . . . 195 2. The Literary Preface, ...... 198 3. The Early History of the Life of Jesus. The Parents of HLs Forerunner. The Annimciations. The Unbelieving Priest in the Temple, and the Heroic Faith of the Virgin at Nazareth. The Hymns of Praise, . . . .199 4. History of the Birth and Early Life of Jesus, . . . 203 5. The Human Development of Jesus, .... 206 6. The Threefold Attestation with wliich Clnist opens His Public Ministry, ....... 207 7. The Personal Probation of the Lord in the Wilderness, . 211 viii CONTENTS. PACT! Sect. 8. Tlie Beginning of the Public Career of Jesus. His Departure from His Native Town, Nazareth, . . . .214 9. The Second Stage in the Pilgrimage of Jesiis. He fixes His Abode at Capernaum, . . . . .216 10. The First Journey of Jesus undertaken from Capernaum. The Departure. The Gospel in Facts. The Gospel in Words, 218 11. The First Eeturn to Capernaum. The Extension of the Gospel Horizon by the Healing of the Servant of the Gentile Cen- turion, ....... 229 12. The Second Journey of Jesus from Capernaum. The Con- tinuation of the Gospel in Facts. TriumiTlr over the Ceremonial of the People, and over Death. Triumph over the Embarrassment of the Old Testament Prophet, and the Offence thereby given to the People. Triumph over the Pharisaical Spirit ; the Manifestation of the Glory of Divine Grace in the House of a Pharisee. Continuation of the Gospel in Words : the Parables concerning the Kingdom of God, . 231 13. The Third Journey of Jesus from Capernaum, and His Eeturn across the Sea. The Manifestation of the Power of Christ over the Convulsions of Nature, the Power oi Demons, and Wailings for the Dead. The Miraculous Agency of Christ, breaking through the Strongest Obstacles, and achieving the most Difficult Triumphs of His Saving Power, . . .... 237 14. The Interest which the Galilean Court takes in the Person of Jesus, and His Eetreat into the Desert. The Confession of the Disciples that Jesus is the Christ, and His Announce- ment of His Suflerings. His Transfiguration on the Mount, and His Descent into the Vale of Sorrow. The ambitious Hopes of His Disciples, and His Humility, in Avhich He places Himself along with the Little Ones, . . . 242 15. Tlie Departure of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. Samaria. The Four Disciples and the Four Hindrances on the Way into the Kingdom of God. Tlie Seventy Disciples. The Good Samaritan, ...... 247 16. Isolated Particulars from the Journey of Jesus fi-om Galilee to Jerusalem. Tlie unfolding of the Doctrine of Salvation in facts, ....... 253 17. The Procession to Jerusalem. The Disciples, the Leaders of the Procession, and the Beggar. Zaccheus. The Cliiliasts. The Ordering of the Ass's Colt. The Eejoicing of the Disciples, and the Weeping of the Lord, on looking down on the City of Jerusalem from the Llount of Olives. The CONTENTS. IK PAGE Cleansing of the Temjile, and the ]\Iinistry of Jesus in the Temi)le, ....... 290 Sect. 18. The Contest of Jesus with the Sanhedrim in the Temple, . 295 19. The annoimeement of the Destruction of Jerusalem, of the Judgment, and the End of the World, . . . ,300 20. Preparation for the Last Sufferings of Jesus, . . . 304 21. The Passion of Jesus, ...... 308 22. The Eesurrection of the Lord. The Glorification of the Deatli on the Cross by the Word of Prophecy, and by the Eesur- rection according to the Scriptures. The Glory of the New Life of Christ, and the beautiful Combination of Heavenly Spirituality and Earthly Corporeity in His Manifestations. The Ascension of the Lord into Heaven amidst Tokens of Blessing for the Earth, and its Elevating Influence, . 319 PART IV.— THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN; OR, THE REPRE- SENTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST SYMBOLIZED BY THE EAGLE. Sect. 1. General View and Distinctive Characteristics, . . . 328 2. The Prologue. The Pre-historic Eternal Dominion of Christ. The Eternal Existence, the Glorious Advent, and the Com- pleted Incarnation of the Logos ; or, the Victorious Efful- gence of the Light through the Darkness, • . . 340 3. Christ, as the Light of the World, finds everywhere a ready Reception among those who have Affinity with the Light, . 3-16 4. The Antagonism between the Darkness and the Light of the World in Christ, in its diverse Manifestations and Forms, . 366 5. The Fermentation, the Strife, and the Incipient Separation between the Elements and Followers of the Light, and the Elements and Followers of the Darkness, under the Influ- ence exerted by Christ, ..... 383 6. The Separation between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness effected by the Power of the Light in the Life of Jesus, ....... 405 7. Christ in the Company of the Children of the Light, as the Light of the World, who has Glorified the Father, who is Glorified by the Father, and Glorifies the Church, and by it the World, ....... 427 8. Christ among His Enemies ; or, the Light of the World sur- roimded by the Children and the Powers of Darkness ; and the Verification of His Victorious Power, . .451 9. The Resurrection of Christ ; or, the Decisive Triumph of Light over Darkness. The Announcements of Chi-ist, and ^ CONTEXTS. 1 -n PAGE the Removal of the Remains of the Old Darkness in tlie Children of Light, • • . . . 468 Sect. 10. The Epilogue.— The Post-historical Eternal Administration of Christ. His Continuous Administration in this Present World, in His Church generally, and in the Petrme and Johannean Types of His Church in particular, until the Completion of the Glorifying of His Kingdom in His Second Cominu, . . a — INDEXES, 4g3 PART I. THE GOSPEL ACCORDIXa TO MATTHEW ; OE, THE EEPRESENTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST SYMBOLIZED BY THE SACRIFICIAL BULLOCK. SECTION V. JESUS SUBMITS HIMSELF TO THE BAPTISSI OF JOHN, AND IS BY HIM ACKNOAVLEDGED AS MESSIAH, AND GLOFJFIED AS THE SON BY THE FATHER IN HEAVEN. (Chap, iii.) WHEN the time had come that Jesus should openly appear be- fore the people as Messiah, care was taken that He should, in so appearing, be accredited and introduced in a theocrati- cally legitimate manner. This was done by His forerunner, John the Baptist. John appeared in the wilderness of Judea as a preaclier of repentance. He preached repentance to the people, proclaiming to them. The kingdom of heaven is at hand — the Messiah is on the point of appearing. He came forth as the Messiah's forerunner, baptizing the people unto repentance and the coming Messiah. This baptism was a great and holy washing, which he performed in the sense of the Levitical laws of purification, as a prophet, according to the zealot-right ; an act by which he declared the whole people to be unclean in God's sight, and demanded of them true repentance and reformation, to be signified and sealed by the same act. He sought to form a new and pure community which should be capable of receiving the Messiah. He confirmed his baptism by his whole appearance. He came forward as a strict ascetic : his raiment was of camel's hair, his girdle of leather, his only meat locusts and wild honey. Thus, according to the saying of the Evangelist and his own declaration, he represented that voice which the prophet Isaiah heard in spirit, with a definite prophetic prospect of the time of Israel's restoration by the Messiah : ' The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.' His whole utterance and bearing was a voice, an earnest preaching of the coming Christ. The Jewish people rejoiced at the announcement of the Messiah, felt the spiritual power of the Baptist's reproof, and acknowledged VOL. IV. A 2 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. him. All came to his baptism — all Jerusalem, all Judea, and espe- cially all the region round about Jordan. That there was a decided acknowledgment of him for a short time, is proved by the circum- stance, that many of the Pharisees and Sadducees also came to his baptism, and still more, that they submitted to bear the strongest rebukes from him : ' 0 generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come ? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father : for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees : therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' In this lofty position did John stand towards the heads of the Jewish peo])le, like a thunder-cloud of God. But how small did he represent himself in comparison with the Messiah ! ' I indeed baptize you with water unto re})entance ; but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear ; He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire : whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner ; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.' Thus the Baptist was acknowledged by the Jewish people, and he acknowledged, in the person of Jesus, the Messiah whom he had placed so high above himself ; and this consequently formed the theocratically legitimate introduction of Jesus to His people. Jesus also came from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade Him, saying, ' I have need to be bap- tized of Thee, and comest Thou to me ? ' So strong a sense had the Baptist of the purity and grandeur of Jesus, he felt himself as one unclean before Him. Yet he did not now give testimony to Him, but waited until the Messianic dignity and divine glory of Christ should be confirmed to Him by a miracle. We see here the dis- tinction between human certainty and divine certainty. (See vol. i. p. 356.) Jesus insisted on the necessity of His being baptized by John, saying, ' Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' Then he suffered Him. There has been much discussion regarding the question. How could Christ submit Himself to the baptism unto repentance ? The principle of the Israelite laws of purification, as more deeply and sharply defined in Haggai ii. 13, contains the answer (see above, vol. i. p. 352). According to this principle, he who stood in outward contact with the unclean was levitically unclean. Now, as John had by divine commission declared the whole people to be levitically unclean, as he had, so to say, excommunicated them all, this sen- tence had, without his being aware of it, included the Messiah. When Jesus stood before him, he became alarmed at this awful con- sequence. Jesus knew well the humiliating element in this jnu'ifi- cation-baptism. But He acknowledged its divine justice ; before God He was clean, but the burden of His people was laid upon Him. The principle of His historical connectiou with Israel, with man- THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 3 kind, made Him already appear in the similitude of a sinner, and ultimately brought Him to the death of the cross. Oar Lord knew that His baptism foretokened this ; it was His consecration unto death for the salvation of mankind. But the fulness of this humiliation in faithful love and obedience was turned by the Father into an exaltation for Him. When He came out of the water, the heavens were opened unto Him ; the place of the refuge and glorification which awaited Him after His death on the cross appeared there opened to Him. John now re- ceived the seal of theocratic certainty concerning the dignity of Jesus. He saw the Holy Ghost descending in the form of a dove, and lighting upon Him. In this fairest and clearest of signs he saw the spirit of measureless labour and perfect sacrifice in which Jesus devoted His life in the spirit to the Father, and with which the Holy Spirit, who had fashioned His life, who supported and filled it, was now in the definite form of the Holy Ghost in the most peculiar sense — the Spirit of complete world-renunciation and world-trans- formation— received by Him into His consciousness as abiding de- finiteness of that Spirit. The procession of the Spirit from the Father, which as the Spirit of conscious divine peace filled Him, appeared to the Baptist in the form of a dove, the form of innocence, simplicity, and gentleness.^ Thus this lofty event, the oblation of Christ and the blessing of the Father, assumes the character of the utmost mildness and most engaging serenity. And this visible sign was accompanied by a voice from heaven, saying, ' This is My be- loved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' Thus to the last seer of the Old Covenant, in Jesus had to become manifest the Messiah, in the Messiah the Son of God, and in the Son God the mystery of the Trinity. Henceforth he bore open testi- mony to the Messiahship of Jesus. NOTE. It is very characteristic, that the Pharisee mind, which had already begun to acknowledge the rigorous and ascetically strict preacher of repentance, would not receive in the person of Jesus the kindly and gentle publisher of salvation, but on the contrary soon became so strongly prejudiced against Him as to be brought in doubt regarding John, whom it had already acknowledged. SECTION VI. THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS — OUR LORD'S VICTORY OVER SATAN. (iv. 1-11.) The renunciation of the world, which Jesus had in spirit achieved at His baptism, must now, at the beginning of His official career, be achieved historically. 1 Since the Dove is represented here as flying, the question arises, if the dove-shape is also the figure of brooding warmth. 4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIATTHEW. His attestation by baptism, and John's acknowledgment of Him, and His perfected Messianic consciousness, appeared to direct Him to go straightway to the people. But the Holy Ghost who filled Him was directly opposed to the worldly spirit in the false messiah- hopes of the Jews, and hence drove Him, by means of, in the first instance, His repugnance to that unclean spirit, in a quite opposite direction, into solitude, into the desert. Jesus had to endure here the tem})tation of Satan, which everywhere came across His path as soon as He thought of appearing openly among His people as the Messiah. The worldly mind of the people had given a distorted demoniac form to their view of the IMessiah : they cherished an ex- pectation of the Blessiah which He was obliged altogether to refuse. But in this expectation the temptation met Him, and He had to be clear of it before He could visit His people. He had to seek a way of access to His peo})le, without trusting Himself as the Messiah to them in a way corresponding to their expectation. He sought this entrance in the solemnization of His perfected life in the pre- sence of the Father ; in His conflict with the tempter. He passed forty days in this condition. His fasting was altogether the free result of the frame He was in, the grand unconscious expression of that renunciation of the world by which He had to overcome the intoxication with the world, the chiliasm ^ contained in the Messianic expectation of His people. At the expiration of these days He hungered, that is, the con- sciousness of hunger presented itself ; and this was a sign that in spirit He was clear of the temptation, as on the cross He first became con- scious of His thirst after He^had overcome the temptation of death itself. But now Satan again assailed Him more violently than ever ; he came to Him in a more definite appearance, in a succession of more definite historical acts. And this is in accordance with a funda- mental rule in God's guidance. Historical experiences are prepared for by those that are inward, and inward experiences are sealed by historical, — a rule which is disregarded, to the great injury of Chris- tian psychology and care of souls. The serpent in paradise shows that Satan needs an organ in order to work more definitely on a man. He there sought to seduce the first man to forbidden natural enjoyment, and the serpent was well adapted to be his instrument for that purpose. He here seeks to seduce the second man to the aberrations of the chiliastic fanatical lust of the world ; therefore he needs organs in which this spirit is concentrated — Jewish hierarchs. Satan himself, however, is the tempting power. The first temptation is an enticement to comply with the demands of the chiliastic hunger of this world after magic fulness, magic gold, and magic bread. With the pomjwus diction of an Oriental, the tempter says, * If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' Our Lord's answer shows how decidedly ^ It scarcely needs mention, that we take chiliasm here and in other places in a more general sen.se than is usually done ; it being commonly considered as a thing which not until after Christ began gradually to make its appearance in Church history. THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 5 He wills to veil His consciousness of the Sonsliip, and as man to place Himself with all men under the law : ' Man shall not live by- bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' The form in which He overcomes him is obedience to holy writ ; the essence of this obedience is His trust on His continuing to live in the omnipresent Life-giver ; the spirit in which He gains the victory is the humility, repose, and simplicity of perfect reliance on God. The second temptation is enticement to a chiliastic-pompous ap- pearance in Israel, accompanied with priestly recognition. The devil presses it upon Him, takes Him with him\to the holy city, sets Him on a pinnacle of .the temple, and again (like an Oriental courtier) says to Him : ' If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down ! ' But this time he will show his request to be scriptural, as Jesus had founded His first reply upon Scripture ; so he adds (from Ps. xci, 11) : ' For it is written. He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee ; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.' Our Lord im- mediately answers with the counter-saying (from Deut. vi. 16) : ' It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' It is the sin of tempting God, when a man, from his own or another's foolish conceit, enters on a path which God has not enjoined, with the fana- tical expectation that God will allow Himself to be compelled to go with him — that he can at last draw God into the egoistic interest of self-will and self-assumed power. Christ could not tempt God. But His word has a general form, from which a severe spirit looks with rebuke and threatening on the tempter. Tlie tempter has given proof that the holiest expression in the Bible can, through misinterpretation and false application, be made a means of temp- tation. The Bible expression, which promises the godly man the most wonderful divine protection, presupposes that he puts himself entirely under the charge of the Highest, and rests in the shadow of the wings of the Almighty; while the expression was here designed to serve for representing to our Lord a most unnatural action as His duty, and consequently for tempting God. After this, the third and most presumptuous temptation follows, the temptation to chiliastic lust of dominion. Satan in his obtrusive manner again takes Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows Him (by giving pompous descriptions; in doing which he made use symbolically of a lofty mountain in the wilderness of Judea, com- manding a wide prospect) all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. After this enticement, he lifts the mask : ' All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.' Our ^ The expression irapaXan^avei is as significant for exposition as tlie solemn els rrju ayiav iroXiv. Cocceius appears to have understood the importance of the expression TrapaKajx^dvei, when he makes the curious observation, 'Nou est necesse dicere, quod diabokis Christum per aerem vexerit ex deserto in pinnaculum templi ; sed sufficit hoc ita intelligere, quod ad petitionem diaboli secutus sit ipsum se transformantem in Angelum lucis, tanquara verbum dei ad ipsum habentem, et asceuderit in pinnaculum templi idque eodem spiritu auctore, quo auctore in desertum ierat.' 6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. Lord was now asked to do homage to the devil as the prince of the lust of woridly conquest and of the art of effecting it — to acknow- ledge him as an evil god or prince of the world, as the dark spirit of evil dominion above Himself — to pledge Himself to him, and at that price become ruler of the world. Satan often brings presump- tuous temptations after crafty ones. They are calculated to break the spirit of resistance by a stroke of pretended confidence and strength. At the same time, they'show the vile meanness with which the evil one always takes his departure when he is beaten. Christ's answer to this presumptuous proposal puts an end to the conflict: ' Get thee hence, Satan ; for it is written. Thou shalt wor- ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.' When the evil one gave proof that he was Satan, then, and not until then, our Lord rebuked him as Satan, and drove him away. It is very sig- nificant that He rebutted Satan's last attack by the first command- ment (freely quoted). By His victory He proclaimed the truth, that every one arrives at his proper position, and the eminence appointed for him, only through the purest subjection to God's dominion, by the path of devotedness to Him, and rejection of all other gods or absolute lords in God's presence. Christ's renunciation of the world was now historically achieved: first spiritually historically, and then actually historically, by an act from whose victory and blessing all following victories and blessings must be unfolded. Then the devil left Him (as the devil of chili- astic lust of the world for ever) and angels came and ministered unto Him, and that not merely for a short time, but continually (see John i. 51). After He had thus solemnly renounced the do- minion of the world, and with it the ministration of men, the Father blessed Him by putting the angels of heaven at His service in heavenly appearances, visions, dispositions, occurrences, and powers. This experience of Christ is a token for His people : he who gives up en- slaving men for his service shall be served by the angels of heaven. NOTE. Against my view of the history of the temptation, according to which the inward temptation which our Lord had to withstand, was terminated by an outward temptation, Ullmann observes, in the fifth edition of his work. The Sinlessness of Jesus [see the supple- ment of the sixth edition, Chirk's Tr., pp. 291 ff.] : ' This combin- ation, although I readily acknowledge that Lange says much that is suited to support the view of an inward temptation, appears to me inadmissible, chiefly because it destroys the unity of view of the whole. If we have an outward temptation appearing objectively, we have no need to think of an inward one ; and if the course of the temptation was inward, all that is represented as outward occurrence is only ob- jectivizing, and there is then no more room for anything outward in conjunction with the inward.' The canon, which Ullmann here makes decisive against my view, and which makes the outward and the inward facts in the history of Jesus mutually exclude each other, CHRIST S RENUNCIATION OF THE WORLD CONFIRMED. 7 has been, as I believe, sufficiently shown to be unchristological, and consequently untenable. For example, one might easily infer from this canon, if we have a Gethsemane, we need no Golgotha, and vice versa. On the other hand, I have prefaced my view b}^ another canon, which surely may pass for more tenable : 'The fticts show us that the moral conflicts of man cannot possibly remain spiritualistic rencoun- ters ; the tempting opportunity is always offered to the disposition liable to temptation, and makes the ideal conflict historical.' In answer to UUmann's remark, ' There is not the slightest hint given that the deputation of Pharisees w'hich came to John tempted our Lord,' I was obliged to appeal repeatedly to the grounds I gave for thinking they did, and the respected divine has not entered upon these grounds. He observes finally : ' In particular, the assump- tion of a plurality of tempters does not harmonize with the way it is represented under the single person of the devil.' This remark, if well-founded, would fall with threefold force on UUmann's own view ; for, on the assumption of a mere inward temptation, the plurality of tempters consists at bottom of all individuals entertain- ing the Jewish messiah-hope, and yet this plurality would, in setting it forth, be represented by the devil. SECTION VII. THE CONFIRJIATION OF CHRIST'S RENUNCIATION OF THE WORLD. HIS APPEARANCE IN DESPISED GALILEE. THE UNOSTENTATIOUS COM- MENCEMENT OF HIS ACTIVITY. ITS GREAT EFFECT. (iv. 12-25.) The threefold renunciation of the world which Jesus had achieved in His victory over Satan, had now to be verified in His public ministry : and so it really was. The first sign of it was His coming in the place of John the Baptist, after he had been cast into prison ; thus showing that He was ready to expose Himself to a similar fate. The second was shown in His leaving despised Nazareth and settling in a place still more despised in a theocratic point of view, namely, in Upper Galilee (See Book II. iv. 9), at Capernaum, by the sea-side, on the borders of Zebulon and Naphtali, in a district already called by Isaiah Galilee of the Gentiles. The third sign consisted in His veiling His appearance even here, by taking up and continuing the preaching of the Baptist, Kepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ! without telling the people that the kingdom of heaven was comprehended in the person of Himself — the Messiah. This renunciation was developed in a very illustrative form. We see how He begins His calling by going round about the Sea of Galilee, sometimes alone, sometimes living among poor people by the sea-side, although filled w^ith the consciousness that He is to redeem and transform the world. But He prepares for His definite plan, the institution of His Church, by calling four fishermen from their occupations to make them His scholars and followers ; first the two brothers Peter and Andrew, then James and John, the sons 8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. of Zebeclee. With this small school of four fishers, He begins a work destined to give rise to numbei'less communities, great and small, to liigh and low schools of every kind, and, what is still more, to enligliten the whole earth. With these first children of His Spirit, He now goes about through Galilee in the plainest attire, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and heaUng all manner of sickness and disease among the people. But scarcely has He entered on this path of self-humiliation when signs a})pear that, just by His having given up the world in the earthly sense, He will gain it in a higher sense. The beginning of His holy renunciation of the world is forthwith crowned wutli the blessing of its commencing, real, spiritual conquest. The first pledge that we have for this is, that the word of God in the mouth of the pro])liet Isaiah foresaw, and thereby attested beforehand, this appearance of the Messiah in despised Galilee.^ Isaiah had already announced very clearly, that it was pi-ecisely to that Galilee, so much despised by the Jews, that the highest revelation of God should be vouchsafed : ' The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond (holy) Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles : the people which sat in darkness saw great light ; and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death, liglit is sprung up.' (See Book II. iv. 11.) We recognize the Lord also by the power of His Spirit upon the minds of men, and especially by the power of attracting the elect which He displayed. He first calls Simon Peter and Andrew, saying, ' Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men ! ' And immediately they leave their nets and followed Him. The wonder does not consist in its being the first time that He saw them, for they are already His disciples in the wider sense ; but in their being ready, at the first notice, instantly to give up their whole means of livelihood, when they are casting their nets into the sea with the desire and. hope of a draught of fishes. The calling of the sons of Zebedee was wonderful in the same sense. They too were already of those who lionoured Him, but were still absorbed in their former calling when His special call came to them. They were Avith their father Zebedee in the ship, mending their nets for fresh draughts of fishes. They likewise immediately left their employment and their father, and followed Him. The future showed how imerring was the Avord of the royal Master of all spirits, and how unerring His look Avhich chose them. The four fishermen became the pillars of His Church (see Gal. ii. 9). By. Christ's at once knowing and calling the elect of the Father, and from their immediately knowing and following Him, He is glorified as the Only-begotten of the Father. As He moved the hearts of the elect. He also moved the people. At first sight He seemed to come forth as a poor Kabbi ; tjut how changed the view, as it became more and more evident that His word had power to heal all manner of sickness and infirmity ! His fame now began to spread through all Syria. Henceforth there was ^ The Messianic signification of tliis passage is unmistakable. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 9 enkindled among the people a true desire to bring to Him from all parts siifFerers of every sort, especially such as were taken with diseases which seemed incurable — demoniacs, lunatics, and para- lytics. And whatever sutferers were brought to Him, He healed them all. The consequence was, that there were gradually formed constant streams of followers, and some of them from a far distance, coming to or departing from Him. People from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, or Judea in general, and particularly from Perea, where John had with special success prepared the way for the Lord, attached themselves to the nucleus formed by His Galilean fol- lowers. So it soon became evident, that as concerned true life in the kingdom of spiritual and mental life, Jesus was king in the land. He displayed His royal rule, however, only by spreading abroad the word and the power of salvation, knowledge, life, health, and presentiment of the new world of light, which was still shut up in His heart. Thus early appear the foretokens of the victory and dominion which He, by means of His self-sacrificing love, was destined to gain over the human race. NOTES. 1. The appearance of Jesus in Capernaum, with which Matthew begins his account of the public ministry of Christ, took place in the winter of its first year. It had thus been preceded by His return from the Baptist, His miracle at Cana, His first activity in Capernaum, -His first Passover, His first activity in Judea, His return through Samaria, His appearance in Nazareth, His return to Cana, and the healins; of the nobleman's son. 2. Gfrorer thinks {Sage, ii. IG) that the legendary character of this Gospel betrays itself fully towards the close of this section. ' There are general propositions : Christ went about all Galilee, &c.' Gfrorer himself immediately undertakes the refutation of this asser- tion by remarking, that the Evangelist, at v. 1, passes over to a new object, the sermon on the Mount ; and as he now leaves the old ground, i.e., the narration of Christ's deeds in Galilee, he speaks of them, so that he could not be reproached with having omitted anything pertaining to the life of the Redeemer, i.e., he compresses into general propositions all possible miracles. SECTION VIII. THE SERMON ON (THE TOP OR SUMMIT OF) THE MOUNT; OR, THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS AND OUTLINES OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE TRUE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, AS THE TRUE DEVELOPMENT AND FULFILMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT LAW, IN CONTRAST TO ITS FALSE DEVELOPMENT IN THE MAXIMS OF THE DEGENERATE OLD TESTAMENT ECONOMY, IN THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL COR- RUPTIONS OF IT BY THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. (Cliap. v.-vii.) When the people began to follow our Lord in multitudes, and when signs of their devoted reverence were shown more strongly, 10 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. His disciples might well imagine, tliat now their Master would soon begin to found the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord, therefore, now found it necessary to give them a definite explanation regard- ing the institution of His kingdom. It was necessary for them to know wherein the peculiarity of His kingdom, and especially of His doctrine of salvation, consisted. As devout Israelites, they required to be fully satisfied that His institution did not seek to set itself in opposition to the law of Moses, but that it rather presented the ful- filment and completion of that law. It was also necessary that they should know clearly that its doctrine and righteousness are most definitely distinguished from the false, perverted development of the Old Testament divine institution, as exhibited in the hierarchy, in the righteousness (in the doctrine and lives) of the scribes and Pharisees. There was the more need of their knowing this, as many among the people who followed Him expected Him to found a kingdom of Grod in the sense of the scribes and Pharisees, as even in these multitudes he was again encountered by the popular Pharisee spirit, although in a weaker form, and decidedly outweighed by the better frame and tendency of the poor in spirit, who formed the kernel of this multitude. From this latter ground Jesus also found it advisable to with- draw from the people pressing upon Him, and to retire to the solitude of a mountain-top with His more intimate disciples. Here He gave them in a confidential manner an explanation of His doctrine, which He could not yet have given to the whole people. Hence the proper or longer Sermon on the Mount, which He pronounced upon its summit, is to be distinguished from the shorter Sermon on the Mount, which He delivered to the multitude on one of its lower plateaus. (See Book II. iv. 12.) But although this sermon has thus an esoteric cast, it is not intended to remain esoteric. These doctrines were designed to be afterwards com- municated to the whole people. Hence our Lord gave the people also the essential purport of this sermon after He had come down to them. The state of the people, the nearness of the Israelite year of jubilee, and the theocratic signification of that mysterious institution, gave Him occasion to begin with a view of the true year of jubilee, the reinstating* of the poor in their inheritance. This view exercised an essential influence on the form of His address. We see eternal retributive righteousness ruling ; we see how the truly poor (the poor in spirit) are raised up into the in- heritance of heaven, how the falsely rich (those who think them- selves rich in spirit) are set low by their sinking themselves into an abyss of poverty and disgrace. Christ's Sermon on the Mount forms a contrast to God's former Sermon on the Mount, the giving of the law on Sinai. This con- trast manifests itself distinctly. There, a law was given in the number ten, the number of civil arrangement in the world ; here, a law in the number seven, the number of the Church's spiritual condition. There, a law of the very letter in demands, followed by THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 11 threatenings of the curse ; here, a Law of life, which more than law is the gift of life, and is therefore preceded by promises of blessing. There, Jehovah is concealed in unapproachable mnjesty even from the mediator of the law, and this mediator stands between God (represented by angels) and the people as diflerent parties ; here, the glory of God appears in the face of Jesus Christ in familiar nearness to the disciples, and the God of heaven is one with the God in the human nature of Christ — the foundation of the recon- ciliation is established. There, the voice of Jehovah is heard amid thunder and lightning ; here, as human voice proceeding from the heart, and pronounced by the lips of Jesus. There, the people dare not approach the awful mount ; here, the people stood on the declivity of the mount, and were probably ranged in groups up to its summit. There appear the majesty of law, terror, fear, and tremors of death ; here, the majesty of grace, revival, tremors of love, wondrous presentiments and hopes of a new life, of a new world. The contrast between the giving of the law on Sinai and this Sermon on the Mount could not be stronger, and yet it is a harmonious contrast. We see plainly, that without the law from Sinai there could have been no Sermon on the Mount by Christ : He begins where Moses left off. The poor in spirit are the pure product of the Old Testament economy. It is the beginning of the life in the spirit, to which the Spirit had led, which lightened around and breathed upon the letter of the law, and gave it its force in the conscience of the upright. Or rather, the positive pure product is Christ Himself. In Him the law has become life, living righteousness. In Him the will of God and the human heart, the word of God and the human mouth, have become absolutely one. And for this very reason the poor in spirit meet Him with matured receptivity, for the fulfilling of the law must unfold itself in this contrast of positive and of negative righteousness. But the harmony which obtains in the contrast between Christ's Sermon on the Mount and the law of Moses, is not greater than the polemic character of the contrast in which Christ's sermon stands to the maxims of the Jewish hierarchy. This latter contrast is a mutual contradiction. Christ announces at the outset, in the fundamental law of His kingdom, the great conflict between the spirit of His righteousness and the entire system of the scribes and Pharisees. Nay, the law of His kingdom contradicts all the false supposi- tions of the world in general, while it brings fulfilment to all the expectations of the better aspirations of mankind in the olden time. In both aspects, the Sermon on the Mount appears as the new revelation. This is proclaimed by the very locality. Christ de- livers His address to mankind not from the seat of Moses and the prophets, not from the lofty seat of the scribes and Pharisees, and still less from a prince's throne. He sits upon the grass among trees ; His law goes forth from the solitude of a lofty mountain ; He is supported by no worldly authority of any kind ; His authority lies in Himself, who harmoniously bears the character of Christ, of 12 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. God, and of man. The new character of this hiw is revealed by the perfect, divine peace with wliich it is j^iven forth. In divine repose, seated on the top of the moni:itain surrounded by His trusted ones, our Lord speaks the word which is destined to fill and bless the world. What a contrast is this to the proclamation of human ordinances with the sound of trumpet and drum, or even the thunder of cannon ! Jesus knows well that the calm, gentle whisper is the strongest operation of the human lip, when blessedly moved by Grod. But tliis New Testament character lies also in the tenor of the revelation itself which Jesus utters. The perfect reve- lation of the doctrine of salvation, the Grospel in its full form, was now first proclaimed. The Evangelist had a deep feeling of this, when saying that Jesus opened His mouth and taught. Man is the mouth of creation, and Christ is the mouth of mankind. The mouth of Christ was opened in the most proper sense in the Sermon on the Mount, in order to reveal with full clearness the great secret of the right path of salvation. Christ's discourse is called the Sermon on the Mount in the his- torical sense, but it may also be so called in symbolical significa- tion. Christ stands on the summit of essential righteousness, and all the blessings of holy life fill liis heart. To this summit He calls His people to ascend ; nay, He draws them up by the power of His word. For His word is creative, — not merely the law of the new kingdom of heaven, or the doctrine concerning it, but a deed of His spirit by which He calls it into existence. As God's word, ' Let there be light,' called the light into life, so Christ's word con- cerning the blessedness of the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, &c., calls God's people into existence in these forms. Thus a living mountain of the Lord is formed of souls who have been laid hold of by Him, a mountain which rises up in terraces from the depths of poverty in spirit to the height of perfect and blessed life in God. The righteousness of those who have part in Christ's kingdom of heaven, in contrast to the righteousness of the corrupt hierarchical Old Testament economy, is the leading thought of the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord first shows the path of the righteousness of His kingdom, as He raises it up from the fathomless depth of poverty in spirit to the height of blessed life, v. 1-16. Then He exhibits in contrast to this path, the path of the righteousness of the false theocracy, as it descends precipitously from the supposed height of the most exact fulfilment of the law unto the depth of utter destruction and shame (v, 17-vii. 6). Our Lord, finally, de- scribes the holy method, the way according to which we have to choose the right path and to avoid the wrong (vii. 7-29). Our Lord shows the way to the height of blessed life in the seven beatitudes. That the beatitudes are in reality only seven, is plain from the following consideration : — Poverty in spirit represents the fundamental condition of attaining to bliss all throughout, a spiritual state which extends through all stages of blessedness THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 1 3 (comp. Luke vi. 20) ; or, in other words, it is not only the first beatitude, but represents in germ the seven beatitudes. But this germ exhibits the double form which every germ possesses — the tendency to strike root and the tendency to form stem and fruit. True, it is a poverty, but it is a poverty in spirit. The mourners then form an evident contrast to the meek. Mourning is the first unfolding of piety striking root, and bears reference to God ; meek- ness is its first unfolding in the way of bearing fruit, and bears reference to our neighbour. The same contrast appears a second time in the relation of those who hunger and thirst after righteous- ness to the merciful: in the first is exhibited the right and proper conduct Godward, and in the second the same towards our neigh- bour. Thirdly, it appears again in the same manner in those who, in relation to God, are pure in heart, and appear to men as peace- makers. These, then, are the explicit stages of true righteousness. They are all comprehended again in the eighth and ninth beati- tudes, in which the whole once more appears in a developed form. In them, from poverty of spirit has arisen holy suffering for the sake of walking in the Spirit ; and that in two forms : in its common religious form as a sufferino; for righteousness' sake — in its historic- ally religious form as a suffering for Christ's sake, who Himself is the essential historically-manifested righteousness. This view not only shows that the number of the beatitudes is seven, but also sketches their inward and living organism. Hence is explained also why it is of these righteous ones at the end, as in the begin- ning, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven, namely, because their latter state is in germ contained in their first and fundamental determination. Hence also it is evident that Christ and His right- eousness is the leading thought of all the stages of this piety ; for the relation of the life of the truly pious to Christ, which comes to light in its full historical distinctness at the final development of that life, has of necessity been from tlie first and all along the main feature of that life. We have thus before us a living organism, a holy and also a living ladder : holy, inasmuch as we cannot reach the top except by beginning at the lowest step, and at every step realizing its life in ourselves. No step can here be left untrod. That this ascent is a living ascent, is shown, first, in that we begin at once with life in the Spirit, but all that is yet contained in this life is at best only propaideutic Christianity, legality, symbol-service; — secondly, in that we always take the life of each step up with us into the higher life, keeping it for eternity ; poverty in spirit is preserved in humi- lity, mourning in solemn remembrance, holy hungering and thirst- ing in the consciousness of absolute dependence upon God ; — thirdly and lastly, in that we must be more deeply rooted in God in pro- portion as our piety is more unfolded towards men, and vice versa. The development is organic throughout : the branch does not grow at the expense of the root, nor the root at the expense of the branch — the one grows with and throusrh the other. 14 THE GOSPEL ACCOKDING TO MATTHEW. Notwitlistandin^ this livingness, the Ladder is a perfect hidder. This is shown, first, in the characteristic distinctiveness of each step ; and further, in tliat each step has its own pecuKar difficulty ; and lastly, in that on each step there is a resting-place, a particular end attained. But, above all, it is shown in the fact that the godly man is drawn and upborne by divine strength, so that, spite of all difficulties, he can mount all these steps. How exactly do these forms fit into one another — the mourners and the meek, the hungering and thirsting after righteousness and the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers ! Moreover, when we separate the members of these contrasts, and arrange them in their cognate relations to God on the one hand, and to our neighbour on the other, the inner unity of all these forms is made all the more plain. The mourners, the hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and the pure in heart (in which full renuncia- tion is included), have all the common characteristic of poverty before God, which is fully glorified in the holy sufferings of the martyrs, who suffer for righteousness' sake. But the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers have in common the characteristic of walking in the Spirit before men, which celebrates its completion in the love of Christ, in proclaiming His name and suffering for His sake. But the order in which Christ sets these characteristics is the right order of succession, and corresponds with the organic development of the life. According to this order, holy poverty alternates with holy riches in ever new forms consonant to a life of piety ; for in proportion as a man is poor in spirit before God, he becomes rich in spiritual blessings for his neighbour. With equal distinctness is the difficulty of each step set forth, which makes all who tread this path appear in the first instance as most unfortunate. Poverty in spirit is at least a feeling of absolute poverty. The mourners distinctively are those who mourn in the deepest sense. The meek have to sustain the w^orld's wrath and hard-heartedncss. Hunger and thirst after righteousness cannot be less severely felt than hunger and thirst in an earthly sense, but are much more so ; for that desire of nourishment and refreshment makes itself felt in the depth of the soul's life. The merciful have to deal with the sorrows, the sins, and the sufferings of bruised humanity. The pure in heart have to exercise continual self-renunciation, — they bear on their breast the sign of the cross or of the white rose. Finally, the peace-makers must, in order to pacify the contention and strife of the world, enter in among it as into a hell. That these are men full of sufferings, is specially shown when they have reached the highest stage of their develop- ment in time. For righteousness' sake, for Christ's sake, they are persecuted and covered with reproach. They appear to be of all men the most unfortunate, and yet their continuing steadfast in this path displays the high courage of virtuous conduct. Hence it seems at first sight to be the strongest paradox that Christ calls such men blessed. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 15 But their state is not a legally punitive one, their suffering not penance, and their good not an exercise of virtue in isolated human strength. Katlier, from the very commencement they are raised u]) and supported by the promise of blessing and the foretaste of all the seven stages of blessedness. The power of God, the attractive force of the righteousness of Christ, has laid hold of them ; and if we do but observe closely, we can explain each one of their trying states of mind from the germ of a new blessedness in their heart. They are, for example, poor in spirit, because they have begun to live in spirit, and their mourning for the lost higher life is more blessed than all worldly pleasure. And this shows that a special rest on each of these stages is granted to the godly man. At the very outset he gains the assurance of the whole kingdom of heaven, and at the end it receives him in its unveiled form. At the be- ginning the kingdom of heaven comes into his heart in the assurance of grace ; at the end he comes into the kingdom of heaven as a citizen comes into a new land among a new people. But on the path of development the gift of the kingdom of heaven is revealed to him in all its individual forms, as these correspond to his inward state. The mourners, as such, are cheered with the absolute com- fort, with perfect and enlivening refreshment ; the meek become heirs in possession of the earth, their spirits having the greatest in- fluence and sway. They who hunger and thirst after righteousness are filled, gain absolute peace. The merciful fall into the arms of mercy. The pure in heart, the men who renounce the world entirely, find again in the contemplation of God the true and living riches. The peacemakers are called children of God ; they are acknowledged as the proper princes and judges of mankind in the realm of essential life (in contrast to the realm of law and symbols). And when the righteous are persecuted to the utmost for rigliteous- ness' sake, repelled and rejected by the world, heaven receives them as citizens; as the fellow-sufferers of Christ, they enter into the family of the martyrs and prophets; in the midst of their sorrow they can rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is their reward in heaven. Thus the new world issues from the blessedness of the righteous. We may, therefore, compare the seven beatitudes of Christ with God's works each day at the first creation. Christ's beati- tudes continue to work with creative effect until the end of the world. ' Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the chil- dren of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteous- ness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be 16 THE GOSPEL ACCOKDING TO MATTHEW. exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in heaven : for so perse- cuted they the prophets wlio were before you ! ^ After our Lord had thus described the path to the height of blessed life in His righteousness, He makes an application, from which it appears that He sees in His disciples the first germs of this walk in the Spirit. He calls them the salt of the earth, and en- courages them by showing that salt cannot turn insipid — cannot become unsiilt, otherwise there would no longer be any material to salt with ; and bad salt must therefore be cast out as useless matter, and trodden under foot of men. He next calls them the light of the world. They are destined, as bearers of His light, to work on the world. As a city set on a hill is seen from afar, so they are to exhibit themselves to the world in their higher destination. And as a candle is not lighted to be put under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house, they are to occupy a similar position towards the world. ' Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.' Our Lord had shown the disciples that the path to the summit of bliss is, in its outward form, a path of suffering, and must always be so. He had thereby mediately announced His own sufferings to the disciples. He had, at the same time, made them sensible of the conflict between the direction He took and that of the world, including the Jewish world. This announcement necessarily ap- peared more or less strange to them, with the suppositions they had been accustomed to make. He therefore explained to them the conflict between the world and that to which they were appointed. The world is not as it should be. It is sick, faint, and insipid, on the verge of putrefaction, and therefore has need of salt. It is darkened, and has need of light. And they are called to become the organs of His life, to counteract in botli respects the corruption of the world. They therefore must first, like a pungent salt, give the world pain. And this will be the very thing which draws upon them the world's hatred and persecution ; and for this reason they must benefit the world like a far-shining light, and by their good works men will at last be gained over to glorify their Father in heaven. By describing this conflict, our Lord had signified that He could not go hand in hand with the spirit of His people, and especially in the direction taken by the scribes and Pharisees, But this might cause the thought to arise in the mind of the disciples, that He intended to lead them aside from the path of true Israelite faith, Jesus obviates this error by declaring that He represented the fulfil- ment of the Old Testament, and by intimating that it was precisely the Pharisees and scribes who made void the commandments of God. ' Think not,' said He, ' that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever there- THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 17 fore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall he called the least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.' He thus expresses the perfect consciousness that He, in His life and doctrine, presented the perfect fulfilment of tlie whole Old Testament (both the law and the prophets) ; that there was no divine reference, however slight, in the Old Covenant, whicli could not be found, in its essential, spiritual form, in the spirit of His life. Nay, He represents Himself as the fulfilment not only of the Old Testament, but also as the fulfilment of all genuine human pro- phecies and types in general. And once for all He lays down, in respect to historical faithfulness, the principle, that those men who break tlie very least item of the law of God in order to exhibit a spirit of free life, are the least in the kingdom of heaven. But he who does and teaches the law, who exhibits it in life, and glorifies it in spirit, is great in the kingdom of heaven. In this respect it is He Himself who is in the absolute sense the Great One in the kingdom of heaven ; because He has taken into His life the whole contents of the Old Covenant, and has in His person transformed it into the New Covenant. By tracing out the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees from the height of external fiiithfulness to the law to the depth of corrup- tion. He shows that the law may be destroyed not only by negation, but also by false positive precepts, and that this flilse positive break- ing of the law inevitably produces at last the negative also. These forms in which the law is made void, do not come forth at once in diistinct shapes, but at first only as corruptions — general, old, and prevalent corruptions in doctrine. But from these proceed forms of hypocrisy, always becoming more and more definite and distinct. Corruptions in doctrine grow imperceptibly through un- spirituality (non-conformity to the spirit of the law), which mani- fests itself partly as spiritual sloth, and partly as fanaticism, and checks the true development of the law by producing a false, rank development of it. This wrong method of dealing with the law first shows itself in perverting it. It was a perversion of the law when to the command- ment, ' Thou shalt not kill,' the Jews annexed by way of exj)lanation the following gloss : ' And whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.' In contrast to this perversion, our Lord shows the whole inward strictness requisite for the fulfilment of the command- ment. ' But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the j udgment ; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council ; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire.' He next shows the necessity of a spirit of reconciliation towards brethren. The work of reconciliation is far more urgent than VOL. IV. B 18 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. that of offering gifts in the temple : ' Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Nay, even if on the way to the judge with thine adversary, thou shalt,' continues our Lord, ' while yet on the way, seek to have the strife settled in a friendly manner ; lest at any time,' He remarks warningly, 'the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid tlie uttermost farthing.' It was, moreover, a perversion when the Jews stuck merely by the letter of the law, ' Thou shalt not commit adnltery.' Their externalized way of jiresenting the law made the very law an error. Therefore, for the fulfilling of the law, Christ observes, ' But I say unto you. That whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' He adds, in expressive allegorical language : 'And if thy right eye (that in which thou most delightest) offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee ; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand (the companionship thou most cordially seekest) offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee ; for it is profit- able for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.' But this perversion has grown into gross misinterpretation and distorting of the law when it is said in a light sense, ' AVhosoever shall put away his wife, let him give a writing of divorcement.' True, Moses had given the letter of this, but in a quite opposite Sense to that in which it was glibly repeated in Christ's time, Moses sought by this ordinance to check divorces, which he could not abolish ; the scribes, on the contrary, made it a regulation favourable to divorce. Christ therefore remarks against this mis- interpretation of the law of Moses while fulfilling its letter : ' But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery ; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery.' It was also misinterpreting the law to use its ordinance, ' Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths,' for justifying the employing of oaths in the sense of ungodly asseverations. Jesus, on the contrary, guides us to the true fulfilling of the law regarding oaths by declaring, ' But I say unto you. Swear not at all : neither by heaven, for it is God's throne ; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool ; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your com- munication be, Yea, yea. Nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more than these (what is more than this ])ure assertion goes beyond swearing by God Himself) cometh of evil.' THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 19 There was still a grosser misinterpretation in the false application made of individnal ordinances by transferring them from the domain of public law to that of private right. Thus the lex talionis,ey(i for eye and tooth for tooth, which was designed for preventing revenge, was made by tlie Jews an excuse for private revenge. Therefore, when Jesus encourages the utmost compliance in private life, He only urges the fulfilment of that law in its true sense. He seeks to promote solicitude for the purest and highest recompense, and thus are His words to be understood when He declares, ' But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.' But traditionalism defaced the law of the Lord most of all when it applied in evil and outward literality the commandment, ' Thou shaft love thy neighbour,' merely to the Jews, or finally to their own friends of the party of the Pharisees, and from this limitation drew the venomous inference, ' And (thou shalt) hate thine enemy.' Pharisaic fanaticism made it even a duty for the Jews to hate the heathen, the Samaritan, the publican and sinner (the excommuni- cated person), and, in general, the opponent of the system of the Pharisees ; and that, as it supposed, for God's sake. But the false development of the Old Covenant in this direction culminated in the Jewish hierarchy which mirrored forth corrupt Pharisaism. But here also our Lord tells us how the precept, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour,' is truly fulfilled, by declaring, 'But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you ; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven : for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.' Finally, He makes them feel how like to publicans and heathens they would make themselves if they hated them as the scribes and Pharisees did, dreaming that thereby they drew the most marked distinction between themselves and them. ' For if ye love them who love you, what reward have ye ? do not even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? do not the publicans so ? ' He concludes His exhorta- tion thus : ' Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,' that is, not in the same style as the Pharisees, who imagine they are perfect. This thought forms the transition to speaking of corruptions in life which go hand in hand with those corruptions of doctrine. These corruptions of life first show themselves in a positive form in this, that piety degenerates in every respect — first into legal service by works, then into love of show, and lastly into decided hypocrisy. First, in respect to our neighbour. The love of a man of per- verted piety to his neighbour has always more and more a tendency 20 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. to go off into ritualistic beneficence, and this more and more into the desire of seeing his neighbour in the form of a beggar, and of keeping him so, in order to glorify itself by splendid deeds of alms- giving towards him. Therefore Christ says, ' Take heed that ye do nor your alms before men to be seen of them ; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypo- crites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you. They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret ; and thy Father which seetli in secret, Himself shall reward thee openly.' This depraved piety of those who build on outward works, shows itself in relation to God by the manner in which they pray. Christ continues thus : ' And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are : for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you. They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet ; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do ; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.' Our Lord now, by teaching His disciples the Lord's prayer, shows them how an infinite fulness of request can be comprehended in a few plain words of prayer. In this point of view, this prayer is here in its right place. It expresses in the most compact, simple, and pure form, every possible request of a i^etitioner, a whole world of holy wants ; and so it may be compared to a pearl in which the whole light of heaven is mirrored. It expresses at once, and in the most concentrated form, all divine promises, all human wants and aspirations, all Christian emotions and priestly consecrations of life, arranged in equally expressive order of the several parts. The invocation indicates the enlightened Theism which knows and has God in heaven as Father. The position of the first three petitions with respect to the following, shows that man is not to seek to draw in God into the service of his own egoism, but to seek well-being by thrice devoting himself to God, in seeking first what is God's. ' Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.' One thing should be hallowed above all others : not the vessels, not the days or the hands, but the name of God Himself, the demonstration of Him in the spirits, religions, and hearts of men ; then with the hallowing of God's name all things will be hallowed. One thing should come before all other things : not bright days, brilliant appearances, or worldly greatness, but the kingdom of God, whereby God is enthroned in the heart, ruling and disposing it, and from it acting on the world. One thing should be done before every other thing : not what human hopes, ideals, and desires would give expression to, but God's will, so purely and absolutely as to THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 21 include in it every human will, making all resistance and contradic- tion disappear in presence of its heavenly majesty. AVhen man has thus cared for that which pertains to God, he has at the same time purified his personal requests in God. For he is not as pietist to put his own concerns before that which pertains to God, nor yet as mystic to seek to sink or merge himself in what pertains to God ; hut he is in his own distinctive character to merge himself in God in order to attain in Him to the true resurrection, while still retaining his own speciality. And thus he can, in view of his need for the present, pray, ' Give us this day our daily bread ; ' and in view of the past, ' And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors ; ' and lastly, in view of the future, ' And lead us not (in the tragic course of the curse which proceeds from guilt) into temptation, but deliver us (drawing us out of it by the mighty, heaven-attracting power of redemption) from evil.' These are the seven consecrations of inward life by which the Christian rises from earth to heaven ; while he who uses vain repe- titions in his prayers exhibits himself and his religiosity to the world in the streets or in places of worship. Therefore the Christian reposes rejoicingly in the contemplation of the glory of God, uttering the words, ' For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever;' while the hypocrite is concerned about self-glorifi- cation or the glorifying of an outward temple-service. _ And while the Christian can seal his prayer with an Amen of divine certainty, the hypocrite prays himself more and more into the confirmed doubt which can pronounce the Amen at best only as a magic formula. Our Lord next gives in special an explanation of the meaning of the solemn addition, ' As we forgive our debtors,' by continuing, ' For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' The third corruption of degenerate piety shows itself _ by the manner in which the hypocrite presents to view his abstemiousness or the consecration of his own life (askesis). ' When ye fast,' says Christ, ' be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance ; for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you. They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face ; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.' With these corruptions in piety, which at last become always more and more manifest as false renunciation of the world, and assume a gloomy, ascetic, monkish character, a passionate although disguised worldliness is alway closely connected, and increasingly breaks out into corruptions of the outward life in those who build upon works and make a show of their piety. The first form in which this appears is in their laying up for themselves treasures upon earth. With the avaricious layman, fasting and heaping up wealth work harmoniously together, although 22 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. the one seems to contradict the other ; and the priest who does penance becomes insensibly the treasure-collectino: monk. But, with prophetic spirit, Christ gives the warning : ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal (where three destroying principles, the ethical, the animal- vegetable, and the chemical, always threaten to consume the perishable riches). But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.' That in such cases the loss is not confined to perishable riches, but that something nobler is lost, is shown by our Lord when He continues thus : ' For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine eye be single (the outward sense in full accord with the calm consciousness), thy Avhole body shall be full of light (like the eye or the sun). But if thine eye be evil (wandering, forgetful of duty, not performing its office), thy whole body shall be full of darkness' (a wandering fragment of night). Our Lord now applies these principles to the inward life, ' If therefore the light that is in thee (the inward essential eye) be darkness, how great is that darkness' (of thy spiritual life in all its relations) ! But such a darkening of the inward eye is to be seen in the covetous collector of treasures. This is shown by the word, 'No man can serve two masters ; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.' That is, if the man loves the other (the false master), he begins to hate the true Master ; but if he really holds to the latter, he will despise the former. If a man is unfaithful to the true Master, he hates Him, he cannot despise Him ; but a man does not hate the false master, he despises him, if he holds to the true Master. Hence follows, ' Ye cannot serve God and mammon.' The Pharisees had, as they thought, most strictly excluded all heathen idolatry from their divine worship ; but this one heathen idol mammon had, in the way they viewed things, imperceptibly become a mighty object of worship, and had in many respects darkened their knowledge of the true God Himself The avarice of which we have been speaking is active worldliness, which stands in close reciprocity with passive worldliness, anxious care. Anxious care, such as is manifested by the Gentiles, is the second grand form in which the perverted pietist exhibits the cor- ruption of his life. It is to be considered at bottom as the old witch, grey of head and sick of heart, of whom Avarice is the lean and restless son. Our Lord therefore assails anxiety in order to demolish avarice.-* The one corruption, indeed, constantly begets the other — avarice anxiety, and anxiety avarice — although they often seem to take different and hostile directions ; and the more active, bold, and audacious devote themselves rather to avarice ; the more slothful, timid, and weak, to anxious care. But b}' the form of His discourse, our Lord shows that He holds anxiety to be ^ Aid TovTo, &c., ver. 25. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 23 the root of avarice. He depicts anxiety to us ia the most pressing exhortation to reliance on God. ' Therefore I say unto yon, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.' The anxious, with all the pains they take, go wrong in their calculations. Therefore our Lord teaches them to calculate better : ' Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ? ' As regards nourishment, He refers them to the way in which the fowls are fed : ' Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ? ' He adds, ' Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature ' (length of life) ? — in order to guide them to the conclusion, that life and provision for it are both measured with equal certainty. He nexts takes cloth- ing into special consideration ; and here, in order to shame the anxious, He descends for His example below the animal kingdom. The very plants must rebuke them : ' Consider (Kara/jLudere) the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you. That even Solomon in all his glory ■was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little fliith ? ' Then follows the exhortation : ' Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or. What, shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek ;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteous- ness ; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow ; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' When the man of works is borne along by these powerful in- fluences of worldliness, he doubtless has a dark feeling that the true life, the quiet, gentle glow of divine life, is wanting to him. Yet he will at any cost maintain the appearance of life. He seeks therefore to supply the place of constant warmth by flighty heats, and that of piety, which meditates day and night upon God, by the fanaticism which from time to time starts up in a hurry from its w^orldly schemes, vain conversations, and low delights, in order anew to gain confidence in itself through the odious practices of religious narrowness of head and heart. Thus, passing unloving judgment on our neighbour, especially on him whose opinions differ iVom our own, stands inclose connection with worldly anxiety. Our Lord now speaks of this. ' Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged ; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.' Nay, he whose heart inclines to harsh judgment, really is, without being aware of it, already entangled in something worse than anything wdiich he is able to detect in another. Our Lord expresses this by the strik- ing simile : ' And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 24 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. bi'other's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine o'wn eye? or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye ; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye ! ' A man who proceeds to judge in this way, manifests either boundless self-deceit, or an equal amount of effrontery; the former, if he does not observe the beam which is in his own eye, the latter, if, having observed it, he still seeks to see motes in his brother's eye. In reality, however, a man of this kind always finds himself oscillating between both. When looking outwards, he cannot alto- gether avoid observing the beam in his own eye, and he is equally unable to perceive it quite clearly, just because it is a beam in his eye. He is, in fact, in a state of self-deception, and under the reciprocal influence of blindness and baseness, makes himself more and more of a hypocrite. But from the laxity, unspirituality, and forgetfulness of duty which he displays in his stewardship of the mysteries of God, it is evident that his apparent zeal for God's cause does not spring from devotedness to Him. This is indicated by our Lord's admonition, ' Give not that which is holy (the holy flesh of the sacrifice) unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls (like acorns) before swine.' In this manner the hypocrites deal with the true riches of the Church — the word, the sacrament, the communion. We may, with safety, always assume that fanaticism is just such a mask as this, a show of enthusiasm, behind which, positive, practical disre- spect of God enacts its part. But this is the last stage, the very pit in which legalists perish. Punitive retribution overtakes them ; the swine trample the pearls under their feet, and turn and rend the treacherous dealers with holy things, who are now given over to judgment. The canine element in the neglected masses seems well pleased at being presented with the holy flesh (the pleasant things of the sanctuary) ; but there is a wild swinish element which is provoked by the pearls cast to it, as if it had been pelted with pebbles. But how fearful is it, when the wild brutality in human nature must become the oi'gan of the judgment which over- takes the unveiled emptiness and guilt in the supposed righteous- ness of the men of pharisaic observances ! Next follows the third and last part of the Sermon on the Mount —the instructions which Jesus gives for the choice of the right way, and the avoidance of the wrong. He begins by presenting true prayer in opposition to false. It is characteristic of true prayer, that it always grows more and more urgent, passes more and more into fact, — that the seeking which flows from asking, becomes seeking pure and simple, seeking for the lost highest good, — and that the seeking by knocking gives rise to definite knock- ing at the definite door. An earnest seeking like this, must con- duct to the goal, because it is from God. ' Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 25 unto you.' This maxim is specially applicable in matters of re- ligion, because it can be taken as a general maxim : ' For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketli findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.' This most encouraging com- j)arison is added : ' Or what man is there of you, whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent ? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ? ' Thus the prayer of faith is the right attitude towards God. He next shows what is right conduct towards our neighbour, in opposition to that wrong conduct towards him which expresses itself in proud almsgiving to beggars. ' Therefore all things what- soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is the law and the prophets.' Christ then shows the proper behaviour of men towards themselves, the right askesis. It does not consist in avoiding this or that food, but in shunning the fellow- ship of the wicked. And this fellowship may appear in two very different forms. One way is to follow the lead of the multitude, the current of the so-called spirit of the age ; that is, the spirit of the dominant illusions which form the characteristics of any par- ticular age. Our Lord warns against this with the words : ' Enter ye in at the strait gate ; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat {elcrep-^ofjuevoi) ; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, Avhich leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.' But as we should not let ourselves be carried away by the strong stream of the corrupt mass, so we should equally withstand the magic influence of false prophets. ' Beware of false prophets,' says Christ, ' who come to you in sheep's clothing (borrowed from sheep), but in- wardly they are ravening wolves ' (the mortal enemies of the flock in their greedy and d-estructive selfishness). He gives the marks by which they may be known, namely, their fruits. ' Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? ' From the sour sloe of fanaticism we may infer the thorn, and from the sharp prickles of proselytism we may infer the thistle. But thorns and thistles are not trees of paradise ; it is the curse which weighs upon the ground which brings them forth. Thus these men are noxious wildlings, who, by calling and confession, should stand forth as vines and fig- trees (genuine fruit-bearers of the promised land). Their fruits testify what they are ; for ' a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.' This mark is so striking that men always judge by it in arboriculture. ' Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.' In like manner, all false prophets go into condemnation. Oar Lord, therefore, supposes that it cannot be very difficult for the disciples to know by their fruits evil trees in a figurative sense. It is evident that our Lord spoke here not of prophets in the narrower sense alone. All those are false prophets who do not live 26 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. in the spirit of the true prophets, and especially tlie men of Pharisee traditionalism ; for by the corrupt course which they take, they continually brinoj forth new erroi's. And undoubtedly our Lord referred also to false prophets of this kind. At the close Christ intimates that the New Testament institution, as He has now announced it in contrast to the deranged Old Testa- ment institution, would not in its outward form remain free from corruptions, and men making merely a show of godliness. He speaks first in respect to that transition period in which so many greeted Him with enthusiasm : ' Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but He who doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. He then speaks specially in respect to the members of His future Church in its advanced form. Many will say to Me in that day, ' Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name have done many wonderful works? Then will I profess unto them, 1 never knew you : de})art from Me, ye that work iniquity.' The Lord concluded His discourse (probably after He had delivered the second Sermon on the Mount) with a parable : ' Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock ; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat ujion that house ; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand ; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall of it.' The words of Christ, in their living form, are the rock upon which the truly wise of all times build, however spectral and unstable they may seem in their heavenly livingness. But the petrified ordinances of His opponents, the Pharisees, were sand, however like to rock they might look. The house which the wise built upon the word of Christ withstood the great tempest of visitation which came upon Judea, but not so did the edifice which unbelievers had erected upon the sand of human traditions. Their house fell, and great was its fall. There can be no doubt that Christ projihetically pointed to that historical fall. But the parable has a signification for all times, and holds good not only in the historical, but, above all, in the purely spiritual sense. The Evangelist remarks at the close that the sayings of Jesus deeply moved the people. They felt that Jesus taught as one having authority, or spoke with the creative power of true and living words, and not as the scribes (witli lifeless platitudes). NOTE. The Two Sermons on the Mount were spoken by our Lord towards the end of His first journey from Capernaum through Galilee. Concerning the locality, see Book II. iv. 12. For the Sermon on Christ's rotal power displayed in the miracles. 27 « the plateau, or shorter Sermon on the Mount, which Matthew has inchuled in the greater or the Sermon on the summit, see Luke vi. 12-49. SECTION IX. THE REVELATION OF THE ESSENTIAL ROYAL POWER OF CHRIST AND HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN THE MIRACLES WHICH HE PERFORMED. (Chap. viii.-ix. 34.) The Evangelist, in his concluding remark on the Sermon on the Mount, had already expressed the living unity between the words and deeds of Jesus. He taught as one having power (the power of the life of His doctrine). He proved this, while descending from the mountain, and after He had descended, in a series of miracles. This series manifestly forms a living combination in the mind of the Evangelist. It is a rich wreath of the most manifold miracles. But although the Evangelist gathered this wreath in a spirit of careful selection, yet in general he did not depart from historical sequence. Had this been the case, he would undoubtedly have kept the raising of the dead to the close, and would have separated from the consecu- tive narration of the miracles some other historical pieces which are mixed up with it. It is only the healing of Peter's wife's mother, and of the multitude of sick and possessed persons, which belongs to an earlier period, the period of his first sojourn at Caper- naum (see ii. 80). The other miracles all belong to the period of His second residence there, and especially to the time of which His voyage across the sea to Gadara forms the middle point. And as we must recognize in the words of the Sermon on the Mount a succession of creative operations, so these miracles are for us a fresh series of divine sayings. This holds good respecting the life of Jesus as a whole. His words are works of wonder, and His miracles are words of God. The miraculous cures begin significantly with the healing of the leper. When Jesus came down from the mountain, accompanied by great multitudes, ' Behold, there came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean.' This leper is the representative of human life, such as it has become here below, in the low grounds of the world, in contrast to the life on the Lord's mountain heights.^ And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, ' 1 Avill ; be thou clean.' And immediately his leprosy was cleansed ; he put on the fair appearance of perfect health. According to the Old Testament law, touching a leper made a man unclean himself ; but here is a demonstration of the New Testament, positive (health-giving) vigour of Christ's life, in that His touch cleanses the leper. And it is in this way that He heals mankind in general, by bringing His life into close contact with them. He does not need to fear that by this contact they will draw 1 ' Die Welt ist vollkommen iiberall Wo der mensch nicht hinkommt mit seiner Qual.' — Schiller. 28 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. Him down into their imcleanness (leprosy, sin, corruptness); on the contrar):^, He draws tliem up into His purity. After the leper was healed, Jesus charged him, saying, ' See thou tell no man ; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.' He should, in the first instance, say nothing of the touching which had taken place, be- cause by that he would expose the Lord to the necessity of under- going a Levitical quarantine^ for the sake of the more timid among the people. But he might with prudence let the priests know that he had been healed miraculously by Jesus, after the healing had been certified to them by the official declaration, and the acceptance of the offering ; so that he could bring forward a testimony to them (et«? [xapTvptov auroi^), because otherwise, in consequence of their former ill-feeling against Jesus, they might have been inclined to question the reality of the cure. So the leper should provide himself with that attestation before he told of the miraculous aid of our Lord. This is capable of a more general application. Believers should first obtain the world's acknowledgment of the blessed effects flowing from Christ, and manifesting themselves in ordinary life, that thereby the way may be prepared for the acknowledgment of His name also. The first man who required help came to our Lord at His descent from the mountain ; the second, at His entrance into Capernaum, where He dwelt. His first miracle contained the striking feature that He touched a leper ; and the second was still more remarkable, as a rendering of help to a heathen, in doing which He exalted the ftiith of this man above that of many in Israel. This man was a centurion at Capernaum. He came to Jesus, and besought Him, saying, ' Lord, my servant (domestic) lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.' Jesus immediately said to him, ' I will come and heal him.' But it seemed to the centurion too much for himself and his servant, and unnecessary for Jesus to take the trouble of coming to his house. ' Lord, I am not worthy,' said he, ' that Thou shouldest come under my roof ; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.' It is not only possible that he had actual knowledge that Jesus could perform such a cure from a distance (for the healing of the nobleman's son at Capernaum in that way had taken place already), but he had also formed his own philosophic view of tlie matter in accordance with his standpoint as a Gentile and a soldier. ' For,' said he, ' I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me ; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth ; and to another. Come, and he cometh ; and to my servant. Do this, and he doetli it.' Humbly as he thought of himself, he thought highly of Jesus. And as he himself was a subordinate officer in the outward realm of the military system, so he thought of Jesus as supreme com- mander in the kingdom of the genii of health, as first executor of 1 It was not forbidden by the law to tonch the unclean ; only he who touched them had to observe the purification quarantine (see above, vol. ii. ji. 132). cueist's royal power displayed in the miracles. 29 the will of the supreme authority, and therefore as having authority- over all spirits subordinate to it. Thus the military mind of this man, guided by faith, was able to form for itself a philosophy of our Lord's working at a distance. Jesus gave full acknowledgment to the evidence afforded of the centurion's views, however strange the form might be, because He saw that he set out from a right hypothesis, faith in His divine dignity in the kingdom of essential power. He marvelled, and said to them that followed, ' Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven : but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping (from distress) and gnash- ing of teeth' (from envious rage). He then turned and said to the centurion, ' Go thy way ; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.' And his servant was healed that same hour. We should not overlook the f^ict, that it is Matthew, the Evangelist of the Hebrew Christians, who gives this special prominence to the dis- tinction conferred upon the Grentile centurion by the help which our Lord rendered him, and the saying which He uttered regarding him. Jesus found the first sufferer on His coming to the inhabited world in the vales of His own country ; the second, at His entrance into His own city ; and He now finds the third on His entrance into His home at Capernaum. This time it is to an aged matron that He brings help — to Peter's wife's mother. She lay sick of a fever. Here the means — belief in miracles — was already present, and so He could proceed at once to act. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She was immediately able to rise and minister to Him. But it was not until evening came, and night was drawing on, that the full stream of human distress flowed towards our Lord. For under the cover of night a man ventures to disclose his misery without reserve. There were now brought unto Jesus many pos- sessed with devils, out of whom He cast the unclean spirits with a word. He also healed all the sick that were brought to Him. On this the Evangelist remarks, ' That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet (liii. 4), saying. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.' The Evangelist made this explanation with an insight which has been denied to many critics of the present day ; he knew that in order to help the sufferers by His miracles, it was necessary for Jesus to enter into sympathy with them, and that by an historical law of ethical and psychical gravitation, all the misery of mankind fell upon His heart — upon the power of His life. The over-pressure of the people upon Him now caused our Lord to take ship for the other side of the lake, in order to make the second Gospel pilgrimage from Capernaum, and this time into the country of the Gergesenes or Gadarenes.^ At this departure two 1 See above, vol. ii. p. 146. Bleek, in his Beitracjc zur EianrjdicnlcrUik, 27, gives weighty reasons for the reading TepaarivQj^, 30 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. followers presented themselves to Him, wliose manner of coming forward formed a very marked contrast ; and with whom, accord- ingly, He dealt as the Master in knowledge and care of souls.^ The first was a scribe, who came with the enthusiastic expression, * Master, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.' Jesus replied to him with words of utmost caution : ' The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.' Another of Ilis disciples said to Him, ' Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.' This one Ho addressed with the animating words, ' Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead.' He was able to estimate duly decidedness under the mantle of hesi- tation, and untrustworthiness in the guise of enthusiastic homage, and to treat either disposition as its nature required. It is probable that both these now increased the retinue of His disciples in the narrower sense,- who took sliip along with Him, It occurred to the Evangelist as worthy of remark, that just after their setting out, an extraordinary tempest arose (koL ISov). The ship was covered with the waves ; but Jesus was asleep. His dis- ciples awoke Him hastily with the cry of alarm, ' Lord, save us, we perish ! ' The conduct of our Lord declares in the most telling terms the heavenly peace with which He awoke. xVt first, main- taining His position of repose, He rebukes the disciples, ' Why are ye so fearful, 0 ye of little faith?' Then He arises and rebukes the winds and the waves, and there was a great calm. The men who were with Him said with astonishment, ' What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him ?' Thus Christ manifested Himself now as King in the realm of nature, as He had done formerly in the realm of human life ; now as Physician of the sick earth, as formerly of sick man. But if we combine this narra- tive with the following concerning the healing of the demoniac in Gadara, we have a grand united view. We saw formerly how Christ, when descending from the mountain into the midst of His people, removes every form of misery ; we see here how He, as leader of His disciples, annihilates all the terrors of the dark and alien world upon their journey, — the terrors by sea as well as those by land — the danger wherewith the elements, and the dangers wherewith the demons in the world of man, threaten them. When He had come to the other side, into the country of the Gadarenes, there met Him two demoniacs coming out of the tombs^ in which they dwelt, exceedingly fierce, so that no one dared venture to pass that way. And remarkable as was the way in which the tempest had seemed to stop His course, not less strangely did these possessed men seek to oppose His journey (kol l8ov). They cried, saying, ' What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God ? Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time ?' Yet, behind ^ See vol. ii. !>. 141. " For it is plain, from ver. 21, that the second already belonged to His disciples in the wider sense. ■^ According to Burkhardt, a number of remarkable tombs and ruins of tombs are to be found at Omkeis, which, as many think, stands on the site of ancient Gadara. Christ's royal power displayed in the miracles. 31 tliis expression of defiance, it was already perceptible that the demo- niacs felt that He would overcome them. At some distance from this scene tliere was a great herd of swine feeding. And now, by a mysterious occurrence, evidence was given of the old elective affinity between the serpent and the swine, the union of which is exhibited in the dragon, between devilishness and swinishness. The devils besought Him, saying, ' If Thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.' ' Go ! ' was our Lord's reply. Next followed the paroxysm of the healing of the diseased. The demons entered into the swine ; and behold the whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. They that kept them fled, and told in the city the misfortune that had happened, and also the healing of the demoniacs. And now the whole of the inhabitants of the city went to meet our Lord, a deputation which grew into a general procession. When they saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of their coasts. The van- quisher of the demons was too formidable for them to venture to expel Him by force. But as in ^Him, instead of in the demons of their district whom His arrival had only disturbed, they were inclined to find the destroyer of their swine, His visit seemed to them to bring disaster. They did not see in Him the healer of their miser- able fellow-men. Jesus compassionated the low spirituality of the magistracy and inhabitants of Gadara, who believed that in Him they were turning away a great misfortune from their territory. He complies with requests which decidedly forbid His visits. He im- mediately entered into the ship and returned to Capernaum, which now, as His own city, still received Him with joy. Hardly had He returned when another sufferer was brought to Him — a paralytic, borne upon his bed in such a way as to excite surprise (real iSou). Jesus recognized the working of a decided faith in the courage which these men showed. He seems to have found this faith above all in the sick man himself. This is shown by the way He spoke to him : ' Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee ! ' ' And behold,' says the Evangelist, ' certain of the scribes said within them- selves, This man blasphemeth.' It is well worthy of remark, that, according to Matthew, the Galilean scribes first manifested a feeling against Jesus when He announced to the poor sufferer the forgive- ness of his sins. They thought, doubtless, that spiritual forgiveness of sin belongs to God alone, and Levitical forgiveness to none but the temple officials, the priests, Jesus saw ,the working of their discontent, their inward embitterment, and said to them, ' Where- fore think ye evil in your hearts ? For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say. Arise and walk ? ' They could not deny that divine power and authority belonged to the second saying as well as to the first ; and could not but own that the inward and hidden fact, the reality of the forgiveness of sin, which was not perceptible to the eye, was proved if the Lord per- formed the miracle which was perceptible to the eye, and made the lame whole by a wonder-working word. After He had thus com- 32 THE GOSPEL ACCORDI^^G TO MATTHEW. pelled them to owu beforehand the validity of such a proof, He con- tinued, ' But that 3^6 may know that the Son of man hath power to forgive sins on earth (that is, not merely with a heavenly, but also with a human social validity of absolution, so that the absolved finds a Church of like-minded members), Arise,' continued He, address- ing tlie paralytic, ' take up thy bed and go into thine house ! ' And he arose and departed to his house. At the sight of this miracle the multitudes were seized with a sacred awe, and glorified God, who had given such power to men. It was evidently not without intention that the Evangelist in- serted among these miracles his own calling from the office of publican to that of apostle, which indeed took place about this time. That the Lord made a publican an apostle was itself a miracle. Departing from the house in which he had healed the paralytic. He saw a man named Matthew (Levi) sitting at the receipt of custom, and said to him, ' Follow Me.' And he arose and followed Him. Matthew made a feast for his Master, at which occurred the extraordinary circumstance {koI ISov), that many pub- licans and sinners (excommunicated persons) came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples. The Pharisees were very angry at this circumstance, and said to the disciples, ' Why eateth your Master with ]uiblicans and sinners ?' When Jesus perceived this displeasure, He gave for reply, ' They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' He showed that, according to the judgment of the Pharisees, who thought themselves whole and the publicans ^and sinners sick, He had to pay attention to the latter. ' But go ye,' added He, reprovingly, ' and learn the meaning of the word (of the Lord in Hosea vi. 6), I will have mercy and not sacri- fice.' He then concluded with the plain declaration, ' I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' But as the Pharisees were offended at Jesus' eating with publicans and sinners, so it was offensive to John's disciples, whose master then lay in pri- son, and who seem to have watched the Lord with trouble of mind, that during this time, so sorrowful for them, He could be present at a feast. They showed their uprightness, however, in not coming to speak to His disciples behind His back, but openly to Himself. ' Why,' asked they, ' do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but Thy disciples fast not ? ' With all their inj ured feelings, they are modest enough to make no immediate reproach against Himself. Our Lord's reply could not fail to make them feel that they quite misunderstood the highest sign of that time, and especially the rela- tion of Jesus to the Baptist and to the Pharisee party. ' Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them ? but the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.' The choice of this fio-ure was doubly striking, as John the Ba])tist himself had desig- nated our Lord as the Bridegroom (see vol. ii. p. 160). It is, above all things, necessary for them to know that the time of the first re- cofinition and connection which obtains between the Saviour of the Christ's eotal towek displayed in the miracles. 33 world and believers, is a great and real festival, a bridal time among the times. And it is specially necessary for them to know that He Himself is a new life, and founds and diffuses new life ; and that He will by no means mix up this life with the antiquated forms of outside religious traditionalism. There are two ways in which they might think of such a mixture. They might, in their j)resent confused notions, favour Pharisaism to the utmost, and consequently strain as far as possible their demands upon Jesus, desiring Him to apply all His strength and activity to reform (or patch) the old religion. Or they might, more in accordance with the fundamental feature of their own standpoint, propose a more reasonable composition between the old and the new, — rate the old at less value ; place the cause of Christ higher ; own that Jesus disseminated a new life, but at the same time desire that He should disseminate it in the old traditional forms. In the former case their desire would have been to patch Judaism with Christianity ; in the latter, to supplement Christianity with Judaism, and force it into its forms. But the Lord cannot admit even the latter request, and still less the former. The following similitude was directed against the former : — ' No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old garment ; for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.' By these words He intir mated plainly enough that He considered the accustomed Jewish reli- gious forms as an old and tattered garment. The lesser request He declined with an equally significant similitude : — ' Neither do men put new wine into old bottles : else the bottles break and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish ; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.' Thus the form and the life must both issue from one substance, and then the life assures the form, and the form the life. It was to be shown at the same time that Jesus was as much at home in the house of mourning as in the house of feasting and joy, and that neither John s disciples nor the Pharisees were able, with all their mourning and fasting, to bring comfort and help' to the comfortless, while He was a ready and powerful helper for them. While He was yet obliged to defend Himself against those attacks, behold there came a certain ruler (of a synagogue, Jairus) and worshipped Him, saying, ' My daughter is even now dead (see above, ii. 163) ; but come and lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall live.' Jesus immediately arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. But now another extraordinary occurrence took place {koI ISov). A woman who was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment ; for she said within herself, If I may but touch His gar- ment, I shall be whole. Jesus felt and understood her approach, and blessed her faith, although she had expressed it in an extraor- dinary manner : He turned round, and when He saw her, He said to her, ' Daughter, be of good comfort : thy faith hath made thee whole.' And the woman was made whole from that hour. Thus VOL. IV. C 34 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. one distress followed behind Him, while He had another before Him, and was hastening to combat it. Before Him the death of a maiden, behind Him the sickness of a woman, gave Him work to do. But that He on His way to a death-bed could thus feel the mental frames of those who surrounded Him, and had still a power of watching the concealed distress which came slipping ghost-like behind Him ; that the timid touching of His garment by a woman needful of help in the midst of a crowd permeated through His soul, and that He could at once resolve to help, and lovingly paused to give her this help, — all this reveals again the fulness of His kingly power, and the freedom of His inward life. But when they came to the ruler's house, it seemed to be too late. The minstrels were already there, and noise of mourning women was heard. He entered with the order, ' Give place ; for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth,' For she really was sleeping although dead, since He could awaken her with His word ; but for them she was a dead maiden, whom their loudest wailing wakened not. As they laughed Him to scorn, He put them out. He then went in, took the maiden by the hand, and wakened her. The fame of this miracle spread through town and country : it was the first time our Lord raised one from the dead. After such a deed, the receptive Israelites could not fail to sur- mise that Jesus was none less than the Messiah. The people, and especially those in distress, were now disposed to own Him openly as such. This soon became evident. As He was returning from Jairus' house, two blind men followed Him, crying, ' Thou Son of David, have mercy on us.' But His resolve of self-renunciation forbade Him to listen openly to this title, which denoted the Messiah. So He went home, and the blind men after Him. Here He met them with the question, ' Believe ye that I am able to do this?' They answered, 'Yea, Lord.' Then touched He their eyes, saying, ' According to your faith be it unto you.' And their eyes were opened. Jesus dismissed them, straitly charging them, saying, ' See that no man know it,' namely, that He had helped them according to their faith that He was the Messiah (see above, ii. 1G7). But they, when they departed, spread abroad His fame in all that country. It was certainly surprising (ISov) that another needing help was brought when these were scarcely gone. The form too in which this sufferer was afflicted, caused particular attention ; he suffered from a demoniac dumbness. The demoniac condition was thus disguised by the dumbness of the man, his dumbness occasioned by his spiritual condition. The special proof of the Lord's glorious power given here was, that He only looked at the demon, and freed the sick man from liim. His look proved its power : when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake. It was in fact a double, a threefold miracle, which was here presented to view ; for not only was the soul of the sick man freed, and with his soul his organ of speech, but also his mind, which had a long-continued and other- cheist's royal power displayed in the miracles. 35 wise unconquerable aversion to speaking. He now spoke, and the multitude wondered at it exceedingly, saying, ' It was never so seen in Israel.' The last five miracles of our Lord form a significant group. The paralytic seeks. His help in a very impetuous, the sick woman in a very stealthy form (see above, ii. 164). The third forms a contrast to these seeking and striving ones : she cannot ask help, for she is dead. The two blind appear as men whose spiritual sight is clear, while the outward light of the eyes is denied them : they meet our Lord with a very advanced faith. The dumb man, on the other hand, is a man whose inward life is most strongly fettered by the power of a demon, so that the access to him seems quite closed ; and in his case, as in that of the dead maiden, the blessed power of intercession must be very evident. Hence the people marvelled specially at this last miracle. But as, on the one hand, and among those who reverenced Him, the readiness to acknowledge Christ had been greatly increasing, so, on the other hand, had been the embitterment of the Pharisees against Him, and they now began blasphemously to say, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils. Thus they sought to defile with their drivel the fresh and fragrant wreath of His works of divine power and love ; they ventured to assert that the doer of all these works was in league with the devil, and only by his assist- ance could have done them. The gloomy spirit of the enthralled enemies of Christ hates not only His doctrines, but also His deeds, for the very sphit of His life is hateful to it. NOTE. ' A definite reason can be given regarding each (of these miracles) why Matthew has related it. He relates the first evidently because of its remarkable connection with the remarkable saying of Christ ; the second, because of the singular and far-seeing conversation with the centurion ; the third, doubtless, because it was the only miracle He wrought on one so closely connected with His disciples ; the fourth, not only because of the way in which Jesus acted, but also because it was too sublime to be passed over; the fifth, because the devils called Him the Son of God ; the sixth, for the sake of the lofty saying, Thy sins be forgiven thee ! the seventh and the eighth, partly because of the interweaving of the two miracles, partly because of the confidence of the woman of Israel, and partly because of the remarkable occurrence of raising one that was dead ; the ninth, because of Jesus' conversation ; the tenth, because of its connection with the preceding one, and because of the striking saying of the Pharisees.' — Wizenmann, die Gescliiclite Jesu nacJi dem Mattlidus, 157 et seq. 36 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. SECTION X. THE FIRST SENDING FORTH OF THE DISCIPLES, AND THE INSTRUCTION WHICH OUR LORD GAVE THEM IN ITS SIGNIFICATION FOR ALL TIMES. (Chap. ix. 35-xi. 1.) On His first evangelistic journey in Galilee, Jesus liad visited the mountain districts. His second was over the sea to the districts on the other side of it. On setting out on His third, He goes south- ward to the cities and villages in the populous low lands bordering the Sea of Galilee on the west. On this journey, as always. He enters into the synagogues, teaching and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and heals every sickness and every disease (every positive and negative defect) which came in His way. During His journey in this direction, there was an extraordinary increase of the multitudes which gathered around Him. The people pressed upon Him with a thousand distresses and impor- tunities of body and soul, with an ill-defined but powerful feeling that He was the right Helper. He understood this great press of people surrounding Him in always increasing number. He felt with compassion how forsaken these people were, notwithstanding their princes, judges, and rabbis. They appeared to Him like scattered and fainting sheep which have no shepherd — like a flock broken up. But the greater the pressure around Him in His human form, the more the one displaced the other. He felt that it had now 1)ecome a matter of necessity to multiply, by the co- operation of His disciples, His outward means of working. Hence He said to them, ' The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few : pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into the harvest.' They ought to prepare themselves witli this prayer, that ^they might be made fit for being by Him sent out as labourers. The separating, calling, and consecrating of the Twelve next took place. He gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. A messenger of Christ is as such always furnished with a power to bless which must accompany and confirm His word. The follow- ing is the list of the apostles given by Matthew : — The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother ; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother ; Philip and Bartholomew ; Thomas, and Matthew the publican ; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus ; Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. The twelve apostles are the representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel. But they are themselves, in their number of twelve, the types of the unfolded fulness of the kingdom of God. Twelve contains the number of the Spirit, i.e., three multiplied by the number of the world, i.e., four. Thus it is the number of the transformed world in its grand outlines. The disposing of the disciples in pairs, intimates that no THE FIRST SENDING FORTH OF THE DISCIPLES. 37 one by himself is a sufficient representative of the fulness of Christ ; that one has always to supplement the other by conditioning and restraining him, as well as by enlarging and animating him. The instruction which the Lord gave to His messengers was, doubtless, primarily applicable to this first mission; but it is so significant in all its expressions, and contains such comprehensive definitions, such general elements, that it must be regarded as the type of all missions connected with the kingdom of Christ, He began by telling His messengers whither they should go, first negatively : ' Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not ; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,' This direction holds good for the disciples this time in its most peculiar sense, for Christ's work must be executed first in Israel. Besides, the disciples were not yet capable of preaching to Gentiles and Samaritans. So long as in their eyes the Gentiles were Gentiles, and the Samaritans Samaritans, they had no power over their spirits ; this power they acquired only after they were able to get out of their errors, and to discover the connecting links ' of the primeval religion, whereby they were capable of recognizing in them the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This direction holds good in the more general sense for all Christ's messengers. They ought always to go first to the best prepared and most receptive, with whom they are historically the most closely connected, and take courage to visit the distant only when these are brought spiritually near, when they perceive some point of rela- tionship on which they may lay hold with success. The commission of the apostles was in the following terms : ' Go and preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.' They are to announce the approach of a kingdom which consists in this, that God no longer deals with men through symbolic media and media- tors as if from afar, but that through Christ He dwells in their hearts, and so rules the world. They are to confirm their message in this fallen world as the word of this kingdom by quickening operations, even unto raising the dead, and by purifying operations, even unto casting out devils. Thus they are to bring the highest riches to men ; therefore they seem entitled to claim the highest reward. As teachers who teach the kingdom of heaven, as spiritual princes laying its foundations, as physicians whose healing operations extend even to raising the dead, as men who ennoble human society, who free it from the power of all unclean spirits, they must, according to the supposi- tions of the carnal mind, be able to lay claim to unbounded re- muneration. But the appointment in regard to their honorarium is shortly this: 'Freely ye have received, freely give,' They are not to esteem as venal the gifts of free grace ; they are not to pro- pagate the kingdom of love according to the principles assumed in the kingdom of merchandise or trade. Neither should they be anxiously careful about their means of 38 THE GOSPEL ACCOKDING TO MATTHEW. support : ' Provide neither gold, nor' silver, nor brass, in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet a staff: for the workman is worthy of his meat.' This added clause shows how we are to understand the former direc- tions. They should not anxiously fear that, as messengers of the kingdom of heaven, they would not find means of support where- ever they went, and consequently provide themselves with a store of provisions for their journey. They were to set out lightly girded, in the confidence that, as messengers and founders of the kingdom of love, they w^ould everywhere find their reward in the gifts of free recognition of their labours. Our Lord's second direction thus supplements the first. They were indeed never to sell the message of the Gospel ; but, on the other hand, they were not to suppose that it was necessary for them first to provide large supplies in order to be able to spread the Grospel, but should expect tliat the receptive who had received their heavenly blessings would willingly, reverentially, and with free love, supply their earthly wants. Our Lord next gives instructions regarding the way and manner of spreading the Gospel. The first rule is this : ' Into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy (of your entering and abiding with him) ; and there abide till ye go thence.' They were not to go at once to the first one ready to receive them, but to search for the most receptive, who as such was most worthy of this distinction. This man's house they should not leave too soon or too hastily, but only when they leave the place. So they were to make that house a church. This intimates that the Church should always begin her work with the most receptive and best prepared — should concentrate her force in the family, and from it go out unto the world. The second preparatory rule is : ' When ye come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it ; but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.' It cannot be a salutation in the common sense that is referred to here. Rather they were to salute those men who, after careful inquiries, were pointed out to them as pious, as kindred in spirit and brethren, because God had wrought in them and prepared them for their arrival. And the possibility of occasional mistake should not mis- lead them in regard to the rule. In the first case, the inhabitants of the house soon become partakers of their peace ; in the second, they themselves lose nothing of their blessing. But for this case a third rule follows : 'And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city (in the whole of which no one worthy is to be found), shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.' They should shake off the dust of their feet as a sign of fellowship being broken off, and depart quickly and hasten away to preach the Gospel elsewhere ; for judgment quickly follows the foot- steps of the despised messengers of deliverance. Either the baptism with the Holy Ghost, or the baptism with Fire: that is the motto THE FIEST SENDING FORTH OF THE DISCIPLES. 39 of the divine rule in the latter times ; — things hasten on to the final decision. The judgment, however, comes proportionate to the message of salvation which has been despised ; and in this respect a heavier judgment must naturally overtake the despisers of the unfolded salvation of the New Testament, than the despisers of the dark commencements of the tlieocrac}^, however loudly the guilt of these too may cry to heaven. By what has been last said, our Lord had already indicated the unfavourable reception which they and their preaching would in general receive. ' Behold,' He continues, ' I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves : be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men : for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues ; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.' So openly did the Lord unveil to His disciples the future which stood before them in His service. This disclosure evidently pointed to something far beyond what should befall them on their first mission : He found it neces- sary to tell them once for all, what reception they had, as His mes- sengers, to expect from the world. As the wolfish nature is excited in the wolf when he sees the sheep, so is enmity in the natural man at the approach of the messengers of salvation, who in the patient love of Christ really show themselves to be such. Hence they should with the wisdom of the serpent beware of men. But this prudence must be kept in its purity by the simplicity of the dove, and not seek by wrong means to escape the cross. They should be prepared for being rejected, sometimes by formal and ceremonious judgments (before the councils), and at other times by zelotistic tumults (in the synagogues), nay, even to be delivered up by the Jews to the rulers of the Gentiles. But the world would thereby give them testimony that they had faithfully proclaimed to it the Gospel message. This disclosure was well fitted to cast down any false enthusiasm with which they might desire to set out. Yet they were not to be discouraged or full of anxiety respecting those persecutions, but only consider the proper course of conduct. What this should be in persecution. He next describes to them. ' But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.' So free from care and full of divine joy are they to await the hours of judicial decision, because the Spirit of Christ lives and speaks in them, and hence can speak through them. In this the Lord has given them the first great word of comfort for their sufferings. They do not need to be full of anxiety lest in conducting His cause they may come to shame — do not need to be painfully solicitous for well-set phrases : the Holy Ghost Himself will plead their cause. Yet they were not to imagine that thereby the enmity of the world against them would be at once removed. They should rather recognize that these persecutions were inevitable ; for from thence- forth, as our Lord further shows, the brother shall deliver up the 40 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, brother to death, and the father the chikl ; and the chikh'en shall rise UY) against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. If their nearest relatives are so enraged against believers, it cannot be mere misundei-standings that are referred to : the persecutions of the world are directed not merely against the men who are the messengers of Christ, but against Christianity itself, Christ ex- pressly declares this : ' Ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake,' Thus Christians will have to endure manifold trials ; He adds, therefore, the encouraging word, ' He that endureth to the end shall be saved.' While announcing the severe trials which await them, our Lord gives them, very distinctly, the second word of comfort. They receive the certainty that they shall find friends in the world who will receive their message and maintain it with the greatest faithfulness, who will esteem fellowship with Christ and with them higher than the strongest blood-relationship, yea, even than life itself. Our Lord comforts them afresh with the saying. ' But when they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another ; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come.' Thus they might and should withdraw from the rage of their persecutors if circumstances permitted, yet on the im- plied condition, that wherever they went they would again preach the Gospel, In thus fleeing and carrying the Gospel always farther and farther, where it would find reception, they were not to be afraid that they would be soon over with the cities of Israel, the receptive places. They shall have work until the coming of Christ, even unto His last coming at the end of the world. Further, they have the comfort that He goes before them in all these sufferings, so that they only share His lot, ' The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call those of His household ! ' But in respect to these and all other insults which they have to endure, they may take as ground of further comfort, that the tribunals would place their name and their cause in the clearest light. ' Fear them not therefore ; for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known.' Confident of this, they themselves are to strive earnestly for openness in boldly proclaiming to the world the words which He has told in their con- fidential circle. ' What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light ; what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops.' So they are not to let themselves be intimidated by the world's calumnies, but to hope with confidence for their justification before the most open tribunals, especially before the supreme and open tribunal before which the world shall be judged. Our Lord gives them a special ground of comfort while pointing out the bodily sufferings which await them : ' And fear not them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear THE FIRST SENDING FORTH OF THE DISCIPLES. 41 liim who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell/ They are not to fear the departure from life, in which they lose only the body (and it only apparently), and gain the life of their soul; but they are to fear a departure from life in which the soul, with the cor- poreity for ever belonging to it, is destroyed in hell. They are to consider that in the path of the denial of Him, they are threatened by that adversary who is a spirit, and wlio on their departure from life is able to destroy their soul and their body in hell ; therefore they should above all things fear this adversary, and consequently the denial of Himself ; while in the path of confessing Him they are opposed only by men, who can deprive them of their earthly tabernacle only, but must let the soul with its indwelling corporeity go into its proper home. But men cannot deprive them of even bodily life unless by per- mission of the Father in heaven. This should be a new ground of comfort to them, that the Father watches over and protects them, and that death by the hand of man can reach them only when it is appointed for them by Grod. ' Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But as concerns you, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore ; ye are of more value than many siDarrows.' While thus tranquillizing them, He adds, by way of comfort, a great promise pointing to the future life : ' Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven.' This word of power is strengthened by the threatening, ' But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.' In order to explain that bearing witness to Him before men would continue to be a con- fession (treated by the world as an acknowledging of guilt). He adds : * Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at vari- ance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ; and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.^ These words form an intro- duction to another word of comfort which He now solemnly ex- presses. ' He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me ; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me ; and he that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me.' Hence follows that the faithful fol- lowers of Christ who are ready to bear the cross after Him are called worthy of Him, and shall appear as His friends and of His household. This implies the comforting and elevating assurance, that as faith- ful witnesses of Christ, they shall gain their soul's eternal happiness. ' He that findeth his life,' says Christ, ' shall lose it ; and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.' And now He can tell them yet one thing more : they shall pro- cure not only their own eternal happiness, but also that of others. 42 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. They shall go forth into the world invested with the dignity of Christ, and spread ahroad the blessings of His life. This is the meaning of tlie saying : ' He that receiveth you, receiveth Me ; and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me. He that re- ceiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward ; and he that receiveth a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward. And who- soever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.' Our Lord thus accumulates and arranges the great grounds of comfort which encourage His witnesses to he faithful in persecution. The Spirit which lives in them will plead for them Avith power. They shall, as children of the Spirit, he upheld by Him. In bear- ing their testimony, they shall everywhere find friends ready to share distress and death with them. And if they are no longer tolerated in any place, they can always proceed to another, with the assured confidence that they shall find receptive circles sufficient, and more than sufficient, to occupy their time until the end. They will find the path of suffering already opened up to them, for He Himself, the Lord, goes before them, enduring the severest trials. In the light of the new world the insults of their enemies shall all be set in their proper insignificance ; and if their enemies seek to harm their life, they can at the utmost only deprive them of their body, which very thing raises their soul with the true life above every danger which the dark enemy of their life prepares for them. But no enemy shall be able to injure even their bodily life without the per- mission of their heavenly Father, for they are under His special protection. Thus they shall triumph over their enemies in every direction. And this will be their eternal gain : they shall be glori- fied before the Father l)y the Son. They shall be acknowledged by Christ as faithful partners of His Spirit and life. They shall gain the life of their life. As bearing about with them the life of Christ, yea, even Cod's fulness of grace, they shall, wherever they go, spread abroad body, life, and blessedness in the world ; even in their neces- sities they shall be a blessing to those who gave them refreshment, because they are Jesus' disciples. After our Lord had sent forth the apostles with these instructions, He continued His own journey (with a retinue of other discijdes), to teach and to preach ' in their cities.' Probably He visited the the larger places Himself, while the apostles were sent round to the smaller places, the market-towns and villages (comp. xi. 1 with ix. 35). NOTES. 1. On the connection between these instructions and our Lord's discourse, lAike, chap, xii., and the sending forth of the seventy disciples, Luke, chap, x., see above, vol. ii., p. 198 ; and on Luke x., vol. ii. p. 440. Christ's conflict with the spirit of his people. 43 2. Gfroi-er (d. heil Sage, p. 23) discovers in the precept, ' Go not in tlie way of the Gentiles,' &c., an Ebionite spirit, whicli, according to him, ' breathes all through the synoptic Gospels, and therefore he assumes that these precepts are falsely ascribed to Christ.' Gfrorer has not been able to see the general signification or the common coherence of these instructions. SECTION XI. THE DECIDED INLiNIFESTATION OF THE GREAT CONFLICT BETWEEN THE spirit of CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT OF HIS PEOPLE. (Chap. xi. 2-xii.) Just at the time when reverence for Jesus was at its height among the people, when increasing multitudes were streaming to Him, so that He saw Himself compelled to turn His ministry into_ a sevenfold one (supplementing His own activity by six pairs of dis- ciples), the signs of the great conflict between His spirit and the spirit of His people began to show themselves in increasingly sus- picious forms. It was a sign of the most serious kind, that even John the Baptist was for a moment in danger of falling into mistake regarding Him, and that, while in this frame of mind, he was constrained to com- mence that lengthened course of repeated conflicts which Jesus now had to undergo. While Jesus was teaching in the cities of Galilee, preaching the Gospel and working miracles, John lay in suffering and deep conflict of soul in the prison, into which the arbitrary des- potism of Herod Antipas had cast him. His frame of mind is testified by the message which he sent to Christ through two of his disciples, asking Him, ' Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another ?' The Evangelist remarks expressly, that he w^as moved to put this question by what he had heard of the w^orks of Christ. Hence it appears that information regarding the works of Christ must have partly encouraged him in the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, but also partly made him uncertain in this belief. When his disciples told him that Jesus ate with publicans and sin- ners, that He expended so much time on single works of love, and that in general His highest aim seemed to be only to comfort the people, that must have appeared surprising to him, especially at a time when the insolence of a despot had cast the herald of the Mes- siah into prison. He felt, with reason, that this people, who let their prophets pine in prison, were ripening for severe judgments. He was also certain in his mind that the Messiah should come_ to judgment, but had no clear conception respecting the distinction between Christ's first and second coming. And yet he saw nothing of the judicial activity of Christ ; hence his uneasiness. But at the same time, Christ's miracles could not fail to strengthen him in his former faith. So there arose in him an impatient desire that Jesus should come forth openly as the Messiah ; and by the ques- 44 THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO MATTHEW. tion which he openly put, he really seemed desirous of compelling Him to do so.^ But although the Baptist could not now quite understand the Messiah, to whom he had at God's command borne witness before the people, yet by God's grace, and the entire openness of his great mind, he was thoroughly guarded against defection from Christ. An indication of this was given by the fact that, in expressing his mind, he sent to Jesus Himself. Nay, in a certain sense, John seemed by this question to aim at drawing the glory of Christ to light before all the people. We must keep in mind that Jesus did not come forth openly as Messiah, that He did not work under the title of the Messiah. And John by his message now seemed to press Him to decide, to declare openly that He was the expected Messiah. For he could not expect that Jesus would give a negative answer to his question. Jesus replied to the two messen- gers, ' Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.' If our Lord expected that this representation of His works would ease John's mind, we may assume that hitherto he had received only such reports regarding Christ's activity as tended to depreciate and obscure it. But as these works were in themselves adapted to bear testimony to the divine mission of Christ, so special consideration was due to the circumstance, that they were precisely such actions as had been ascribed to the Messiah by the prophets.^ And yet our Lord's answer was so put, that John did not obtain what he probably desired, which was to cause Him to give an open explanation, which must have had for consequence an uprising of the people for the theocratic Messiah. Our Lord added the word of warning, ' And blessed is he, who- soever shall not be offended in Me.^ This was undoubtedly addressed rather to John's disciples than to John himself. And if it did con- tain a reproof for John too, it at the same time contained an expression of Christ's certainty that John would continue to main- tain the blessedness of fellowship with Him. By the question which he openly put to our Lord before the people, John had endangered Christ's reputation among the people, and still more injured his own. Our Lord was entirely unconcerned about His own reputa- tation, and therefore thought first of re-establishing the authority of His forerunner, who was assailed by doubts. It was indeed neces- sary for Him to enter further, with due caution, upon John's ques- tion, in as far as it concerned the Baptist himself. Hence, as soon as John's disciples had departed, He addressed to the people these questions regarding the Baptist : ' What went ye out into the wilder- ness to see ? A reed shaken with the wind ? But what went je out to see ? A man clothed in soft raiment ? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out 1 Joliu's question has not been sufficiently considered under this point of view. - See Isa. xxxv. 3, 4 ct seq., xi. 1 et seq. Christ's conflict with the spirit of his people. 45 to see ? A propliet ? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send My angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee (Mai. iii. 1). Verily I say unto you. Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.' With these words He praised the rock-like stedfastness of John ; He intimated with sufficient plainness that the reason why John was not in the king's house, but in the king's prison, was that he was none of the courtiers who wear soft clotliing ; He represented him as the prophet who, as forerunner of the Messiah, surpassed all prophets, and who, by his consecration from his birth, was the greatest among all born of women (comp. Luke i. 15). Yet He continues, ' Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.' On hearing this eulogium, the Jews might reply to Jesus : If then John is so great, whence this offence or this doubt concerning thine authority ? Hence He had now to use the strongest expressions to make clear to them the distinction between the Old Testament divine economy and the New Testament kingdom of God. Even the least in the New Testament economy stands above John, inasmuch as he participates in this new birth of the life of Christ, which is not an ordinary birth of woman, but an operation of the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as he is born again through the power of the birth of Christ, and therefore can wait, bear, and suffer with Him in His New Testament spirit, and over- come through the cross. Since the Lord had first designated the Baptist as the precursor of the Messiah, and yet declared that the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. He expressed by implication His own Messianic dignity, for He presented Himself as the founder of this new kingdom. All this was suitable to the occasion when John openly asked if He was the Messiah ; and our Lord could not depart from His resolution not to appear under the title of Messiah. After He had so strongly expressed the contrast between John's standpoint and the new life of the Spirit, according to which John continued to be the last of the old economy, He finds it necessary to bring forward the other side also, according to which John belonged to the dawn of the new time : ' And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.' Thus the birth-pangs of the new time have already begun with John, and he is the first of the two great breach-makers through whom the kingdom of heaven breaks through, and is brought to manifestation. He then intimates that the time of John was the time of prophesy : ' All the prophets and the law prophesied until John ' (prophetically announced and prepared the way for the new time). And then He observes that the fulfilment was drawing near : ' And if ye will receive it, this is Elijah who was to come (Mai. iv, 5). He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ! ' By this hint He gave the best possible intimation to the people that the time of fulfilment, the time of the Messiah, had 46 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. already begun to dawn. He named to them the first violent one with whom the kingdom of heaven had begun to break through : they should conjecture who was the second with whom the breach is decided. Jesus tlius showed that the contrast in which John stands to Him is no hostile contrast. John, notwithstanding his troubled fi-ame of mind, which forms such a contrast to our Lord's cheering and kindly proclamation of the Gospel, is at bottom one with Him. He carries out this thought still further ; but in carrying it out. He represents a new conflict, in which He finds Himself in immediate oj^po- sition to the spirit of His people. And this is worse than the former ; for it is the very ground from which that former and transitory conflict arose — it is abiding, and brings to Him death, to the people destruction. ' Whereunto shall I liken tliis genera- tion ? ' Thus He began His complaint. ' It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced : we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.' He then shows that the people had acted in this way : ' For John came neither eating nor drinking (as an ascetic in a penitential form), and they say. He hath a devil (of melancholy). The Son of man came eating and drink- ing (participating in the festive enjoyments of life), and they say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend (or companion) of publicans and sinners.' The radical perversity of the people in both cases was the idea, that their prophets should accommodate themselves to their humours, and dance to their piping, and that they were to rule their rulers. This perversity had taken two forms : the people made a demand upon John to be joyous with them; and then, again, upon our Lord to engage in penitential fastings with them. The band piping for a dance doubtless alludes to the merriment and sinful joys at Herod's court, which had put John into prison because he would not join in them ; nay, one might find in these words a prophetic reference to that dance of Herodias' daughter, which brought him to death ; while the band of mourning women represents the Pharisees and John's disciples, who sought to make it matter of reproach to our Lord, that He ate with publicans and sinners.^ He then adds: ' But Wisdom is justified of her children,' — must submit to be vindicated against alleged crimes ; and for this vindication, she must first bear her defenders. In our Lord's denunciation of the cities of Galilee, the Evangelist next presents to our view a particular form which the conflict between Christ and the Jewish people had taken. Then began He to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty works were done, because they repented not : ' Woe unto thee, Chorazin 1 AVoe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for 1 These two observations form new and important arguments in favour of the exposition formerly given of this passage. See above, vol. ii. p. 221. Christ's conflict with the spirit of his people. 47 yon. And thou, Capernaum, whicli art exalted nnto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell ; for if the mighty works which have been done inthee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee/ Our Lord had poured forth from His heart thousands of blessings on these cities. By their unbelief they had changed them into a curse, which was already beginning to show its effects in incipient judg- ments. With prophetic spirit, Jesus announced these judgments. His word has been f aliilled ; the sites of these cities are now unknown. But it was with the greatest pain that He pronounced these judgments ; for all the efforts of His compassion seemed expended in vain on the whole people of the land in which He dwelt — on Capernaum, His chosen residence — on Bethsaida, the home of three of His disciples, among whom was Peter. And this makes more wonderful the sublime elevation of His soul over this great sorrow of heart for His country in prayer to the Father : ' I thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father ; for so it seemed good in Thy sight.' He had by this prayer fortified the confidence of His victory over the whole world, and, as if in triumph. He could tell the disciples: ' All things are delivered unto Me of My Father ; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.' And if He should be persecuted by the world as a defence- less man, so much the more will He joy and rejoice in the con- sciousness that the power over the whole world lies in His heart and must one day become manifest in the world ; and if He is more or less misjudged by the whole world, even this gives Him a lively sense of the fact that the Father knows Him wholly — that He is hitl in the heart of God as a most precious secret, and God in His heart as a blessed secret — that the world cannot know Him until the Father glorifies Him befoi-e the world, and that this world will know God only when it submits to have this knowledge rev^ealed to it by Him. But how infinitely far removed from proud self-exaltation is this heavenly triumphant feeling ! This is humility in divine grandeur, that while in this frame of spirit, He exclaims, ' Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.' That first conflict between Christ and the cities on the Sea of Galilee had in the first instance only a negative form ; they showed a want_ of receptivity for His Spirit, they received Him not. But it was just in this undecidedness and lukewarmness that the positive enmity of the Pharisees could take root, and strengthen itself into a power which became more and more audacious in persecuting Him. This enmity was manifested in a series of violent conflicts. 48 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. The very first conflict shows what pains the Pharisee party took to entrap our Lord. He was going one Sabbath-day at that time through the corn-fields. His disciples were hungry, and began therefore to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. This fact did not escape the Pharisees, and it seenaed to them to afford ground for a reproach. ' Behold,' said they, ' Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath-day.' Jesus overthrew their hypo- thesis by two examples from the Old Testament. The first was intended to explain to them the law of necessity : ' Have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him ; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only for the priests ? ' (see 1 Sam. xxi. 6). Thus the law of necessity in the case of hunger is so great, that even king David, the ideal of these opponents of Jesus, ventured without hesitation to break, in this case, the ordinance of the temple. In respect to the breaking of the ordinance of the Sabbath, He gave them an explanation regarding that in His second example : ' Or have ye not read in the law, how that (licnce according to the laid) on the Sabbath-days the priests (themselves) in the temple (even) profane the Sabbath (as they must attend to the temple- service, see Num. xxviii. 9), and are blameless ? ' In the first example, the motive for suspending the ordinance was hunger ; in the second, the exigencies of the temple-service. Thus the ordi- nance of the Sabbath might be set aside by the ordinances of the temple, and these again by the demands of hunger. The require- ments of the temple stand above the requirements of the Sabbath ; in this lay the pith of the proof ; hence our Lord concludes with the declaration : ' But I say unto you, That in this place is One greater than the temple.' If then the temple conceded to hungry men bread forbidden under a penalty in other cases, the temple may set aside the Sabbath law ; and much more may He do so who is the true temple, in whom Grod dwells, in contrast to the symbol upon Mount Moriah. He then rebukes the want of love on the part of the accusers of His disciples : ' But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice (Hos. vi. 6), ye would not have condemned the guiltless.' He calls the accused the guilt- less ; and He has yet another ground for their being so, which, with sublime self-consciousness, He freely declares to His proud opponents : ' For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day.' In Him the true Sabbath has appeared, which the Jewish Sabbath only represented symbolically and made legal preparation for, and from which the true Sabbath-peace proceeds. But as the Pharisee party, who made the outward Sabbath a curse and a burden to the people, would not tolerate works of necessity on that day, neither would they works of love. And this spirit actuated the party in all places. This was shown by our Lord being soon after again assailed in another place by the Phari- sees, because He made a man whole on the Sabbath. He came Christ's conflict with the spirit of his people. 49 into a synagoo;ue ; and, behold, there was a nmn wlio had a withered hand. The Pharisees asked Him, saying, ' Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day ? ' They seemed from the outset determined to make an affirmative answer to this question a sin in Him. This time Jesus corrects them by an example, taken, in a way well fitted to make them abashed, from their own manner of acting : ' What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath-day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out ? How much then is a man better than a sheep ? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days.' Moreover, in spite of His antagonists. He did not rest satisfied with delivering His opinion, but turning to the sufferer. He said, ' Stretch forth thine hand ! ' The man stretched it forth, a lively sign that in opinion he held with Christ against the Pharisees. And imme- diately his hand was restored whole, like as the other. But the Pharisees had already forgotten the example of the sheep fallen into a pit : they went out and held a council against Christ, how they might destroy Hira. It is true that Jesus was able still to withdraw Himself from their snares by going to another place, where He was surrounded by many attached bands of adherents ; but by this retreat He did not avoid the third conflict with the Pharisees which arose soon after, and was more serious than the two former. At this period of His ministry, Jesus specially sought to secure the greatest quiet- ness. He healed all the sick who flocked to Him in multitudes, but He charged those who were healed that they should not make Him known. Thus He displayed at that time the greatest activity in His works of love under the protecting veil of concealment, as if He were come for rescue to His people like a blessed angel in spirit-like secrecy. But in this, the peculiar character of His activity was most expressly manifested ; and thus was fulfilled what Isaiah had prophesied respecting the activity of God's Ser- vant : ' Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen ; My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry ; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory; and in His name shall the Gentiles trust' (Isa. xlii. 1 et seq.) But His enemies were not at rest, and they soon brought again the spirit of disturbance into this sacred circle, in which Jesus was calmly working miracles of grace and life. There was brought unto Him one possessed with a devil, blind, and at the same time dumb. Jesus healed him. The man who had been separated from the outer world, shut up in dark demoniac imprisonment, now spoke and saw again. This miracle almost brought the people to decision. The whole multitude that surrounded Him were seized with a sacred awe, and gave utterance to their feelings by exclaiming, ' Is not this the Son of David ? ' But when the Pharisees heard it, VOL. IV. D 50 THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO MATTHEW. they came forth, as on a former and similar occasion,'^ with the bold blasphemy, ' This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.' When Jesus perceived their sullen thoughts (discovering their inward suUenness in their countenances), He said to them, ' Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation ; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand : and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against him- self ; how shall then his kingdom stand ? ' - He added another remark, in order to make a conclusive reply to their blasphemy: ' And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children (the exorcists, see vol. ii. p. 268) cast them out ? Therefore they shall be your judges (namely, on their theories, according to which, prayer, the fear of God, and faith were connected with such works). But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you' — has shed its morning beams upon you. He now shows them by a similitude that it must be so : ' Or else, how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.' He then lays before them a criterion, according to which they must acknowledge themselves to be His enemies ; and this criterion, by the divine feeling which animates it, cannot but excite the dark feeling, that standing there as enemies of the Messiah, they are enemies of God : ' He that is not with Me is against Me ; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad.' He felt Himself constrained to follow this up by uttering the awful and solemn warn- ing : ' All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.' This word of our Lord denotes the extremity to which sin, from its very nature, tends from the outset. It will become blas- phemj' — bold, insulting aspersion of the Living One, even blasphemy of the Holy Ghost — of the highest and clearest revelation of the divine life to the mind. But that is as much as to say, that it wilfully tends to raging spiritual madness, in which man scoffs at the highest experimental knowledge he can have of the Eternal One ; in which, on the one hand, he, under constraint, bows the knee in blasphemy before the Eternal, condemning himself by his mind being at vari- ance with his action, and so falling into madness ; and, on the other hand, dedicates to death the remains of his better life, the experi- ence he has had of the Holy Ghost, by intentionally seeking to revile and blacken the clearest light of the Holy Ghost, who with- draws from him and leaves him to the darkness of his own delusions. Sin, in its second, strengthened, historical form, as misconduct ^ The healing on a former occasion of a dumb demoniac, Matt. ix. 32 et seq. On the difference between that narrative and this, see vol. ii. p. 168. ^ It is evidently the logical consequence, not the ethical, that is referred to here. This against De AVette's observations in the Commentar zu Matth. 117. Comp. also Olshausen, ii. 85. Christ's conflict with the spirit of his people, 51 towards Christ, specially tends to this awful goal (see John xvi. 9). True, the highest summit of this guilt is by its very nature inac- cessible ; for in proportion as one blasphemes, he no longer sees the Holy Ghost, and in proportion as one perceives Him, he can no longer blaspheme. But the presumptuous unbeliever can come near to this summit, until giddiness of spirit casts him down into an abyss of judgment and spiritual frenzy, which in duration extends throughout the present and the coming a3on.^ Our Lord now calls upon them to give their judgment upon their life according to their fearful conduct. Either, or — ' make the tree good, and with it you have the good fruit ; make the tree corrupt, and you make its fruit corrupt also ; for the tree is known by its fruit. 0 generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things ? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things ; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg- ment.' In order to make the full import of these w^ords sensible to them, He lays down a proposition which may at first sight seem very hard to believe, but the deep meaning of which becomes always more and more manifest : ' For by thy words thou shalt be justfied, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.' After this rebuke by Jesus, certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees seemed desirous of putting on an appearance of goodness, or, it may be, to calm their conscience. They professed themselves ready to receive Him as the Messiah if He would fulfil the requisite preliminary condition. By this they understood a sensible sign from heaven, of which they had, from misunderstood expressions of the prophets (e.g., Joel ii. 30 and iii. 15), formed a conception after their own fancies, and which they considered as the necessary attes- tation of the Messiah. ' Master,' said they, ' we would see a sign from Thee.' But Jesus told them, that instead of the sign descend- ing from above, which they wished to see, they should receive one ascending from beneath. ' An evil and adulterous generation,' exclaimed He, ' seek after a sign ; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah : for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.' This was the fearful sign they had to receive, since by their un- belief with respect to Him they sank lower than the heathen. This is what He gives them to reflect upon. He had formerly spoken of the heathen whose judgment should be less than that of the unbe- lieving Jews ; He speaks now of heathen who, by their ready repentance and belief, can be judges of the unbelieving Jew^s. Of these He mentions the Ninevites first. ' They shall,' says He, 'rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, ^ Comp. on this sin, Nitzsch'a System of Christian Doctrine (Clark's Tr.), p. 283-5. 52 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. because they repented at the preaching of Jonah (without having seen the sign of Jonah) ; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here/ Nay, there have been not only such heathen cities who received with repentance the solitary theocratic messenger coming to them from afar, but also heathen souls who, drawn by an obscure report, and following their best presentiments, came from afar to learn the wisdom of the theocrats. Our Lord pi'aises the queen of the south, who visited Solomon, as being such a child of longing. ' She shall," said He, ' rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it ; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; and,' again making application, ' behold a greater than Solomon is here.' He now returns to the subject of casting out devils, and puts it to their conscience how much they by their perversity counteract the blessed effects wrought l)y Him. ' When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came out ; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there ; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.' This was His experience in regard to the Jewish people. "When He, as here, cast out one devil out of the people in the possessed among them, that same devil, with seven others still worse (blaspheming spirits), speedily stood opposed to Him again in His blaspheming antagonists. And in opposition to the accusation that He wrought by the power of Beelzebub, He reminds them that they allow themselves to be ruled by the seven devils, which denote guilty and willing connec- tion with Satan (see vol. i. p. 441-2). This conflict of Jesus with the scribes and Pharisees was so great, and the decided and strong way in which He came forth against them caused such anxiety to many, that even His mother and brethren lost their self-possession for an instant. They heard of His unparalleled boldness, and came, probably from anxious care, in connection with want of due confidence, to call Him away in order to remove Him for a time from the theatre of His ac- tivity (see above, vol. ii. 274). While He was yet speaking to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desir- ing to speak with Him. Some one brought word of this to our Lord : ' Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee.' But He gave them plainly to under- stand that He knew already what they desired, and how far they were in this case estranged from His spirit, and fell below the other believers among His hearers. In this sense He replied, 'Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?' Then He gave the reply Himself ; stretching forth His hand towards His disciples. He said, ' Behold My mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, "and mother.' UNFOLDING OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN SEVEN PARABLES. 53 So closely did He connect Himself during this great conflict with His disciples and followers, who did not yield themselves to the spirit of the people, but to the influence of His spirit, and who there- by entered into closest relationship with Him and became His spiritual family. But by firmly maintaining His higher calling and standpoint, He recalled His relations also into His spiritual family. NOTES. 1. Gfrorer disputes the connection between the denunciation of the Galilean cities (xi. 20-24) and the following section (vers. 25 et seq.) in these words : ' Physiological laws declare against the annexing of the following paragraph. Who will believe that Jesus made an immediate transition from those severe expressions against the cities of Galilee to these gentle tones in which the spirit of John's Gospel breathes ? ' We grant that the words of the second section did not immediately follow those of the first (see above, ii. 443), but nothing can be inferred from this against the inner truth of the transition from the one utterance to the other. Everything here depends upon the strength of the soaring in Jesus' soul, and the critic has to modify his physiological laws ac- cording to it. 2. According to the leading idea of this section, the Evangelist i:)laces here side by side significant transactions which took place at different times. The deputation from the Baptist came before our Lord's journey to the feast of Purim, in the second year of His ministry. The accusation brought against Him in the corn-fields took place after the Passover of the same year. The healing of the man with the withered hand falls within the same period of time, as do also the withdrawing of Christ for a quieter activity, the healing of the blind and dumb demoniac, the great conflict with the Galilean Pharisees, during the course of which Jesus' family mani- fested their wrong feeling. But our Lord's denunciation of the Galilean cities, with the following section, belong to a later period, the period of Jesus' last departure from Galilee, which took place after the feast of Tabernacles, and before the feast of the Dedica- tion (20th December) in the second year of His ministry. SECTION XIL THE UNFOLDING OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN SEVEN PARABLES. (Chap. xiii. 1-52.) The bitter experience which our Lord had to make, that the legal representatives of the Old Testament economy blasphemed as a Satanic power the Spirit which filled Him, and in which He wrought, compelled Him henceforward to use the most prudent reserve towards the people, who were on all hands infected by the spirit of His enemies, and became ruled by it ; and at the same time to take a step in advance towards detaching His institution from 54 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. the Old Testament economy, for which step He had laid the foun- dation by His Sermon on the Mount. In this mind, He proceeded with the delivery of the parables concerning the kingdom of God, which He had begun before His setting out to Gadara (see above, vol. ii. p. 141). As soon as He had broken off intercourse with His enemies, He went the same day to the sea-side, and spoke from a ship to the people assembled on the shore, a series of parables which, with those He had formerly delivered, formed a living unity (see above, vol. ii. p. 284). In this manner arose the col- lection of the seven great parables which form a definite connected succession of symbolic pictures, in which He laid down the develop- ment of the kingdom of heaven, or the New Testament kingdom of God. As to the contents of these parables, we have in them, first of all, a contrast between the friends and the enemies of the kingdom of heaven, as our Lord found them definitely marked out in Judea. The latter come before us in different shapes, first (in the bad ground), in every kind of irreceptivity, as negative opponents ; then as posi- tive antagonists (in the tares among the wheat) ; and lastly, as lifeless, worthless confessors (in tlie useless fish). Jesus means to show by these traits, and by the seven parables altogether, that that wliich He founds, the kingdom of heaven, forms a definite contrast to the Judaism which had hitherto existed. With respect to form, Jesus now clothes these doctrines in the veil of parables, because this was requisite on account of the alienated mind of most of His hearers. The holy need above all things this protection, in presence of an audience containing blasphemers, whose invectives have filled our Lord with horror, from His pure sense for the holy. He also desires by this manner of propounding His doctrines to spare His profane hearers as far as possible, or to keep them from further outraging the openly manifested truth. But as the parables serve on the one hand to veil the truth from the profane, so they serve on the other hand to unveil it to the weak, sensuous, but yet receptive capacity of the better class among the people. Lastly, these parables form for His disciples and for His Church clear symbolic forms in which eternal views of Christ's truth have been given them (see vol. i. 473, &c.) In the first parable Christ delineates to us the founding of the kingdom of heaven by the word of God, the negative hindrances which in all kinds of human irreceptivity oppose its success, and the glorious success which it nevertheless finds in the receptive. This is the parable of the sower : ' A sower went forth to sow. Some of his seed fell by the way-side, and the fowls came and devoured them up : some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth ; and forthwith they sprung up, just because they had no deepness of earth ; and when the sun Avas up, they were scorched ; and because they had no root, they withered away : and some fell among thorns ; and the thorns sprung up and choked them : but others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, UNFOLDING OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN SEVEN PARABLES. 55 some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some tliirtyfold.' That the practical application of this parable was very easy, was pointed out by Christ in the concluding clause : ' Who hath ears to hear, let him hear,' Attached to this parable we have the discussion between Christ and His disciples concerning the question why He spoke to the people in parables, — a discussion which may in certain respects be considered as a continuation of the parable itself, as it gives an explanation of the sower's method who scatters the seed of the eternal word, of the grounds which determine Him to choose this parabolic form, and as it concludes with an interpretation of the parable. ' Unto you it is given,' said Christ, ' to know the mys- teries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance ; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he (perchance still) hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables ; because they seeing, see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith (chap, vi.). By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive : for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed ; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.' Once already, in the days of Isaiah, the people had been deeply indisposed towards the word of God. This word had had the mournful effect rather of rendering the people callous than of enlightening them, and the prophet had recognized therein a judgment of God, and announced this judgment in fulfil- ment of his commission. But according to Christ's words, this announcement had not received its complete fulfilment until now ; for now the people of Israel were hardening themselves against the word of Jehovah bodily manifested. Therefore Jesus spoke to the people in parables. In this connection the word declares a judgment which Christ in His compassion seeks to mitigate. His compassion teaches Him to choose the parable-form that the hardening of the wicked might be hindered, and the better class heli)ed as much as possible. He adds, ' But blessed are your eyes, for they (truly) see ; and your ears, for they (truly) hear. For verily I say unto you. That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them ; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower (in His exposition). When any one heareththe word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the way-side. (He himself is a substance sown by the way-side ; for the history of his life is identical with the history of the seed which in his heart fell by the w^ay-side, and so it is with all the rest. 56 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. The lot of the divine seed in the man is the lot of the man himself. What happens to that seed in the man, happens to the man him- self.) But he that received the seed in the stony places, the same is lie that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it : yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while ; for when tribiila- lation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is oflfended (stumbles and falls). He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word ; and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into .the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it ; who also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.' Thus sin has in a threefold way spoiled the field of humanity for the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, Avhicli Christ constitutes in its perfection : the ground^of life often becomes, through the habitual dominion of the evil, a hard way-side in which nothing divine can germinate ; an enthusiastic and easily receptive sense for ' everything good, true, and beautiful ' often covers the stony hardness of the deeper ground of the mind, which hinders the quick enthusiastic fits for the Gospel from striking root ; the more receptive mind in the passive respect often lets the care of the world take root in it equally with the word of God ; but in the heart of the elect, God reserves a chosen ground, the golden acre, in which His seed thrives richly, and yields a manifold return. But it is not only negative hindrances which sin sets to the thriving of the divine seed in mankind, it sets positive liindrances also. It begets the principles of destruction which, in the form of false doctrines, false maxims, and false Messianic promises, assume the appearance of the true divine seed, and become so much the more destructive, as the enemy of Christ and of mankind casts them into the green corn-field of the kingdom of heaven itself, in order thereby to destroy God's crop. Our Lord sets forth this fact in the parable of the tares among the wheat. The kingdom of heaven is here likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field ; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, ' Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares?' The householder at once perceived the cause, and answered, ' An enemy hath done this.'i The indignation of the servants now rose higher, and they proposed to him to go immediately and weed out the tares. But the master uttered a decided nay ; and added, ' Lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest ; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers. Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them ; but gather the wheat into my barn,' ^ According to this representation of Christ, the doctrine concerning Satan belongs to the revelation which God has given to men. UNFOLDING OF THE KINGDOBI OF HEAVEN IN SEVEN PARABLES. 57 A significant meaning may be found in the fact that our Lord gave the disciples a special exposition of this parable also, not immediately indeed, but later, after He had spoken the third and the fourth parable. The same thing takes place in Church history. The fall understanding of this parable seems not to grow clear to Christendom until late. In the third parable, the hostile power has disappeared from view. We see here the action of the heavenly principle alone, although at first apparently in the most insignificant form. ' The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field : which indeed is the least of all seeds ; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree.' It appears even to change its species, and transform itself from a herb into the likeness of a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Thus the principle of the kingdom of heaven, Christ's institution, is to appearance exceed- ingly insignificant in its first shape ; but in its development it grows above all expectation into a giant form. The Lord foresaw that His gentle kingdom of heaven would grow up into the simili- tude of another species of spiritual planting, namely, into the similitude of a great worldly state, and that birds of all kinds would come to lodge in the bush-like giant plant. This parable already expresses the preponderance of the kingdom of heaven over the world, and in the following this preponderance appears in its absolute form : ' The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid (as if she meant to bury it) in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.' Thus the kingdom of heaven acts towards the essential substance of man's life as leaven to dough, in close relation and with preponderating influence ; and the Church is the woman who (intermediating between Christianity and mankind) kneads this leaven into that lump, until it disappears. But we need be under no apprehension regarding this mixture : the higher divine-human force of Chris- tianity lays hold of the whole of the dough, the mass of mere human life, until it becomes leaven itself. The Church, which seems to be lost in the world, swallowed up in it, shall, by her preponderat- ing power, transform the world itself into a great universal Church. The Evangelist felt that Jesus had, in these four parables, given an outline of the entire development of the kingdom of heaven in its relation to the course of time. All these things, he remarks, spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables ; and without a parable spake He not unto them ; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables ; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world (what formed th§ secret, deepest life-ground of the world, see Ps. Ixxviii. 2). That Matthew considered the sacred psalmists as prophets, should, from his lively conception of pro- phecy, cause no surprise.^ ^ As it still does, for example, to De Wette, 127. 58 THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO MATTHEW. Christ had thus rehearsed to the assembled people in four parables (the number of the world) the history of the kingdom of heaven in general — how it comes into the world, and becomes the kingdom of God over the world. He now sent the multitude away, in order still further to rehearse to His disciples apart, in three parables (the number of the Spirit), the doctrine of the individual man's coming to the kingdom of heaven and his relation to it. But first, at their request, He explained to them, in the confidential circle in which they surrounded Him, the parable of the tares among the wheat. So it was not until they formed a circle sepa- rate from the nniltitude that they got this explanation : ' He that sowetli the good seed is the Son of man ; the field is the world ; the good seed are the children of the kingdom ; but the tares are the children of the wicked one ; the enemy that sowed them is the devil ;^ the harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His king- dom all things that offend, and them who do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnash- ing of teeth.' Thus the outward separation between the children of the king- dom and the children of iniquity is not to be carried into effect now, but latterly, at the end of the world. And it shall then be put into execution, not by the sinful field-labourers of the kingdom, but by the perfected angels of God. And these will be still more able to avoid mistakes in distinguishing between the wheat and the tares (the darnel or cockle), as their dissimilarity, regarding which one might be deceived on their first springing up, has now com- pletely manifested itself. But the fire into which the children of the wicked one, who have become identified with things that offend, shall then be cast, shall not be in the worst sense purposeless (like that too hasty and false caricature of the final judgment, the fire of the auto-da-fe), but shall be a fire in the furnace, and serve for an economy of judicial administration, which economy also has its special purpose to serve in the great, eternal hoiLsehold of God. That exclusion of the bad will set free the kingdom of the light from the primal sympathetic pi'essure which has weighed upon it by means of the outward connection between both regions of life, and it shall forthwith become manifest in a glorious shining forth of the righteous : ' Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath cars to hear, let him hear.' Special account should be taken of this, that the Church then first can and shall attain to her proper glory of manifestation. This may be concluded also from the three parables in which our Lord shows us how the individual man comes into the kingdom of ^ Compare the former observation in respect to this revelation. An accommodation of Christ to the popuhir representations cannot he maintained here : He spealis of the devil distinctively, and tliat in the confidential circle of the disciples. UNFOLDING OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN SEVEN PARABLES. 59 lieaven : tliey show how very concealed from the world, and yet outwardly mixed with the world, the kingdom will continue until the end of the world. We learn here, as has been intimated already, in the first two parables, how a man comes into the kingdom of heaven. The first is this : ' Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field ; the which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.' What is common to both parables is, that the kingdom of heaven, in every stage of its public extension in the world, con- tinues, as to its proper nature, a secret which a man must find out from a great concealment, that it is imparted to the receptive man only as an extraordinary discovery, that he must surrender every- thing in order to appropriate it, and that the right finder of the kingdom of heaven is really ready to do this with great joy. But, at the same time, the two parables form a definite contrast. In the first, the comparison is with a treasure which is found unexpectedly ; in the second, with a seeking man. The first displays rather the action of divine grace, and the second, human endeavour in the work of conversion. In the first, the man is bent on seeking his bread by cultivating the field, doubtless with pious behaviour ; but deep in the ground of the law he finds the Gospel hid, which makes him rich at once, after he has given up all for it. In the second, the man sets out as a merchant in spontaneous search of fortune, as a seeker, a man of longing ; he searches for goodly pearls, the noblest riches of life ; and as soon as he descries tlie precious pearl, his search is at an end, and his choice is decided. Without doubt our Lord has described to us in this last figure the ' few noble ' of the kingdom of heaven. But the last parable shows us that they are not all genuine members of the kingdom who enter into even the New Testament Church, but that, at the end of the world, judgment must pass upon the Church also, which then embraces the whole world. Here the kingdom of heaven is represented by a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind (fish and sea-monsters) ; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. ' So shall it be at the end of the world,' said Christ in explanation. ' The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.' ' Have ye understood all these things ? ' asked He of His disciples at the close of this second discourse. They answered, ' Yea, Lord.' After this explanation He characterized also His discourse itself in a parable-form : ' Therefore every scribe who is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.' By the new, our Lord doubtless understands those parts of His discourse which the hearers do not at first understand, and which need to be explained 60 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. to them, as for example the first parables here ; and by the old, He means those parts of the discourse which the hearers can understand at once, through previous and preparatory instruction, as the dis- cijjles here do the last parables. NOTES. 1. The parable of the sower, and of the grain of mustard-seed (as well as that of the gradual natural development of the seed, Mark iv. 26 et seq.), were very probably spoken by our Lord before His departure to Gadara ; and the others daring His last and much disturbed wanderings through Galilee, in the second year of His ministry. 2. Gfrorer finds (p. 33) a contradiction in this, that Jesus, accord- ing to Matthew, spoke the last three parables to the disciples in the private circle, after having shortly before designated the parable- form as a lower form of teaching, intended only for the instruction of the people. But the exposition of the two great parables, which He gave to the disciples apart, is a proof that He did not mean to exclude the disciples from this kind of instruction ; but the distinc- tion appeared specially in this, that He seldom taught the disciples by parables, and that He could exjoound them to them apart at their request. There [was also another and a special motive — the con- clusion of the doctrine of the kingdom of God in the parable-form. Gfrorer, moreover, affirms that these parables ' have a very moderate value.' The Talmud contains hundreds, partly quite similar, and ' partly still finer ' (p. 36). Pity that he does not give us this hundred of such parables ! SECTION XIII. THE MESSIAH BANISHED AND EXPELLED FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY, AND THE DISTANT JOURNEYS HE THEN TAKES. (Chap. xiii. 54-xvi. 12.) It was not only in His manner of teaching, as shown by His choice of the parable-form, but also in His life itself, that our Lord, since His great conflict with the Pharisee spirit of His people, had to maintain the utmost reserve and retirement. Now began the time in which He could hardly any more walk about in Galilee, free, undisturbed, and without danger. The hostile party encoun- tered Him everywhere, and excited movements which might easily lead to His apprehension and execution. But although at these times He often retired before them, and although His journeys con- nected therewith sometimes assumed the appearance of flight, yet we cannot see in these appearances the slightest indication of Christ's abandoning His post. We rather see here characteristic facts of the mutual repulsion between His spirit and that of the Pharisees, which facts present themselves in an outward withdrawal of Jesus. They bear the stamp of Jesus' voluntary self-banishment. THE MESSIAH EXPELLED FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY, 61 The element of foresight is certainly one operative cause : He will not lightly give Himself up to His enemies before His time is come. His relation to the disciples must also be taken into account : they must be prepared for the dangerous time of the separation of His cause from the cause of the people. Christ also makes use of these excursions and short journeys to arm Himself in silent resolution for His going up to Jerusalem. The Evangelist, in his thoughtful manner, has collected together all these separate influences, and has represented them in a definitely marked progression. The treatment which Jesus experienced first of all in His own city stands at the head, like a dark foretoken of all later rejections. He came into His own town, and taught there in the synagogue. ^ His countrymen were astonished at Him, and said, ' Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works ? Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not His mother called Mary ? and His brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas ? And His sisters, are they not all with us ? Whence, then, hath this man all these things?' And they were offended in Him, adds the Evangelist. He gives no account of the act by which they expressed this. Enough that Jesus saw Himself limited in His working by the unbelief of His countrymen, and could not do many mighty works there. He saw Himself compelled to leave Nazareth, uttering the saying : ' A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house.' This experience was, however, continued in still larger propor- tions. The prince, too, of His own country, Herod, compelled Him to leave his territory. It was shortly after he had caused John the Baptist to be beheaded. About this time the fame of Jesus' deeds spread more than ever in Galilee. When Herod heard of Him, he said to his servants, ' This is John the Baptist ; he is risen from the dead ; and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him ' (which, in Herod's opinion, were in him before, but bound as yet). For explanation of what has been said, the Evangelist relates the fate of John. Herod had laid hold of John, and bound him, and put him in prison, for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife ; for John had said to him, ' It is not lawful for thee to have her.' At that very time he would have put him to death, but he feared the people, because they counted him a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before the guests. This pleased Herod so much, that he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask ; and she, being before instructed of her mother, said, ' Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger ?' This terrible demand seems to have awakened the king from his festive merriment : he was sorry, but he thought that for his oath's sake, and for the sake of the guests present, he could not draw back. Thus he foolishly imagined that it was due to his ^ Only one synagogue is spoken of, — a proof that it is not the territory of His own country but Nazareth that is meant. 62 THE GOSPEL ACCOEDIXG TO MATTHEW. religion, his conscience, and his honour, to give the frivolous dancer her wished-for, bloody honorarium, the prophet's head. So he sent and beheaded John in the prison. The head was actually brought on a charger and given to the maiden, and she brought it to her mother. Then came his disciples, and took the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus. This fearful murder of a prophet had just been committed at the adulterous court, when Jesus heard that Herod the tetrarch said that he was John the Baptist risen from the dead, and was theolo- gizing on the reason why mighty works came to be manifested in Him. The Evangelist gives us plainly to understand, that by this news our Lord felt Himself constrained to depart. (See above, vol, ii. p. 237.) The tyrant, who had so sliamefully sacrificed His faithful forerunner, was becoming interested about Him. This sort of interest and inclination was more disagreeable and dangerous than enmity itself. As soon as Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship to the east side of the lake, and there retired into the loneliness of the desert. But the news of His departure spread among the people, and great multitudes from the cities on the west side soon sought Him again, by travelling on foot around the lake.^ So Jesus was compelled again to come forth from His solitude. And when He came. He saw a great multitude, whose appearance moved His deepest compassion. He began His work at once, and healed the sick who were brought to Him. At the approach of evening, the disciples reminded our Lord that the multitude could find no food in the desert place in which they were, and that therefore it was time to send them away, that they might go into the neigh- bouring viHages and buy themselves victuals. Jesus answered, ' They need not depart ; give ye them to eat.' But they made the observation, that they had no provisions except five loaves and two fishes. He said, ' Bring them hither to Me ! ' And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass.- He then took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to Heaven, He blessed and brake, and divided the loaves to His disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled ; and, more- over, took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten, remarks the Evangelist, were about five thousand men, besides women and children. But we are not justi- fied in assuming that by these latter the number of the multitude was doubled ;^ for, as the place was remote, and took a long walk to reach it, the company must have been chiefly composed of men. Thus the banished Son of man, who had not where to lay His head, fed the poor people by thousands in the wilderness, while the prince of the land was feasting riotously, and paying the wages of a dancer with the blood of a prophet. Immediately after this, Jesus constrained His disciples to get 1 If this was not meant, the expression irei'fj Avould be superfluous. " This shows that the season was spring. See vol. ii. p. 240. ' As Gfrorer conjectures, 40. THE MESSIAH EXPELLED FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY. 63 into a ship, and to go before Him in the direction which they had to take for crossing over (touching first at the east side). His direct intention was by this means to get rid of the multitude, which (as we learn more in detail from John) He could not at this time accomplish without some difficulty. The miraculous feeding had jiiroduced a fresh adherence to Him, which in the case of many assumed of necessity a very egoistic character. As our Lord had to be aware of the importunities or the snares of Herod on the west side, it may be conjectured that this circumstance had contributed to make Him send His disciples on before Him. For in this case the nuiltitude, returning home, could bring back no information respect- ing the place of His abode which would have enabled Herod to send in search of Him. Perhaps, therefore, He found it first of all neces- sary, for the sake of getting quite away from the people, to retire, after sending them away, into solitude, but not towards the sea-shore. He went up into a mountain, and there continued long in prayer. This solemn engaging in prayer by night is often in the life of Christ markedly prominent on great occasions. And such was the present experience He was undergoing. He had this day overcome two evils which always threaten the populace : first, lack of food, including without doubt the egoism on which it rested;^ and then their in- clination to found a chiliastic kingdom in a revolutionary form (see John vi. 15). Thus He had given two great signs of His Christian humanity, and founded two great blessings whose efiects continue through all ages, becoming necessarily more and more prominent. But in this night, which had already commenced, He designed to overcome and remove a third evil incident to man, namely, the terrors of the storm, distress at sea. Thus He rejoiced in thankful retrospect and hopeful prospect in the presence of His father. It was by setting out from the mount of prayer that He, as the great leader of the human race, cari-ied on all His wars, and gained all His victories. And in the midst of these three great fights and vic- tories. He had s])ecial need to be alone with His Father on the mountain top in the stillness of the night. He was still alone on the mountain at nightfall. But the disciples' little ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with the waves, for the wind was contrary. If the disciples had really received our Lord's direction to cross the sea without Him, they must have had a very quick and favourable voyage to be already half across. But if we take the view that they intended only to go before Him on the east side, in order to take Him on board at a certain point, we have a vivid presentation of the occurrence (see above, vol. ii. p. 241). The wind blew from the east or north-east, and drove them always farther from the point at which they wished to take our Lord on board. Hence their inexpressible distress ; and hence also Christ's great motive for hastening to them on the wings of love, while they were tossed by the wind and waves. He had a great aim : He wished to succour those distressed by the storm, the little ship of his agonized Church ; and so He stepped upon the water, * See above, vol. i. p. 447-S ; compare my Worte der Abivehr, 77 et seq. 64 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. and came to tliem in the fourth watch of the night, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him approaching in the form of a man walking on the waves, terror seized them. A new alarm — dread of spirits — was added to the terror of the storm. They thought He was a spirit, and became so com])letely beside themselves with fright that they cried out. But He was instantly at their side, saying, ' Be of good cheer : it is I ; be not afraid.' And how extra- ordinary a revolution was immediately produced in the hearts of His disciples by this saying, is shown by Peter's bold utterance, ' Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water.' And He said, Come ;' and Peter stepped out of the ship to go to Jesus, But he said first, //' it he Thou ; — he liad, perhaps, still retained a doubt even in the midst of his extraordinary and enthusiastic faith. And now, when he saw that a boisterous wind again rnfHed the sea, he became afraid and began to sink, having difificulty to keep himself as a swimmer above water. In this distress he cried, ' Lord, save me !' and immediately Jesus was beside him, stretched forth His hand and caught him, saying to him, ' 0 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ?' So it was only in consequence of his doubt that Peter had sunk ; a proof how much stress Christ, in the forthputting of His miraculous power, lays upon the faith of His disciples. And this very example of Peter shows that man is bound to walk in the fellowship of Christ, and in His power — even over the waves with Him. This duty, indeed, is not, as to its his- torical purport, to be displayed here below in a succession of mira- culous acts, but by a man's becoming free from the terrors of nature, winds and waves — by his becoming in Christ a free and kingly prince on and over the sea.^ Jesus now with the rescued Peter ascended the ship, and about this time the wind also ceased. The trial of the disciples was completed. They gathered around Him, and fell down before Him with the confession, ' Of a truth Thou art the Son of God.' Thus our Lord, in order to withdraw from the caprice of a despot who w^as interested about Him, went cheerfully to meet the three great distresses of man — hunger, popular excitement, and the tur- bulence of the waves. And He overcame all these hostile powers, not merely for once, but for all. From that time a silent rule of His spirit began in the world, which will finally put an end to all the terrors of famine, insurrection, storms, and floods ; and besides, and above all, to all kinds of spectral terrors, which, by their fright- ful illusions, increase threefold the real miseries of men. They thus finished their voyage across, and landed in the district of Gennesaret. And scarcely was His arrival here known, when the men of the place sent messengers into all the country round about, and brought unto Him all that were diseased. Belief in His miraculous power was at that time so firm and fast, that many ^ It is worthy of remark, that the beautiful painting which represents this Bible scene of Christ raising the sinking Peter above the waves was painted by an English ai'tist, H. Eichter. This is in keeping with the fact that the British, more than other Christian nations, have learned to walk upon the floods in the spirit of mediate his- torical miracles. THE MESSIAH EXPELLED FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY. 65 besought Him to permit them to touch only the hem of His gar- ment ; and that alone sufficed to make them perfectly whole. Our Lord was driven the third time out of Galilee by the plots of the Pharisee party. The Pharisees were bound together by the same interests throughout the whole land.^ It was, therefore, quite in their spirit to maintain constant interchange of communication regarding a personality so suspected and hated by them as Jesus was. We have no doubt that it was in connection with such associ- ations that a deputation, or at least a considerable company, of scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem to Galilee, and ques- tioned our Lord respecting an offence which they alleged the dis- ciples had lately committed (probably at their last Passover in Jeru- salem; see above, vol. ii. p. 292). The question put was this : ' Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders ? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread' (take their meals). He re- plied, ' Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your (own) tradition ? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and thy mother ; and also. He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death (Ex. xx. 12, xxi. 17). But je say, Whoso- ever shall say to his father or his mother. It is a gift (bestowed upon the temple), by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, then he is no longer to honour his father (and his mother).- Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men' (in propounding, with an empty doctorial gravity, empty and arbi- trary precepts containing no divine doctrine; see Isa. xxix. 13). After our Lord had in this way despatched His influential antago- nists with a severe castigation, He called the multitude and said unto them, ' Hear and understand : Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man (levitically or ecclesiastically, so that he may not come into the church) ; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.' This saying was a very decisive word, by which our Lord gave notice that the former laws for food, which were appointed to guard symbolically the soul's life against defile- ment, were just about to pass over into new and higher precepts concerning what could defile the soul of man ; that it was true that the mouth should still be the organ of the defilement of the life, yet not as the door of entrance for bodily food, but as the door of exit for the utterances of the spirit. In this case the disciples could not but observe very quickly what impression the words of Jesus made upon His opponents, since it was they who had given occasion for this disquisition. They now came to our Lord with the obser- vation, ' Knowest Thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying?' But Jesus answered, saying, 'Every plant ^ See Von Ammon, die Geschichte dcs Lelens Jesu, ii. 26i. - See the text iu Lachmann, in loco, VOL. IV. E 66 THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO MATTHEW. that My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone, they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' Peter ^ now wished to receive an explanation from our Lord of the saying, which seemed aimed against the former laws regarding food. Our Lord saw, by the way he made his request, that he looked upon this utter- ance as a parable — a proof that he had not understood it — and re- plied, ' Are 3'e also yet without understanding ? Do ye not yet understand that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught ? Bat those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart ; and they de- file the man (make the man unclean or common). For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies (namely, first in the tendencies, plans, and sinful imaginations of the word, which strives to make them fact). These are the things which defile a man ; but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.' On this collision with His antagonists, our Lord had not only laid down the fundamental laws in respect to New Testament purity and church order, which were symbolized by the Old Testament regulations, in opposition to the way and manner in which the Pharisees sought to change these regulations into ever-enduring maxims ; but He had at the same time given His enemies to un- derstand that His disciples had not become unclean through what had entered in at their mouth, but that they themselves were un- clean by what proceeded out of their mouth, through their mur- derous designs and blasphemies especially, with which they ever anew beset Him. He had thus designated them as persons who were righteously exposed to the sentence of excommunication. And as they were the leaders of the people, and consequently land and people were unclean through them, it may be surmised that He designed to testify symbolically to this fact by departing thence, and for the first time, so far as we know, leaving the land and betaking Himself to a heathen district. Perhaps He found it necessary, by this distant journey to a heathen land, to impress strongly upon the disciples, who still had so little comprehension of the contrast between Pharisaism and His religion of the spirit, that the sentence of uncleanuess lay upon the holy land and its inhabit- ants. But this occasion for a symbolic action for the benefit of His disciples could not have then determined Him, unless He had had a real occasion for Himself to repose a while outside of His own country from the irksome and depressing influences of hypocritical traditionalism. So He went with the disciples in a north-west direction out of His own country, in order to strengthen Himself for further conflict by tarrying for a time in quiet retirement in the borders of Phoenicia (Tyre and Sidon). Yet He could not even here remain unknown. ' And, behold,' ^ Compare Acts x. 1 i, aud the Rumisli maudates regarding fasts. THE MESSIAH EXPELLED FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY. 67 says the Evangelist, ' a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried (from a distance) unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, 0 Lord, Thou Son of David ; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.' We are not informed how she came to know the significance attached to the person of Christ ; possibly her daughter, in her demoniac condition, had designated Him as the helper. But He answered her not a word. Not only for her sake, but also for the sake of the disciples, He found Himself bound to meet the cry for help with silence. The woman could not receive the miracu- lous aid of the kingdom of God until it became manifest that she had a germ of theocratic faith, or faith in accordance with the king- dom of God, and consequently that she did not call upon Him with heathen superstitious ideas, whereby she might have imagined His miraculous power to be a kind of magic. And the disciples could not, without taking offence, look upon such a miracle of their Lord until they came to feel that a pious request of faith was uttered by this heathen woman, to which the Lord needs not refuse His compassion. Thus minded, they really came and interceded with their Master, saying, ' Send her away (with aid granted), for she crieth after us (piteously).' But He answered them, ' I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' This apparent refusal may be thus interpreted : So far as the disciples were con- cerned, everything was now clear to Him in consequence of their intercession. But Avith respect to the woman, she had yet to show whether she really could be numbered, in a spiritual sense, with the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She had in the meantime over- taken Him ; a proof that He had not walked fiist in order to hasten away from her. She cast herself down before Him, uttering the entreaty, ' Lord, help me.' But He answered, ' It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs.' It should not be overlooked here, that this saying is, in the first place, an Oriental proverb, and to be understood as such. Our Lord told her, that in the affairs of the household of God there is a definite order, as in those of an earthly household. As here the bread should not be taken from the children to give it to dogs ; so there, not from the Jews in order to cast it to the heathen. True, the proverb had in Christ's mouth a deeper sense. He declared the fundamental law, that the bread of God's miraculous aid in His kingdom is only for the childlike apprehension of fliith, but not for the heathen, dull, sensuous, and uufree superstitious belief in magic. So she too had first to show this childlike apprehension. And the form of Christ's saying served to help her to this. It was so put that the woman was obliged to find in it either a harsh Jewish word of refusal, or a cheering theocratic word, according to her spiritual frame of mind. She took it in the latter sense, and said, ' Truth, Lord ; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.' She acquiesced in the house- hold arrangements of the kingdom of God. But this house, thought she, is a rich and kindly house, in which abundance of fragments fall from the table, and are ungrudgingly given to the dogs. She 68 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. thus humbled herself on account of her heathen standpoint, and for this very reason could in faith count herself as belonging to the household of God. She so well expressed her faith in the permis- sion of the heathen to share in the blessings of the Jewish theocracy, that our Lord, marvelling, said to her, ' 0 woman, great is thy faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' And so it was done unto her : in that very hour her daughter was made whole. Her heart and her intercession were the way for the miraculous aid of Christ, which immediately reached and ransomed her absent daughter. After this, Jesus again departed and returned to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, and sat down upon a mountain to rest. But those who needed and sought His aid again found Him here : great multitudes came, bringing with them sufferers of every sort, the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others taken with the most various diseases. The pressure upon Him of such sufferers now began to assume the character of bold importunity. They cast the sufferers down at Jesus' feet without much regard to circumstances ; nevertheless He helped them. And so there arose a moving camp of divine miracles, which again overcame the spiritual indifference of the people. They saw the dumb speak, the maimed made whole, the lame walk, and the blind see, and they glorified the God of Israel. In this circle Jesus found occasion to perform the second miracle of feeding. ' I have compassion on the multitude,' said He, ' because they have continued with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat ; and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the way.' The disciples objected, 'Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness to fill so great a multitude ?' The remembrance of the former feeding does not work powerfully enough in them to make them, with silent confidence, at once expect a fresh miracle. This time also they saw, as it appears, new and special difficulties which seemed to them to stand in the way of our Lord's intention. Jesus asked them, 'How many loaves have ye? ' They answered, ' Seven, and a few little fishes.' He then again arranged the positions of the guests ; took the food as He did the former time ; and having given thanks, distributed the bread and the fishes. Again they were all filled ; and this time also there were fragments left, seven baskets full. The number of guests fed this time amounted to four thousand men, besides women and children. After this, our Lord returned to the west coast, and landed, as it appears, at an un- usual landing-place in the district of Magdala. Bat notwithstanding that Christ had departed far from the land, as if He meant to leave it for ever, and had then returned through unknown districts to the eastern side, and finally landed at an un- usual place on the western shore, yet the aroused spirit of perse- cution soon discovered Him again, and forthwith went to meet Him again with an attack which it considered as a decisive sign that His pilgrimage in Galilee would soon be at an end. It was a bad sign in the outset, that this time Pharisees and Sadducees had combined to stop His path. The combination of these two parties, which THE MESSIAH EXPELLED FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY. 69 mutually hated one another, proves that the hatred against Him had come to a climax. The step taken by these plotters was this : they desired Him to show them a sign from heaven. Thus they insisted that He should, by producing an outward cosmic phenomenon, legi- timate Himself as the Messiah ; and the alternative, that, if He did not, they meant to seize and treat Him as a false messiah, was at the same time plainly indicated. But to their assumed and merely apparent decisiveness, Jesus o]iposed the most perfect real decisive- ness. He replied to them, ' When it is evening, ye say. To-morrow it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning ye say, It will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowering. 0 ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky ; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times ! ' Thus the latter should, as our Lord hinted, lie much nearer to their thoughts than the former. He proceeds, saying, ' A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall be no sign given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah.' It lay nearer to Him now than the former time to intimate to them by that historical symbol, that His death and re- surrection would serve as a sign to them, since they were already preparing to compass His death. He then left them standing, turned round and departed. The return to the other side w^as so suddenly undertaken, and the disciples were, as it appears, so ex- cited and confused, that they forgot to take bread with them. On the way our Lord spoke to them the surprising word, ' Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.' We see that He had now quite the feeling of an exile. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they were forbidden to take any of the leaven of the Egyptians along with them. This ordinance set before them in an emblematic manner, that they ought to cleanse themselves from everything Egyptian. And when our Lord on His decisive retreat warns the disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sad- ducees, He doubtless does it with the feeling that He was now making His exodus from a popular system which had lapsed into heathenism. Nay, in reality the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt was a type which first received an entire fulfilment in the commencing exodus of Christ out of the old world. He also well knew what need His disciples had of the admonition to purge themselves from the leaven of the leaders of the people — hypocrisy and worldiiness. But the disciples did not all understand either the deep utterance or the lofty tone of their Master. They were occu- pied with entirely outward concerns. It had gradually occurred to them that, in the haste of the departure, they had not provided themselves with bread. Thus, as soon as Jesus uttered the word leaven, they thought that He intended an allusion to this circum- stance, however little His saying tallied with this thought. When Jesus perceived this misunderstanding, He corrected their mistake : ' 0 ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves because ye have brought no bread ? Do ye not yet understand, neither remem- ber the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye 70 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. took up ? How is it that ye do not nndevstand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees ? ' Now at last they understood that He warned them not against the actual leaven of bread, but against the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So little did His disciples yet understand His doctrine and His life ; and yet the decision of His earthly pilgrimage, and the trial for them connected with it, stood close at luind. Hence it was time for Him to initiate them still deeper into the consciousness of the contrast of His Spirit, and the institution He founds, to the old order of things. NOTES. 1. The Evangelist goes here far back in respect to time. For the rejection of Christ in Nazareth took place early, after His return from Judea ; it preceded His sojourn in Capernaum in tlie first year of His public ministry. The conflict with Herod Antipas took place on His return from the feast of Purim, in the spring of the second year of His ministry. On the other hand, the last two facts, Christ's journey into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and His last retreat from Galilee to Gaulonitis, really did occur after the great conflict with the Galilean Pharisees, and before Christ's going up to Jerusalem during the feast of Tabernacles, in the autumn of the second year of His ministry. 2. On the name of Herodias' husband, Philip, comp. the article under this name in Winer's R. TV. B. SECTION XIV. THE FIRST FOUNDING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH IN CONTRAST TO THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH IN ITS DEGENERATE HISTORICAL FORM. (Chap. xvi. 13-xvii. 21.) The revelation of the contrast between the New Testament Church which Christ was come to establish, and the opposite de- generated form of the Old Testament economy, had now come to maturity. He had now to fill His disciples with the consciousness that they belonged to a new community, and that they would have to carry through a difficult but victorious contest with the old. For this end He brought them to make a definite confession of His name, — a conscious confession in contrast to the vague although favourable opinions which were diffused regarding Him among His contemporaries. When they had retired into Gaulonitis, as far as the coasts of Cresarea Philip])i, He put to them the question, ' Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am ? ' They answered, * Some say that Thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.' This statement of the disciples proves two things : first, that the general public opinion in respect to the person of Jesus had been for the moment considerably lowered THE FOUNDING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 71 by the efforts of His opponents, since people now no longer ventured to desio-nate Him decidedly as the Messiah, and that they rather agreed 1o hold Him for a forerunner of the Messiah ; secondly, that their opinions concerning Him were very various, according to their various dispositions of mind. Some shared the superstitious opinion of Herod Antipas, connected with the theory of the metempsychosis, and which was designed perhaps to quiet the princes distress of conscience for the murder he had committed on John. Others, who rated Him highest, and admired His holy zeal, were inclined to see in Him the "second Elijah, the most definite forerunner of the Messiah. Others, who perhaps felt themselves more attracted by the o-entleness and winning sadness in His character and way of workmg, named Him Jeremiah. Others only made a general acknowledgment of something higher in Him, and were willing to let Him pass for one of the prophets. The disciples were now to give a distinct confession in opposition to these erroneous and diver- gent opinions ; therefore Christ asked further, ' But whom say ye that I am ?' And Simon Peter answered, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this definite confession, which he spoke in the name of all the disciples, followed Christ's blessing : ' Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father, which is m_ heaven.' The believer is blessed in confessing Christ's name ; for it does not pro- ceed from his old nature, it is to be considered as a revelation from the Father. Jesus addressed this blessing to Peter. Peter, with his fellow-disciples, had indeed before this held the Lord to be the Messiah, but he had not heretofore confessed Him as Christ with a distinct confession in opposition to the opinions of the world, of his people, of the hierarchs among his people, and with consciousness of that contrast. This clearness, power, and joyfulness of his testimony made _ it appear as a new revelation of the Father in his heart, which Christ Himself, who did not outwardly enjoin upon His followers faith in His Messiahship, but had educated them to a free, divme, living faith, greeted with heavenly joy. , Thus, then, was the first solemn Christian confession given birth to, in contrast to the insufficient and false opinions regarding Christ. And now, by this first solemn Christian confession, the first foundation was also laid for the Christian Church. Christ declared : ' I say unto thee. That thou art Peter, and upon this rock (Trerpa) I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.' Not upon Peter as such, but upon, the rock (the_ petra), or upon the petrinity of Peter, upon the testimony of God in him, which appears in his confession, and makes him Peter, will Christ build His Church. The deepest foundation is Christ Himself, His life.i But by connection with Him Simon becomes Peter ; and this through the spirit of confession from above, through his natural 1 Compare 1 Pet. ii. 4 et seq,, where Peter designates Christ as the true foundatioa- Btone, and Christians universally as living stones. 72 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. disposition to become a confessor through the confessor-like boldness of his trusting nature, and through the confession of liis mouth. The Church of Ciirist shall never be wanting in these four petrine charac- teristics. Upon this rock she shall victoriously resist the clanking gates of the kingdom of the dead, which would in a thousand ways draw her down into its dark bosom (especially by the sufferings of the cross, the martyr's death, and the inquisitor's fire). The Church is now founded (see above, vol. ii., p. 310). Christ therefore now announces also the fundamental regulation of church order : ' And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on eartli shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' This power of the keys is undoubtedly the power of apos- tolical church discipline. The binding and loosing upon earth (see above, ii. 314) denotes quite distinctly the act of excluding from the Christian society, and of receiving into it again. But it must not be forgotten, that these keys are the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The highest thing granted here consists in Peter's having a promise that he would be enabled to execute with purity the sen- tences of Heaven itself in the affairs of the Christian society. But where this certainty is forfeited, where that is loosed on earth which is bound in heaven, and vice versa, then the keys of the kingdom of heaven are also forfeited (see Rev. iii. 7). In any case, indeed, every community is justified in having its own keys ; but if the keys of an outward Church of Christ are no longer identical with the heavenly keys, they are in antagonism to that for which they were designed. But the real heavenly keys will continue in the Church until the end of the world. But Christ, by charging His disciples that they should not yet go forth among the people with the confession that He was Jesus the Christ, showed that this founding of the new Church still needed a new sealing by the Holy Spirit, This also became manifest in the fact, that Peter could soon afterwards express opposition to Christ in a manner very contrary to his confession. This fact forms a melan- choly contrast to his previous confession. Now, — after the disciples had made confession to Christ in contrast to the direction taken by the people, when the conflict was declared, — they should be specially prepared for open and steadfast contest with that direction. The question now is. How shall this contest be carried on ? Christ showed them how, by beginning from that time to ' show to His disciples' that He must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. This revelation Peter did not like to hear : it contradicted the wishes and hopes of his Messianic views. He there took Him apart, and began even to rebuke Him, saying, * Be it far from Thee, Lord : this shall not be unto Thee ! ' But Jesus withdrew immediately, and in turning said, ' Get thee behind Me, Satan ; thou art an offence unto Me : for thou savourest not of the things that be of God, but those that be of men.' So soon had THE FOUNDING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHUKCH. 73 the holy frame in which he made the confession disappeared under the continued influence of his old state of mind, in which he could set himself as tempter before the Son of God, and in which the Son of God was obliged to order behind Him, as a Satan, him whom He had so lately called blessed. Turning to the disciples, our Lord now uttered the categorical word : ' If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me ! For whosoever will save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or what counter-pledge has a man wherewith to redeem his (once pledged) soul ? ' And then He showed them why it is so dangerous to secure this life at the price of forsaking Him, and how it brings no danger whatever to the true life to face distress and death for His sake : ' For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels (with all the splendour of manifestation, and all the spirits of God) ; and then He shall reward every man according to his works.' This great an- nouncement could not fail to encourage them to follow Him cheer- fully on the path of the cross. Thus they should hold themselves firmly prepared for whatever might occur. But that they might not form too alarming notions of the destiny that awaited them. He added, ' Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.' This hope should be sufficient for them. These words, we doubt not, contained the kindly thought, that in the hour when Himself was led away as a prisoner. He would secure them by His protection ; but still more the gracious promise, that they, by following the direction of His Spirit, would be con- ducted over the tasting of death into the glorious manifestation of His kingdom. After our Lord had thus armed Himself for His death, and prepared His followers for the fellowship of His sufferings, it was needful for Him to collect and arm Himself in the presence of the Father, by celebrating in an extraordinary manner the destiny which He was about to accomplish, and also to strengthen His disciples, by letting the most peculiarly chosen among them be witnesses of this celebration. From this need proceeded that mys- terious fact which has been called the history of His transfiguration, but which at bottom must be considered as the antecedent celebra- tion of His future eternal glorification. Six days after the initiation of all His disciples into the mystery of His impending death. He took the three most confidential disciples, Peter, James, and John, and brought them with Him up into a high mountain. Here, in the deepest secrecy. He was transfigured before their eyes, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment became white as the light. And, behold, there appeared to Him Moses and Elias, talk- ing with Him. The intercourse of Christ with the great heroes of the old theocracy was the occasion and means of the disciples also 74 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. beholding these appearances from the other worhl ; and Peter was so overjoyed at this intercourse witli the heavenly beings, that he exclaimed, ' Lord, it is good for us to be here : if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles ; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for EHas/ He said this just at the moment when the revela- tion of the other world reached its climax. Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and lo ! (ISov) a voice out of the cloud, which said, ' This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased : hear ye Him,' This was, therefore, a special intimation of the Father Himself, who thus a second time glorified the Son by an extraor- dinary testimony. When the disciples heard it, they fell on their face and were sore afraid. The lofty mutual intercourse between the Father and the Son now raised them, as some time before it had raised John the Baptist, into the same prophetic region in which, in the days of old, Isaiah and other prophets had seen the glory of Jehovah, And as in similar cases the overpowered prophets needed that the Angel of the Covenant who appeared to them should touch them to bring them again to themselves,^ so did the disciples here, Jesus came and touched them, and said, ' Arise, and be not afraid ; ' and when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. So the manifestation had passed away with the command, Hear ye Him ! As they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them that they should say nothing of this vision to any man until His I'esurrection from the dead should have taken place. Meanwhile the disciples appeared soon to feel the contrast between that nearness to heaven and heavenly comfort of existence, and the dark earthly lot they were now going to meet. They were not pleased that Elijah did not go down with them into the valleys to open the way for the Lord with his former fiery zeal. So they asked Jesus, ' Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come ? ' He answered them, ' Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things,' and then gave them the explanation, ' Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.' They now understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist, and must have now felt how solemn in this connection the saying was : Likewise shall also the Son of man suff'er of them. On the top of the mount, Christ and His disciples had looked into heaven ; at the foot of the mount, they had to encounter the power of hell. There they had had intercourse with blessed s]:)irits ; here they had to contend against the spirits of the pit. For when they came back into the valley, where a multitude surrounded those of the disciples who had remained behind, a man came, and, kneel- ing before Jesus, said, ' Lord, have mercy on my son ; for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him,' Our Lord had here to make the painful ex- perience, that the disciples He had left behind had no longer full possession of the power which He had formerly imparted to them, 1 Isa. vi. 6 ; Dau. viii. 18 : Rev. i. 17. THE FOUNDING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 7d probably in consequence of the dejection occasioned by His telling them of His impending sufferings. He answered with indignation, ' 0 faithless and perverse (inwardly distracted by worldliness, and thereby enfeebled) generation, how long shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer you ? ' True, this was not addressed to the dis- ciples alone, but it was specially applicable to them. Then followed the command, ' Bring him hither to Me/ The child was brought to Jesus, He rebuked the demon, and he departed out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. The disciples came to Him apart, and besought Him to tell them why they had failed to effect a cure. Jesus answered them directly, ' Because of your unbelief ; ' and then added, ' For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.' Faith is the union of the mind with God in a definite relation ; and in this re- lation it thus becomes the organ of Divine Omnipotence itself. Hence a man can, in faith, will only wdiat God wills. But he may lose this union with the will of God when he does not keep his faith lively. And how is he to maintain a living faith ? By con- stant consecration of his whole mind to God, which is effected by prayer and constant renunciation of the world, which gives itself expression in fasting. Our Lord impresses this upon them by the words, ' Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.' The three disciples chosen to accompany our Lord had before this experienced a mortification upon the mount. The divine re- velation there had made them wish to withdraw from the world into a pious hermit-life, in the solitude of the mountain, and they were afterwards obliged to acknowledge that that wdsh w^as foolish. The remaining disciples again received a mortification in the valley, by their failing to cure the demoniac boy. It almost seems as if we had here a twofold historical symbol. The Church desires first to become a hermit or cloister Church upon the heights of distance from the world, and is not allowed ; she must again out into the world (see above, vol. iii. 90). Then, in the valley, in her closest proximity to the world, she is set to heal the demon-possessed progeny of an elder generation, weak in faith — the poor child of an afflicted father — a sick child who is lunatic (worldly), and whom the demon casts now into the water, and now into the fire (see above, vol. ii. 337) ; and she is unable to effect it, because she herself is divided and distracted in heart, until Christ comes again with His power. But these very mortifications which the disciples experi- enced had to become the means for the strengthening imparted to them. The three chosen disciples first received comfort in being assured that the Spirit of Christ, and His institution the Church, and consequently their path, was at one with Moses and Elijah, and so with the Old Testament ; further, that they should be members of a glorified band of spirits, among whom a peaceful dwelling- place should be prepared for them beyond the grave; and, finally, 7b THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. that, by -following Christ, they should enter into fellowship with the elect of the kingdom of God, with the Father in heaven Himself, and that by doing so they would manifest obedience to Him. This imparting of strength to them was profitable to the other disciples also, by raising their tone of mind ; and they were all, by Christ's miracle at the foot of the mountain, filled with fresh confidence that He would overcome all hostile demons upon His path. When we take a retrospect of the whole section, we see here the first beginnings of all the essential features of the Church of Christ. She begins her existence with the lofty and living confession, that Jesus is the Christ, in contrast to the vague, various, and wavering opinions of the world, and establishes herself, as faithful in con- fession, upon a rock, confronting the menaces of Hades. Next, she is seen as the called to the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, wdiich most severely condemns flight from suffering ; and has the promise that she shall be conducted, as in a dream, over the terrors of death into the divine and spiritual brightness of the perfected appearance of Christ and His kingdom. She is strengthened for her path of suffering by connecting herself most intimately, in deepest retirement and blending of life, with the spirits of the Church above, — that she, so to speak, enters with one foot into the world of spirits, to arm herself there for her warfare with the world. And, finally, she shows her heavenly power in that she does not, through fellowship with the spirits of heaven, betake herself to a slothfully contemplative hermit-life here in this world, but that she enters with the blessings of this fellowship into the warfare with the world which is appointed for her, and here overcomes all the demons of hell which meet her in darkened human life, as if she, after Christ's example, were coming constantly from a heavenly height down into the darkest of vales, to illume them with heaven's own light. NOTE. The events here represented fall, according to the distinct state- ment of the Evangelist, within a very short space of time, which cannot have been much above a week, and the place in which they occurred is the territory of Cajsarea Philippi. Hence the Mount of Transfiguration cannot have been Tabor in Galilee, but a mountain in Gaulonitis. See above, vol. ii. p. 325. SECTION XV. PREPARATION FOR THE LAST DECISIVE ENTRANCE OF CHRIST INTO THE HOLY CITY ; OR THE UNFOLDING OF THE FUNDAJMENTAL LAWS OF THE NEW CHURCH OR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, IN CONTRAST TO THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CORRUPT HIERARCHIC CHURCH. (Chap. xvii. 22-xx. 16.) Jesus had already, on His various retreats from His antagonists, in many ways made evident the contrast of the true divine life in THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 77 His kingdom of Heaven to the corruptions of human life in the old world. When He left Nazareth, He showed that there is a higher home than an earthly one ; and this home He found wherever He was understood and received in faith. When He retired to Gaulo- nitis from Herod the tetrarch, He exhibited in act the true princeliness and kingly power of the Spirit, by feeding the poor people in the wilderness, dismissing His enthusiastic adherents (who would wil- lingly have paid Him homage), and withdrawing deliberately from the most importunate of them. He thus exhibited true friendship for the people in contrast to attempts to excite rebellion and revolt. Dur- ing His return He gave His disciples a figure of the dominion of His Spirit and of the children of His Spirit over the waves, in contrast to the terrors of the sea and the storm of the old world. And in the same manner. He confronted the old terror for spirits and spectres with the peace of God in the midnight storm, the certainty of the nearness of God's messengers for help and rescue, and especially His own nearness for rescue. On His second setting out He impressed upon His followers the true purity of the mouth in contrast to the Levitical ; the true sphere of the extension of the kingdom of God, which goes out into the heathen world, in contrast to the legal- typical ; the true lost sheep of the house of Israel (to whom belonged the woman of Canaan also) in contrast to external Judaism. As the first time He had fed a multitude in the wilderness in contrast to the bloody revellings of Herod, which destroyed the noblest bless- ing of His land, so did He this time in contrast to the seeming holy meals of the Pharisees, at which Levitical washing was not wanting, and yet all was defiled by the breath of the corruptions which issued from their hearts. Finally, on His third departure. He set forth the true, great divine sign of the coming kingdom of heaven for mankind, as a sign which should mysteriously arise from the depths of the heart, and the depths of the earth (the grave and the lower world), and the depths of the silent experience of a few recep- tive witnesses (namely. His resurrection as it should issue from His death), in contrast to external cosmic signs in the sky, which the phantasy of chiliastic, externalized Jews (and Christians) desire to see. He then shows them that, in leaving an unclean theocratic church-system which has sunk into heathenism, a higher care must occupy their thoughts than the fear of being next without bread, namely, carefulness lest some leaven of the old corrupt course of life should be lying concealed in their hearts, and might thus be carried along with them into the new order of things. He had now at last come to the point when He could found the new Church in contrast to the old. He founded it on the firm and living confession of His name, in contrast to the divergent opinions of the old Church concerning the Messiah. He then immecliately marked her with the sign of the cross, by calling upon her to be ready for suftering, which forms her first characteristic in contradistinction to the pre- Christian community. Next He exhibits her in her inward heaven- liness, spiritual beauty, and superterrestrial sublimity, as, enthroned 78 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. on the mountain, she lives in intercourse with the spirit of heaven, and is thereby strenf;jthened for her warfare on earth — -the very opposite of the old Church in her outward form, as she existed chiefly in unfree limitation to the things of this life, and was in particular oppressed with fear of the kingdom of the dead and its sliadows. But He also guarded her as decidedly against being drawn away by a one-sided monkish desire for intercourse with the spirits of heaven ; He led His disciples down to the contest with the demons of darkness in the vale of human life, and showed them how to overcome these demons, and free mankind from them, in the power of abnegation of the world and fellowship with God (ftisting and prayer). The facts which Matthew relates to us from this time until Christ's entrance into Jerusalem, have this peculiarity, that they not only set forth the preparation for that entrance, but that in them the individual characteristics of the new Church, consequently the fundamental laws of the kingdom of heaven, are at the same time unfolded in contrast to the characteristics of the old, perverted, hierarchic Church. When Jesus, some titue after the transfigura- tion (after He had gone to Jerusalem to the feast of Tabernacles), had returned with His disciples for the last time to Galilee, He went constantly about wath them through that land, probably to avoid the snares of His enemies. And now once more He announced to them His approaching sufferings. ' The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men ; and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall be raised again.' He probably told this also to the wider circle of disciples in Galilee. And for the first time they now received an indication that an act of treachery would be prac- tised towards Him — that He would be delivered over to the heathen. And they were exceeding sorry, says Matthew. Great dejection spread among the believers in Galilee. On the other hand, the hierarchic party now came forth more boldly with expressions of displeasure against Jesus. This was shown in a characteristic circumstance. As soon as they had returned to Capernaum, the col- lectors of the temple-tribute (the two-drachma piece ^) went to Peter, and through him craved (on the street, as it would seem) our Lord Himself for the temple-tribute, either past due or now falling due, with the question, ' Doth not your Master pay tribute ? ' Peter did not understand the proper significance of this question, and precipi- tately answered, ' Yes.' This is another of Peter's acts which have become typical of the faults of the Eomish Church (the dehortation from the cross, the utterance upon the mountain, the drawing of the sword, &c.) : he will here surrender the freedom of his Master and his members, pledging it to the temple-dues of the Old Covenant. Christ gently set him right regarding this. For when Peter came to the liouse, He anticipated Peter's mentioning the tribute by the question, ' What thinkest thou, Simon ? of whom do the kings of the 1 A current expression, like the analogous expression Peter's pence in the Romish Church. TEE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 79 earth take custom or tribute ? of their own chihh-en (the princes of the house), or of strangers ? ' Peter replied, * Of strangers.' • Jesus drew the conclusion, ' So then are the children free.' The interpre- tation was easy. The temple was the typical residence of Jehovah. To support this residence by their tribute, was the duty of the sub- jects of the heavenly King, consequently of those who stood to Him in the relation of servants ; but not the duty of His children, neither of His Son, nor of the partakers of His Spirit. These represented the proper house-membership of this royal palace, the proper life of the temple. It was thus a clamant misapprehension of the divine life in them to wish them to pay tribute to the temple com- pulsorily, in the spirit of servitude. This sets Peter right. But he had given his promise, and so had afforded the servants of the temple a legal claim. Besides, they assume that their demand was well founded. Oar Lord therefore says to Peter, ' Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up ; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money (a four-drachma piece) : that take, and give unto them for Me and thee.' The certain result of this direction is so self-interpreting, that the Evan- gelist did not think it necessary to say a word about it. It is moreover to be observed, that the first fish is expressly described as that in whose mouth the stater should be found (see above, vol. i. p. 454), and that Jesus so ordered the matter that payment was made not for Himself alone, but also for Peter with Him. The relation of the new Church to the old ordinance of paying temple- dues was expressed in Christ's words with sufficient distinctness. The children of the New Covenant, who are themselves the living and true inheritance of God, owe, in a legal way, neither tribute nor service to any typical or outward temple-worship. In their inward life they are, as children of God's house, above compulsory duty to the outward temple. But perhaps some historical legal demand is laid upon them, or perhaps there is at least a general notion that they are bound to pay. They will, under these circumstances, satisfy the demand and avoid offence. But in this case they will pay in such a cheerful, free, lofty, perhaps princely style, that the manner in which the payment is rendered will express the reserva- tion of their liberty. But soon after this, our Lord had occasion to observe that the assumptions of the hierarchy still manifested their power even in the circle of His disciples. The Evangelist gives marked promin- ence to the inward connection between the fact which showed this and what had gone before. In that hour, says he, came the dis- ciples unto Jesus, saying. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? They evidently wished then a decision regarding the hierarchic order of precedence which, in their opinion, should obtain in the new institute. Our Lord corrected this assumptioa by a symbolic action, which bore the same lofty, serene, appro- priate, and striking character as His former action did. He called 80 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. a little cliild, and set hiin in the midst of tliem, and said, ' Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' This decision con- tains the first check to the hierarchic spirit. If they were to be even simple members of the kingdom of heaven, to say nothing of being rulers and leaders, they must become as free from hierarchic pretensions as chiklren — they must in the spiritual sense become small and unpretentious like them. Hence the second decision, ' Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' If then they are to be held of any account in the kingdom of heaven, they can obtain it only by the deepest self-humiliation, and the measure of their humility shall be the measure of their greatness. Then, thirdly, ' And whoso shall receive one such little cliild in My name, receiveth ]\Ie.' So sacred is the duty incumbent on the citizens and repre- sentatives of the kingdom of heaven, to respect even in children, in the little ones and babes generally, the dignity of predestination unto Christ, and the call to free, royal priesthood and manhood in Christ. The greatest promises rest upon the right observation of this. These are the three fundamental ai'ticles of the free Church, and at the same time the three characteristics of evangelical Chris- tianity. Next follows a w^arning against the ways of the hierarchy : ' But whoso shall offend one of these little ones who believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill-stone (the stone of a large mill driven by an ass) were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.' The 5'oung seed of faith may be destroyed by the old compulsory spirit, and that is one of the worst and most reprehensible crimes. Our Lord foresaw how much this crime would afflict His Church, and said, ' Woe unto the world because of offences ! for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' Thus the corrup- tions of hierarchic sway will bring the greatest woe upon the world, and have as consequences the most awful judgments. Yet the Christian may readily be led astray by his special talents to treat with contempt his subordinates or those committed to his charge, and thereby come more and more under the sway of the spirit of hierarchism, which brings damage to himself and others. Thus, his hand, his foot, or his eye may become an offence to him ; that is, the talent of activity, or talents for governing, the talent of converting zeal, or progress, and the talent of discernment or prudence. Christ therefore gives the following warning : ' Where- fore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee : it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands, or two feet, to be cast into everlast- ing fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee : it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire.' Thus, so soon as the Christian of special gift seeks, regardless of all else, scope for his talent in the Church, he will exalt himself, love to the Church THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 81' will suffer, and gradually the Churcli's unity and freedom in Christ will be lost. Hands too powerful will show themselves in despotic church government and episcopacy ; overpowerful feet in precipi- tate proselytizing ; overpowerful eyes in Gnostic scholasticism, in theological or ecclesiastical singularities of view ; and all these self- seeking developments of power will always have hierarchic distinc- tions as their result. But under this influence these very talents will become consuming fire for those who misuse them. Therefore our Lord most urgently presses upon His followers that self- abnegation and self-denial which are effected by humility and love, and which secure the unity and freedom of the Church. For the origin of such perversions is always to be sought for in the despising of little ones. Christ therefore adds, ' Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say unto you. That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven ! For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.' It is clear that He here again alludes chiefly to the little ones, but not to them as a separate class merely, but at the same time as types of the spiritually little ones — the babes, the catechumens, the peni- tents, the lost of every kind. It would be a contradiction to the spirit of Christ if Christians would despise the little ones as such, while they are represented in heaven itself by the angels of God, or while their life-images as light-images (as their genii) stand before God, yea, while Christ Himself seeks the lost (sinners as the least of all), and consequently esteems them as very precious and dear. Thus the spirit of redemption condemns all proud self-exaltation of the men over the babes in the kingdom of God. In the Church of Christ the little ones are not to be held down in their childish state, but to be educated up to manhood in Christ. But although the Christian Church is to keep herself entirely free from the hierarchic spirit, yet she is to exhibit herself in de- finite order, and distinct from the world. But the soul of this order is the leading thought of her origin, namely this, that Christ as the faithful Shepherd forms her out of the lost sheej). ' How think ye?' said He to the disciples: 'if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketli that which is gone astray ? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.' Thus the members of the new Church should never forget that the whole Church is founded on the rescuing love of the Shepherd: they themselves ought always to walk under the influence of this com- passion which seeks the lost. But this spirit of church order will assume two forms : first, in displaying wholesome discipline and severity ; and secondly, in the maintenance of unwearied gentleness that cannot be overcome. Church discipline is provided for in the following regulations : VOL. IV. r 82 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. * Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he ^Yill not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church ; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican' (with whom thou hast no church-fellowship, but with whom thou art certainly to maintain free and friendly human intercourse). In these regulations our Lord has established the main outlines of the social order by which the Church is to secure the honour and truth of her peculiar character against being defiled by intermixture with the world in the path it takes.^ Hence follows also the addi- tional clause : ' Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' But that this should not make any one imagine that this holy church law can ever become the inalienable prerogative of an alienated community. He adds a word which protects the independency and peace of every believing com- munity, even the smallest : ' Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth (in social concert) as touching anything that they sliall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.' A more distinct recognition of the freedom of every believing church, but also a more pressing recommendation to true union, there cannot be than these words from the lips of our Lord. The Lord adds a general declaration wliich secures still further the peace of the free believing Church : ' For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.' He does not say three or two — for the morose spirit of separatism is not according to His spirit — but two or three, because He will own perfectly the smallest church, which is so small for His sake, and therefore gladly grows in number under the influence of His Spirit. But along with this exercise of strict discipline, the Church is to manifest her clemency in constant action. Our Lord gave the dis- • ciples the strongest injunctions regarding this in His reply to Peter's question, ' Lord, how oft shall my brotlier sin against me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ? ' Peter evidently wished to know how far leniency in receiving a fallen brother again into the Church should be extended. The reply was, ' I say not unto thee. Until seven times ; but. Until seventy times seven.' The number seven is the number of activity, which has arrived at a solemn spiritual repose : thus the number seventy times seven expresses infinite Sabbath-repose in God, absolute divine caUnness of spirit, which alone is capable of always forgiving. And the greatness of this number points beyond the region of measuring, weighing, or count- ing off clemency, into the realm of love, in which forgiving clemency knows no other bounds than those which are set to it by the truth ^ For proof that we have to do here, not with regulations for the Jewish synagogue, but for the Church of Christ, see above, vol. ii. 430. THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 83 or receptivity of him who needs it. It will not readily occur in this relation that one could truly ask forgiveness seventy times consecu- tively, and yet always fall back again ; but were this possible, clemency should never let itself be outdone by true repentance. Our Lord now shows the disciples in a parable, how culpable it is, if Christians, who owe all to the grace of Grod, fail in showing leniency in an institution which is founded upon grace — perhaps, indeed, in the stewardship of this very institution. ' Therefore,' says He, ' the kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king who would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him who owed him ten thousand talents.^ But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded liim to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant, therefore, fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, who owed him an hundred pence; 2 and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what thou owest. And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and spoke the same words which he himself had just spoken in a still humbler posture,^ Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not ; but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow-servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, 0 thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me : shouldest not thou also have had com- passion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee ? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.' If we would apprehend this parable in all its significance and clearness, we must not make it refer merely to the private, mutual relations of Christians, but above all, and in conformity with the context, to the conduct of Christ's servants in the affairs of the Church. Here first appears in its sharply defined form the contra- diction, that one who has obtained forgiveness deals so unmercifully ; and the difficulty, that a pardoned person can act so, finds here its whole solution. This is the essence of hierarchic harshness of every kind in the Church : it establishes the system of pitiless rigour upon the very institute of the most abounding mercy ; just after its first experiences of divine clemency and forgiveness, it nourishes nothing but feelins^s of bitterness and wrath towards those who are overtaken 1 About two million sterling. " [Taking the denarius at nearly Sd. of our money, this debt would amount to about £3, 5s. Trench calculates the proportion of the one debt to the other to be as one million two hundred and fifty thousand to one. — Ed.] ^ Upoaetcvvet. aiiTi^, 84 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. in a fault ; it attaches the most ungracious enactments to the highest institutions of grace, communion, and absohition, by turning simple excommunication into positive cursing and fearful persecution ; as that servant, just in going out from his lord with remission of his great debt, finds his fellow-servant, and takes him by the throat. This combining of censorious harshness with the preaching and presentation of the grace of God reappears in the manifold forms of fanaticism, and in all parties in the Christian Church. It must not disturb us in taking this view, that the matter between the two servants was only a private debt, while the hierarchical spirit, as a rule, appears to punish transgressions against the Lord of the Church. For this hypothesis is rejected by Christ : those trespasses which the hierarchical spirit condemns, are not, in the form in which it views, judges, and condemns them, offences against the Lord, but against itself, often even against its ambition, against its short- sightedness or slothfulness of spirit. But the heavy judgment it incurs, first manifests itself in the torments of its own fanatical unrest, want of clearness, vehement temper, comfortlessness, and in- creasingly darkened views. It is quite conformable to divine justice, that unpitying harshness in the stewardship of the institution of divine grace and mercy should incur the heaviest judgment. This parable Christ addressed first of all to Peter. The Evangelist now quickly conducts us to Perea with the Lord, who takes leave of Galilee. On His journey to this side of the Jewish territory. He went as far as its borders. And here especially great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them (in the persons of their sick in the first instance). In Perea occasion was soon given to Him for setting forth also the ideal marriage law, in contrast to the corruptions of it in the old economy. It was the Pharisees who gave Him this occasion, by proposing to Him, with an insidious intention, the controverted question, ' Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause ? ' ^ Jesus gave them the following answer : ' Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh ? Wherefore they (the married couple) are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.' In these words Christ declared the original law of marriage, that according to its historical beginning and its ideal conception, it is indissoluble, The expression of this indissoluble nature of marriage is contained first in this, that only as male and female was man perfect, or an entire man, with a masculine capacity supplemented by a feminine, and vice versa ; secondly, in that marriage has power and authority to dissolve the strongest household ties, the outward dwelling together of children and parents ; thirdly, in this, ■• Kara Traaav alriav. A Jewish law expression, in the sense in which the school of Hillel expounded the marriage law, Deut. xxiv. 1. Comp. voL ii. p. 4^68. THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 85 that in marriage the union into one flesh is really effected. The first element is the ideal ; here it is not exactly a man and a woman that are joined together, but the masculine and the feminine in their adaptation for each other (apaev koI 6)j'\.v). The second element is the romantic or nuptial, the force of youthful love. The third is the historical, consummated marriage. God's rule and and right are manifested in these three elements. The reality, indeed, became in various ways discordant with this law of perfect marriage. This is shown by Moses legislation, to which the Pharisees now appeal : ' Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?' It is easily seen that these querists favour the laxer view ; they therefore represent Moses' regulation in an unfair light. But our Lord corrects this represen- tation : ' Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives ; but from the beginning it was not so.' Then He added : ' And I say, Whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication (tor breach of marriage already com- mitted), and shall marry another, committeth adultery ; and whoso marrieth her that is put away doth commit adultery.' By this decision Christ by no means sets Himself in contradiction to the law of Moses, but carries it out to its ideal perfection. If Moses had considered that the actual adultery consisted solely in divorce- ments, he would have flatly forbidden them. If, on the other hand, he had seen in them a furtherance of marriage, he would have recommended them (as the Pharisees actually asserted). But he did neither of the two. He pei'mitted divorce ; but he put diffi- culties in its way in two respects, by demanding, on the one hand, a definite, although unexpressed ground, which could not but weigh heavily upon the conscience of a pious man, and by prescribing, on the other, a bill of divorcement, which in various ways brought the divorce into the hands of the teachers of the people. So his aim was ideal marriage as it was in the beginning ; he wished again to open a way for it in contending against the hardheartedness of a sinful race. But Christ brings to perfection the germ implanted by Him. It should be carefully noted, that He does not designate the divorces themselves as the actual adultery, but the marriage of the divorced. He who divorces himself declares that he does not acknowledge his marriage as marriage. But the law in the same ease pronounces upon him the sentence, that he has broken the marriage law. Divorces, by themselves alone, may in certain cases work fearfully and power- fully for the sanctifying of marriage (comp. Ezra x.) ; but it is the light and lawless remarriages of the divorced which increasingly obscure and break the marriage law. So those who cannot realize the true marriage should, according to the law of this institution, continue in celibacy. This completes the law of marriage in its strictness. But this is also the point where the Gospel, in relation to the curse of the marriage system, finds entrance. The disciples felt the dread strictness in Christ's saying : they joined in saying to 86 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. Him, ' If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.' Our Lord replied, ' All men cannot receive this saying (enunciation of the marriage law), save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, who were horn so (disposed and de- signed) from their mother's womb ; and there are some eunuchs, who were made eunuchs of men ; and there be eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' The Apostle Paul has, quite in the spirit of these words of Christ, declared the truth, that the veiy gospel of liistorical marriage con- sists in the higher celibate. ' They that have wives shall be as though they had none ' (1 Cor. vii. 2d). In the world as it now is, there are three hindrances to the ideal marriage of paradise.^ The first is, that not all are designed for marriage (of whom, how- ever, many enter perhaps into the marriage relation). The second is, that many are hindered by men, or through the state of the times, from accomplishing marriage conformable to its idea. The third lies in the exigencies of the kingdom of God. The Christian must set out on the holy war ; he must wander, and cannot there- fore, even at best, live in the full enjoyment of marriage ; and the most perfect marriages are often dissolved by the death of one of the parties. This gospel of the higher celibate — of freedom of spirit in marriage for passing from the consciousness of law into the consciousness of the kingdom of heaven — is the consecrating power destined to bring the historical marriage into unison with the ideal. To this enunciation of the ideal marriage law of the new Church is subjoined an enunciation of the })osition of children in it. The Evangelist tells us how the discussion between Christ and the dis- ciples concerning the marriage law was interrupted by little chil- dren being brought to our Lord, that He sliould put His hands on them and pray. Thus the discussion regarding tlie curse of mar- riage was, in beautiful and touching contrast, interrupted by the appearing of the visible blessing of marriage. But the disciples could not so easily accommodate themselves to the contrast. They rebuked the persons who brought the children. In this act they represent the old Church, the old world, in their despising of little ones. The crowing or prattling of the children, and the bustle and ado of the mothers with them, seem to them to interrupt very un- timeouslya most important discussion of a most important subject. "With the gravity of young inex])erienced Rabbis, they could not but feel and reprimand this interruption of a difficult examina- tion of their hi'di school. It miirht even seem to them, in their lofty sense of their present investigations, as if children were made for the sake of casuistry concerning the marriage law, and not the marriage law specially for the sake of children. Thus the order is inverted in thousands of cases in the old world ; for example, in tacitly assuming that man was made for the Sabbath, and not the Sabbath for man — life for books, and not the reverse — the sick man ^ See above, vol. ii. p. 473. THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 87 in the clinical hospital for science (as a subject or case), and not medical science for the sick. And all these inversions of the true relation assume an air of the utmost gravity. But the old world, nay, even the old Church in its worldliness, treats children with special harshness. They are everywhere in the way of grave con- cerns, and are often shoved aside as troublesome beings. The heathen often exposes tliem to death ; the Jew himself can, under error, offer them to Moloch ; the Christian can, in his darkness, leave them to perish in manufactories ; the lady of quality leaves them to the nurse ; the schoolmaster punishes them when they provoke his ill humour with their cheerful humour ; and even the Church does not always find it of sufficient importance to devote due care to them, because she really is often contending in trouble of mind with the heavy sufferings of mankind. It was this last that the disciples represented in the first instance. Our Lord, however, corrected them : ' Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven,' — of children, and of childlike and child-loving men. How clearly does Christ express the truth, that His kingdom looks principally to children, and sees in them the hope of His kingdom ; — how dis- tinctly does He utter the expectation, that the kingdom of heaven should be born into the world in generations always more and more possessing light, and that therefore children would be one of the main objects for the activity of the grown-up persons in His king- dom! Children should be brought Him that He may embrace and bless them. After He had spoken these words. He laid His hands on them, and departed thence. So the blessing of the chil- dren was the parting blessing with which He left Perea. But a fresh discussion by Christ had at the same time to show in what spirit men should administer temporal goods in the king- dom of heaven. And, behold, says Matthew, one came and said unto Him, ' Grood Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life ? ' Jesus saw at once that this man, in relation both to the virtues and the goods of life, had too mucli lost sight of God, the highest good, and also, that he called Him good Master, not in the spirit of true acknowledgment, but in a worldly, super- ficial estimation. He therefore replied to him, ' Why callest thou Me good ? there is none good but One, that is, God : but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' The man asked, with conscious pride, ' Wliich ? ' Jesus said, ' Thou shalt do no murder ; Thou shalt not commit adultery ; Thou shalt not steal ; Thou shalt not bear false witness ; Honour thy father and thy mother ; and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' The young man saith unto Him, ' All these things- have I kept from my youth up : what lack I yet ? ' Then Jesus gave him the re- markable instruction, ' If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come and follow Me.' Thisl instruction may be con- sidered under various points of view. First, in relation to the 88 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. young man's assertion that he had kept all the commandments of God, Jesus showed him that he could not stand before the first, taken in its spiritual sense ; that in Mammon he had another god side by side with the One God. Secondly, in relation to the source whence this idolatry proceeded : his life generally consisted in the deification of the derived good, the good current in the world ; his heart was not devoted to the Good of all good, as Christ's first reply had already told him, with which, consequently, this instruction was in exact agreement. But thirdly, this declaration of Christ's has also a significance as the fundamental law of the kingdom of heaven. Here all should hold all their means for the good of the poor ; and so the individual who loishes to slwio in a legal mannei^ this cheerful surrender of his iwoperty, which is the living law of the kingdom of" heaven, can do so only by following Christ's in- structions, selling all that he has, and giving to the poor. To him, and only to such as he,^ our Lord justly presents the perfection of the kingdom of heaven in a legal form, because they must be taught that this law, less than any other, can be fulfilled in an outward manner. And very specially this rich young man was not in a condition for doing it. When he heard that saying, he went aw^ay sorrowful ; for he had great possessions. Then said Jesus unto His disciples, ' Verily I say unto you. That a lich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.' These words do not contain a final sentence on this rich young man ; for our Lord's intention was to bring him to repentance, not by enforcing the demand for a righteousness of works, but by humbling him for his dependence upon the earthly. No doubt his going away was a sign of the great danger with which he was encompassed. Christ's saying expresses one thought with two references : It is, as a general rule, hard for the rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, because it is hard for him to become poor. Yea, it is impossible for him in so far as he is rich, and seeks to continue so in his sense of riches, unless a miracle of grace makes him poor in spirit. The disciples, who had not yet entirely purified themselves from the old way of estimating earthly things, were exceedingly amazed at this communication, and said, ' Who then can be saved ? ' They felt that our Lord's saying virtually condemned the poor as well as the rich, because they all, more or less, in their way strive after riches. Jesus looked upon them compassionately, and said unto them — the significant word which also announced their approaching wonderful deliverance from attachment to the world through the trials of the cross — ' With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.' Thus men, by the wondrous guidance of God, and especially by being led through the sufferings of the cross, are to become such ^ Who, like the communists, seek to comi^el by outward laws the realization of the ideal of a perfect world. THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 89 that they possess as if they possessed not ; that as heirs of God, the highest Good, they spontaneously, from the heart and as faithful stewards, lay down all their possessions upon the altar of brotherly love and love to all men. Peter indeed thought that surely the disciples had already in a certain measure attained to this state of perfection, and remarked to our Lord, ' Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee ; what shall we have therefore ? ' Jesus recognized the faithful spirit of self-sacrifice in these words, and said, ' Verily I say unto you, That ye who have (formerly) followed Me, in the regeneration (of things, in the manifestation of the new world), when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.' So lofty and free is the promise of the recompensing love of God, which also authorizes the hope of its free reward. He who offers up in the Spirit of God the goods and possessions of this pre- sent life, and devotes himself to the following of Christ for His sake, has, with eternal life, to expect also a hundred-fold compensa- tion in the higher goods of life, possessions and enjoyments in the richest multiplicity. And especially the disciples, as princes in self-denial, under Christ's leading, shall appear in His kingdom as princes in tlie power of the new life. But in order to deter men of a mercenary spirit from appropriat- ing this solemn promise, Christ adds, ' But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.' For explaining this proposition, He then uttered the parable of the labourers in the vineyard: ' The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard ; and when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny (denarius) a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market- place. And he said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did like- wise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them. Why stand ye here all the day idle ? They say unto him. Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them. Go ye also into the vineyard ; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more ; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought 90 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said. Friend, I do thee no wrong : didst not thou agree with me for a penny ? Take that thine is, and go thy way : I will give unto this last (among the last) even as unto thee (tlie spokes- man, perhaps of the first). Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil, because I am good ? ' This is the law of reward in the kingdom of God, in contrast to the spirit of service for wages — of the common hiring for day-wages which prevails in the old world, but acts in its most fearful form in the corrupt hierarchic Church. Our Lord rebukes this mercenary spirit by at first entering apparently into its suppositions, in order afterward powerfully to show their nullity. First of all, He repre- sents the kingdom of heaven in the form of a great hiring establish- ment. But we soon observe that the rich lord who sends into his vineyard the labourers he had agreed with, deals ironically with the spirit of hired service in the sprightly humour of a kingly gene- rosity. The first labourers with wliom he agreed, he took into his service for the whole day. He agreed with the following for shorter and shorter portions of the day ; and the last scarcely wrought any at all, if we subtract the time passed in going to the vineyard from the hour between eleven and twelve. And as to the wages, he made a definite bargain with the first labourers for a penny ; but with the others he made no further definite agreement, but sent them to work, trusting entirely to him for pay. When pay-time came, he gave them all the same wages, and the last even received their wages first. This is evidently a procedure which cannot fail to make the mer- cenary spirit manifest itself strongly, that it may be rebuked for its injustice, unamiableness, and meanness. On the principle of work-service, the day's wage is fixed accord- ing to the time, the variety, the heaviness, and the heat of the labour. Here all labourers, the last as the first, receive the same reward. In the one service the mercenary spirit forms the foregone conclusion, that he who has outwardly done most work should also receive his hire first. In the other the order may be reversed ; the lord can give the hire first to the last, and last to the first. It lies, however, in the very essence of mercenariness, that it must always become untrue to its own suppositions, and contradict its own claim of right ; while the Lord treats and settles with it just accord- ing to that claim. Those labourers who had agreed for a penny a day, could lay claim only to this penny. But they did not abide by the contract ; they expected that the householder would either give less to the labourers who had wrought less than they, or that he would give them far more than he had bargained to give them. But when the householder gave them the stipulated hire, he treated them according to their legal claim ;. and when he gave equal wages to the labourers who had wrought a shorter time, he showed at the same time his free love, which confers more than law demands. But this is just the leading thought of the parable : it is not the THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 91 spirit of calculating work- service which rules in the kingdom of heaven, but kingly love in the glorious form of grace. This love is heavenly, rich, and free ; it can reward even the shortest service with endless blessing. What love rewards in labour, is only love ; there- fore the work of a single hour may outbalance the work of twelve hours. Nay, the work of him who has laboured only one hour, with- out stipulating for wages, who has in love at once yielded himself to love, who has at the eleventh hour at once overcome his long- continued idle habits and gone into the vineyard, m'ay be greater in God's sight than the whole day's work of a man who, with better early habits, had entered into the Lord's service only for stipulated wages. And so, in -fine, the real reward which love gives the labourer is love, and not the penny by itself which the steward hands to him, and which is the reward corresponding to the actual service in the domain of law ; for example, the recognition of the Church and deliverance from evil. It may, therefore, happen that one labourer soon receives the full reward of grace in the enjoyment of the love of God, whilst another waits for his wages from early morning to late evening, and then through poverty of love converts enjoyment of them into discontent, because he cannot accommodate himself to the kingdom of free love. Thus love rises above all time, all mercenary ideas, and all the calculations of envious jealousy. And so it rules in its highest glory in the kingdom of heaven, as grace in contrast to work-holiness, and holiness of the letter in the hierarchic Church. In this, at the end of the yeai-, the conversions are estimated, the prayers counted, the good works appraised, the miracles examined, the canonizations completed, in the form of a law process. In the kingdom of heaven, on the contrary, grace rules, which can give its first reward to a heart which has yielded only at the eleventh hour. It rules here with a majesty of munificence which always furnishes offence to the spirit of work- holiness. We need not wonder if the spirit of hierarchical work-service finally calls into life a spirit of worldly work-service, which seeks to determine the relations of wages and work in the world in just as outward a manner as the hierarchical spirit seeks to do the same in the kingdom of heaven. But Christ's parable meets this spirit also wdth a rebuke. For we cannot suppose that He speaks exclusively of spiritual recompenses, although of them in the first instance. The relations in the kingdom of heaven are all concrete, spiritual, corporeal ; and so are its rewards. Thus we learn here, that God is and continues to be the Lord of all estates ; and that, when the even of the world is come, every one of God's labourers shall, under the rule of the kingdom of heaven on earth, receive his full wages. But if that gloomy spirit of absolute mercenariness or worldly work- holiness, the unblessed child of the hierarchic work-holiness, which casts the keen and evil glance of envy on the way in which God dis- tributes His gifts, gives itself out for the heavenly genius of light upon earth by seeking to unhumanize human labour, that is, to 92 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. materialize and brutalize it, by estimating it entirely according to the hours, the burdens, and the outward heat ; then the spirit of light in this parable comes forth to rebuke and set it at nought, and declares to it that the Lord of the vineyard Himself shall at the world's even determine the wages, and that, not in the sense of ab- solute mercenariness or working for day-wages, but in the sense of absolute love. That gloomy genius seeks more and more to deny and reject the spirit of love and freedom, nay, even the human spirit itself in human labour : the Lord of the kingdom of heaven will, on the contrary, make it more and more prevail. That spirit seeks to change every honorarium into day-wages, by seeking to separate from human toil, admiration, joy, and love, and to make it as mate- rialized as possible : the Lord of the labourers, on the contrary, de- sires more and more to change every kind of day- wages into a seemly and liberal honorarium, which is accompanied by the blessings of freedom, honour, and love. With Him the humble, the believing, the loving, find a reward surpassing their utmost expectation ; while the calculating, the heartless, the envious, always destroy their en- joyment of their reward, were it even the richest. Our Lord concluded His parable with the saying : ' So the last shall be first, and the first last ; for many be called, but few chosen.' NOTE. The beginning of this section (the history of the stater, with the discussion concerning the hierarchy) falls in the time of our Lord's last return to Galilee from the feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem (in the October of the second year of His ministry). His regulations concerning the proper treatment of the little ones and church order belong to the time of His departure from Galilee. Then His first activity in Perea is mentioned, and comprehended along with His second sojourn in Perea; to which time the discussion regarding divorce, the narrative of the children that were brought to Him, and of the rich young man, are to be referred. This second sojourn in Perea followed after the feast of the Dedication of the Temple (in the December of the same year), and extended until Christ's setting out for Judea (for raising Lazarus in the first instance) in the spring of the last year of His ministry. SECTION XVI. THE ENTRANCE OF THE MESSIANIC KING INTO HIS CITY AND HIS ROYAL RESIDENCE, THE TEMPLE ; AND THE UNFOLDING OF THE GRAND OUTLINES OF HIS ROYAL COURT ON EARTH, IN CONTRAST TO THE PRINCELY SYSTEM OF THE OLD WORLD. (Chap. XX. 17-xxi. IG.) Our Lord's disciples had, in earlier days, alway thought that His last decisive entrance into Jerusalem would be a stately, royal proces- THE Messiah's royal court. 93 sion, transcending all that had ever taken place, the highest realization of all Messianic ideals in the theocratic-worldly sense, and that then the kingdom of the glory of the Messiah would be at once unfolded. Even yet, when the decisive journey of Jesus to Jerusalem was about to begin, they were not cured of this expectation, although Christ had at various times announced to them His sufferings. Hence, at the beginning of this journey. He took the twelve dis- ciples apart in the way, and gave them now the definite announce- ment, ' Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him : and the third day He shall rise again.' That was the programme of His royal pro- cession according to His own view in contrast to their ideal. He should experience twofold treachery : first. He should be betrayed by one of the disciples to the council, and then by the council, as representing the Jewish people, to the heathen. And so He should also receive a twofold sentence : on the part of the chief priests and scribes, condemnation to death ; and on the part of the heathen, to be set at nought by mockery, scourging, and crucifixion. This contrast between the real roj'-al procession of Christ and the worldly expectations of the disciples respecting it, was now unfolded in various transactions, in which the great distinction between Christ's royal regime in this w^orld and the usual system of royalty of the old world is presented to us in the most telling contrast. First, as to Christ's princely throne, and the highest places of honour around it. — When He had repeated that awful announce- ment more definitely than ever in the circle of the disciples, there were found bold spirits who intimated that they would consider it a high privilege to link most intimately their destiny with His in meeting these dangers. Then came to Him Salome, the wife of Zebedee, with her two sons, worshipping Him, and desiring a favour of Him. This was acknowledging Jesus as the Great King who was just about to take possession of His throne. The aspiring boldness of Zebedee's sons already offered Him the token of homage by this falling down before Him, and requesting a favour. ' What wilt thou (then) ?' asked Jesus of the suppliant mother. She saith unto Him, ' Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on the left, in Thy kingdom.' Jesus perceived the bold and noble sentiments of the mother and her sons ; but He saw also that they had no idea of what they were asking, namely, in the first instance, the positions of the two thieves who should be crucified along with Him (see above, vol. iii. p. 6). ' Ye know not what ye ask,' was His reply, addressing the sons themselves as the real petitioners. ' Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with ?' They doubtless understood that He thereby announced the heaviest suffering ; nevertheless they answered, ' We are able !' He perceived their willingness to suffer, and declared \ \ 94 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. \ that in due time they really should suffer with Him, saying, ' Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with ; but,' added He, ' to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is ])repared of My Father.' As their proposal bore a double meaning, without their knowing it, since they did not yet distinguish between the time of the sulfering and of the glory of Christ, so His answer also had to be dark. It bears reference, at the same time, both to His crucifixion and to His exaltation — to His throne on Calvary, and to His throne in the kingdom of glory. In relation to both. He could designate the Father as the real dis- poser of the places in question, since from Him are the historic destinies as well as the original destinations with respect to the heavenly glory. Thus, then, did Jesus express Himself regarding the places on His right and on His left, in contrast to the princes of this world. He bestowed a great favour upon the petitioners by refusing their petition, wherein they unwittingly asked for great sufiiering. Thus He is more gracious in refusal than an earthly prince is even in bestowal. And while they send forward all the people fit for war, when matters come to a contest of life and death, Christ will not take even His most faithful ones prematurely with Him into the death-struggle. And it is highly worthy of observa- tion, that He will not act of Himself in disposing of the first places in His kingdom, but waits for the decision of the Father on this point ; that He knows Himself to be conditioned in all respects by the Father's overruling power, while worldly princes often lay claim to the most absolute power in all affairs of state. That He thought of such a contrast, is plain from what follows. When the other ten disciples heard of the request of James and John, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto Him, and made to them the following disclosure : ' Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you ; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief (a prince) among you, let him be your servant : even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto (to reduce men to servitude), but to minister, and to give His life a ransom (a price of redemption from slavery) for many.' This is the constitutional principle in the kingdom of Christ in contrast to the State-arrangements of worldly empires ; and it also indicates the deep-lying contrast between Church and State (see above, vol. iii. p. 8-9), which can be removed only in the per- fection of the kingdom of heaven. The court of the Messianic King exhibits itself in the following fticts. When the great procession began openly and solemnly to set out from Jericho (where Christ had joined the Galilean and Perean pilgrims who were attached to Him), with a great multi- tude of adherents accompanying Him, He was suddenly stopped by two beggars. Behold, two blind men sitting by the way, when THE Messiah's eotal court. 95 they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, * Have mercy on us, 0 Lord, Thou Son of David !' The multitude] rebuked them because they should hold their peace ; but they cried the louder, uttering the same words. The people who surrounded the Lord were certainly not offended because the blind men addressed Jesus as the Lord, the Son of David, and so acknowledged Him as the Messiah. But it seemed to them offensive that the royal procession of the Messiah should still stop for the sake of two beggars. They would not have the Lord annoyed on this His day of honour with such paltry petitions, and so, courtier-like, they repelled the petitioners with lordly pride. These were indications of the princely court which was sought to be formed around the Messiah : the courtier- spirit soon made itself observable. But the blind men did not recognize these courtly barriers with Jesus, and still less did He so Himself. He stood still, called them to Him, and asked, ' What will ye that I shall do unto you ? ' It is an expression of the most humble readiness to serve, as if He had considered the beggars entitled to command Him. They said to Him, ' Lord, that our eyes may be opened.' Jesus had compassion upon them, and touched their eyes ; and immediately their eyes received sight. And at the same time they also resolved thankfully to follow Him. It was of such people that Christ formed His court. But how matters stood with respect to His train of attendants, His royal attire, and princely stud, was now to be made manifest, when the procession, in lengthened train, and with the loftiest enthusiasm, moved onward from Bethany. They were come to the village of Bethphage, and so were drawing near to the city of Jeru- salem. Jesus now set about providing for a suitable entry into the capital. He sent forward two of His disciples, with the instruction : ' Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her ; loose them and bring them unto Me : and if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them ; and straightway he will send them.' The Evangelist adds the observation : All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass (Zech. ix. 9 ; and see above, vol. iii. p. 34). But here, as everywhere else, the life of Christ was not for the sake of the prophecy, but the pro- phecy for the sake of that life. Thus it was a true need of Christ to make His entry in this manner. But, bej^ond a doubt, He had also a perfect consciousness that by satisfying that need an ancient prophecy was at the same time fulfilled. That prophetic saying had apprehended and described all His feelings ; He desired to enter into Salem in the form of a lowly prince of peace. They brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their clothes ; and they set Him thereon (see above, vol. iii. p. 35). In this mysteri- ous way was a princely stall opened to our Lord, when He had need of it, on the path of His pilgrimage, — a sign that on His spiritual 96 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. progress tlirougli the world, the aids, the treasures, and the powers of earth always stand at His command, as necessity requires. All things belong to His royal Spirit, and all become serviceable at the right day and hour ; therefore He needs no royal stables, store- houses, and treasure-houses, as do the princes of this world. And now the simple pomp of His royal procession was unfolded to view. A very great multitude surrounded Him with marks of homage. Many spread their garments in the way ; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way : so both these bands provided for the ornamentation of His path. Others again formed the nearer escort of the King. A part of them went before Him, and others followed behind ; but all sang the Messianic hymn (after Ps. cxviii. 2.5 et seq.) : ' Hosannato the Son of David: blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest.' When the procession entered Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, and every one asked, Who is this ? But the answer of the festal multitude was not, ' Christ, the King of Israel,' but ' Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.' This royal procession of the Messiah begins with a fine enthu- siasm, which forms the pure contrast to the costly and often facti- tious pomp of princely pageantries ; and so it is the fair foretoken of a time when men shall, in the light of love, celebrate the highest festivals with the simplest means — with green branches and psalms. Just at its close, however, it betrays an abatement, because Christ leads His people, not on the war-horse to the fight, but on the beast of peace to victory through endurance, and because His attendants are not yet practised in this kind of warfare. It was, however, quite in the spirit of His theocratic royal pro- cession that Christ went immediately to the temple. The house of His Father was now in a special sense His house. He took up His residence in it (for one day or for three ; see above, vol. iii. p. 39). His action in the temple was twofold. First, He imrijied it by casting out all the sellers and buyers, and overturning the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves, saying, ' It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves' (Isa. Ivi. 7; Jer. vii. 11), Secondly, He consecrated it for its original destination by filling it with divine life. He healed the blind and the lame who came to Him in it. Thus He changed the temple from a den of thieves (a place of self-interest and fraud) into a house of mercy. The sancti- fication of anything has two sides ; — a negative, which removes its former desecration, which gave it a wrong destination, and thereby defiled it ; and a positive, which completes its consecration by restoring it to its eternal destination. Thus Christ sanctified the temple, in a positive and a negative way, to be the real house of His Father. And He sanctified it, not only by divine deeds, but also by His words. The children in the temple were shouting with joy to Him, and saluting Him with the Messianic salutation, Hosanna to the Son of David. That was altogether too much for the chief THE MESSIAHS ROYAL COURT. 97 priests and scribes, who were already vexed at His miracles in the temple. They gave Him to understand that they did not concede the dignity of Messiah to Him ; that they would even impute it to Him as a crime if He allowed Himself to be greeted with the Hosanna-cry. AVith the tone of excitement they said to Him, ' Hearest Thou what these say ? ' His reply was a firm and truly great Yea, — the preface to His later testimony before Caiaphas ; then He added, ' Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?' (Ps. viii. 2). They well knew that the continuation was, Because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. And they really seem now to have kept silence, struck by that saying. Thus, as Jesus had first reinstated the blind and the lame, and with them the heathen, whom they then represented (see above, iii. 40), into their theocratic right to the temple, and God's salvation in it, from which they had been ejected by shopkeepers, usurers, and beasts for sacrifice ; so He put the praises of the babes and sucklings, in respect to their freedom and rightfulness, under the protection of the word of God, in contrast to the spiritual compulsion and threatenings of the chief priests and scribes. Thus He consecrated His Father's house, the symbolical house of God and ideal palace ; and in this shape it appears as a brilliant contrast to the palaces of princes as they ordinarily exist in the old world. The historic claim to an abode in the temple, which the homage of the people had been willing to concede to Him, was, through this intermeddling which Jesus experienced from its officials, more than doubtful. This fact is symbolically expressed by His leaving on the spot the false watch- men of Zion when they called Him to account, and departing out of the temple and the city to pass the night in Bethany. NOTE. The Evangelist passes over the raising of Lazarus in Bethany and Christ's sojourn in Ephraim, and consequently makes His last departure from Perea immediately precede His setting out from Ephraim to Jericho, where He went in order to go up to Jerusalem to the Passover in company with the great bands of pilgrims from Galilee and Perea. In describing this journey the circumstance is passed over, that it occupied a space of three days, since Jesus came the first day to Bethany and passed the night there, then rested there during the Sabbath, and finally came on Sunday in more festal procession from Bethany to Jerusalem. In the same way the Evangelist presents in uninterrupted succession the incidents of that entry and the occurrences of the next day when Jesus resided in the temple, without mentioning the intervening return of Jesus to Bethany on the evening of the festal Sunday. VOL. IV. 98 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. SECTION XVII. THE GREAT CONTEST OF THE MESSIAH WITH THE FALSE DIGNITARIES OF HIS KINGDOM IN THE PRECINCTS OF THE TEMPLE : HIS SPIRITUAL VICTORY AND HIS OUTWARD RETREAT. (Chap. xxi. 17-xxiv. 2.) Our Lord's antagonists felt it as an insufferable triumph over tlieir hostile attacks, that He now openly taught and wrought in the temple ; and that, on their first taking exception to His procedure, He had left them after having so sensibly reprimanded and cor- rected them. They therefore plotted His ruin in this very position. The day after the purification of the temple was appointed for the execution of their plot. On this day, then, the judgment on the people of Israel was to be decided in the obdurate rejection of their Messiah by their repre- sentatives. Jesus from the beginning went in and out of the temple with an anticipatory feeling of this judgment. Under this feeling took place the cursing of the barren fig-tree (on the morning of the day previous). As He was on His way to the city early in the morning (after His first return to Bethany), He hungered. So little attention was paid by the people to providing viands for this King in the days of His glorification, and so intent was He upon the duties of His office at break of day, that He could forget the morn- ing meal. When He saw a fig-tree in the way. He went to it ; but He found nothing on it except leaves. He then uttered the sentence, * Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever.' And presently the fig-tree withered away. The disciples observed this change upon the fig-tree as soon as they saw it again, namely, on the morn- ing of the decisive day which had now begun.^ They expressed to the Lord their astonishment that the fig-tree had so soon withered away. Jesus answered them, and said, ' Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also, if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.' Thus our Lord made the curse, with which the tree was already smitten, become a symbolic sign to the disciples that now the judg- ment of His people (the tree rich in leaves, but bearing no fruit) should be made manifest by their rejection of Him. But at the same time He intimated to them that this judgment would serve for the furtherance of His cause and of their future calling." They should hereafter, through faith, remove the mountain of hindrances which the Jewish hierarchy formed on their apostolic path. As soon as they again entered the temple, our Lord's anticipations 1 The representation is inexact. Yet the spiritual view of the event as related to Matthew makes us assume an interval between the cursing, after wliich Jesus doubt- less went on His way with the disciples, and the discovery of its withering awaj^ '^ See above, vol. iii. p. 49. THE FALSE DIGNITARIES OF THE KINGDOM SUBDUED. 99 were confirmed. His enemies immediately began to assail Him with violence. They first attempted to drive Him from His position with the weapons of authority and power. For, when our Lord began His teaching again, He was inter- rupted by the chief priests and the elders of the people (a depu- tation from the Sanhedrim, no doubt). They put to Him the question, ' By what authority doest Thou these things ? and who gave Thee this authority ? ' They asked for His theocratic authori- zation. Jesus replied to them, ' I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it ? from heaven (as a divine mission), or of men (as unadvised fanaticism) ? ' This counter-question of Christ was a pertinent and conclusive reply, because John the Baptist had distinctly pointed out Christ as the Messiah to the Sanhedrim, and because they had previously, in pre- sence of the people, put on the appearance as if they acknowledged the divine mission of John. They felt the difiiculty in which this question of Jesus involved them. They reasoned with themselves thus : If we shall say, From heaven, He will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe Him (especially in regard to his introduction of the Messiah) ? But if we shall say. Of men, we fear the people ; for all hold John as a prophet. Thus they were in a dilemma, which forced from them the despairing utterance, ' We cannot tell.' From the circumstance that they resolved upon a false avowal of ignorance in reference to the great theocratic question of the day — that they could make this avowal to the hated Prophet of Nazareth in the precincts of the temple, before the ears of the people, — from this we say, it may be inferred how conscious they were of the con- clusions which Jesus could draw from the acknowledging of the Baptist, and how much they feared them. But now, since they put the authority of John in question, and gave up their own, neither could Jesus any more acknowledge them as a theocratic authority to which He was bound to answer the questions they put to Him ; and He plainly told them so : ' Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.' And now He began more and more powerfully to assail them- selves in their obduracy against the truth. He did this in three parables, which are definitely progressive. The first told them that they had fallen below the publicans and harlots among their people. The second announced to them that they would proceed to the utmost, and kill the heir of their Lord's vineyard ; and that thereby they would incur the heaviest judgment, while the kingdom of God should pass to the Gentiles. The third set forth still more strongly this judgment of rejection, and the approaching calling of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God ; and also gave them to understand, that in this no partiality for the heathen obtained, but that the Spirit of holiness would exercise judicial rule also over that new Church. The first parable bore reference to the great question before them, the acknowledging of John. ' But what think ye ? A certain man 100 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. had two sons ; and he came to the first, and said, Son, s^o work to- day in ray vineyard. And he answered and said, I will not ; but afterwards he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir ; and went not.' Christ then made themselves pronounce sentence by asking them, ' Whether of them twain did the will of his father ? ' They say unto Him, ' The first.' Then He followed with the application ; ' Verily I say unto you. That the publicans and the harlots go into the king- dom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness (as a legitimate messenger of God) and ye believed him not ; but the publicans and the harlots believed him : and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.' First, they have heard that they are worse than the publicans and harlots ; He will now show them that they are worse than the heathen. Hear another parable : ' There was a certain householder, who planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine-press^in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country ; and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first ; and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying. They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir ; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.' After He had thus shown them their image in the parable, He made themselves again pronounce sentence. ' When the lord there- fore of the vineyard cometh, what,' asked He them, ' will he do unto those husbandmen ?' They really (with the utmost audacity) gave Him the right answer by declaring, ' He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husband- men, who shall render him the fruits in their seasons.' Their hypocritically assumed ingenuousness was, no doubt, in- tended to say to the Lord, that naturally the parable could not refer to them. But that such could really be said of them, He shows them now by the words, ' Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner : this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous (some- thing unheard-of) in our eyes ? (Ps. cxviii. 22, 23). Therefore say I unto you. The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.' He then gave them the warning intimation, that that despised stone which had in the Psalmist's eyes become the head of the corner, was the same mysterious stone of which Isaiah had pro})hesied, that whosoever should fall on it would be broken to pieces (Isa. viii. 14, 15), and which Daniel too had seen in spirit as a stone which would grind to powder all on which it fell (Dan. ii. 34, 45). iVdii: FALSE DIGNITARIES OF THE KINGDOM SUBDUED. 101 Our Lord's antagonists saw clearly that these parables referred to them. Hence they would gladly have seized Him to institute a process against Him. They were now so embittered, that they anew thought of doing so. But they were restrained by fear of the people, who honoured the Lord as a prophet, and protectingly sur- rounded Him. Hence they were obliged to let Him add a third parable, the strongest of all. ' The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, who made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were (already) bidden to the wedding : and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying. Tell them who are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner ; my oxen and my fat- lings are killed, and all things are ready ; come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise ; and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth ; and sent forth his armies, and de- stroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants. The wedding is ready, but they who were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all, as many as they found, both bad and good ; and the wedding was furnished with guests. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment ; and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment ? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants. Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness.' Our Lord explains this allusion to the place of torment by the added clause, by which He often designated that place, ' There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' He then summed up His sentence on the whole conduct of mankind, especially of His people, in respect to the invitation into the kingdom of heaven, in the words, ' For many are called, but few are chosen.' In the last parable Christ had very sharply characterized the conduct of the Jews towards the invitation of their God to the marriage of His Son : the indifference of the greater number, the fanatical embitterment of the rulers of the people against the hero of the feast, and against the servants who should bid them to His feast.^ This expressed, beyond a doubt, not only the approaching crucifixion of Christ, but also, and further, the persecution of His disciples. With equal distinctness had He announced to His antagonists the judgment in which they, the murderers, would perisli (by the Eoman armies as hosts who were in His service), and 1 ' That the invited guests misuse and kill the servants who tell them to come, sounds, no doubt, strange ; but may not this absurdity of those so acting be designed to typify the not less glaring foolishness of those who deal in like manner with the exhortation of God addressed to them to appear at His feast, to which they have been long ago nvited?' — Weisse, ii. 113. 102 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. their holy city be burnt up. And He had also told them with strong expressions that God would call the most despised men on the highways of the world, the heathen consequently from all the world, to His marriage feast in their stead. Their pride revolted against such an announcement. He ventured to announce to them, in very transparent parables, the heaviest judgments, in the hearing of the people, and in the middle of the temple. And yet they durst not lay hands on Him. He had frustrated their efforts of authority and power. Hence in their perplexity they now resolved to over- come Him by efforts of cunning. They therefore assumed the aspect of acknowledging Him as the theocratic Anointed of God who ruled upon Zion, and proposed to Him, as the arbitrator in Israel, a series of captious questions, in order to draw from Him some expression or other of which they might make a crime, either in the eyes of the Roman government or of the Jewish people. The party of the Pliarisees undertook to make the first attempt. In doing so, they united themselves wqth the party of the Herodians, with whom they sympathized in their dislike to the Roman domi- nion. Both parties were represented in the deputation which they sent to our Lord. The preface to what they meant to propose was as follows, ' Master, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man ; for Thou regardest not the person of men.' It has been rightly observed that falsehood must here, even against its will, acknowledge the truth. They bestow on Him the praises which in the Old Testament are predicated of just judges, and of Jehovah Himself. They then propose their captious question : ' Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou ? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cassar, or not ? ' But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, ' Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites ? Show Me the tribute-money.' And they brought Him a penny (a denarius). And He saitli unto them, ' Whose is this image and superscription ? ' They say unto Him, ' Cjesar's.' Then saith He unto them, ' Render therefore unto Ctesar the things which are Ceesar's ; and unto God the things that are God's.^ They had expected that He would have given them an answer by which they could either denounce Him to the Romans as an in- stigator of rebellion, or to the Jews as a traitor to His native land. His glorious saying swept like a sword through the toils in which. they sought to entangle Him. It was conformable not only to divine law, but also to the maxims of the Rabbis, who taught, that he who is designated lord of the coin is sovereign of the land. Our Lord's saying was so confounding to His enemies, that, as it ap- pears, they abandoned their role : marvelling, disconcerted, and confounded, they left Him and went their way. The Sadducees, too, now came to meet Him as enemies.^ The Evangelist relates in a significant manner the way in wdiich they came. ' The same day,' says he, ' came to Him the Sadducees, who ^ Probably after the temptation, by bringing to Him the woman taken in adultery (John viii. 1 et seq.) See above, vol. iii. 57. THE FALSE DIGNITARIES OF THE KINGDOM SUBDUED. 103 say that there is no resurrection, and proposed a question to Him.' This question was quite in keeping with their system. It was pro- bably their aim to involve Him in a contradiction with the law of Moses. This question of the Sadducees was as clumsy as that of the Pharisees had been cunningly calculated. They took as their point of departure the following precept of Moses regarding the so- called levirate law (Deut. xxv. 5) : If a man die, having no cliildren, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. They then set before Him an illustrative case, which was in the highest degree improbable. ' Now there were with us,' continued they, ' seven brethren ; and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother : like- wise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also.' They then put the question meant to confound our Lord : ' Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.' Jesus answered the clumsy and superficial questioners sharply, as they deserved : ' Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.' They made pretensions to both ; He must deny both to them. ' For in the resurrection,' said He in continuation, ' they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you^ by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? ' Then He continued, ' God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' Thus He showed them that the highest and strongest ground for the resurrection of the dead was quite consonant with the legislation they referred to. God as the personal God makes a covenant with men, and names Himself after them : they must therefore be eternal, since they can become covenant children of the Eternal God. Our Lord at the same time incidentally inculcated on the Sadducees, with calm superiority, the doctrine of angels, which they likewise denied. This conclusive dealing with the Sadducees made so much the greater impression upon the people, that the doctrines of the Sad- ducees were not popular with them. They were amazed at His doctrine. It seemed to give even the Pharisees a malignant joy over the opposite party that He had put the Sadducees to silence (' stopped their mouth '). But neither this movement of a passing sympathy for the scripture-understanding and scripture-believing Galilean, nor the recent defeat of their antagonists, restrained them from again entering into contest with Him. One of them, a teacher of the law, was commissioned to put to Him a captious question. The one he chose was, ' Master, which is the great commandment in the law ? ' The Rabbis possibly had come to discover that the commandment of the love of God in the law (Deut. vi. 5), at bottom, comprehended all the other commandments, and therefore 1 That is, especially to you, who make your appeal to the exclusive validity of the law of Moses in opposition to the prophets, since the passage occurs in the history of the calling of Moses (Exod. iii. 6). 104 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. was, in the mystical sense, the great commandment, the command- ment of all commandments ; and possibly they were very proud of the discovery. But they had not surmised how perfectly Christ, from His unique experience, knew the royal uniqueness of this commandment. But in this case, irrespective of His own know- ledge, He scarce needed to do more than repeat the answer which a scribe had once given Him to the question, what direction for inheriting eternal life he found in the law (see Luke x. 27 ; comp. above, ii. 453). Christ indeed brought a new order, a new light, into that answer, by setting the commandment of love to God and that of love to our neighbour in the right relation to each other. His answer was, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two command- ments,' added He, ' hang (in brief) all the law and the prophets.' Thus He gave the Eabbis more answer than they desired, by point- ing out and explaining the three great enigmas of the law. The first is, that there is one great commandment which rises pre- eminent over the others, without obscuring one of them, because it comprehends them all. The second is, that there is a second com- mandment which is entirely subordinated to the first, and yet perfectly like to it. The third is, that there are two commandments which may be considered as the central points in which the whole revelation of the Old Covenant is summed up. As our Lord's opponents had in this manner expended in vain all their cunning in order to entrap Him wath their questions, it was now His turn to put, with His clear mind, a great counter-question to them. They were assembled around Him in great number, when He asked them, ' What think ye of Christ ? Whose son is He ? ' They answered, ' The son of David.' He asked in return, ' How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool ? (Ps. ex.) If David then called Him Lord, how is He his son ? ' By this question He touched the diseased spot of their whole theological theory. They would not hear of a Messiah who could surpass David, or the old theocracy, or the Old Testament, but only of such a one as was ready to subordinate himself to them as the representatives of the Old Testament. But Jesus showed them that David himself, as organ of the Holy Ghost, placed the Messiah above himself, and called Him his Lord. This pointed to His higher descent, to His divinity. He put it closely to them at the same time, that David had declared that Jehovah would cast down all the enemies of the Messiah, and make them the footstool of His feet. The Pharisees did not answer this question of Christ's. He had touched their evil conscience in its core, and condemned it. The Evangelist tells us the significance of this question of Christ's, and of the silence of His opponents : ' And no man,' says he, ' was able THE FALSE DIGNITARIES OF THE KINGDOM SUBDUED. 105 to answer Him a word ; neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more questions ' (see above, vol. iii. p. 65). But the silence of the Pharisees si^^nified also that they positively refused to know and acknowledge the Lord. It indicated their determined obduracy. So now the time was come when He must give them up. He therefore pronounced against them His commi- nations which had gradually ripened in His spirit through the whole experience of His public life. He spoke them out free and open before all the people, in the hearing of His disciples, in the precincts of the temple, ' The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat : all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works : for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do in order to be seen of men : they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the (theocratic) borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings (reverential bows) in the markets, and to be called of men, Kabbi, Rabbi. But be ye not (with reference to the founding of the Church) called Eabbi : for One is your Master, even Christ ; and all ye are brethren (amongst yourselves^). And (with reference to the ruling of the Church) call no man your father upon the earth (in the stated order of a spiritual society) ; for One is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither call ye (on occasion of the reformation of the Church) men spiritual leaders (founders, heads of sects, or confessions) ; for One is your spiritual leader, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased ; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.' Thus our Lord exhorted the multitude and the disciples first to fidelity in the Israelite duty of obedience to those placed over them ; but next He as emphatically warned them against following the deadly example of their ambitious hierarchic doings. He then turned to the Pharisees themselves, and the long-pent-up thunder of His holy indignation broke forth in mighty peals. ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men (when they are just about to enter it) ; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.' ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers ; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.' ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye compass (Trepuijere) sea and land to make one proselyte ; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.' ' Woe unto you, ye blind guides, who say, Whosoever shall swear 1 There is no sufficient ground for Weisse's idea, Book ii. 116, that these words were addressed solely to the disciples, 106 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. by the temple, it is nothing ; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor (bound l)y his oath) ! Ye fools and blind ! for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sancti- fieth the gold ? ^ And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing ; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty (bound). Ye fools and blind ! for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift ? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear hy heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by Him that sitteth thereon ! ' Thus all oaths are, mediately, oaths by God, and so in the highest degree binding. ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment (right strictness), mercy (right leniency), and faith (the right source of right conduct) : these ought ye to have done, and (also) not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, who strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.' ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter (acquisition and enjoyment), that the outside of them (the relation of the enjoyment to the Levitical Church) may be clean also.' ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful {wpaloi) outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all unclean- ness.^ Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.' These are the seven comminations in which we see the dark con- trasts to the seven beatitudes of the Sermon on the IMount (see above, vol. iii. p. 72). Our Lord concludes with an eighth : ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say. If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the pro- phets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them who killed the prophets. Fill ye then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ? Wherefore (says He, in the con- sciousness of the judicially ruling righteousness of God, in the name of the Eternal Wisdom [see Luke xi. 49] 2), behold, Isend unto you ^ His design was ('besides blaming the subtle distinctions of the Pharisees') to censure in the general the estimate affixed by the scribes to the outward magnificence of the temple-treasure and the real worth of the offerings.' — Weisse, ii. 118. - The ashes of the dead were, for the Levitical mind, utter uncleanness — more defiling than anything else. ■^ Gfriirer, as it would seem, has no conception of Christ's speaking in this character. For as the expression e^ avTwv aravpuKTere is to be referred to Christ, ' He would,' says Gfrorer, ' say in our verse, according to Matthew's representation, Christ sends Christ, which is nonsense.' THE FALSE DIGNITARIES OF THE KINGDOM SUBDUED. 107 prophets, and wise men, and scribes ; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in yom- synagogues, and persecute them from city to city ; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, whom je slew between the temple and the altar (the altar of burnt-offering in the front court)/ ^ Thus He had pronounced the decree of judicial righteousness, as if in an ecstasy of divine judicial feeling, like the voice of a spirit from above. Then He added, again taking the standpoint of mercy acting in their midst : ' Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.' This eighth commination corre- sponds to the eighth beatitude : Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But the last beatitude of the kingdom of heaven was this : Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for J\Iy sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in heaven : for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you ! And what is the last commination which corresponds to this last beatitude ? Instead of a ninth commination, our Lord breaks out into these words : ' 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! Behold, your house (the temple) is left unto you desolate (a spiritual ruin deserted by its divinity). For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord ! ' Our Lord could not conclude this announcement of judgment without pointing to the distant dawn of salvation for His poor people. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple. His disciples seemed to feel the importance of the moment, and came around Him to point out to Him the (massive) buildings of the temple (which was still in building). It was as if they wished to intercede with Him for the temple. But Jesus said unto them, ' See ye not all these things ? (are they not really there ?) Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down (displaced and broken).' NOTES. 1. The contents of this section belong to the last day of our Lord's public ministry, consequently to the Wednesday of Passion-week. To the same day is to be referred the contents of the following sec- tion, the eschatological sayings. ^ 2 Cliron. xxiv. 21. The last killing of a New Testament prophet by the Jewish scribes and Pharisees filled up the retributive judgment of God, which they had incurred by their former killing of the Old Testament prophets. So,' from this con- trast, it may be that under the name Zacharias in this passage, is simply meant a prophet of the olden time (see above, vol. ii. p. 288). 108 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 2. Gfrorer calls our Lord's comminations ' the curses against the Pharisees' (die Fliiche gegen die Pharisaer). Die li. Sage, ii. 72. SECTION XVIII. THE aiESSIAH, BEFORE BEING JUDGED BY THE WORLD, REPRESENTS HIM- SELF TO HIS DISCIPLES AS THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. THE AN- NOUNCEMENT OF THE JUDGMENT OF THE WORLD IN ITS DIFFERENT STAGES : THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM ; THE WOES OF THE WORLD ; THE END OF THE WORLD. (Chap, xxiv. 3-chap. xxv.) On His return from Jerusalem to Bethany, Christ sat down on the Mount of Olives and looked back upon the city. Then came the disciples^ to Him, and asked Him in the confidential circle, saying, ' Tell us, when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?' They wished to know from the Lord when the destruction of Jerusalem, which He had just announced to them, should take place. From their wishing at the same time to know the sign of His coming, we may conclude that they thought it possible that that destruction might be this sign itself, but that they were uncertain about it. For Christ's revelations respecting His sufferings and the ruin of Jerusalem had quite upset their theory regarding the coming of the Messiah and the end of the world (see vol. iii. p. 79.) Upon this, Jesus made to them a great disclosure respecting the coming judgments until the end of the world. He set before them the last things in three cycles. The first cycle describes, in its general form, the whole course of the world until the world's end (chap. xxiv. 4-14). The second gives them the sign of the ap- proaching destruction of Jerusalem, and describes this destruction as itself the premonition and beginning of the world's judgment, which continues from those days of sorrow, in quieter, tempered days of judgment, until the end of the world (vers. 15-28). The third describes the sudden coming on of the end of the world, with the judgment which follows (vers. 29-31). Our Lord then shows the disciples why He can give them no outward sign before the end of the world, long preceding the fact itself (vers. 32-36). He then describes to them how unheeding the generation of the last times would live on until the day, without thinking on the judgment, and how suddenly it would be overtaken by the judgment. Then, finally. He exhorts His own people to watchfulness (vers. 37-44). This exhortation He enforces by a series of parables, in which He shows how searchingly the judgment would come upon the disciples also. These parables show forth the last judgment in a definite succession of movements (chap. xxiv. 45-xxv.) The Lord describes in two periods the course of the world until the judgment. In the first, the development proceeds with apparent slowness, in a quieter form ; in the second, it hurries onward im- ^ According to Mark xiii. 3, these four — Peter, James, John, and Andrew. THE MESSIAH AS THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. 109 petuously to the conclusion. Each period has cosmic and christo- logical signs of progress, — a proof that the development of the world's life in all its grounds runs parallel with the development of the kingdom of God, and is conditioned by it. The representation begins with the warning words, ' Take heed that no man deceive you ! for many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many.' This is the christological characteristic of the world's course, in the first and more slowly moving period : false Christs in a thousand seductive forms. Our Lord describes the cosmic characteristics of this period in these words : ' And ye shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars ; see that ye be not troubled ; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.' Then follows the second period, in which the cosmic signs are these : ' Nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom ; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earth- quakes, in divers places. All these are the (cosmic) beginning of sorrows (the birth-throes of the world's end).'^ The christological signs are in correspondence : ' Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.' Our Lord concludes His delineation of these signs of sorrow with the cheering words, ' But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.' He then gives them the joyous characteristic of the Christian course of progress, which far outweighs the sorrow- ful : ' And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations (that all nations may be judged according to it). And then shall the end come (the great end).' The typical end comes in the destruction of Jerusalem, which, however, besides its typical significance (according to which it is the end of the world itself), is to be at the same time considered as the real germ or beginning of the end of the world. Under this point of view our Lord describes the fall of Jerusalem in the second cycle. First the sign, which can here be given with exactitude : ' When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet (chap. ix. 27), standing in the holy place (the Evangelist remarks parenthetically, Whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them who be in Judea flee into the moun- tains.' This sign which the Lord gave His followers was very intelligible to the Israelite mind. The holy place was the holy city itself with its precincts. The abomination denoted a heathen sign, which would desecrate the holy place. And as the abomination of desolation, it was such a sign as not merely brought desecration with it, but also announced destruction. The Christians gave, by their conduct, the exposition of this saying of our Lord : when they 1 The Talmudists have much to tell of the woes of the Messiah : dolores Messise. See J. H. Hottinger, Hist. Eccles. i. p. 2. 110 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. saw the Koman eagles waving in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, when the investment of the city began, they fled unto the mountain land beyond Jordan, to Pella in Perea. Our Lord impresses strongly on the disciples that the flight then must be as speedy as possible : Let him who is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of his house ; neither let him who is in the field return back to take his clothes.' He has so lively a view of that terrible time with its sufferings, that He exclaims, ' And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days ! ' Thus He is concerned about the lot of His followers who have to flee. It was painful enough for Him, that in that war which the Jewish fanaticism of false messiah-hope would carry on, they should be obliged to separate from their old associates in their frantic undertaking ; but He would endeavour to guard against their setting out on a Sabbath, and thereby deeply wounding the- religious feelings of their old associates, which might draw persecu- tion on themselves from them. He was equally anxious to spare them the sufferings of a flight in the winter season. Hence He exhorts them : ' But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath-day ; ' and added for explanation, ' For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days (of the judgment) should be shortened (mitigated or sup- pressed, see above, vol. iii. pp. 89 and 103), there should no flesh be saved (the rescue of the few believers in Israel would not be able to expand to the rescue of the believers in all the world). ^ But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened (so that only in a suppressed form shall they continue to the end of the world). Then if (in the days when the judgment specially consists in the Church's having no Mount Zion, no centre, no head upon earth) any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ ! or, there ; believe it not : for there shall arise false christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before.' ' Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert (in the eremus of the eremites, in false, outward renunciation of the world, in monasticism, in the celibacy of the clergy, in a weary-of- the- world pietistic askesis which lives only for the outward eternity), go not forth' 'And if again they shall say unto you (with the same enthu- siasm, with the same excitement and apparent confidence). Behold, he is in the secret chambers (of abundance and pleasure, in the festivity, pleasure, and plenteousness of the outward community, in a refined religious worldliness, which would transform the outward state here as such into heaven), believe it not !' So it may be possible to be deceived in regard to those charac- teristics which exhibit the true spiritual life, the spiritual Messiah. Our Lord declares that, on the contrary, it will be impossible to mistake the sign of His actual appearing : ' For as the lightning ^ The expression here has unquestionably a reference to the whole world. THE MESSIAH AS THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. Ill cometli out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.' And this great coming is certain, for He adds, ' For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.' Next begins the third cj^cle, the description of the actual end of the world. 'Immediately (without any outwardly j^erceptible transi- tion) after the (gradually subsiding) tribulation of those days, the sun (as the centre of the cosmos in its old form) shall be darkened, and (also) the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven (the planets " of the heaven," of this solar system, shall depart from their former connections, the old system of the dark " kingdom of the mean " shall break up), and the powers " of the heaven " shall be shaken (by the cosmic sphere of the earth, the solar system, being changed and entering into a new relation to the starry world ; see above, vol. iii. 93) : and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man (of His coming) in heaven (in the new form which the new heaven has for the new earth) : and then shall (in amazement and horror) all the tribes of the earth mourn (the ideal- real families of mankind in their developed, Christian- worldly, social state),^ and they shall see (behold with their eyes) the Son of man coming in the clouds of (the changing) heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send forth His angels with a great sound of a trumpet (with an all-penetrating spiritual call, which lays hold irresistibly on the life allied to it), and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (thus this gathering together of the elect will be the judgment).' Our Lord had hitherto only told the disciples the signs of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world, which should be followed by those judgments ; He now explains to them how this could not be otherwise : ' Learn a parable (of these things) of the fig-tree : When its branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh (very nigh). So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.' It is a general law of life in the world's development that the epochs come suddenly, after they have been slowly prepared for by the periodic development, and quietly announced by the periodic times ; and this law will be fulfilled in the highest degree at the coming on of the last epoch (see above, vol. iii., p. 101). Our Lord next describes the light side of the last times in few but expressive outlines: ' Verily I say unto you, This generation (the new race of men, the noble race of Christians whom He already beholds in His disciples ; see above, iii. 95) shall not pass, till all these things are fulfilled.' So there shall alway be a Christian people and a Christian Church throughout all these tribulations, unto the end of the world. But the reason why this people is imperishable is, that the seed of Christ is imperishable which begets this people. Our Lord expresses this thought in the words : ' Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' ^ Ai (pv\ai ttJj -y^j. 112 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. But to prevent His saying from being misunderstood, as if tlie ■first generation of His disciples, or any following generation in an outward sense, might reckon securely on living into that time, He makes the explanation : ' But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, hut My Father only.' He Him- self has not reflected on those appointments, seeks not to know them, and therefore does not know them ; and surely then it must seem chiliastic and premature if His disciples are eager to know the certainty in this respect, or think that they know it (see above, vol. iii., p. 96). But however much they should guard against undue haste, they should equally avoid the false security of the world. Our Lord now delineates this : ' But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not (suspected nothing) until the flood came and took them all away ; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be (together) in the field ; the one shall be taken (away), and the other left (behind). Two women shall be grinding (together) at the mill ; the one shall be taken, and the other left.' Tlie Lord had prefaced His descriptive account with the practical warning : ' Take heed that no man deceive you ! ' He concludes it in the same manner with the practical exhortation : ' Watch there- fore ; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch (at what time of the night) the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready : for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.' This exliortation He now inculcates on His followers in four allegories, in which the judgment is unfolded before us in the vari- ous ways in which it acts with reference to different classes. None of these allegoi'ies is to be considered as exactly a parable. They were spoken with express, intentional reference to Christ's second coming. This resolving of the parable into the allegory is specially apparent in the first example. ' Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season ? Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming ; and shall begin to smite his fellow- servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken ; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall (with instant judgment on the spot) cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' So Christ comes first for judgment on the rulers of His Church. THE MESSIAH AS THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. 113 For that evil ruler He comes entirely unexpected, and takes him quite by surprise. It is instant judgment that He executes on him. He is cut off from this world, and in the next receives the heaviest condemnation — the same portion as the hypocrites. ' Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them w^ere wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them ; but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and (really) slept. And at midnight there was a cry made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh ; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise. Give us of your oil ; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying. Not so ; lest there be not enough for us and you : but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came ; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage : and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying. Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.' Our Lord makes the application, ' Watch therefore ; for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.' The coming of Christ is here represented as a coming for judg- ment on the Church. Also, for the Church in general, He comes quite unexpected, and takes her by surprise, although watchmen are not wanting who at the proper time raise the cry, The Bridegroom cometh ! The only thing which distinguishes the wise virgins from the foolish, is the possession of oil. They have oil in their lamps, the spirit^of life in their forms of faith. The foolish are not destitute of the latter, but of the oil of the Spirit. Their punishment consists in being shut out from the marriage of Christ. Thus the coming of Christ is a coming for judgment on the Church. The parable which follows goes a step further, and repre- sents the judgment on individual members of the Church. Our Lord continues : ' For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one ; to every man according to his several ability ; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst imto me five talents : behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things : VOL. IV. H 114 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. enter thou into the joy (tlie fellowship of the joy) of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou de- liveredst unto me two talents : behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed : and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth : lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed : thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. (Then he commanded, saying), ' Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him who hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance : but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.' The conclusion is again made by the fearful refrain : ' There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' After that the Lord had also depicted the judgment as a judg- ment on the individual members of His Church, He finally repre- sents it as a judgment over all nations. ' When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory ; and before Him shall be gathered all nations : and He shall sepa- rate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats ; and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ; for I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink ; I was a stranger (hearthless and homeless), and ye took Me in ; naked, and ye clothed Me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. Then shall the righteous answer Him, say- ing. Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Tliee ? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink ? When saw we Thee a (forsaken) stranger, and took Thee in ? or naked, and clothed Thee ? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee ? And the King shall answer and say unto them. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed (curse-impenetrated), into everlasting fire, pre- pared for the devil and his angels : for I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in ; naked, and ye clothed Me not ; sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not. Then shall they also THE MESSIAH AS THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. 115 answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee ? Then shall He answer them, saying. Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. And these shall go away into everlasting pun- ishment : but the righteous into life eternal.' This parable completes the representation of the last judgment in every respect. In the first, the Judge appears simply as the House- holder ; in the second, as the Bridegroom ; in the third, as the rich Lord ; in the fourth, as the King. According to the first. He comes most unexpectedly and at unawares ; according to the second, long expected at first, and afterwards surprisingly quick ; according to the third, late after long absence ; according to the fourth, at the end of time. In the first parable. He appears as Judge over the rulers of His Church ; in the second, over the Church herself ; in the third, over the individual members of His Church ; in the fourth, over all nations. In the first case, He, as Judge, beholds in the pre- sent fact an evidence of the way in which the duties of office have been discharged ; in the second, He beholds the abiding life in the Spirit, and not merely that life as it manifests itself in the momen- tary frame of mind ; in the third, the blessing which His servants have gained in the calling of the Spirit during His absence ; in the fourth, the long bypast works of Christian compassion, in which the faith and love of His followers approved themselves. The judg- ment which He executes on the evil rulers of the Church is utter rejection : the benumbed portion of the Church is punished by ex- clusion from the marriage-feast of Christ, and by being compelled to continue waiting without in the darkness ; the slothful Christian, who hid his talent, is deprived of it, and, thus impoverished, is cast into outer darkness ; finally, the uncompassionate men de- part, curse-laden, into the eternal fire which ^vas prepared for the devil and his angels, the demons of heartlessness and cruelty. As, in the first parable, the evil ruler of the Church is placed among the greatest outcasts, the faithful servant is set over all his lord's goods. And as, according to the second, the foolish virgins were shut out from the marriage-feast, the wise virgins partake of it. The good and faithful servants of the third parable are made rulers over many things ; they are received into the joy, the most intimate fel- lowship of their Lord, which forms the contrast to outer darkness, into which the wicked servant is cast. Finally, the compassionate men appear as the elect, the heirs of the kingdom of bliss which God has founded and prepared for them from the foundation of the world ; while the uncompassionate incur a judgment which was pre- pared originally not for men, but only for the fallen spirits created before man, who hate both God and man. As to the time, the last judgment extends from the first moment in which it comes on the house of God until the day when it shall be executed on all nations. Thus these four parables set forth the judgment of the world in 116 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. all its relations, and so form a parallel to the three parables in which Jesus described the execution of judgment on Judaism. NOTE. When we compare the doctrine of the preliminary transformation of the world before its end, or the thousand years' reign (Isa. Ixv. ; Kev. XX.), with the doctrine of the last things as given by Matthew, there is no other place for it than the description of the last time (ch. xxiv. 37-42). The apparent difficulty which this combination at first sight presents, disappears when we reflect that the last days, even as Matthew represents them, are days of outward blessing, days in which there are living Christians in all places, and in which Christ is universally acknowledged, so that it seems as if true Christianity were quite universal. In point of fact it has, as a world's religion, obtained full supremacy. Hence it is said of them who are lost, that they are left — left behind. Hence the foolish virgins trim their lamps together with the wise, and those who are placed as goats on the left think that they have performed their Christian duty as well as the others have done. But under all this semblance of perfec- tion, the contrast of the good and the bad has inwardly developed still further and further. The kingdom of evil is so powerful, that it lowers the tone even of the supporters of the kingdom of heaven. So, finally, both kingdoms, in their contrast, have, under the vari- able mask of a Christian world! iness or worldly Christianity, ripened for the final decision and separation. SECTION XIX. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE MESSIAH ; OR, THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND THE WORLD ON THE KING OF THE JEWS. (Chap. xxvi. xxvii.) The germ for the Messiah's judgment on Israel and the world, which He had just announced to His disciples, was now cast into the womb of the future by His people in their holding judgment on Him ; and in this awful deed they involved the heathen also. Because Israel and the world passed judgment on the Lord of glory, He must, according to God's arrangement, come to judge the world. For He must be justified in presence of the world. This justification is His glorification. And in proportion as this is made manifest, naturally, and in its light, the judgment of the world also is made manifest. Thus the completion of His glorification is the last judgment itself ; His appearing before all the world, the decision of the judgment. After our Lord had, with His disciples, beheld in spirit the flames of Jerusalem and of the last judgment. He could with confidence meet the world's fearful judgment on Him without being perplexed by these awful experiences, and without the disciples sinking under this searching trial. Israel's judgment on the Messiah. 117 And as He had announced to His disciples His future coming for judgment, so He now foretold them the day on which the world would hold judgment on Him. ' Ye know,' said He, ' that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and (then) the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified/ The clearness, certainty, and composure with which He foretold this, forms a marvellous contrast to the dark uncertainty in which His enemies still find themselves with respect to the time of His execution. Then — most probably on the evening of the day on which He took 1-eave of the temple — assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people (for a session of the Sanhedrim), and consulted how they might take Him by subtilty and kill Him. But they said, ' Not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among the people.' Thus they themselves did not yet know that they should put the Lord to death on the very day of the Passover ; but He knew it. And the occasion which was to bring them to a different deter- mination was already prepared. It had come to maturity a few days before this, at a feast given to our Lord in Bethany. The Evangelist here first relates this occurrence, because it serves to account for the alteration in the determination of the council. Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper (see above, iii. 21), there came unto Him a woman having an alabaster- box of very precious ointment, and poured it on His head as He sat at meat. But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, ' To what purpose is this waste ? For this ointment might liave been sold for much, and given to the poor.' When Jesus understood it. He said unto them, ' Why trouble ye the woman ? for she hath wrought a good work upon Me. For ye have the poor always with you ; but Me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on My body, she did it for My burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.' So high in this moment did this woman stand above the disciples. She had the distinct presentiment of the death of Jesus, and ex- hibited it in her act. The disciples, again, in general had no understanding of her deed ; they could even evince an utterly wrong feeling in regard to it. True, this wrong feeling of the circle proceeded from a single member — from Judas Iscariot. This one of the Twelve, whose deep displeasure against the Lord is sufficiently evident from the disapproval of the anointing, of which he was the originator, was so embittered by Jesus' word in defence of the anointing, that he now went to the chief priests and said unto them, ' What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you ?' And they bargained with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him. So this agreement between the traitor and the high priests had already taken place when Jesus told the disciples He would be 118 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. crucified on the Passoyer-day, But undecided as still were tlie members of the council in regard to the favourable moment, equally undecided was Judas likewise, until a second great feast was the occasion which brought to full maturity the dark thought of his mind. When the day of unleavened bread was come, which preceded the eve of the Passover (14th Nisan), the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, ' Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover ?' He told them (namely, the two whom He sent), ' Go into the city to such a man' — to a man whom He had reasons for not now naming to them, but for finding whom He gave them a distinct signal.^ His commission to this man was this, ' The Master saith, My time is at hand ; I will keep the Passover at thy house with My disciples.' This mission bore the same mysterious charac- ter as the message to Bethphage for bringing the ass' colt. The Master knew His man, the man knew his Master: without a doubt the prophetic spirit of Christ was working here in connection with the suppositions of former friendship. The disciples did as Jesus had appointed them, and made ready for Him the Passover. At even the Lord came and sat down with the Twelve. And as they did eat, He said, ' Verily I say unto you, That one of you shall betray Me.' The disciples were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto Him, ' Lord, is it I ?' Jesus answered, * He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.' Probably this mark characterized the conduct of the traitor in reaching over to dip his morsel as near to Jesus as pos- sible. Jesus then continued, ' The Son of man goetli as it is written of Him (according to the counsel of God, and therefore for salva- tion) ; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed ! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.' After this word of thunder from our Lord, the traitor was bold enough to venture to ask Him, in the same Avords as the rest, ' Master, is it I ?' Jesus said unto him, ' Thou hast said.' The Evangelist (who alone relates this last circumstance) tells us nothing of the departure of Judas from the circle of the disciples. We may assume, however, that he departed now. Another destroy- ing angel than the one who on the first paschal night smote the first-born of Egypt, now hurried him on to his ruin. But Jesus instituted the feast of love * in the night on which He was be- trayed.' And as they were eating (the Passover), Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, ' Take, eat ; this is My body.' And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ' Drink ye all of it ; for this is My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.' They then sang a concluding hymn, and went out unto the ^ Oa the reasons for this reserve, see above, vol. iii. p. 118. Israel's judgment on the messiah. 119 Mount of Olives. On the way thither, Jesus told them, 'AH ye shall be offended (stumble, to fall) because of Me this night ; for it is written (Zecli. xiii. 7), I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. Bat after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.' Then Peter answered, ' Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended.' Jesus said unto him, ' Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shaft deny Me thrice.' Peter afhrmed again, ' Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee.' Likewise also said all the disciples. Then came Jesus with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, ' Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder.' And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy (to be shaken by a feeling of oppression and desertion). In this state He said to them, ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death : tarry ye here, and w\atch with Me.' And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ' 0 My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me : nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' He then returned to His disciples and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, ' What ! could ye not watch with Me one hour ? Watch and pray,' added He, warningly, ' that ye enter not into temptation : the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He then went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, ' 0 My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done.' Thus this second prayer had (according to Matthew) an essentially altered form, although it was in spirit the same as the first. In this form it expresses the sacrifice which Jesus performed in spirit. AVhen He now returned again. He found them asleep the second time, for their eyes were heavy. They could scarcely be again brought to consciousness. So He left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. And now He had drunk the cup of this mysterious afflic- tion, and offered Himself to the Father in the nameless distress and anguish of His soul. Now, after His soul had been thrice strongly agitated, and thrice strengthened strongly in devoting Himself to God, His soul stood immoveably firm, and so He came again to His three sleeping companions, who had left Him to tread ' the wine- press alone' (Isa. Ixiii. 3), and gave them the gentle reprimand, ' Do ye sleep and take your rest ? behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. Kise, let us be going ; behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.' And while He yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the Twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. The traitor had given them a sign, saying. Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is He ; hold Him fast. And forthwith (in wild haste) he came to Jesus, and said, 'Hail, Master,' and kissed Him (sought to kiss Him with the expression of tenderness). And Jesus said unto him, ' Friend, wherefore art thou 120 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. come ? ' Then came the ofiEicials and laid hands on Jesus, and took Him. And, behold, one of them who were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, ' Put up again thy sword into its place (the sheath, which is its right place) ; for all tliey that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' He then added the saying (which Matthew again alone gives), ' Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels ? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? ' Christ spoke not merely to Peter in his individuality, but at the same time to the Peter which continues to live in the Church, in the stretching forth of the hand in a thousand forms to grasp the sword of outward power. By this saying He at the same time declared to the Israelite mind, which was so very vexed at His sufferings, that He suffered voluntarily, and indeed according to the Scriptures of the Old Covenant ; that the suffering of the Messiah was contained in the appointment of the Messiah. In that same hour He also uttered a solemn protest against His enemies. ' Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves to take Me ? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on Me. But all this was done that the Scrip- tures of the prophets might be fulfilled.' When the disciples saw and heard that Jesus thus gave Himself up to the power of His enemies, their courage gave way : they all forsook Him, and fled. And they that had laid hold on Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. Peter followed Him afar off unto the high priest's palace, and went in (into the hall), and sat with the servants to see the end. The Evangelist now describes to us the judicial procedure in Caiaphas' house, by which Jesus was solemnly condemned to death. The chief priests, the elders, and all the council (as it had now assembled, composed of those who were like-minded ; see above, vol. iii. p. 234), sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none ; yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, and said, ' This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.' The high priest now arose and said, 'Answerest Thou nothing to that which these witness against Thee ? ' But Jesus held His peace. The high priest appeared willing to take this silence as at least an assent to the main idea in that expression ; for the Evangelist observes, that he, answering, said to Him, ' I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God.' The living God answered him in the answer of Jesus. As the faithful witness, Jesus expressed the mystery of His consciousness, the word of life for the world, on which His death depended. His answer was, ' Thou hast said : neverthe- less, I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting Israel's judgment on the Messiah. 121 on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.' He announces to them the judgment of His coming. He announced to them that henceforth they shoukl be always visited with alarming indications of His supremacy. They should see Him always. Wherever Omnipotence displays itself, there will He appear with it as heir of its efiects. On the many clouds which should still darken the sky, He will always be manifest as the light of the latter days, the morning star, the sun of a better future ; and this from that time until the revelation of His glory, when seated on the last clouds of the world's conflagration. On this solemn dechxration of Jesus, the liigh priest rent his clothes, say- ing, ' He hath spoken blasphemy ; what further need have we of witnesses ? behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy.' And further and further proceeds he in the same breath, * What think ye ? ' They answered, ' He is guilty of death.' Then they did spit in His face, and buffeted Him. They intended by this to represent Him with praiseworthy zeal as a heretic.^ Some likewise struck Him on the face with their hands, and jeered at His claim to the dignity of prophet, saying, ' Prophesy unto us, Thou Christ, who is he that smote Thee ? ' But the blow He felt most was given Him about this same time by the most prominent of His disciples, Peter, who had most strongly asserted his devotedness to Him. He was sitting without in the court of the palace. One of the maid-servants came to him there, saying, ' Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee' (thou belongest to His associates). And this one word of a maid-servant could bring him to his fall : he denied before them all, saying, ' I know not what thou sayest.' And when he was gone into the porch, another maid saw him, and said to them that were there, ' This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.' He denied again, and this time with an oath. The first time he had said, I know not what thou sayest ; he now used a stronger expression : ' I do not know the man.' And after a while came unto him they that stood by (the high priest's servants), and declared decidedly, ' Surely thou also art one of them ; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.' Upon this, he went so far as to curse and to swear, saying, ' I know not the man.' And immediately the cock crew. And Peter then remem- bered the word of Jesus, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And he went out and w^ept bitterly. Thus the delivering of Jesus to the judgment of the heathen was decided. His people had, through their rulers, condemned Him ; even His disciples dared not to confess Him ; the boldest of them had just denied Him, and gone out, with his courage broken, weep- ing bitterly in the morning twilight, which the cockcrow had with startling tones announced to him. The work of the night was completed when morning came. First of all, once more a session of the Sanhedrim, composed of all the chief priests and elders of the people, was held with all due ^ Compare vol. ii. p. 104. 122 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. formality, in contrast to the improvised and irregular assembling of the council which had taken place in the night (see above, vol. iii. p. 244). This assembly confirmed the sentence of death. The bonds, which probably had been taken off our Lord during the examination, were put on Him anew. So they led Him away in formal procession, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. It is very remarkable, that just here Matthew relates to us the end of Judas, of which the other Evangelists tell us nothing. We may venture to assume, that the unhappy course of Judas appeared to him a ty])e of this unhappy course of his people, in which they went to lay hands on themselves in spiritual suicide. ' Then Judas, who had beti'ayed Him, when he saw that He was condemned, repented.' But his repentance showed itself to be a despairing repentance by its crooked course and awful issue. He brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, say- ing, ' I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.' They replied, ' What is that to us ? see thou to that.' So the priests dismissed him again with his wages. Upon this, he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple for the temple- treasury, and attempted to retreat to a hermit life, as anchoret. Yet thus he found no rest ; so he took the last step, and went and hanged him- self. Thus he died hanging ; a fearful contrast to his Master, whom he had brought to hang on the cross. But the chief priests would not keep the thirty pieces of silver as a gift to the temple. They judged it unlawful to put them into the treasury, because they were the price of blood. As finished hypocrites, they would draw a distinction between Levitical and political consciousness ; as statesmen, they had themselves paid out the blood-money ; as priests, they thought it necessary to separate the same as unclean from the temple-gifts, and apply it to another purpose. They soon came to a decision ; for they bought with it that field in the vale of Hinnom on which Judas died, which, as a exhausted potter's field, was perhaps to be had cheap, especially since that suicide had desecrated it ; and appointed this place to be a burial-place for strangers who died in Jerusalem. This, then, was the way that the Pharisee mind came to do something for strangers. They hoped, perhaps, that among the bodies of strangers, the traitor would be first forgotten, and with him also their deed. But probabl}" they looked upon this, which cost them nothing but a few pieces of silver which they knew not how otherwise to invest, as a meritori- ous work, by which they for once ]iaid homage to the duty of humanity to strangers which the Nazarene had so strenuously preached, and to the progress which the time seemed to demand. The Evangelist makes the observation, ' Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day ;' and he adds, 'Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave Israel's judgment on the messiah. 123 them for the potters field, as the Lord appointed me.' According to the thirty-second chapter of the prophet Jeremiah, this shoukl serve, in a time when Jerusalem seemed to be lost, to buy a field at AnathotL , for a sign that Jerusalem must not yet be given up — that it should be again inhabited. That appointment was now fulfilled in its highest sense. The members of the Sanhedrim bought the curse-laden sjiot in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and that to bury strangers in. Thus they unconsciously did what formerly the Lord had commanded Jeremiah, But that they so did is told by the Evangelist in words which unmistakeably refer to another ])assage, Zech. xi. 13, which he blended into one with the typical prophecy of Jeremiah. As the Jews consciously present to strangers a miserable bury- ing-place, so they unconsciously throw to them their most precious treasure, the Messiah. Jesus stood before the governor ; and the governor asked Him, ' Art Thou the King of the Jews ? ' And Jesus answered him, ' Thou sayest.' The Evangelist omits to mention that He (according to John) did not at once answer him thus definitely, but first fixed the sense in which he asked Him. Matthew deals with the main matter : Jesus represented Himself to Pilate as the King of the Jews in the theocratic sense. Again, he observes that Jesus answered nothing when accused by the chief priests and scribes. For He did not find it necessary to defend Himself against the religious accusation of the Jews, that He had committed blasphemy by making Himself the Son of God, after He had assured the Roman that His kingdom was not of this world, and that so He had foi'raed no political plots. Pilate therefore asked Him, ' Hearest Thou not how many things they witness against Thee ? ' And He answered him never a word, insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly. So this is the brief result of the whole examination of Jesus before Pilate : He confessed to His Messiahship and His people before the heathen judge to whom His people had delivered Him, and before whom they denied Him ; He declared that He was the King of the Jews. He gave not the least answer to other accusations. Thus the King of the Jews stands denied and accused by His people before the heathen judge. He confesses nothing but that He is the King of the Jews. So that, when He is judged, the people of the Jews in their higher tendency, and thus the hope of the Jews, is judged in Him. This first placing of Christ in judgment was by His people. The second was by Pilate before His people. For he placed Him along- side of Barabbas. The governor was wont at the Passover to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would. He had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas. He now assembled the multitude in a more orderly manner, and then proposed to them the question, Whom will ye that I release unto you ? Barabbas,^ or Jesus who is called Christ ? ' The Evangelist adds. For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him. By this he intimates ^ With respect to the way in which this placing of Christ and Barabbas on the same footing was effected by the Jewish rulers, see above, vol. iii. pp. 269-70. 124 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. that Pilate knew that many among the people were favourably disposed to Jesus, and he might hope that these would decide in His favour. For this reason he would be desirous to obtain as numerous an assembly of the people as possible. So now the judg- ment on our Lord [assumed the fearful aspect, that the people had to decide which they would ask to be released — Barabbas the noted criminal, or Jesus. The Evangelist next describes to us a very significant "pause, into which entered a kind of contest of spirits, which raised to a violent conflict the outward struggle between Pilate, who sought to set our Lord free, and the people who were to ])ronounce sentence on Him. A good spirit sought, in the message of his wife, to strengthen Pilate as he sat on the judgment-seat. She sent unto him, saying, ' Have thou nothing to do with that just man ; for 1 have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him.' But in the meantime an evil spirit wrought upon the people with more suc- cess : the chief priests and elders persuaded the assembled multi- tude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. This is one of the strongest contrasts, and, without a doubt, Matthew related it with the deepest consciousness. The good spirit which sought to strengthen Pilate in his design of rescuing the ' King of the Jews ' spoke through a dream, through the dream of a heatheness, from the heart of a noble Eoman matron, the wife of a vain, haughty worldling. And the evil spirit which made these warnings of no effect, by misleading the Jewish people with its suggestions to reject their King for a malefactor, spoke through the deliberate resolution and concerted agreement of the elders in Israel, who were familiar with the letter of revelation, and through the advice of their high priest, who bore upon his breastplate the motto. Light and judgment ! — it spoke through the hearts of the fathers of Israel to tlie people committed to their charge. The judicial exercise of God's authority manifested itself, in that the evil counsel of the watchmen of Israel prevailed over the pious dream of the heatheness. When now the governor asked the mul- titude, ' Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you ? ' they said, ' Barabbas.' And when he further asked, ' What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ ? ' they all answered, ' Let Him be crucified ; ' and when asked, ' Why, what evil hath He done ? ' they cried out the more, saying, ' Let Him be crucified.' No voice was raised in favour of our Lord. The minority which might have been so inclined was]^completely terrorized, and silent as the grave. And now followed a scene which Matthew alone describes, and which was of the highest significance for the future of the Jewish people. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, ' I am innocent of the blood of this just person ; see ye to it.' Then answered all the people (says Matthew, with an emphasis which expresses the full consciousness Israel's judgment on the Messiah. 125 of the significance of this moment for Israel), ' His blood be on us and on our children ! ' True, the Eoman could not wash his hands clean from the blood-guiltiness which he was just about to contract, yet its heaviest curse fell on the people, wdiich in this moment im- precates such an awful curse upon itself. Thus the people had thrice, with increased decisiveness, con- demned our Lord to the cross. Then Pilate released Barabbas unto them ; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him ^ to be crucified. The crowning of Christ in mockery, now performed by the Eoman soldiers, shows that it was not merely under compulsion from the Jews, but willingly, and with devilish delight, that the heathen took part in the crucifixion of Christ. They brought Him into the prtetorium, and gathered around Him the whole band. They then stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe to repre- sent the royal purple. They platted a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put a reed in His hand. They then bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, ' Hail, King of the Jews ! ' Lastly, they spit upon Him, and took the reed and smote Him on the head. Thus, in one short but decisive act, they represented the partici- pation of the heathen world in the crucifixion of Christ. But the act, doubtless, denotes specially the particular kind of the culpa- bilities of the heathen against the life of Christ. The heathen mind denies and assails chiefly His Eoyal dignity, His Eoyal rule, and His Eoyal kingdom. And while the Jewish mind wounds Him mainly with bitter, gloomy fanaticism, in scorn and blasphemy, the heathen mind sins against Him chiefly in the form of wild merriment, of rude, un- thinking mockery. After they had thus mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him, and put on Him His own raiment, and led Him away to be crucified. And when they had come out of the city, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name : him they compelled to bear His cross. The name of the man w^as sufficiently remarkable to be specially noticed. Another Simon in the circle of the disciples had boasted to the Lord of his readiness to go with Him to death, and had not stood firm ; and now this Simon, from a distant heathen city, had, under compulsion, to accompany Him to Golgotha and support Him. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha — that is to say, a place of a skull — they gave Him a cup from which, according to their custom and as they deemed meet, He should drink contempt of death, ' vinegar mingled with gall.' The Evangelist chooses here an expression in the Psalms, which indicates that that passage may be considered as a typical presage of what now took place (Ps. Ixix, 21). The wine was sour as vinegar, for they thought the worst drink good enough for Him. The mixture was ^ On the relation of the scourging of Jesus to His execution, see above, vol. iii. pp. 268 and 279. 126 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. bitter as gall, and in the same high degree stnpefying. He tasted the dangerous drink, and refused it. The wine which the fathers of Israel were to give to their Lord, the King of Glory, to glorify Him, and which they gave Him ' without the camp ' of the Levi- tical Church, on the accursed place of a skull, was vinegar mingled with gall. After they had crucified Him, they parted His garments and cast lots for them.^ And, sitting down, they watched Him there. That was the guard of honour which the great King received. He hung, nailed to the cross, naked, dispoiled of His raiment ; but His guard, which parted His raiment, and, like gamblers, cast lots for them, were comfortably seated on the ground. In this position, the title of honour, indeed, which was His due, was, by a peculiar dispensation of providence, given to Him. They set up over His head the inscription meant to denote the cause of His execution, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. But this in- scription was only intended to deride in Him the kingdom of the Jews ; and this derision was augmented by the circumstance that with Him they crucified two thieves, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. This derision proceeded from the heathen governor, and was aimed rather at the Jews than at Jesus. Yet so much tlie more zealous were the Jews to renounce connection with Him in His death. They that passed by, says the Evangelist, reviled Him, wagging their heads, and saying, ' Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it (again) in three days, save Thyself.' Likewise also the chief priests, mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, ' He saved others ; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. And, uncon- sciously to them, their mockery passed into blasphemy, which is always the end of fanaticism, when they said, 'He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him ; for He said, I am the Son of God.' The thieves also, who were crucified with Him, cast the same (the latter) in his teeth. When the rejection of the Messiah had thus reached its climax, creation itself began to testify to Him. From the sixth hour a darkness spread over the land, which continued until the ninth hour. In this darkness was revealed the mysterious connection be- tween the development of the earth and the life of humanity, which now in its Head was enduring the utmost suffering on its way to its glorification. It was a miraculous sign; for there could not have been a natural darkening of the sun about this time (full moon). Nature appeared unconsciously to imitate the mental frame of its dying King. This mental frame of our Lord was finally revealed when it had reached its utmost tension in the exclamation, ' Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ! ' that is to say, My God, My God, why hast 1 The additional clause, ' That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the pro- phet, They parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots,' is not sufficiently attested. Israel's judgment on the Messiah. 127 Thou forsaken Me ? That was the decisive and last word of His warfare, expressing at the same time His last struggle and His vic- tory. And because of its sublime depth, it has been misunderstood in a thousand ways. The grossest misunderstanding, or the most frivolous misinterpretation of it, was that expressed by those who stood around. For some of them said, ' This man calleth for Elias.' And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. The rest said, ' Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save Him.' But Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. The great revolution which, with the death of Jesus, entered into all the regions of the world of man, announced itself in great and significant signs, the second and the third of which Matthew alone relates to us. And, behold, says the Evangelist, the veil of the temple (which concealed the holy of holies) was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. This symbolic event announced to the world, that the Old Testament symbolic system of sacrifice was abolished by the real reconciliation in the death of Christ, that now the symbolic theo- cracy was changed into the real kingdom of heaven, and that so access to the throne of the grace of God was free to all the world. And further, it is said, the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. A change was going on in the depths of the cosmic life of this world corresponding to the great change in humanity ; it was as if death- throes and birth-throes anticipatory of its future transformation had shaken the earth. And the graves were opened, continues Matthew ; and many bodies (bodily forms) of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Thus the world of spirits was also moved. The redemption of believers, the resurrection of humanity, was now decided ; the godly of the Old Covenant in the kingdom of the dead rejoiced in anticipation of their resurrection, and passed into a higher condition. This was made manifest during the time of Easter by their appearing to many of the believers in Jerusalem. And when the heathen centurion, and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, and said, ' Truly this was the Son of God.' Thus the victory of tlie death of Christ over the heathen world also was expressed in a definite prognostic full of promise. But the effect of the death of Jesus appeared still more strongly in the sphere of the disciples. And many women, it is further said, were there beholding afar off, who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him ; among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children (Salome). Thus the death of Jesus gave these weak women the courage to continue there on the place of martyrdom, amid dangers and alarms, and the strength to bear the agonizing sight of the unutterable sufferings of their beloved Lord. With equal power 128 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. did the death of Jesus now appeal to His secret adherents, and draw them from their concealment. When the even was come, continues Matthew, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple : he went to Pilate and begs^ed the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, wdiich he had hewn out in the rock ; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And how high the heroic courage of the women had risen was shown in this, that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat down (in the evening twilight) over against the (lonesome) sepulchre. But while the death of Jesus exercised such animating and deeply tranquillizing influences upon receptive minds, and especially upon the souls of faithful disciples, it became for His enemies a source of fresh disquiet, which increased to an agony which betrayed in some of its features their mental derangement. On the one hand, weak women were changed to lionesses ; on the other, men grown grey in experience as members of the council were visited with irresistible terrors. Next morning it was evident how restlessly these men had slept, or rather how sleeplessly they had passed the night. On that morning, the morning which followed the day of the preparation (for the Sabbath), significantly says Matthew, who alone has pre- served this fact for us, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate. They appear to have assembled in the house of the heathen without formal concert, but all impelled by the same demon of a torturing anxiety and fear. Their address to Pilate ran thus : ' Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead : so the last error shall be worse than the first.' Pilate answered them, ' Ye have a watch ; go your way, make it as sure as ye can.' So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. Thus they who had hunted our Lord to death specially under the reproach of Sabbath desecration, were now obliged, according to God's judgment, to go into the house of the heathen governor on the morning of the great paschal Sabbath, to entitle him ' Lord ' {Kvpce), to hold a conference in his house, to set out to visit the sepulchre of one executed as a criminal, and over this tomb to break the high Sabbath-day with their foolish solicitude and toil. In this way, then, they sealed the stone of the sepulchre, intending to bury for ever in the night of death, in the reproach of the cross, the honour of Jesus, the misjudged Messiah, the King of the Jews. NOTE. Although the common characteristics of the synoptic Gospels are specially prominent in the history of the passion, and consequently Israel's judgment on the Messiah. 129 ]\Iattliew's peculiarities must be in the same proportion less observ- able, yet the stamp of his peculiar way of viewing things is not wanting in this section. As examples of this, we have first of all the contrast between the clearness wherewith Jesus foretold the day of His sufferings, and the hazy uncertainty of His enemies ; and then the stronger representation of the dissatisfaction of the dis- ciples, in contrast to the account of Mary anointing our Lord ; as also greater inexactitude in the account of the Passover. Matthew alone relates that Judas asked our Lord, Is it I ? and that Christ answered him, Thou hast said. He gives a more definite account than Mark does of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane. It is, again, quite characteristic of this Gospel, that it contains our Lord's direction to Peter to put up his sword into its sheath ; His intimation that more than twelve legions of angels stood at His service, but that He declined their assistance because the Scripture must be fulfilled. Peter's second denial has a more definite form in Matthew ; and he alone relates the awful end of Judas, and that in a passage where it serves for a symbol ; and likewise the message of Pilate's wife, which he represents as a pious suggestion, in glorious contrast to the evil suggestions of the chief priests and elders. Of similar purport is the statement, to be found in his Gospel alone, that Pilate, the vain heathen, washed his hands, disclaiming the guilt of Jesus' death, while the Jewish people imprecated it on themselves and their children. In relating the crowning with thorns, Matthew forgets not to mention the reed thrust into our Lord's right hand. He describes the drink offered to Christ on Golgotha as vinegar mingled with gall. He shows us how the mockery of Christ by the chief priests passed into blasphemy ; and by remarking that both the thieves cast in His teeth that He had represented Himself as God's Son, yet now seemed helpless, he gives us a contribution to the understanding of the characters of these men, whicli is generally apprehended as being in contradiction with Luke, and is indeed somewhat difficult. In describing the signs which accompanied the death of Jesus, he alone tells that the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and that many of the saints who had slept appeared, as risen, to many in Jerusalem. He alone distinctly relates that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat down over against the sepulchre in the evening ; and as he gives, on the one hand, the most comprehensive view of the influence of Jesus' death upon His friends, both in this and the other world, so he alone relates, on the other hand, how the chief priests and Pharisees, in anxiety and alarm, sealed the sepulchre of Jesus. VOL. IV. 130 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. SECTION XX. THE MESSIAH IN HIS RESURRECTION, COMING FORTH IN HIS ETERNAL ROYAL GLORY — HIS GREAT VICTORY, HIS ENDLESS KINGDOM, HIS MESSAGE TO THE WORLD, AND HIS PEACE. The same women who, on the evening of the day of Jesus' death, had sat late over against His tomh, went again early in the morning of the third day to see His sepulchre. It was, says Matthew, at the end of the bygone week, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, — that is, in the morning twilight, before the hour with which Sunday began. ^ He seems to have intentionally chosen this expression, in order to mark the expiration of the olden Sabbath time and the beginning of a new. So the women wished to see the Lord's sepulchre : this was the true motive which made them hasten to it so early. And, behold, says Matthew, there w^as a great earthquake ; for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow ; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. Thus heaven, which was in league with Christ, brought to shame the plans of His enemies. The angel of heaven could with freedom and ease roll away the stone and sit upon the seal, which symbolized the authority of the Jewish hierarchy ; and before him the soldiers, who represented the might of Rome, became powerless images of death. And when the women came to the place where this great change had taken place, he saluted them with the words, ' Fear not ; for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here ; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay : and go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead ; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee : lo, I have told you.' Then they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring His disciples word. Thus tbe angel's message announced to the women the victory of Christ, and made them messengers of His resurrection, with a charge to the entire body of the disciples (the wliole Church of the disciples in the wider sense) that it was the Lord's will to meet with them in Galilee. Then the Lord Himself appeared as the Eisen One, and disclosed His victory first in demolishing the doubts and fears of the women. For as they went to tell His disciples the angel's message, behold, Jesus met them, saying, ' All hail.' And they came and held Him by tlie feet, and worshipped Him. Then said Jesus unto them, ' Be not afraid : go tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see Me.' But His victory over His enemies had also to become clearly 1 The beginuiug of the new week was always the evening of the old. THE MESSIAH IN THE GLORY OF HIS RESURRECTION. 131 manifest. For while the women were hastening (like men full of divine joy) to announce the resurrection of Jesus to His friends, the priestly princes of the new world, some of the watch came (like faint-hearted women) and showed to the chief priests all the things that had come to pass. Thus the priests received an official notifi- cation of the great event which they had sought to prevent with the weapons of Rome. Hence they saw themselves compelled to take counsel with the elders. History is silent regarding the conclusion arrived at. In what a state of jierplexity they separated is shown by the circumstance, that immediately afterwards the chief priests bribed the soldiers with a large sum of money to spread abroad the report : His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept. ' And if this come to the governor's ears,' added they, to assure the soldiers, ' we will persuade him, and secure you.' So the soldiers took the money, and did as they were taught. The Evan- gelist adds : And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews unto this day. This fresh contrivance, this wretched gossip, did not in the least disquiet the spirit of the Gospel. Matthew rather relates this fact just to show to what schemes of impotent despair the council descended when the tidings of Christ's resurrection were brought to them with official confirmation. This utter baseness of the council, in which they sought their safety in corrupting heathen soldiers and in a miserable and contradictory fabrication, could not fail to set in the clearest light the lofty sublimity of our Lord, and His victory over such opponents. But as our Lord set at nought the last machinations of His enemies, so He also triumphed over the last doubts in His Church. He revealed Himself to His whole Church as the King of the world, and the sole and only Comforter of His followers. The eleven disciples, says Matthew, went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. The Evangelist gives marked prominence to the fact that our Lord willed to hold the most decisive meeting with them here in Galilee, not in Judea, not in Jerusalem, the centre of the old hierarchy. What follows show^s in what brightness of His kingly glory Christ appeared here to the dis- ciples. And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him ; but some (of the general body of the disciples which the eleven represented) doubted (in respect to this measure of reverence given to Christ). And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, ' All power is given unto Me in heaven ancl in earth.' By this He declared His divinity, and indicated His eternal kingdom. He then consecrated them to be His messengers to the world : * Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations (in contrast to the eleven).' And He sent them to the whole world in the name of the Three-one God, into whose glory He was received up, as expressed in the following charge : ' Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' And with what certainty he expected that the whole world should do homage to Him, and that this alle- giance would come to be perfect allegiance, is shown by the additional 132 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. clause : ' Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.' Finally, He comforted them with the assurance of His unalter- able royal favour, and eternal abiding with them (in His kingly Spirit), in the words, 'And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end (even unto the consummation) of the world.' NOTE. It is evident that the history of the resurrection, according to Matthew, forms a well-arranged and compacted view of the whole, quite in correspondence with the entire character of his Gospel. The Risen One as the Eternal King, is the leading thought of this Easter history. He shows us how the convulsions of nature and the angels of heaven serve Him ; how the seal of the Jews and the weapons of the Romans hinder Him not ; how He, by His resur- rection, quenched the pride of His enemies and the anguish of His friends ; how high He rose above the calumnious reports of His enemies, and the pusillanimous doubts of His disciples ; how boundless is His power in heaven and on earth ; how He, in the glory of the Triune God, can send His disciples in the name of the Trinity with the message of salvation to all nations ; how He is beforehand certain of the homage of all the world, and can, notwith- standing His approaching dei)arture, assure His followers of the comfort and peace of His abiding and protecting presence with them. — Compare above, vol. iii. p. 379. PART 11. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK ; OR, THE RE- PRESENTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST SYMBOLIZED BY THE LION. SECTION L GENERAL VIEW AND DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS. The Gospel according to Mark forms a definite contrast to the Gospel according to Matthew. The latter connects the New Testa- ment with the Old, and represents our Lord in His historic charac- ter. The former, again, represents Him in His personal originality, in His primordial and pristine divine-human power as the abso- lutely new, powerfully active, all-moving, all-subduing, and defining principle of the world's history ; as the redemptive power or the almighty redemption in person ; or, in one word, the Lion of Judak (see above, vol. iii. p. 488 ; comp. vol. i. p. 202). It is quite in correspondence with the peculiarity of this Gospel, that it begins at once with the public appearing of Christ without first relating the history of His childhood. In accordance with this view, Christ is here introduced at once as the Eternal Strong One.^ The same peculiarity appears to us in that Mark gives us, for the most part, only the great deeds of Christ's redemptive miraculous power ; of His sayings not many, and these chiefly the strongest only — His rebukes, His representation of the last judgment, and similar sayings (see above, i. 200). But we see it likewise in the whole form of his Gospel, in his vigorous, concentrated, pictorial, and lively way of presenting things. The Evangelist was, from his personal character, specially fitted and called to write the life of Christ in this its second form — in the form of its power. A mind capable of forming a vigorous concep- tion, and taking a lively view suiting the popular imagination, is revealed in his whole style of language — in the animated, graphic, popular, stirring tone of his discourse, which is strongly hebraistic,^ and yet also readily appropriates foreign modes of expression. The Gospel according to Mark is consequently to be considered, ^ For the different attempts hitherto made to account for the omission by Mark of the history of Christ's childhood, see Saunier, Veher die Quellen cles Evangdiums des Markus, p. 33 et seq. * On the hebraistic character of this Gospel, comp. Hitzig, Johannes Markus, 33 et seq. 134 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. according to its tenor, as a definite and distinct organism having the beauty of life, whose individual parts unite into a living whole, and so mutually condition and explain each other. The Evangelist gives us, first of all, the characteristic beginning of the Gospel. This beginning presents itself to us in John the Baptist's appearing in all his greatness as a prophet according to the Old Testament ; and in that, after him, Jesus appears and be- comes manifest in all His grandeur, througli the infinite inferiority of the great Baptist when compared with Him. In accordance with this relation, Jesus appears in the place of the departing John, and begins the preaching of the Gospel (i. 1-15). And, immediately on His appearing, His divine power was made manifest in His first actions — in the calling of the first apostles, in His first preaching and miraculous cures (i. 16-45). In proportion to the power of His influence upon the people is the rapidity with which the scribes and Pharisees oppose Him in a series of scenes (ii. 1-iii. 6). With the increase of this opposition, however, which caused Him to work with reserve, corresponded the increasing reverence for Christ by the peo])le, and the crowding of multitudes to Him, which deter- mined Him to choose the twelve apostles (iii. 7-19). The tendency to opposition between the adherents and antagonists of our Lord soon gives rise to the decided open conflict of Jesus with the Galilean Pharisees (iii. 20-35). This results in the reserve of Christ, which is manifested in the delivering of His parables concerning the king- dom of God (iv. 1-34). But while He thus withdraws from the breath of blasphemy of His enemies, He advances to further un- folding of His might in the circle of the receptive. He rebukes the raging of the sea, vanquishes the fiercest demons, discovers and heals the most secret and severe sufferings, and overcomes death itself (iv. 35-v.) But as the power of Christ is irresistible, so it is conditioned by itself, by its own divine-ethical nature, and so con- sequently it appears conditioned in the presence of unbelief. The Evangelist shows us this in the account of the unbelief of the in- habitants of Nazareth. But while Christ marvels at their unbelief, and withdraws from it. He unfolds more gloriously than ever the swa)^ of His power over the whole Galilean land, so that it excites Herod the tetrarch himself and comes against his evil deed like the true royal sway of the spiritual Prince of His people in Galilee (vi.) And now the Pharisee corporation-spirit of the whole land comes forth to oppose our Lord in a confederation, in which the scribes of Jerusalem have united with the Pharisees of Galilee, and by a fresh assault given Him occasion to declare openly against their maxims. He now puts into effect this dochu-ation of His freedom by a journey through not only the heathen borders of Tyre and 8idon, hut also ihe coasts of the liketcise cldeflu heathenish Deca- poUs (vii.-viii. 9). On His return to Galilee, it becomes evident that in this land He has no longer an abiding place, and He now withdraws into the region of Cfesarea Philippi, to prepare His dis- ciples for His deliverance to death. During this voluntary self- THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL. 135 banishment He again displays His miraculous power in a deed which Mark alone relates — the healing of the blind man at Beth- saida (viii. 10-ix. 29), Then follows the departure from Galilee, with solemn exhortations and warnings to His disciples (ix, 30-50). The Evangelist next sketches l)rie%, yet with expressive peculiarity of outline, the immediately subsequent residence of Jesus in Perea (x. 1-31). In describing Jesus' departure for Jerusalem, Mark sets fortli to its full extent the sore perplexity of the disciples ; and in relating the request of Salome for her sons, he places the latter in the foreground (x. 32-45). AVith like distinctness he depicts Jesus' journey from Jericho to Jerusalem (x. 46-xi. 11). The day of the purifying of the temple has, with him, the impress mainly of a day of judgment, and so stands in close connection with the day of the decision of the conflict between our Lord and His antagonists in Jerusalem (xi. 12-xiii. 2). Next follow the chief features of the announcement of the end of the world, which concludes, in a way very characteristic of IMark, with the word of earnest address, Watch (xiii. 3-37). The history of the passion then opens with the account of the anointing of Jesus ; and this history, notwith- standing its brevity, shows many features peculiar to Mark (xiv. XV.) But the Easter history, and that all throughout, specially bears the impress of his peculiarities, and thereby presents itself as the organic conclusion of his Gospel (xvi.) NOTE. ' Of the sections in our Gospel, 51 are in common with Matthew and Luke, 15 with Matthew alone, 8 with Luke alone, and 4 are peculiar to Mark, — namely, the introduction (i. 1-4), the parable of the fruit-bearing ground (iv. 26-29), the account of the healing of the deaf man that had an impediment in his speech (vii. 32-37), and that of a blind man (viii. 22-26).' — Saunier, in the above-cited work, 172. SECTION IL THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL. — JOHN THE BAPTIST APPEARS AS THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST. THEREAFTER CHRIST HIMSELF APPEARS. (Chap. i. 1-15.) The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; as it is written,^ — namely, in that word of Malachi's, — ' Behold, I ^ This is not the place to criticise the different explanations of this difficult pas- sage. The reading ev ry 'Hffai'a ry 7rporoof ; for ' these words stand likewise in the concluding formula.' Also the narrative of the presentation of Jesus in the temple is not to be ascribed to Mary and Joseph, because ' Anna and Simeon were equally strangers to them' (p. 37). Conclusive arguments ! On the other hand, Schleiermacher attri- butes to Mary the preservation of the incident recorded of Jesus when He was twelve years old, p. 39. In what has been said, we do not, however, deny the supposition of Schleiermacher, that single records in writing may have been in the hands of the Evangelist. SECTION. V. THE HUHLiN DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. (Chap. ii. 41-52.) As Jesus was ordained to unfold the divine nature in the form of the purest humanity, it was needful that His divine-human con- sciousness should develop itself in a truly human manner. Of the truth and beauty of this development, the history of the event which occurred when He was twelve years of age gives us a glimpse. His parents dwell still at Nazareth. As pious Israelites, they take part in the festive pilgrimages to Jerusalem. When Jesus was twelve years old, they take Him also with them to the feast, accord- ing to Israelitish custom. On their return, however, to Galilee, the holy youth remains behind in Jerusalem. The festive pilgrims journeyed in distinct processions. Jesus is drawn beyond the attrac- tive sphere of such a company, by a more powerful attraction to the temple. This is the ascendency of the spirit above outward ordi- nances. His parents suppose Him to be in the company, and thus they accomplish a day's journey. They seek Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, but in vain. On the second day they return to Jerusalem to seek for Him. On the third day they seek Him there. After the lapse of the three days, they at length find Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions. And they find that all who listen to Him are astonished at His understanding and answers. When they thus found Him, they were amazed ; but His mother said to Him, ' Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us ? Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.* The answer of Jesus was as follows : ' How is it that ye sought Me ? wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business ? ' That is His consciousness. God is His proper Father, in the essential sense of the word, in contrast to the paternal relationship of Joseph in a civil sense, to which Mary points. Therefore is the THE THEEEFOLD ATTESTATION OF CHRIST. 207 house of the Father — the temple — His dearest residence, and con- verse regarding the will of the Father, according to His word, His most grateful occupation. This conception of His relation to the Father does not fill Him as yet in the form of a perfected consciousness, but as a lofty pre- sentiment, whose undefined and dark outline stands forth unmis- takably, and with incomparable beauty, in the form of His expres- sion. In the life He had in the things of His Father, He could altogether forget both time and place. However, there is needed only a single hint from His parents, and He returns with them to Nazareth, and is subject unto them. Thus in obscurity He increases in wisdom and years, and in favour with Grod and man. The scribes and priests in the temple, however, allow the holy child once more to take His departure without forming any antici- pation of the glory and significance of His inward life ; although, this time, they themselves were compelled to wonder at His under- standing and His answers. But His mother kept the words, in which the centre of His glorious development had made itself known, faithfully treasured up in her heart. SECTION VI. THE THREEFOLD ATTESTATION WITH WHICH CHRIST OPENS HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. (Chap, iii.) The life of Christ was in an altogether peculiar sense a life for mankind. Viewed historically, it formed the innermost centre of the history of our race. The commencement, therefore, of the public ministry of Jesus must be determined in relation to the political history of the world. For the public ministry of Christ, however, preparation was made in the public ministry of John the Baptist. And therefore has Luke chronologically fixed the last, and through the last the other also. John, the son of Zacharias, appeared in the wilderness at the call of the Lord — that is, as a prophet, after the manner of Old Testament prophets — in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod ruled as tetrarch over Galilee, his brother Philip over Iturea, and Lysanias over Abilene — Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests.^ John was appointed as His forerunner to introduce the Lord into His place in the history of the world. This constituted his entire mission. The anti-pharisaical, universal tendencies of his spirit were in harmony with it. It expressed itself in the human views he taught concerning life ; and finally, it was sealed by a career of much personal sufiering. His mission is completely described in the words of the prophet ^ Regarding these chronological and historical data, see above, vol. i. p. 342. 208 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. Isaiah : ' The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His side-paths into thoroughfares (in the following order) : — Every valley shall be filled ; every mountain, and even every hill, shall be made low — removed, all curves — or crooked parts — shall be made straight, and all rough places — or inequalities — shall become a smooth road — without obstruction.' The universal character of the Baptist's position is shown in the earnest rebukes which he directed not only against the Pharisees and Sadducees, but also against the multitudes of the Jewish people who flocked to him ; in his designating them a generation of vipers, and demanding of them to bring forth the right, true fruits of repentance ; in his warning them against placing their trust on their descent from Abraham, in the words, ' God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham ; ' and in his an- nouncing to them that the axe was already laid unto the root of the trees, that every tree which brought not forth good fruit should be hewn down and cast into the fire. Also, in his ethical teaching and views of life the same character distinctly appears. These are distinguished by two characteristic features. They are religious, and they are human. His doctrine is thus a precursor of the doctrine of Christ. To all classes who questioned him regarding the conduct of life, he gave instruc- tions in this spirit. To the multitude in general he said, ' He that hath two coats, let him impart to him — or share with him — that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.' To the pub- licans he gave the following directions : ' Exact no more than that which is appointed you ' — than the legal contribution. Finally, to the soldiers his instructions were, 'Oppress no man, either with rude violence or by secret denunciations ; ^ but be content with your wages.' In these, and many similar directions, we recognize the Christian character of his ethics. His doctrine was not less in its substance christological. Amongst the people great expecta- tions were formed regarding his person. All hearts were occupied with the thought — Possibly he may announce himself as the Mes- siah. But John gave to all the frankest declaration : ' I indeed baptize you with water ; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose : He shall baptize you with the Holy Grhost, and with fire ; whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner ; but the chaft' He will burn with unquenchable fire.' This, and much besides, formed his announcements to the people, which he accompanied with suitable exhortations. Therefore, in his sufferings also it was needful for him to be a forerunner of Christ. Herod the tetrarch had been rebuked by him in reference to Herodias, his brother's wife ; and now, to all the evil which he had otherwise done, he added this also, that he cast John into prison. Thus was Christ in His whole character accredited by His fore- THE THREEFOLD ATTESTATION OF CHRIST. 209 runner John. This general attestation was turned into a personal testimony at His baptism. Besides the historical testimony of John, a second and higher testimony was vouchsafed. When all the people were being bap- tized, and Jesus also received baptism, whilst He prayed, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Grhost descended in a bodily shape, like a dove, upon Him ; and a voice came from heaven, which said, ' Thou art My beloved Son ; in Thee I am well pleased.' Thus He was accredited by His Father in heaven, not only by the voice from heaven, but also by the revelation of the Holy Grhost, of whose presence a visible sign gave witness, — accre- dited in His divine nature. With this second testimony corresponded also the third, which lies in His human nature and descent ; — in His age, as in His genealogy. Jesus was then about thirty years of age, when He began — to appear pubUcly, — and was, as was supposed,^ the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, the son — as this noblest line of ancestry proceeds — of Matthat, of Levi, of Melchi, of Janna, of Joseph, of Mattathias, of Amos, of Naum, of Esli, of Nagge, of Maath, of Mattathias, of Semei, of Joseph, of Juda, of Joanna, of Rhesa, of Zorobabel, of Salathiel, of Neri, of Melchi, of Addi, of Cosam, of Elmodam, of Er, of Jose, of EUezer, of Jorim, of Matthat, of Levi, of Simeon, of Juda, of Joseph, of Jonan, of Eliakim, of Melea, of Menan, of Mattatha, of Nathan, of David, of Jesse, of Obed, of Booz, of Sal- mon, of Naasson, of Aminadab, of Aram, of Esrom, of Pliares, of' Juda, of Jacob, of Isaac, of Abraham, of Thara, of Nachor, of Saruch, of Ragau, of Phalec, of Heber, of Sala, of Cainan, of Arphaxad, of Sem, of Noe, of Lamech, of Mathusala, of Enoch, of Jared, of Maleleel, of Cainan, of Enos, of Seth, of Adam, who had his descent from God. This most ancient and noble extraction, the true humanity of of Christ, as it is seen, in its descent from Adam, running in a sacred line of ancestry through the whole human family, is the third attestation with which Christ makes His appearance as the Redeemer of mankind. Tlie third attestation, however, does not lie beyond the limits of the second, but is parallel to it. It was necessary that Christ should be truly the Son of man, as well as truly the Son of God, in order to His being the Saviour of men. It was necessary that the unity of Godhead and manhood should appear in a personal form. As, however, He was in a real sense the Son of man, before all others, in virtue of His anointing by the Holy Ghost, or as the Son of God ; He was, on the other hand, also the Son of God, not only in the sense of His immediate descent from the Father, but likewise because of His historical descent from Adam — as the heir of the divine relationship, and of the divine and human mission, with which the latter was invested — as the inheritor of his blessing. ^ Because men were not acquainted, as the Evangelist was, with His true origin. YOL. IV. 0 210 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. The second and tliird attestation given to Christ may therefore be comprehended in one, as each requires and implies the other. They form together the essential or natural, as distinguished from the historical attestation, which was imparted to Him by John the Baptist. NOTES. 1. Dr A. Schweizer, in his essay, ' Das Verlialtniss der evangelis- clien VorgescMclde, zicr Bestimmung des Jcdires der Gehurt Christi' (in Zeller's theol. Jalirb., 1847), arrives at the conclusion, that the chronological statement, Luke iii. 1, 2, 23, is at variance, first with the chronological statement of the same Gospel, ii. 1, — further, with the statement, i. 3, — and finally, with the statement, Matt, ii, 1 (see p. 19). The critic has, liowever, attained this result only by ignoring a very important consideration, which has been urged in connection with this subject, — viz., the position maintained by Kuinoel in re- ference to the fixing of the commencement of the reign of Tiberius, Luke iii. 1, that Luke may have dated it from the beginning of his co-regency with Augustus, which took ])lace two years before the death of the latter (see above, vol. i. p. 344). The reasoning of Kui- noel is not disposed of by the parenthetical remark : 'It is not customary to reckon the short co-regency of Tiberius with Augustus.' Besides, the hypothesis that, Luke ii. 2, avri] should be read in- stead of ai/T?;, and that the first verse describes only the preliminary arrangements made with a view to the tax, is not confuted by the author, when he remarks, that in this case Joseph went airo'ypd- (^eaOai, but not to the airo'ypa^i] ! There is undoubtedly a difference between the a7roypd(f)ea6aL and the completed aTroypacjiy]^ which immediately appears, when one attempts to form a conception of the facts of the case. For registration with a view to taxation neces- sarily precedes the imposition of the tax itself, and, according to circumstances, may anticipate the latter even hy years. Such a picturing of the incidents, as well as of the manner, in which Luke, according to Schleiermacher's opinion, so carefully handled the documents which were in his possession, as to be enabled here in the second verse, with a soft touch of the hand, to introduce a correc- tion of a (woman's^) inexact statement, without changing the ex- pression of it, are not perhaps, after all, to be reckoned among the critical artifices which the author professes to discover, especially on the part of apologetic criticism. At all events, it is a much smaller specimen of the kind, to suppose that Luke retained the word aTroj- pu^eaOai in spite of its liability to misconstruction, than "that he adopted three contradictory chronological statements, through a blind veneration of tradition. In other respects also the criticism which has occupied itself with the unity of the Gospels, has for the author laboured in vain. He still finds the parents of Jesus living, before His birth, in Bethlehem, according to Matthew. The star of the wise men is still, according to Matthew, a geographical ^ See above, vol. i. p. 296. THE PEKSONAL PROBATION OF THE LORD IN THE WILDERNESS. 211 landmark, in the literal sense of tlie term. Herod must still have effected the slaughter of the children in an official manner, _if_ indeed he did so at all, &c. And as regards the principles of criticism, the author still sees ' an unworthy dread of the negative criticism _ to prevail, whilst many have got to the stage of avowed indignation against the moral obliquities of the negative criticism, without the le°ast alarm on account of the thing itself. , , , , i 2. The reference by Luke, ver. 2, to the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas is without doubt intended to indicate the sad decay of the hi^h-priestly office by the specification of actually existing irregu- lanty, in a similar way as when John speaks of the ' high priest that same year.' — See above, vol. i. p. 347. 3. Schleiermacher is of opinion, that when the sign was given, with which our Lord was honoured at His baptism, John must have been alone with Him, as every trace is wanting of the great effect it must have produced, had the occurrence taken place in the presence of a great multitude. It is not, however, taken into account, that divine events of this kind may happen in the midst of a large assemblage, without being clearly or deeply apprehended by the multitude (comp. John xii. 28). There is certainly no ground which compels us to believe in the presence of a multitude on that occasion. 4. From the importance which Luke attaches to the human de- scent of Jesus from Adam, we must suppose that he has communi- cated His real and not His legal genealogy, that is, the genealogy of Mary, not that of Joseph. Schleiermacher has not discerned the sic^nifica'nce of the position given by Luke to the genealogy of Jesus, and has therefore supposed that the Evangelist had received this genealogy apart, that he had previously found no suitable pppor- tunity for communicating it, and now from necessity, and with no small difficulty, assigned it the only place which still remained. SECTION VII. THE PERSONAL PROBATION OF THE LORD IN THE WILDERNESS. (Chap. iv. 1-13.) The testimony which the Lord received in divers manners had to be confirmed, by Himself affording a practical demonstration that He was the Christ, by His approving Himself victorious over the temptations of Satan, and thus opening for Himself a free path to His public ministration. • ,^ c The history of His temptation appears to us here in the torm of a single journey from the Jordan into the desert, and from the desert over the mountainous region to Jerusalem. Accord- ino- to this order are the successive temptations represented. The first temptation takes place in the desert, the second on the top of a high mountain, the third on a pinnacle of the temple m Jerusalem. .. i t- We must distinguish, however, from these three great temptations, which the Lord had to endure at the end of His sojourn m the 212 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. ■wilderness, a general temptation which occupied Him during the time of His residence there. After His baptism, Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit, however, led Him into the solitude of the desert. Here He remained forty days, all the while occupied with temptations of the devil. In those days He did eat nothing ; and when they were ended — along with their temptation — He afterward hungered. Now, however, occurred the three last temptations, as conclusive acts, in which the previous more general temptation was terminated and completed. If, i>erhaps, the form assumed by the latter was, that He should withdraw Himself from mankind and the world (as eremite), inasmuch as Satan seemed to obstruct every way of access to men (see above, i. 384, &c.), the character in which the temptation now presented itself was that of a threefold incitement to worldly enjoyment. The tempter sought a point of attachment for these allurements in the circumstance of His manifest indigence — in the fact of His hunger. The first temptation was in these terms : ' Command this stone, that it become bread/ The answer of Jesus, on the other hand : ' It is written, Not by bread alone shall man live, but by every word of God.' He ought, even as Son of God, to regard bread and sensual enjoyment as the first condition of life ; on the contrary. He declared that for Him, even as man, the first condition of life, the nourishment which sustains life, and the enjoyment of life, are not found in bread, but in the word of God. Even in the conscious- ness that He was a God, He should give place to the painful cravings of appetite, and with the haste of a sorcerer procure for Himself bread, according to Satan's suggestion ; He, on the contrary, de- clared that He, as man, according to the statement of the word of God, finds the life of His life in the word of God. The second temptation was as follows : — The devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,^ and said to Him, 'All this power will I give Thee, and the glory which they — all these kingdoms — afford ; for to me it is delivered, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If Thou wilt therefore bow the knee in worship before me — thus he spoke with Satanic logic, putting a gloss on sin — Thine it shall be — the glory — whole, and without reserve.' Jesus answered, ' It is written,^ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.' In the refulgence of the world's grandeur, it was intended that the Lord should see the power and glory of its prince, and that this sight should excite in Him the lust of ambition. He was to have pos- session of the world's dominion on the condition of secretly bowing the knee to Satan. But to the word of Satan, which sought to turn the splendour and beauty of the world into an object of fascinating 1 This point is not unjustly regarded as an indication of symbolical representation. 2 The words, ' Get thee behind Me, Satan,' which are not sufficiently authenticated, appear to have been adopted from Matthew. Here they interrupt the connection. THE PERSONAL PROBATION OF THE LORD IN THE WILDERNESS. 213 enchantment, He opposed the word of Holy Scripture. _ To this worldly dominion and glory which He should possess, with secret self-contempt, in the consciousness that He was Satan's slave,_ He opposed the consciousness of Him who is poor, but stands right royally free over against all the glory and enchantments of the world, and only falls down before the Lord His God, whom alone He serves. On this, Satan prepared the way for the third temptation, by bringing Him to Jerusalem, and setting Him on a pinnacle of the temple. When there, he thus spoke, ' If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence ; for it is written. He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee ; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.' To this Jesus replied, 'It is said. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God/ Thus the Lord also triumphed over the temp- tation to fanatical presumption and spiritual pride, — a temptation, which, with diabolical artifice, misemployed a word of Holy Scrip- ture itself to attain its object. Jesus shows that the more special declarations of the word of God are to be explained by the more general, the more figurative by the more literal, the darker by the more distinct ; and thus sets aside the false application of the pas- sage quoted. And to the fanatical and hierarchical presumption which, with hypocritical perversion of the word of God, seeks to make even the government of God subservient to its own interests, He opposes the obedience of the child of God, who refuses to tempt his God, or turn His supreme dominion into a means of attaining his own private and selfish ends, and repels with holy indigna- tion the daring insinuations of the tempter, who would have him so to do. This last temptation appears to human feeling as the most horrid and the most dangerous of all, and compliance with it as the most terrible apostasy; and thus might the Evangelist of Christian humanity be led to place it as the last and highest of the series. 1 After the devil had tried the Lord with all these various forms of temptation, he departed from Him for a season — probably until the time of His passion.- NOTE. Schleiermacher connects also vers. 14 and 15, as a concluding formula, with this section. The general character of ver. 15 no doubt invites to this arrangement ; but one must, nevertheless, not overlook the close connection between this and the following part. ^ The conception of the three temptations in the form of a continuous journey (which did not conduct from the desert to Jerusalem, and then back again to the high mountain), might also doubtless, as a co-operating cause, have occasioned Luke to place them in the order he has followed. See Schleiermacher, p. 55. 2 See above, i. 390. 214 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. SECTION VIII. THE EEGINNIXG OF THE PUBLIC CAREER OF JESUS. HIS DEPARTURE FROM HIS NATIVE TOWN, NAZARETH. (Chap. iv. 14-30.) The public life of Jesus was a pilgrimage in the highest and noblest sense. One may regard as the starting point of this pilgrim- life His native ])lace, Nazareth, from which He was early expelled. Its termination was Jerusalem, where He died on the cross. In the power of the Spirit, Jesus returned into Galilee. His fame spread itself through all the region around. He made Himself known chietiy as a teacher in the synagogues ; and in this first period of His ministry He was praised of all. Not so, however, in His own town of Nazareth, the place in which He had been brought up. Here He went, as was His custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day. He accepted the post of reader. He stood up. There was delivered to Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unfolded the manuscript, and found the following passage : — ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Therefore hath He anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted,^ to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and recover- ing of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are cast down, — thus — to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord — the year of jubilee' (Isa. Ixi. 1). When He had closed the book, and delivered it to the officer, He sat down. The eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. He began to speak, and the groundwork of His address w\as, * This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.' He presented Himself as that messenger of peace to the poor of every class whom the prophet had described. The people became impressed with the feeling that it , was indeed He ; they testified in His favour, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. This devout admiration was, however, destined soon to turn into vulgar surprise. They took offence at His humble origin, saying, ' Is not this Joseph's son?'^ 'Ye will surely,' rejoined our Lord, ' say unto Me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself. The things which, as we have heard, thou didst in Capernaiim, do also here in thine own country.'^ To this He replied, 'Verily I say unto you, ^ This clause is not fully authenticated. Vide Lachmaun. ^ The critical spirit should not be stumbled by the apparent contradiction between this expression on the part of the people of Nazareth, and the previous remark, that they bare Him witness. It constitutes the point of the whole passage. s From this passage it has been concluded that the event belongs to a later period, after the miracles performed in Capernaum, as narrated by the Evangelist. But the place assigned to it by Luke^is supported by John iv. 45. That Jesus had already per- formed miracles in Cai^ernaum, is implied not merely in the uari-ative of Luke, but in the passage just quoted. How else coidd the nobleman there spoken of have sought the Lord in Cana? One needs only to bear in mind that Jesus, before His first jour- ney to Jerusalem, resided in Caperuauna for a short time, during which the miracle in question may have taken place. THE BEGINNING OF THE PUBLIC CAREER OF JESUS. 215 No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throug^hout the land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian.' And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong. But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way. It was in accordance with the character of the Son of man, that He should immediately, at the commencement of His ministry, bring the Gospel to His native place. It was an arrangement which displayed it in the most beautiful manner, that He should announce to the despised city of Nazareth the Old Testament Gospel of the Lord's Anointed, who preaches good tidings to the poor, and proclaims the jubilee year of deliverance to all the wretched. In expounding this scripture. He expounded His own heart ; the Scripture testimony of the Anointed One was a testi- mony concerning Himself ; and the sermon regarding the proclama- tion of the year of jubilee, became a proclamation of the jubilee itself. He carried thus the offer of this deliverance now to His own despised countrymen, and they felt the power which resided in the gentle flow of His gracious words. But the thought of His humble birth was able to destroy all these happy impressions. This thought had already proved an obstacle to the display of great miraculous power amongst them. And now they were dis- Yiosed to make it a ground of reproach, that He had preferred the vain, worldly, heretical, and proud maritime city of Capernaum to their own little mountain town, — in their eyes perhaps distinguished for its piety, and, at all events. His native place. This reproach He met by a few examples from the Old Testament, which struck at the very root of the claims to the ministry of prophets, raised either by a narrow-minded home pride, or by pharisaic Judaism. Had not the prophet Elias — the ideal of a true and zealous Jewish prophet — during the time of the famine, dwelt in a foreign land, in the house of a heathen widow, and dispensed miraculous sustenance to her, rather than to the widows of Israel ? Had not the prophet Elisha healed the Syrian captain Naaman of leprosy, although there were then many lepers also in Israel ? Both those prophets had disregarded the double offence given to their own people : they had afforded miraculous help to foreigners — to heathens, whilst they had allowed many persons in Israel similarly afflicted, to go empty away. Thus the Lord exposed to the view of His countrymen only a few things from Old Testament history — from the life, one may say, of 216 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. the most orthodox prophets. But that little was so universal in its tendency, that it sounded in their ears as the grossest heresy. With uproarious unanimity the synagogue in Nazaretli rejected Him, they excommunicated Him, cast Him out of the synagogue and the city, and had almost thrown Him headlong from a precipice in order to destroy Him. But now there manifested itself more powerfully a mysterious something in His demeanour which paralyzed the hands and hearts of His enemies. The people of Nazareth saw that their countryman — that the son of Joseph — in the lofty expression of His spiritual nature, was indeed a stranger. They had not thought the appear- ance of a Boman emperor so exalted. A gesture, a look of Jesus ; and with involuntary reverence they open for Him a path. He passed through the midst of them, and was soon away. This was His departure from His native place. Banished and homeless, the Son of man departs in order to bless mankind. NOTES. 1. The Evangelist Luke also passes by the time between the first and the second return of Christ from the Jordan. 2. It is highly characteristic of the third Evangelist, that accord- ing to him Jesus begins to announce the year of jubilee for the poor, the wi'etched, for contrite hearts, in his native city of Nazareth ; that He is there rejected on account of His origin, and, as an exile, commences His pilgrimage. 3. Eegarding the identity of this narrative with that of Matt, xiii, 54-58, vid. Schleiermacher, p. G3. SECTION IX. THE SECOND STAGE IN THE PILGRIMAGE OF JESUS. HE FIXES HIS ABODE AT CAPERNAUM. (Chap. iv. 31-44.) The second stage of the wanderings of Jesus was Capernaum, a city in Galilee (Upper Galilee).^ Here also He appeared in the synagogues on the Sabbath-days, and taught. And here His audience felt that His word was in power, without taking offence at His lowly origin. Therefore also did Capernaum become a chief scene of His mighty works. On a previous occasion He must have performed miracles in this place, as has been stated. Hence we may explain the fact, that here He was already an object of terror to those who were demoniacally possessed. That He was so, is proved by the healing of a demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum, which Luke also narrates. The Evangelist chai-acterizes the demoniac more exactly — he had the spirit of an unclean devil. He distinguishes thus between the demon himself in his individuality, and his spirit. ^ See above, ii. 67. Luke, as well as Matthew and John, seems to be acquainted with the currency of the name Galilee for Upper Galilee. THE SECOND STAGE IX THE PILGRIMAGE OF JESUS. 217 This seems to indicate that the patient was possessed by the demon in the joint action of his entire spiritual being. The words with which the demon received the Lord, and which are also narrated by Mark, he uttered, or rather cried out, with a loud voice. In this case of healing occurred the singular circumstance, that during the l^aroxysm of recovery, the demon suddenly dragged the patient into the very midst of the assembly, without, however, doing him any injury. This may have helped to increase the astonishment of the j)eople at the power of Jesus over devils. The second miracle consisted in the cure of Peter's wife's mother, who had been taken with a great fever, Jesus healed her, bending over her and rebuking the fever. In this case also a cure took place by delivering the spirit of the sufferer from the ban of sick- ness. In the numerous cures which Jesus effected on the sick, who were brought to Him after the sun was set. He systematically employed the laying on of hands. ' He laid His hands,' we are told, ' on every one of them, and healed them.' From these cases of healing we must distinguish the casting out of devils, who came out of many. He rejected the honour attempted to be given Him by the demoniacs, who proclaimed Him to be the Son of God. He rebuked them, suffering them not to speak : they knew that He was the Christ. On the following morning, when the Lord departed into a desert place, a great multitude of people went after Him, We learn also what their purpose was : they wished Him to stay, and not depart from Capernaum. They thus formed a marked contrast to the people of Nazareth, who had cast Him out from their city. He however declared that He must proclaim the Gospel of the kingdom in other cities also, being thereunto sent. On this He commenced His journey through Galilee, and preached everywhere in the syna- gogues. NOTES. 1. The description of the remarkable circumstances attending the healing of the demoniac, and of the conduct of our Lord in the recovery of Peter's wife's mother, is quite after the manner of Luke. It is also characteristic of the Evangelist to notice the multitude of people who sought the Lord in the desert place, and urged Him not to depart from Capernaum ; whereas he makes no mention of Simon, who was the leader on that occasion. 2. That the Evangelist does not take advantage of every opportu- nity to oppose the Judaizers, is shown by the circumstance that he does not (ver. 32) compare the doctrine of Christ with that of the scribes and Pharisees, as is done by Mark. He likewise omits (ver. 42) to mention that Jesus prayed in the desert place ; so that the remark, that he delights on every occasion to represent Christ as praying, must be corrected. In the account of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, he passes by the circumstance that Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up. 218 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. 3. Sclileiermaclier accounts for the circumstance that Simon is here only incidentally mentioned, and in this manner is introduced for the first time, by the hypothesis, that Luke composed his narra- tive from memoranda. But it may be also explained from the fact, that the Evangelists wrote for readers to whom the general outlines of Gospel history, and especially the names of the disciples, were already known. Schleiermacher is of opinion that the occurrence, V. 1-11, must necessarily have preceded the healing of Peter's mother-in-law; in like manner Gfrorer (p. 126). And with regard to the unprefaced remark, SirjKouec avToU, see Eitschl (p. 77). These words are, however, introduced by tlie previous ypcorrjcrav aurov, &c. 4. The 44th verse is apparently the concluding formula of a narrative, as it anticipates in a general form that which is first introduced by the following section. SECTION X. THE FIRST JOURNEY OF JESUS UNDERTAKEN FROM CAPERNAUM. — THE DEPARTURE. THE GOSPEL IN FACTS. THE GOSPEL IN WORDS. (Chap. V. vi.) The first departure from the Galilean sea of the fishermen, whom Jesus called to be His disciples, was celebrated, like the last (see John xxi.), by a remarkable draught of fishes. The occasion of it in the present instance was, that the people more and more pressed around Him to hear the word of God, as He stood on the shore of the lake and taught. Seeing two ships on the shore, out of which the fishermen had gone to wash their nets. He entered into one of them, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. He now sat down, and taught the people from the ship. When He had left speaking, He said to Simon, ' Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.' ' Master,' answered Peter, ' we have toiled all the night, and caught nothing : nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net.' And when they had thus done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, so that their net began to break. And they beckoned to their partners in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' feet, and said, ' Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord.' For fear fell on him, and on all who were with him, at the draught of fishes which they had taken ; and likewise on James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, ' Fear not ; from henceforth thou shalt be a fisher of. men.' And they brought their ships to land, forsook all, and followed Him. One may see clearly from this narrative, that a close connection between Jesus and these three disciples had been previously formed. This event, however, brought the decision. Twice thus did the THE FIRST JOURNEY OF JESUS UNDERTAKEN FROM CAPERNAUM. 219 Lord crown the labour of His disciples in their worldly avocation with a miraculous blessing, and make it the sign of a promise with reference to their spiritual ministry. That, however, He so deeply humbled and shamed the disciple by the overflowing abundance of His blessings ; that the disciple, on this revelation of the grace of Christ, gave utterance to a feeling, such as the prophets of the Old Testament expressed on beholding the visible manifestation of Jeliovah — a feeling of judgment and of death, in the view of the glory and holiness of the Lord ; and that he made confession of his sinfulness in the presence of his companions : all this had to be told us by Luke, the companion of Paul, and a sharer with him in his deep knowledge of sin and grace. After such an experience on the part of the disciple, the Lord could now also add the declaration — ' From henceforth thou shalt be a fisher of men.' ^ During the journey which now commenced, Jesus unfolded His glory in a series of miracles which may be regarded as a first Gospel — a complete cycle of Gospel ideas — in facts. The first of these miracles consisted in the healing of a leper, who met Him in one of the cities which He visited — a man full of leprosy. Falling on his face, the sufferer besought Him that he might be healed. The Lord granted him his request, touched him with His hand, enjoined on him silence, and sent him forthwith to the priest. By this deed, however. His name spread the more ; so that great multitudes flocked together, both to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. They found Him in the wilderness, where He had withdrawn Himself, and jirayed. The second miracle was the healing of the paralytic. On one of those days,^ as Jesus was teaching, there sat by Pharisees and doctors of the law, who were come out of every town of Galilee and Judea, and even from Jerusalem. But also under the restraint of such a circle the power of the Lord was present to heal. There was brought to Him a paralytic on a bed. His bearers, finding no other mode of entrance, ascended to the house-top, and let him down through the burnt tiles of the flat roof,^ into the midst of the assembly, before Jesus. In the first place, the Lord announced to the paralytic the forgiveness of his sins ! He then declared to the Pharisees, who were disposed to regard the announcement as blas- phemy, that He would confirm the power of the Son of man on earth to forgive sins, and forthwith, addressing Himself to the paralytic, said, ' I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine house.' It was a wonderful transformation of the scene, when the man immediately took on his shoulders the bed on which he had, the moment before, been lying so helpless, and when, ^ Notwithstanding such a mark of distinction put on Peter, must the third Gospel he ever making him the butt of his polemics, according to the work akeady quoted, die Evang., &c. - The expression ev fjna tQv Tj/jLepCiv (ver. 17) has reference to the days of this special journey, as the expression iv /xia rQv iroXewv (ver. 12) to the cities, which on this first journey He visited. ^ Some documents have the addition— dTrocreYdo-ayres tovs Kepd/j-ovs : Tid. Lachmann. 220 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. in the place of the dnmh entreaty, wliich had appeared in his pitiable appearance, there were heard the loud praises of God, with which he departed to his own house. All the spectators were beside them- selves. With the feelino; of happy astonishment, there alternated here also emotions of holy fear, which appalled every heart, and gave occasion to the cry, ' Unheard-of things have we seen to-day ! ' These are the two fundamental forms of the saving power of Christ : He delivers man from the corrupt substance of his sickness — from his leprosy ; and He quickens his numb and impotent mem- bers with new life. That the main object, however, which He has in view is the deliverance of sinners from their sins, becomes at once manifest. Already, in the case of the first miracle, He attaches the help rendered to the exercise of faith. In the second miracle He makes the absolution of the heart precede the healing of the body. And now He gives it speedily to be known, that ilis aim above all is directed to sinners needing salvation. There followed, namely, the call of Matthew from the receipt of custom, to a place in the circle of disciples. Levi left all and followed Him. He first made Him, however, a great feast in his own house ; and His fellow-guests consisted of a great company of publicans and others — of a like description. This occasioned a murmuring among the Pharisees and their scribes, who reproached His disciples, because they ate and drank with publicans and sinners. To this Jesus replied with the proverb, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ; and with the declaration, that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. On this, they gave utterance to a second ground of offence. This had still less in its favour, even an apparent foundation in the law. And therefore He also, no doubt, assumed the milder tone of sur- prise, which they had exhibited to Himself. ' The disciples of John,' it was said, ' fast often, and hold exercises for i^rayer ; as likewise the Pharisees. Why then do thine eat and drink ? ' ' Can ye,' was the answer of Jesus, according to Luke, ' make the companions of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them ? Those days shall indeed come,' said He further ; ' and when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, then shall they fjist in those days.' In conclusion. He spoke to them this parable : ' No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old ; and if he does so, the new also maketh a rent, and the piece of the new fitteth not to the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles : if he do it never- theless, the new wine bursts the bottles, and is spilled, and the bottles perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved.' Jesus added, according to Luke, a kindly word, which should serve to excuse the honest amongst those narrow- minded persons : ' No man also, who is accustomed to drink old wine, straightway desireth new ; for he saith, The old is better.' (And even if it should be more acrid, it still seems to him, or he persuades himself, and seeks to persuade others, that the old is THE FIRST JOURNEY OF JESUS UNDERTAKEN FROM CAPERNAUM. 221 milder.)^ Whilst, however, He asserted the gospel of Christian intercourse with publicans and sinners, and of Christian festivity against the Pharisees, not less did He maintain the rights of evan- gelical Sabbath celebration in works of necessity and of love. First, He asserted the claims due to works of necessity. On the second Sabbath after the first, the following occurrence took place. He went through the corn-fields, with His disciples ; and these plucked the ears of corn, and ate them, rubbing them in their hands. For this, as an act of Sabbath desecration, they were reproved by certain Pharisees. Jesus, in reply, appealed to the example of David : ' Have ye not read what David did, when him- self was an hungered, and those who were with him ; how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shew-bread, and gave also to his companions, although it was lawful for the priests alone to partake of it ? ' To this He added the declaration, that the Son of man is Lord —a sovereign Ruler — even over the Sabbath. The Lord then exhibited Sabbath celebration in works of love, which, as such, are for the most part also works of necessity. The occurrence took place on another Sabbath-day, in the follow- ing manner : — Jesus entered into a synagogue and taught. There ■was present on that occasion a man with a withered hand. The scribes and Pharisees watched Him, whether He would heal on the Sabbath-day, that they might find an accusation against Him. But He knew their thoughts, and commanded the man to rise up and stand forth in the midst. AVhen he had done so, Jesus said to them, ' / ivill ask you one thing ; Is it lawful on the Sabbath- days to do good, or to do evil ? to save life, or to destroy it ? ' And looking around on them all, He said to the man, ' Stretch forth thy hand.' The miraculous cure should, apparently, have then first followed. But it had already taken place — taken place in the most sudden and spirit-like manner, so as to give His enemies the least possible ground to object. Besides, their silence, when the question had been put, deprived them of all right to accuse Him. On that very account they were the more enraged, even to madness, and consulted together wdiat they might do to Jesus. The preservation and prolongation of life in the first instance, the restoration of health and the removal of that which deforms life in the second — these constitute the Sabbath celebration of Christ. There has thus unrolled itself before our eyes a life-picture of the Gospel in facts. It begins as a divine help presented to faith ; then bases its supernatural blessings on the forgiveness of sins; turns with decisive purpose to penitent publicans and sinners ; connects the ministration of grace with the festive occasions of life, and turns them into a free, joyful manifestation of new life and love, in spite of the suspicions, the censures, the mad rage, and even the murderous thoughts engendered by the fanaticism of religious tradition. ^ Thus understood, the expression would be ironical ; in which case, however, the remark is difficult to answer — ' That the old wine is really better, and was, and still is, universally held to be so ' (Wetst.) Vid. De Wette, p. 41. 222 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. It accords witli the Christian Helenic character of Luke, to make the Gospel in facts precede the Gospel in doctrines. The sacred school follows sacred experience. For the reception of His teach- ings, however, the Lord formed for Himself a narrower circle of disciples, by the calling of the Twelve. Tliese He also, indeed, named apostles ; but in the first instance He chose them as disciples, that they might learn of Him. In those days He went up into a mountain to pray ; and continued all night in prayer to God. When the day broke, He called together His disciples — the wider circle of disciples — and of them He chose twelve. In this manner He called Simon (whom He also named Peter), and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon called Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was also the traitor. They must thus first accompany Him as disciples before they went out from Him as apostles. Attended by them, He descended from the mountain, and stood on a level place.^ So likewise the multitude of His disciples, and a great concourse of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases. The work of Christ began with healing those who were vexed with unclean spirits, so that in this manner the company of His hearers might be cleansed. The virtue, however, which went forth from Him wrought so powerfully, that the whole multitude pressed around Him, in order through contact with Him to receive vital power ; and He healed them all. A quickening breath of life passed over the whole assembly. After the necessary cures had been accomplished, the Lord lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and spoke the following Avords, which we have to distinguish as the sermon preached to the assembled multitude on the side of the mountain, from that preached in the circle of His intimate associates on the mountain top : ' Blessed be ye poor : for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now : for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now : for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Kejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy ; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven : for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full ! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you ! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. * But I say unto you — all — who hear (in contrast to the division of His audience into those two classes), Love your enemies, do good ^ This mention of a level place just leads to the supposition of a position some- where on the declivity of the mountain. THE FIRST JOURNEY OF JESUS UNDERTAKEN FROM CAPERNAUM. 223 to tliem -whicli hate yon,^ bless them that curse j'oii, and pray for them — in secret — who — in secret — persecute you with cakimnies." ' Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other ; and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee ; and of him that taketh away what is thine, ask it not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. ' If ye love them — alone — who love you, what thank have ye ? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye ? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again ; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest : for He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. ' Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned : forgive, and ye shall be forgiven : give, and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure with which ye mete it shall be measured to you again.' This sermon of the Lord has two parts : the first part declares the right behaviour which is due to God ; the second, the right behaviour due to our neighbour. The fundamental law of the first relationship is life's sorrow in the midst of life's earnestness, which is opposed to the pleasures of the life which is shallow and unreal. The fundamental law of the second is all-conquering love, in the twofold position of the suffering disciple, and of the disciple who occupies a j)lace above his neighbour ; showing itself in the one case as the patient love which blesses — in the other, as the in- dulgent compassion whicli blesses, — both in contrast to the false forms of love which the egotism of the world produces. The right relation to God is expressed by the Lord in three beatitudes, which converge together in a fourth. The foundation of the relationship is the true, living consciousness, over against the eternal fulness of God — poverty. The unfolding of it is true vital feeling, over against the open hand of God — hungering. Finally, the manifestation of it is the true idterance of life, over against the blessed future which God has promised — iveeijing. When, how- ever, these three fundamental features of the true life appear in their true forms, they resolve themselves into the one historical characteristic of man — that he suffers for the Son of man's sake, — that he is hated, is excommunicated (for the world also has its ex- communication), is reproached, and finally placed wholly under the ^ The two middle sentences follow each other more naturally in Luke than in Matthew. ^ Tuv iirrjpeal^ovTuv I'/aas. A beautiful contrast, in connection with the previous clause. 224 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. ban and cast out as an evil-doer ; and all this in His name, in the confession of Him. To this sufferinf; for God and for Christ's sake corresponds the promise. These sufferers shall obtain the kingdom of God — they shall be filled — they shall laugh for blessedness ; and the reality of this future — their riches, their peace, their cheerful elasticity of spirit, or their jb;/ — is shown by their being able even now, in the midst of their sufferings for Christ's sake, to rejoice and leap for joy, through the blessed consciousness that they are the companions of prophets, of the bright heroes and glorious benefac- tors of the human race. To the beatitudes are placed in strongly marked contrast the denunciations of woe against an inverted or false relationship to God. The fandamejital foivn ol this condition is the false (because externalized) consciousness — the being rich. It unfolds itself in false feeling or sensation — the being full. It reveals itself in a false manifestation of life — laughing, or permanent exultation. The unity of these three forms of splendid misery appears when a man has made himself understood by the shallowest of shallownesses — the spirit of the world, and becomes its darling ; when he is praised by every mouth. The first woe pronounced against these benighted men is : they have no future — they have laid the founda- tion for an infinite impoverishment ; — the second : they shall begin in the unutterable pain of an unsatisfied mind, wounded and lacer- ated, to experience the frustration and vanity of their life ; — the third : they shall mourn and lament (this also outwardly above measure, as men in despair). But with one word all is said — they shall share the lot of the false prophets (the long-forgotten teachers of error), who, amidst the ephemeral feelings of their time, were once also applauded, because they lived not, in the sorrow of life's earnestness, for Him who is the heart of humanity — the Son of man, but in the intoxication of earthly vanity, for the transient spirit of the age — one of the many-coloured vagaries of a diseased world. On the one class there comes a fourfold blessedness, because they have lived for the new world of blessedness amidst the sin- caused sorrows of the old ; on the other, a fourfold woe, because they have served the vanity of the old world, in opposition to the dawning of the new. With right conduct towards God, there is closely connected right conduct towards our neighbour. Those who confess the Son of man, confess Him in deeds — by love. This love approves itself, in the first place, as the love which suffers and yet blesses. Its most universal form is love towards enemies. The look of love penetrates the darkness with which enemies have beclouded their own hearts, and thus their relation to others ; and sees them in the inalienable character of their person- ality, in which God created them and loves them. And as love is put on trial by these enemies, it becomes lively, zealous, and active. When enemies display their enmity in hatred, love reveals itself in doing good. The manifestation of hatred, however, is twofold : it THE FIRST JOURNEY OF JESUS UNDERTAKEN FROM CAPERNAUM. 225 curses publicly and loudly, or it slanders secretly, in order to de- stroy. To the noisy explosions of hatred, love opposes the blessings of transparent, gentle, and kindly speech. The concealed mines of cabal and slander, it countermines victoriously by silent intercession. And this position, as a sufferer and yet a benefactor, it maintains not only in spirit and in word, but also in deed. It disarms the smiter by a willingness to suffer, which puts him to shame ; the robber, by the cheerful alacrity with which it submits to be robbed ; the obtrusive beggar, by a generous gift ; and him that takes undue advantage, by a high-hearted forgetfulness of the balance in favour. Such is the fundamental law of the love which suffers, and yet blesses. For not by a half-love can hatred be overcome, but by a whole. So long as the better part of a man becomes worse through the activity of the worse part within him ; so long as the man of violence can arouse within him the disposition to violence and plunder — the robber, the lust convulsively to seize and possess the goods of his neighbour — the beggar, the feeling of necessity and want — the unjust man, the torment of an exacting spirit ; — so long does the world ever go backwards in evil. Then first is the new world reached, when he who loves meets him who is destitute of love with entire resignation. The lust of violence is annihilated only by a perfect willingness to suffer ; the spirit of covetousness is quenched by the rich booty placed within its reach ; the beggar, by the liberal portion assigned him, becomes another man; and the cheat, by the terrifying experience that good men have no memory for his wretched profits. Such is the law of the spirit of love, in- finitely rich and free, which can be overcome neither by violence, nor robbery, nor the spirit of mendicancy, nor the arts of unjust dealing ; but, on the contrary, annihilates all these forms of spiritual destitution among mankind. So would this love in reality display itself in unveiled manifestation, if it durst. It may not, however, thus reveal its whole heart to the hapless people whom it encounters. It must take them into pupilage, and, stooping to their level, con- ceal its own proper character in sternness. In order, however, that this discipline be purely exercised, love withdraws it from the hand of the individual, and imparts to it the form of justice in the state, whilst it commences its own peculiar manifestations of itself in the Church. And it strives ever forward, by a gradual disclosure of its true character, to the realization of a time when the last smiter shall himself be smitten down by a thousand cheeks being offered to his clenched fist ; the last robljer shall be smothered under the abundance which shall be freely offered him ; the last beggar shall be reformed by the stateliness of the gifts he shall receive — the fraudulent man, by the feeling that men are ashamed to mention his frauds and artifices even by name. Such are the riches and the power of enduring beneficent love. Her golden rule is this : ' As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' Very different, however, are the delusive forms of false love, a VOL. IV. p 226 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. love which, at bottom, is only egotism in its calculating, friendly element. This egotism, in its relation to man, is most intimately connected with a wrong relationship towards God. He who is under its influence, loves only those who love him in turn ; and it is not otherwise with his acts of beneficence and.with his readiness to lend. Such conduct can never be burdensome to a man — it is enforced by his own advantage. It is found even in notorious sinners ; and is consequently a judgment, with which those who desire to appear as believers, or to shine as heroes of the faith, judge themselves, when in such wise they limit the manifestations of their love. The love which allows itself to be thus confined, is not love. The exercise of such benevolence costs a man no self-denial ; he has, moreover, no thank for it. On the other hand, those who truly love are known by their love approving itself as love to enemies — by their doing good and giving in advance, or lending (not money only), hoping for nothing again. And just because in unbounded fulness, even to the deepest depth, they love and hold precious the personal, the stamp of a nature allied to the divine, they have not only thank now, but a great reward awaits them, — they shall be the children of the Highest, who is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. They shall thus ever more and more attain to a position of supe- riority above the evil and the unthankful. But, even when they shall possess a large and wealthy place, their love shall remain the same. They sh'all be merciful, as their Father in heaven is merci- ful. This mercy will show itself by not judging and condemning to judgment, but by forgiving and giving. And thus they escape the judgment which overtakes those who judge, and obtain absolu- tion from the condemnation which overtakes those who condemn (in the first instance, in their own consciousness ; for the merciless spirit which a man exercises against others, turns against himself, as a spirit of retribution). They are permitted to go scatheless in the judgment; and, moreover, a full measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, is poured into their bosom. For this is the law of right in the kingdom of love : With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Even already the Lord found it needful to envelope the con- cluding thoughts of His address in a parabolic form. His first parable was as follows: ' Can the blind man serve as a guide to the blind ? shall they not both fall into the ditch ? The disciple is not above his master. Every one who is perfected (as disciple) shall be as his master.' This word showed to the people, in a figure, what would become of them if they entrusted themselves to the guidance of the Pharisees to the end. ' Why behoklest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,' con- tinued the Lord, ' but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? Or Avhy canst thou say to thy brother, Stop, brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, cast out first THE FIRST JOURNEY OF JESUS UNDERTAKEN FROM CAPERNAUM. 227 the beam out of tliine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly (possess the power of sight) to pull out tlie mote that is in thy brother's eye.' In this manner did the Lord rebuke the fanatical spirit of judgment with which the Pharisees exalted themselves above the publicans and sinners, whilst they themselves were a prey to the worst -forms of corruption. In a second parable, He then pointed to the source of this per- verseness : ' For there is no good tree which bringeth forth corrupt fruit, and no corrupt tree which bringeth forth good fruit. Every tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes.^ A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good ; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.' — The third parable presents us with the unity of the first and second. It shows how the bitter, censorious tone of those wdio have themselves gone astray, has its ground in inward blind- ness. In the measure in which their thoughts concerning love, and their faith in love, are poor, tliey show themselves equally poor in the actings of love. The blind man who leads the blind — who, doubly blind, offers himself as a guide to him who is conscious of blindness, and so far in part sees, — that is the pharisaical heart, empty of love, empty of light. The man with a beam in his eye, who desires to cure his brother with a mote in his eye, — that is the unloving act of this heart, the corrupt fruit of a corrupt tree. We may not, however, expect anything else from minds so corrupted. First one knows indeed the tree from the fruit ; but at last, even from a distance, the fruit from the tree. That the corrupt trees with their fruits, and the good trees with their fruits, are the opposites of one another, the Lord here already indicates. In the last of the parables this contrast is carried out and completed. The Lord opens this part of His address with the reproof, ' AVhy call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which 1 say ? Who- soever cometh to Me, and heareth My sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house ; but could not shake it, for it was founded on a rock. But he that heareth and doeth not, is like a man that without a founda- tion built an house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was .great.' This is a picture of the future that awaits be- lievers and unbelievers ; and, in the first instance, that awaits the true followers of Christ amongst the people of Israel on. the one hand, and His unbelieving hearers, gradually transforming them- selves into despisers, on the other. ^ * Nor figs of thistles,' is the second clause in Matthew : less appropriate for the conception, but more theological (calling to mind the curse on the ground in Genesis). 228 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. NOTES. 1. The history of the cure of the leper belongs to a time subse- quent to the return of Christ from the Mount. The healing of the sick of the palsy does not belong to this journey, but follows the re- turn of Christ from Gadara. Likewise, the calling of Matthew, and what was spoken in connection with that event. The incident in the corn-field took place considerably later, on the second Sab- bath after the first, — thus, after Easter ; and on this followed the healing of the man with a withered hand. The decisive setting apart of the apostles belongs also to a later period. It is manifest that the Evangelist followed an arrangement according to the matter. 2. Weisse (ii. 138) is of opinion that every impartial reader must regard the history of Peter's draught of fishes as an expansion and embellishment of the words spoken by Jesus, according to all the three synoptists, to the fishers, who by Him were to be made fishers of men. 3. Schleiermacher thinks it is most probable that no solemn calling and inauguration of the twelve apostles ever took place (p. 88). The address is, according to his supposition, the same as in Matthew ; nevertheless, ' our narrator seems in part to have had a more unfavourable position for hearing, therefore not to have heard all, and here and there to have lost the connection ; partly, also, he may have noted it down later, when a good deal had escaped his memory.' According to Gfrorer, ' the Mount,' as it often occurs in the Gospels, is to be understood ' as one and the same, in the sense of the old Christian legends ; ' which, of course, is quite impossible, as it must lie sometimes on this and sometimes on that side of the sea. The wild fancies which the author of the work re- ferred to — ' Die Evangelien, ihr Geist,' &c. — has written regarding the Sermon on the Mount, are to be found pp. 47 ff. According to him, the 'joint authors of the third Gospel have attacked the chief points in the Sermon on the Mount, with biting irony, in the coun- terpart to it which they wrote. According to Matthew (v. 1), Jesus went up to a mountain {ave^r} eh to opo