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THE LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. 
 
PRT.VTED BY JOXATHAX PALMER. 
 
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 OF 
 
 JESUS CHEIST. 
 
 BY 
 
 H/EWALD. 
 
 TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY 
 
 OCTAYIUS GLOVER, B.D. 
 
 FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Cambribge: 
 
 DEIGHTOIS^, BELL, AND CO. 
 LONDON : BELL AND DALDY. 
 
 1865. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. 
 
 Peeface 
 I. The Sources of this History 
 II. The Chronology of this History 
 III. The Stages of this History 
 
 Page. 
 
 V 
 
 1—9 
 10—18 
 19—22 
 
 FIRST ADVANCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 THE ADVANCE TO MESSIAS. 
 
 IV. John the Baptist .... 23—31 
 
 V. The Carrying Out of the Idea of John the 
 
 Baptist . . . . ; 32—38 
 
 VI. The Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth . . 39 — 46 
 
 VII. The History of Jesus before His Baptism * 47 — 60 
 
 VIII. Jesus' Baptism .... 61—67 
 
 IX. The Baptist's End .... 68—71 
 
 SECOND ADVANCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 JESUS AS CHEIST. 
 
 X. His Actions previous to the Baptist's Arrest — 
 The Messianic Beginnings . 
 
 XI. The First Stirrings of the Messianic Power in 
 Knowledge and Speech 
 
 72—74 
 75—81 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. Page 
 XII. Messianic Activity in Working and Helping 82 — 85 
 
 XIII. The First more Public Appearance and 
 
 Working, and the Beginning of the Ke- 
 
 cognition of Christ in Wider Circles . 86 — 102 
 
 XIV. The Happy Eeturn to Galilee, and the New 
 
 Position of the Messiah . . 103—106 
 
 XV. The History of the Temptation . . 107—109 
 
 XVI. The Founding of the Messianic Kingdom 110—118 
 
 XVII. The Daily Occupation . . . 119— 1^ J 
 
 XVIII. The Journey ofthis year to the Feast . 123—127 
 
 XIX. The Opposition and Enmity of the World 128—139 
 
 XX. The New Attitude of the Messiah towards 
 
 the World .... 140—144 
 
 XXT. The Founding of the Christian Church . 145—155 
 
 XXII. The Higher Teaching in the Kingdom of 
 
 God and His Earthly Community . 156 — 162 
 
 XXIII. The Kelation between the Lord of the New 
 
 Church and Men and Spirits . . 163 — 167 
 
 XXB^ The Pra€tical Education of the Twelve 
 
 through Travel with their Master . 168—178 
 
 XXV. The Practical Training through their own 
 
 Mission .... 179—182 
 
 XXVI. The Doubt of the Baptist, and his End . 183—191 
 
 XXVII. The Return of the Twelve, and their new 
 
 Practice .... 192—204 
 
 XXVIII. Increased Frequency and Extent of the 
 
 Journeys with the Twelve . . 205 — 210 
 
 XXIX. The distant Journeys in the North . 211—224 
 
 XXX. The Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem . 225—237 
 
 XXXI. The Stay on the East and on the West of 
 the Jordan. — Decision of the Sanhedrim 
 
 about Christ . . , . 238—248 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 VU 
 
 THIRD ADVANCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ' Chap. Page 
 
 \ XXXII. Christ's Temporal Fall and Eternal Vic- 
 
 ( tory. — His Resolution to meet the Crisis 249 — 254 
 
 XXXIII. The Last FestalJourney . . 255—265 
 
 XXXIV. The Entry into Jerusalem . . 266—270 
 
 XXXV. The Last Public Working in Jerusalem . 271—282 
 
 XXXVI. The Betrayal.— The Bodily Death and the 
 ^.. Eternal Hope. — The Bodily Separation 
 
 and the Eternal Presence . . 283 — 302 
 
 XXXVII. The Arrest and its Consequences . . 303—312 
 
 XXXVIII. The Condemnation . . . 313—323 
 
 XXXIX. The Crucifixion and Burial . . 324—336 
 
 XL. The Eternal Exaltation . . . 337—348 
 
 Notes ..... 351 
 
The Reader is requested to note the following Errata. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 88, line 26, for " found" read "forced." 
 
 " 95, ' 
 
 " 186, ' 
 
 " 194, ' 
 
 " 234, ' 
 
 " 248, ' 
 
 » 112, ' 
 
 " 123, ' 
 
 5, for "mere" read "more." 
 
 6, for "part" read "past." 
 
 5, for " gems" read " germs." 
 15, for " as no" read on. 
 8, dele " yet." 
 
 2 from bottom, dele "were." 
 1, for "effect" read "effort." 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The following work is a translation of part of the Fifth 
 Volume of Ewald's •" Geschichte des Volk's Israel." It 
 is, as far as the Editor is aware, the first attempt to 
 introduce this great scholar and thinker to those who 
 are unacquainted with the German language. It might 
 seem at first surprising that the works of one, who has 
 unquestionably had so great an influence on Biblical 
 study, should never have been brought' before English 
 readers. Not to dwell on other reasons to explain this, 
 it is sufficient to mention the daring boldness of his 
 views. One who should only judge of the tendency of 
 the book from a general statement of the author's prin- 
 ciples of enquiry, and the results at which he arrives, 
 would probably imagine it wanting in reverence, and 
 tending to undermine the foundation of our religion. 
 When we are told that the subjective turn of mind of 
 the author leads him to look on the early history of the 
 Jews as in large part mythical ; — that in his view the 
 history o.'' the Patriarchs and of God's chosen people, in 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 passing by tradition through the course of centuries, has 
 not been miraculously preserved from the same fate 
 which has befallen that of other ancient nations; — t^"' 
 he regards even the inspired Prophets as not so raist. 
 above human infirmities and the perverted or erroneous 
 notions of their time, but that human passion may be 
 traced in their writings ; — when further we are taught to 
 look on the Prophets rather as inspired preachers, than 
 as foretellers of the future : on thus hearing of tht 
 author's views in bare outline, we are naturally led to 
 look on the work as destructive to faith and to reverence 
 for the Bible. But when we come to study the work, 
 we find our first impressions in great part groundless. 
 If we look on faith as the conviction, that what we have 
 been led to believe can only have happened in the same 
 literal objective sense in which w^e have been wont to 
 regard it, in so far the history is dangerous to faith. 
 But if we look on faith as a conviction that God has 
 been and is guiding and governing His people; that 
 national ungodliness will surely lead to the punishment 
 of a nation, whilst even amid the sufferings of the nation 
 God is leading on his faithful servants to higher and 
 more spiritual views of Him and His governance of 
 men : then this book is undoubtedly animated by the 
 strongest faith and religious feeling. No work that 
 1 am acquainted with shews more clearly how God was 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 teaching His people by their whole history to look to the 
 Messiah as the only hope of their race. 
 
 I have spoken thus far of the author's history as 
 ^ whole ; partly not to lose the opportunity of expressing 
 xiiy humble admiration for the work. In spite of all 
 blemishes, few who have read it can look on it as other 
 than — to use the Dean of Westminster's words — ' a noble 
 work.' But partly, again, I have wished to diminish in 
 some measure the prejudice which the name of Ewald 
 might arouse against the following history. 
 
 I turn now to this particular work. It will be found 
 nearly free from those bold speculations which offend in 
 the earlier portion of the history. The supernatural is 
 here never rejected as supernatural : the feeding of the 
 multitude, and the raising of Lazarus, perhaps the two 
 most stupendous miracles, are related with full faith in 
 their supernatural character. The author, it is true, 
 dwells much more on the moral purpose and spiritual 
 meaning than on the outward miraculous features ; but 
 in so doing he is but following, he may plead, the 
 example set by our Lord Himself. Excepting the nar- 
 rative of the miraculous occurrences at the Crucifixion, 
 which he looks on as poetic imagery, akin to that of the 
 Prophet's language, — with this one exception, there are 
 only two or three instances, in which He seems inclined 
 to detract from the strangeness of the event as generally 
 
XI I PREFACE. 
 
 understood : but in all these cases he admits the truth of 
 the observed facts, while inclined to doubt some of the 
 causes imagined by the Evangelists, or, it may be, the 
 sequel which men commonly supply from their own 
 imaginations. Thus, while admitting the accuracy of the 
 narrative of the healing the demoniac, and of the fate of 
 the swine, he doubts whether the two events were con- 
 nected in the way the Evangelist supposed. While 
 admitting the truth of the narrative of the raising the 
 widow's son at Nain, he is inclined to think that the 
 supposed dead man may really have been suffering only 
 from suspended animation : he is led to this view, it 
 seems, simply from its having been passed over by the 
 earlier Evangelists. That Peter at the Lord's command 
 actually caught the fish with the stater in its mouth 
 is, he says, a conclusion which the narrative does not 
 warrant : that the command was merely a strong ex- 
 pression of the truth, that God by miraculous means, if 
 necessary, will provide for the worldly wants of his own. 
 I am not concerned with the probability or otherwise of 
 these views, but simply with the fact that they do not in 
 the least affect the credibility of the recorded facts. It 
 will however be objected, and with some reason, that 
 the author cares too little to maintain the credit of the 
 Evangelists as true reporters of the outward facts of our 
 Lord's life. This is especially noticeable in his remarks 
 
PREFACE. XIU 
 
 on the anointiug of the Lord's feet, and on the two 
 feedings of the multitude. He even regards variety of 
 detail in narratives of an event as important for a testi- 
 mony to the early currency of the narrative, and a token 
 of its truth in the essential elements. 
 
 With regard to the discourses of our Lord, it will 
 generally he allowed that the greater portion of them 
 are given nearly verbatim, being given in essentially the 
 same words by different Evangelists : other of His dis- 
 courses again, though essentially the same in the dif- 
 ferent reports, are very different in expression (compare 
 e.g. the discourses in Matt. xvi. 4 — 12, and Mark viii. 
 13 — 21). The author's conclusion is, that the more 
 accurate report is a copy from notes taken by the dis- 
 ciples at the time. This is the work constantly referred 
 to as the " Spruchsammlung." The other discourses, 
 which have been more loosely reported, the author 
 believes to have been drawn up by the Evangelists at 
 a time when every saying and action of the Lord was 
 reverentially recalled ; then were many things recalled 
 to mind " which the disciples understood not at the first, 
 but after He had risen they remembered that He had 
 told them of them." The principal real objection which, 
 as I conceive, may be made to this work is, that the 
 author is too fond of building on theory. A theory is 
 very valuable as a guide to the observation of facts; but 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 when recorded facts are explained away as inconsistent 
 with the theory, it then becomes dangerous. Herein 
 lies one both of the merits and defects of the book. It 
 traces more clearly than any work I know the plan of 
 our Lord's life conceived and carried out by Him, and 
 thus invests Him with an increased human interest : 
 but at the same time the author is led to dispute recorded 
 facts as inconsistent with his idea of Christ's work, (see 
 e. g. his remarks on the second temple cleansing). 
 
 I need not here specify all the points in which I am 
 obliged to differ from the author : some of the principal 
 of these have been noticed in the Notes at the end of 
 the volume. These Notes, I may state here, make no 
 pretension to offer a complete discussion of the matter 
 they touch on : my object was the twofold one — first, 
 where it seemed advisable, to signify my dissent from 
 the views in the text ; secondly, to elucidate the author's 
 views from the Notes in the original work or from other 
 works of his, especially ^' Die drei ersten Evangelien." 
 
 I will now only add a few words on my motives in 
 publishing this translation. In the first place, I must 
 admit the somewhat personal motive of the desire to 
 make better known to the English public an author for 
 whom I have so sincere an admiration, and to whose 
 works I have been so much indebted. But in the 
 second and principal place, it seemed that to minds 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 whose faith may have been shaken by sceptics like 
 Strauss or Kenan, a thinker so bold as Ewald, so un- 
 fettered by dogmatic prejudice, might speak with a per- 
 suasiveness and power, for which a less independent 
 thinker could never hope. The author's disbelief in the 
 Old Testament miracles serves as a dark background, 
 which makes us more admire the firm faith in the works 
 of Christ which shines forth from this volume. On one 
 fundamental point this author's protest may, I hope, be 
 useful — his protest I mean in favour of the genuineness 
 of St. John's Gospel : modern scepticism is using every 
 effort to throw discredit on this Gospel as a record of the 
 works and sayings of our Lord. It feels that this is the 
 grand bulwark of the Christian's faith in the divinity of 
 Christ. The narrative of the supernatural birth of 
 Christ and of the Eesurrection it may explain as myths ; 
 but our Lord's language about Himself, as given in this 
 Gospel, can only be set aside by denying the truth of 
 the Gospel. I will notice one other objection which 
 will probably be made to this work. The natural 
 human element, it will be said, is dwelt on to the ex- 
 clusion of the praeternatural. 
 
 I should be sorry to make myself responsible for the 
 writer's orthodoxy : yet if we, in accordance with the 
 author's intention, bear in mind that it is the man Christ 
 Jesus only whose history it is here intended to trace. 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 not that of the Divine Word mysteriously and insepar- 
 ably connected with Him ; with such an understanding 
 there is nothing, I think, which may not be reconciled 
 with the orthodox view of the Person of Christ. Practi- 
 cally, I think, whilst we allow that our Lord in taking 
 our nature took on Him the weaknesses and limitations 
 of our body, we shrink from attributing to Him those of 
 our minds and spirits. While we allow that the Divine 
 omnipotence only broke forth at intervals from under 
 the veil of Christ's humanity ; we shrink from allowing 
 that He was generally subject to the same limitations of 
 thought and spirit as ourselves, the Divine omniscience 
 only occasionally raising Him from human to divine 
 knowledge. 
 
 I conclude with the expression of the hope, that the 
 tender loving spirit which breathes through this bio- 
 graphy may find a response in many hearts, that the 
 vivid portrait herein contained may make Him to many 
 more of a real living presence. In the prayer that all 
 blemishes in it may be pardoned by Him it would set 
 forth, the work is commended to the English public. 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Sources of this History. 
 
 The more important this history is to us in itself, the 
 more carefully shall we enquire into the extent, the age, 
 and the true nature of its sources. And here we must 
 first without doubt lament, that we possess on the Non- 
 Christian side no early and trustworthy information, 
 worth speaking of, on the life, works, and fate of Christ. 
 This cannot, it is true, be very surprising. No history, 
 as will appear plainly further on, can be more quiet in 
 presence of the turmoil of the world, and more in- 
 conspicuous, than that of the short public working of 
 Christ, who never, as the Baptist, interfered with the 
 public popular life of the time, — who, remote from all the 
 world of that day, lived only for God as His Father, 
 and for the establishment of the perfect kingdom of 
 God ; and whose Spirit, uncomprehended by that world, 
 appeared immediately suffocated and crushed for ever 
 directly it began to reveal itself completely in the world. 
 
 B 
 
2 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Even in the period next after this violent stifling, this 
 mysterious stillness of the new Spirit in the world lasts 
 on until it irresistibly penetrates it ever more strongly, 
 and then soon both Jews and heathens say enough of it, 
 when they had already lost the opportunity of being 
 able to know most accurately about Christ. Thus 
 Flavins Josephus is the only Non-Christian historian 
 of the first century we possess who speaks of Christ. 
 In the first indeed of his two great works — the history 
 of the Jewish War — he did not speak of Him, he 
 had no need in respect of the principal subject of it. 
 But we cannot see how he, in the Antiquities, should 
 have neglected to speak, however briefly, of Christ and 
 His followers; as there he mentions much far less 
 important, and that work professes to give a general 
 history of the people, according to all its aims, various 
 divisions, and manifold crises. Had he also in this work 
 said nothing of Christianity, that could only be explained 
 from a want of clear views on the subjects which had so 
 completely fettered him, that he preferred to be silent 
 on a matter so imperfectly known to him. He had 
 certainly, when he wrote his work for the Roman-Greek 
 world, a secret horror of every thing Messianic, and 
 Christianity must have appeared to him, as to all the 
 Jews of his views, something incomprehensible; and 
 besides, as it was felt how much this last division had 
 injured the Jews, it must have been a subject disagree- 
 able and repugnant. But these grounds seem insufficient 
 for his entirely overlooking it. 
 
 Now there are actually found in all manuscripts of 
 
I.] THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. 3 
 
 the Antiquities, two apparently corresponding passages 
 where he speaks of Christ and His followers, but the 
 first and more express of the two gives token of an 
 unmistakeable Christian hand. We have too here every 
 cause to readily believe in a change by Christian hands. 
 For Josephus' works, written at first not for Jews so 
 much as for heathen, soon, in consequence of the after 
 destinies of the people, came into heathen and still more 
 into Christian hands exclusively, and early became for 
 the Christians a principal source of all their historical 
 knowledge. It is no wonder then that an eminent 
 Christian early so changed a passage on Christ therein 
 contained, that the work became readable for Christians, 
 and this change then passed into all Christian MSS. 
 while all others have been lost. That the passage, 
 without any occasion from the context, was first thrust in 
 by a Christian, and thus is, in short, completely and in 
 every word spurious, has been in later times without 
 ground asserted by many : for if Josephus had not 
 spoken of Christ at all, that would have been readily 
 borne, as it did not occur to any Christian of the first or 
 second century that he must first see the historical truth 
 of Christ confirmed by Josephus. But it is equally false 
 to imagine that the Christian hand found some un- 
 prejudiced statement in Josephus, for then it would 
 have simply let stand an honest statement in any 
 way readable, without caring to make it, by a couple 
 of sentences added, a little more Christian. Rather 
 we have every reason to suppose, first, that Josephus, as 
 he could not quite pass over Him, described Christ, 
 
4 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 according to the view then spread among Jews and 
 heathen, as a mere wizard (Goeten), who through such 
 arts, as well as by a feigned holiness, had led astray the 
 people and appeared dangerous to the rulers ; and, 
 secondly, that he, with most other intelligent Jews of his 
 time, although disapproving of Christianity as a supersti- 
 tion, yet lamented the persecuting Christ to the death, 
 and wished it undone : for now at length many of the 
 most intelligent Jews were come to the milder view; 
 besides the old opposition between the Pharisees and 
 Sadducees might have contributed to this as Josephus 
 was a Pharisee; whilst Annas the high priest, by whose 
 instigation, with that of his son-in-law Caiaphas, Christ 
 was crucified, was with his whole family an adherent of 
 the Sadducees. The Christian hand altered then in the 
 narrative almost the whole, and allowed to stand only 
 two of the last sentences, in which Josephus' regret shews 
 itself still tolerably plain. And this entire change in 
 the passage by a Christian hand occurred certainly 
 pretty early in the second century, at which time 
 another Christian hand must have been similarly busy 
 with the work on the Jewish War. 
 
 What the Jews later, after the entire separation of 
 the two religions, in ever narrowed and more hostile 
 feeling, thought and wrote on the history of Christ 
 and of early Christianity, has no longer historical im- 
 portance. It led at length in natural sequence to the 
 incredibly low and tasteless fictions of the work written 
 in the German Middle Ages (Sefer toledoth Jeshua ha 
 Nozri) : it has therein for ever condemned itself. 
 
1.] THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. 5 
 
 But on tlie Christian side the four Evangelists now 
 give us the oldest, richest, and weightiest matter for 
 this history. What in addition the rest of the New 
 Testament, only however in allusion and slight touch, 
 contains, is derived from just the same narrative matter, 
 and agrees entirely with the four Gospels, but deals 
 very little with particulars. Kicher than the Apocryphal 
 Gospels which have yet survived, are, it is true, the 
 oldest surviving Christian writings, yet in the whole of 
 them there are only a few additions in any way im- 
 portant which can be drawn from them. Thus we must 
 have recourse principally to the right knowledge and 
 appreciation of the historical contents of our four Gospels, 
 if we in this whole subject would arrive at a higher 
 certainty, and in the deep interest of the matter will look 
 on the smallest matter as greater than any which we 
 shall here ever again know. 
 
 As now in more recent and the most recent times, so 
 many perverse and injurious views have been put 
 forward, nay, have been zealously defended, on the 
 origin and the nature, and hence also on the historical 
 importance, of these four Gospels, and it seemed high 
 time to arrive in this question on a course of safer 
 principles, I have, since 1848, already put forward more 
 at length my views thereon. What is there brought 
 forward, and will be in part still further brought forward, 
 forms here also the groundwork of all knowledge of this 
 history. We shall too, in the course of this history 
 of the last events of the earthly Israel and of the 
 simultaneous rise of the immortal spiritual Israel, have 
 repeatedly to recur to much of this subject. 
 
6 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 The result of our enquiries is, that with all the 
 richness and variety of Gospel narrative there are 
 only two principal sources and classes of narrative 
 which we must constantly distinguish. When the 
 oldest narrative had been already spread very widely 
 in manuscript, there first appeared in St. John's Gospel 
 its true completion, whether we look at the deep im- 
 portance and brilliance of this entire history, or whether 
 we look at the number of particulars which, in them- 
 selves apparently unimportant, may yet become of great 
 importance. Truly the wonderful history of Christ has 
 found also at once its just as wonderful narrative : for 
 what can in many respects be more wonderful than this 
 very formation and structure of the Gospels ? Men, who 
 without themselves having been enlightened with the 
 light of the Gospel would never have thought of any 
 writing of their own or even the art of writing, became 
 founders of a quite new kind of literature such as the 
 world had never seen, so admirably simple, so brief and 
 yet so satisfying, so unadorned and yet so attractive, 
 telling of the highest which can be told of, actually 
 without an effort surpassing the childlike as well as the 
 heroic and sublime in the Old Testament narrative. 
 But after this literature has thus been, with the greatest 
 industry and incessant labour, already in the most 
 manifold and varied manner formed in a long course of 
 distinct writing, and its zeal now seems wearied out, its 
 matter already exhausted ; then at length it receives its 
 proper completion and most brilliant illustration, by a 
 writing which by itself alone is just as important as all 
 
I.] THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. 7 
 
 the earlier together, — nay, not only outshines all earlier 
 ones, but even for the first time shines on them and 
 illuminates them, and which does it all as though 
 without wishing it, simply through its own goodness 
 and joy and satisfaction in its great object. That the 
 fourth Gospel has the Apostle for its author, has indeed 
 in Germany, in more recent and from less pure motives 
 in the most recent times, been much denied, and yet is 
 quite certain, as I have persistently publicly asserted 
 since, and recently have shown more particularly. 
 Only one circumstance could shake our belief in this : 
 and I admit that I myself, when I saw it quite clearly, 
 was for a moment struck by it. It is observed, in fact, 
 that the writer not seldom lays as it were for the 
 foundation of his own exposition a simpler expression 
 which is found in one of the older Evangelists, especially 
 too in the sayings of Christ: this might lead to the 
 notion of the work of one however spiritually rich, still a 
 second hand, as though the composer had been not the 
 independent Apostle and confidant of the Lord, but one 
 who leaning on the hand of the other Evangelists lost 
 himself in this sublimity. But in fact this is mere 
 appearance. That the composer before he went to his 
 own work had some Gospels lying before him, and 
 indeed the very oldest and best, is quite plain : but we 
 also cannot see why the Apostle should not have done 
 that in his great age. It could never occur to him at 
 so late a period to compose a Gospel with special non- 
 reference to all earlier ones ; and it well beseemed him 
 to compare the writings of a Matthew and Mark-Peter. 
 
8 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Nay, this all the more, if he, as is from many proofs 
 plain, did not till quite old age make up his mind 
 to compose a Gospel of his own to complete the earlier 
 ones : the reading of the Gospels written much earlier, 
 and by the men who were generally most trustworthy, 
 revived then the full memory of bygone events, so that 
 even many of their words became naturally to him the 
 occasion of his peculiar living representation. And 
 thus all doubt which one might first stumble on in 
 reading this Gospel, as to its coming from the Apostle 
 John, quite vanishes on further investigation. Now no 
 unprejudiced man will mistake the simple truthfulness 
 and the honest spirit, in which not merely our four, but 
 also all the Gospels which preceded them were written. 
 For the literature of the Gospels was, as I have there 
 shewn, at first most various, and difierent according 
 to the individual composers : because the great and 
 difficult subject himself did not sufier himself to be 
 so easily exhausted ; but while in the spring time 
 of this literature one writing might complete, in part 
 also improve on another in this or that respect, in the 
 strict love of truth and the avoidance of the intermixture 
 of any foreign aim the earlier and also the four now 
 preserved are alike. And if even the historical writings 
 of the best times of the Old Covenant in harmony with 
 the old true religion, in spite of all their other varieties, 
 shew everywhere the deepest feeling for historical truth, 
 how much more these Gospels, written but a short time 
 after the might of the purest Truth had actually ap- 
 peared on earth, and that too in the Truth's own history! 
 
I.] THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. 9 
 
 But true as all this is, we must yet never overlook that 
 these Gospels, like the whole Christian period in which 
 they came into existence, yet stand under the first 
 impress of the entire manifestation, completely singular 
 as it was, nay, infinitely sublime. This was the single 
 grand subject of their narrative ; and this, observe, is their 
 greatest merit, that they give us this impression so truly 
 and reflect it so continually. So far however as all 
 portions of this entire great history, and above all the 
 history of Christ Himself, has its meaning not only for 
 those earliest times but also for our and all future time, 
 it is our duty here to look above these first impressions, 
 even into the primary and hence eternal meaning which 
 this whole manifestation has. All the many pecu- 
 liarities which the Gospels, and in some sort also other 
 writings, afi'ord to us, are only helps and contributions 
 for this end : and if the mark corresponding to this 
 aim stands so far from us that we can only gradually 
 approach to it though ever more surely, yet may we 
 never lose it in itself out of our sight. 
 
 All this being first premised, it will be found, on a 
 careful use of the sources of this history, that although 
 many of its several portions remain somewhat obscure to 
 us, yet in respect to their chief objects and unmixed 
 truths they quite satisfy us. And as though for the 
 singular importance of this history the necessity had 
 always made itself felt of having together as many 
 trustworthy sources as possible, we have for this period 
 of very few years a fulness of various accounts in the 
 Bible itself such as exists nowhere else. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 The Chronology of this History. 
 
 As the earliest Gospels proceeded in general from an 
 inward sincerity and the quiet cheerfulness which is the 
 true reflection of that inward happiness whose power 
 is satisfied in itself, they were satisfied to note down 
 even the most remarkable sayings and deeds of Jesus 
 after some simple fashion of their own, without thinking 
 about the accurate determination of their chronology, 
 nay even without much thinking on the history external 
 to this circle, and of fitting it in to the great History 
 of the World : besides too it came into being and ran its 
 course quite apart from its loud turmoil, and not till 
 quite its termination connected itself with the name of a 
 Roman viceroy. Further, at the time when these histories 
 were written, the story did not go back so far, nor into 
 so different a crisis of the world's history, for men 
 to think in time of fixing its limits more accurately : 
 it was known that these events were pretty recent, and 
 had occurred in the yet peaceful period of the Roman 
 Empire. Not until the period of the fall of the house of 
 Augustus and the destruction of Jerusalem was a change 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THIS HISTORY. 11 
 
 produced, which even in respect to Christianity could 
 not remain without results. Yet even John wrote his 
 Gospel with the same complete indifference and unconcern 
 about the connection of this history with the outer 
 world. In truth, with his mode of handling Christianity 
 this might seem to him a matter less important than to 
 the composers of the other Gospels; but evidently their 
 example influenced him also, so that he with less concern 
 omitted what to him, as compared with the infinite 
 importance of the matters in themselves, seemed un- 
 important. It then seemed through the mention of 
 Pontius Pilate, omitted in none of our Gospels, that for 
 simple readers the period in which the history lies was 
 sufficiently indicated. But when once from the course 
 of this history he has to recall to his mind more accu- 
 rately, he gives out of its proper subject-matter many 
 most valuable contributions to the more accurate know- 
 ledge of the several periods of the events. Nay, we 
 might despair of arriving at a more accurate separation 
 in time of many of the principal events of the history 
 had we not the help of this history : St. John in fact 
 looks on it as not worth while to define the years either 
 in- general or particular, nor to aim at chronology : but 
 the occasional glimpses at profane matters, which he 
 intermingles merely for the sake of the particular objects 
 of the narrative, are so definite, so little inconsistent, and 
 on more accurate enquiry fit in so well with everything 
 else that is known to us, that they must be placed at the 
 foundation, as for many points, quite the most trust- 
 worthy and instructive we have. 
 
12 LIFE OF JESUS CHETST. [CHAP. 
 
 St. Luke quite otherwise, although he, like St. John, 
 did not write till after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 He has (even St. John's Gospel was not before him) 
 absolutely no more exact marks of time in the course of 
 the history itself, or at least none such as could in any 
 way help us to know the story chronologically more 
 exactly in detail : but he tries by means of some certain 
 dates to fit the story into its proper place in the world's 
 history. Nay, this was plainly with him one principal 
 object of his new history, and what he adds in this 
 view to its chronological sources is quite peculiar to 
 him. We cannot also fail to notice that he, just because 
 it was a new principal object with him, made the most 
 careful enquiries, and have only to regret that he yet 
 gave fewer exact dates than we should now wish for. 
 We must hence start from him, but when he leaves 
 us, take the intimations of the other Evangelists, 
 and especially of St. John, to help us. Now, strictly 
 speaking, there are only two available dates of im- 
 portance which St. Luke gives us. The one, that the 
 Baptist appeared in the fifteenth year of the reign of 
 Tiberius Ca3sar ; the other, that Jesus when he began 
 to appear as Christ was about thirty years old (Luke 
 iii. 1, 23). The last information is however in itself 
 left somewhat indefinite, and is the less available for 
 exact chronological determination, as it does not give 
 more accurately the year in which the Baptist or Jesus 
 was born. If the statement on the appearance of the 
 Baptist is exact (of which we have no reason to doubt), 
 that event falls in the year 781 u.c. or 28 A.D., according 
 
II.] THE CHRONOLOGY OF THIS HISTORY. 13 
 
 to our usual reckoning. That, however, Jesus appeared 
 openly as Christ in the same year as the Baptist ap- 
 peared, is not said by St. Luke. We must thus, in 
 making a first approximation, leave this gap also unfilled ; 
 yet this is in itself probable, as St. Luke would probably 
 otherwise have added a fresh date. But further, we 
 assume here as certain what will appear afterwards as 
 the result of our particular enquiry, that Jesus' public 
 working lasted at least from three and a-half to four 
 years, as may be concluded from St. John's statements. 
 If several Church Fathers said Jesus' public working 
 lasted three or four years, this was at least more likely 
 than the opinion that it had only lasted one year : for the 
 latter opinion was supported only by the apparent proof 
 which the present Gospel according to St. Matthew, as 
 well as that of St. Luke, might well spread, but how 
 groundlessly will appear below. 
 
 Had St. Luke thought it worth while to state 
 accurately the year also of the death of Jesus, we might 
 thus easily lead to a safe conclusion what St. John lets 
 us suppose on the duration of His public life. But for 
 the end of his work there reappears that total unconcern 
 about such observations, which, as above stated, affects 
 from the first all the Evangelical literature: this may 
 the less surprise us, as St. Luke yet later even in the 
 ''Acts" shews the same carelessness about a closer 
 connection between the secular and religious sides of 
 the whole history of the time. 
 
 But first in the history of Jesus' death, by all the 
 Evangelists without distinction it is uniformly stated 
 
14 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 that the day of his death was a Friday : now this Friday, 
 according to the more exact remembrance to be enquired 
 into below, was the day of that year on the evening of 
 which the Paschal week began, or the 14th of the 
 month Nisan in that year. If then we can in that 
 period find a year in which the 14th of this month, 
 according to the rule then in existence for determining 
 it, was a Friday, we should thus have a safe limit for 
 the conclusion of this history. But now all authorities 
 state with tolerable agreement, and according to all 
 appearance from good remembrance, that Jesus' death 
 happened 33 A.D., and on the 14th of the month, at the 
 time of the Paschal offering towards evening ; and it has 
 been attempted to shew in later times, that according to 
 astronomical accuracy that day was actually a Friday. 
 If now we combine that beginning of the Baptist's work 
 28 A.D. with this year 33 A.D., we have a period of 
 about five years, in which interval we may suppose 
 comprised all that we know of the Baptist's as well as 
 of Jesus' public life. This period is further, looked at 
 generally, not too short for the unfolding of the extra- 
 ordinary activity of the Baptist, and still more of Jesus : 
 but however remarkable, on the other hand, this activity 
 may have been, we can hardly imagine that it can have 
 lasted a considerably shorter time. Further, with this 
 agree all the dates and traces of the universal history of 
 that time, as well as the history of the profane side of 
 the story (as has been earlier shewn in the author's 
 history), and in some particulars is still further to be 
 touched on. Finally, entirely without design the in- 
 
II.] THE CHRONOLOGY OT THIS HISTORY. 15 
 
 timations in St. John's Gospel agree admirably there- 
 with , which the more incidentally they have been 
 recorded are so much the more welcome, as they serve 
 from quite another source to corroborate the principal 
 proof. The Gospel of St. John actually gives us a 
 further proof, quite distinct, for the accuracy of the 
 beginning of the time named. In quoting a speech of 
 the chief priest's on the temple, immediately after Jesus' 
 first appearance, he makes them say that the temple 
 (that is, as it then was) had been built in not fewer than 
 forty-six years, (John ii. 29). This refers to the 
 building of the temple by Herod, which was long 
 continued after Herod's death (Bd. iv. s. 191), and 
 begun in the year 20 B.C. This year 20 being an 
 incomplete year, and the 28th year a.d. being likewise 
 an incomplete year, and therefore not included, we 
 arrive at the interval here given — 46 years. Sup- 
 posing even it was St. John himself who gave these 
 words with so accurate a mark of time, one sees in any 
 case that he could have fixed the time of Jesus' first 
 appearance quite as well as St. Luke, and that he 
 (had he set any importance on it) would have been 
 quite capable of fitting the Gospel history in all its 
 parts into its place in universal history. Only the 
 interval between the Baptist's and Jesus' appearance 
 seems with him to have been less taken account of. 
 But this interval was after all not very great, and it 
 seems in remembrance to have grown ever less. In 
 what then concerns the period of the public activity 
 of the Baptist and of Jesus, and a number of important 
 
16 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 events besides tHs, we have information enough. 
 Many particulars of it will probably never again be 
 clear to us in their perfectly accurate sequence ; but much 
 can, by continued closer investigation, grow ever more 
 certainly again clear to us, and much, on the certainty of 
 which in more recent times doubts were felt, will become 
 instead continually plainer. Still we must never forget 
 that very many of the several events of this entire 
 history are not of the kind for which their exact 
 chronological place is of much importance, as they have 
 for their first object only the fuller knowledge of the 
 whole life and working of Jesus. 
 
 The enquiry reserved, however, on the duration of 
 the public working of both men, and especially of Jesus, 
 is far harder to determine with the same certainty. It 
 is too in fact, for this history, itself of little importance 
 to know exactly how old Jesus was when he began to 
 work, and the older Gospels pass over this entirely. 
 St. Luke indeed thought to define this by the sentence 
 " he was about thirty years of age," but this expression 
 is itself far from definite, and has hence given rise to 
 many misconceptions. If we take this "about thirty 
 years," in spite of the uncertainty in which St. Luke has 
 left it, in the strictest sense as thirty, and compare there- 
 with the date given by St. Luke as the year of the 
 Baptist's appearance, and as is natural to suppose that 
 also of Jesus, namely the 15th year of the reign of 
 Tiberius, or 781-782 u.c, we must arrive at 751-752 as 
 the year of His birth, or if He were supposed to appear 
 not until two years after the Baptist, the year 754 u.c. 
 
II.] THE CHRONOLOGY OF THIS HISTORY. 17 
 
 This reckoning, through the ignorance, as is allowed, of 
 the early middle ages, became in Europe the founda- 
 tion of our present reckoning of time before and after 
 Christ. But if Jesus was born in the reign of Herod 
 the Great, as w^e are informed by the last composer 
 of St. Matthew's Gospel, and quite independently by 
 St. Luke, this period for our Lord's life is too short, as 
 Herod died 750 u.c. Nay, we might probably put His 
 birth a year earlier, as He, according to the meaning of 
 the passages about his birth, could hardly have been 
 born in the very last year of the reign of Herod. It is 
 true, the account in St. Luke about the Roman census 
 during which Jesus was born, seems to lead to a more 
 exact conclusion about this year. But the year for 
 which Augustus ordered such a census over all the 
 world is neither defined in this account, nor is it from 
 other accounts clear to us. In truth this account, as 
 St. Luke gives it, according to plain tokens, is merely 
 repeated by him from an earlier writer, and St. Luke in 
 a short parenthesis is contented with merely remarking 
 on his own part, that this census is not to be confounded 
 with the one under Quirinus. Now as this account 
 here taken up by St. Luke describes only very gene- 
 rally everything of the outward universal history which 
 concerns it, it is manifestly only a more distant tradition 
 of such a census "of the whole world" under Augustus 
 in Herod's lifetime, which in this part is its authority. 
 The registration which Augustus ordered could have 
 reference evidently only to Romans and Roman subjects, 
 and so could not properly have reference to Palestine, as 
 
 c 
 
18 LIFE OP JESUS CHEIST. 
 
 not at that time a member of the Eoman confederacy ; 
 the census too is here described as accomplished not 
 as after Koman but as after old Hebrew fashion, by 
 families. But Augustus had, as was known, designed 
 to carry out accurate enumerations of the number of in- 
 habitants of the Koman empire, including those of the 
 confederated countries, and had appointed a Roman 
 census for 746 u.c. : the aged Herod, become continually 
 more dependent on him, had certainly met his views in this 
 wish for an exact account of the number of inhabitants of 
 his country ; and we know further that he, in one of the 
 last years before his death, had made the whole people 
 take a solemn oath of fidelity in his own and Augustus' 
 name, which probably was done with the men as- 
 sembled for the census. From this might be formed 
 that more definite idea, which in so far was not without 
 historical reminiscence. If we cannot then determine 
 quite accurately the birth year of our Lord, it is yet 
 plain from all tokens that the expression of St. Luke 
 " about thirty years" is rather thus to be taken, that He 
 at the time of His entrance on His ministry was already 
 some years over thirty years old. And this is the most 
 probable conclusion which we could maintain in respect 
 to diverse opinions which it was sought to establish in 
 ancient times. 
 
CHAPTEH III. 
 
 The Stages of this History. 
 
 When however we look from the external temporal 
 limitations of this history of a few years to the progress 
 and gradations of its inner development, we cannot be 
 enough surprised at the way in which all its grandeur 
 is compressed into so small a space, and yet at the 
 same time passes through three such various gradations 
 until it completes itself and arrives at a preliminary 
 rest. But thus also the whole power and the whole 
 long labour of the germinating, flowering, and fructi- 
 fying of a noble tree is compressed in short time into 
 the marvel of the small thick growing fruit, that this 
 successively germinating, forming, and ripening may 
 render yet far richer produce. And here too we have 
 an entirely peculiar tree of noblest sort, and a fruit 
 at length ripening after 2000 years. 
 
 The perfected Man of God was to come as founder 
 of the perfected Kingdom of God and healer of all the 
 sins of the world : to this unfathomable thought and to 
 this ardent longing had the people now, in the course 
 of its long life and painful striving after true religion, 
 raised itself: but He must come even now, if this whole 
 
20 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 life and struggling, with all its hard labours and suffer- 
 ings was not to be, after all, fruitless at last. There 
 is something gigantic and eternal which lay in this 
 thought : even the clear thinking on, hoping for, long- 
 ing for such a consummator, embracing and collecting 
 in Himself what was most salutary in all true religion, 
 must wonderfully quicken and exalt the spirit, the never- 
 wearying faithful waiting for Him give to the spirit 
 a decided tendency to all perfection and an ever lively 
 tension. But just as this people, as Jehovah's people, 
 (see Bd. ii. s. 188 ff.) appeared in the world's history 
 with a "gigantic idea and enterprise, out of which sprang 
 all of noblest and most heroic which in the course of 
 many centuries was active in it, after that this enterprise 
 become historical, historically could no further advance, 
 this people appears with a yet more gigantic view of the 
 future, which however quite corresponds to the first, and 
 was evoked by it. If it has become apparent in the 
 history of 1500 years that there is yet no perfect people 
 of God, nay, that this, just w^hen it must be at its 
 greatest perfection, to sustain itself at all on the earth, 
 sank to the lowest depths and is continually sinking, 
 then must there first come a perfect Man of God : and 
 that He may come will now be the object of all deepest 
 longing and striving : that the people, notwithstanding 
 its increasing disruption and weakness, hopes for Him 
 so firmly, is its greatest merit. 
 
 His actual coming is now the great advance which 
 was here yet possible, the fulfilment of the gigantic 
 higher consciousness and aspirations, so far as these 
 
III.] THE STAGES OF THIS HISTORY. 21 
 
 could then be immediately fulfilled. And secondly, 
 the true advance, if it is really to be the advance to the 
 perfect true religion, must itself be the coming Messiah's 
 own working. But that it might be also actually even 
 possible, and that the true Messias might be able to 
 appear, it needed — first because He must spring forth 
 from this people — a last meeting and striving by the- 
 whole people to this end. Were however, lastly, the 
 true culmination of all advance here possible, by means 
 of the people's own striving and complete working once 
 arrived at, this advance must of itself lead to the 
 advance which at once extends itself beyond the in- 
 dividual Messiah into the great whole, and which first 
 brings about the true conclusion of the whole of this 
 great advance ; because it is after all not the perfection 
 of the individual Messias, but of the very Kingdom of 
 God in the world ; it is this to which all converges, and 
 which can begin so soon as the perfect Messias is there. 
 The great advance then which forms the fairest part of 
 the whole history of this people divides itself immedi- 
 ately into three particular advances, of which the first is 
 ever the condition of the others and pushes them on ; 
 but of these however each one is of quite peculiar kind ; 
 these develope themselves in their periods with wonderful 
 rapidity and encroach on each other, and yet each of 
 them will have its own peculiar time. In Christ they 
 are all combined, and He alone forms the second of the 
 three as the purest and highest of all these advances. 
 He extends into the first, but so that He is only moved 
 and impelled by itj and He goes on further spon- 
 
22 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. 
 
 taneously into the third, but in such sort that He rather 
 suffers than works, and His suffering is itself the trans- 
 ition to the third advance so varied in its manifesta- 
 tions — that advance with which the germ of the Perfect 
 advances indestructible into the great world, and 
 Christianity, or the immortal part of Israel, has already 
 become a never-ending blessing to humanity. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 FIRST ADVANCE. 
 
 the advance to messias (christ). 
 
 John the Baptist. 
 
 It may in many respects be regretted that we possess so 
 little old and express information on John the Baptist. 
 For of the late writings of those who only, in opposition 
 to Christianity when it had become mighty, thought 
 good to announce themselves adherents of the Baptist, 
 we need make the less mention, as they are entirely 
 unproductive of historical knowledge. We thus now 
 possess on him and his earliest followers, besides the 
 New Testament account, only the short one of Flavins 
 Josephus (Antiq. 18 v. 2), which is superficial and 
 unsatisfactory in proportion to the inability of this 
 writer to understand anything which breathes a Christ- 
 ian spirit. The higher glory and the entire perfection 
 of Christ outshone soon the brilliancy and fame as well 
 as the whole undertaking and effort of the Baptist : but 
 looked at from the past, he was assuredly one of the 
 greatest heroes of Israel, his work the deepest and the 
 
24 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 truest which in all these last times could be attempted, 
 and the entire elevation of spirit and definiteness of the 
 effort to which he called the people, was doubtless the 
 first and most necessary step to the only possible and 
 true salvation of the period, nay, the surprising fulfil- 
 ment of the first of those three conditions of its fulfil- 
 ment above described. And therefore it is that the in- 
 formation about him in the New Testament is, with 
 all its shortness and fragmentary character, not only 
 the oldest but also the most express and instructive, 
 exactly because it could the best bring forward the 
 earliest and noblest of his views, and what he in fact set 
 forward destined to find its completion only in Christi- 
 anity. The actually perfect may well and safely look 
 back on its own real beginnings ; ripe and decided man- 
 hood look back on its youth : thus the New Testament 
 looks back on the Baptist. But the more necessary 
 then is it that we also know truly this first breaking 
 of the new day, and estimate that hero after his noble 
 nature, who ventured on the first mighty step to raise 
 himself and the people above all hitherto realised, in 
 order to bring it in effect nearer to the perfect of men's 
 aspirations. In the oldest sources our John is never 
 distinguished more particularly in his descent and race : 
 the name " Baptist" affixed suffices with them, as well 
 as in Flavins Josephus, to distinguish him from the 
 numerous other Johns (for particularly since Hyrcanus 
 I. this was a very favourite man's name) ; so memorable 
 a feature must at first have been the baptism in his case. 
 Still, in the somewhat later and more artificial account 
 
IV.] JOHN THE BAPTIST. 25 
 
 of his appearance in the public world which St. Luke 
 has adopted in his histoiy, Zacharias and Elizabeth are 
 spoken of as his parents, the city of Judah (by which 
 doubtless is meant the old capital and city of the 
 priests — Hebron) is named his father's city (Luke i. 23, 
 39): his father according to this account belonged to 
 one of the 24 priestly families, which after ancient 
 custom had to provide for the temple service in proper 
 succession, and thus when it came to their turn betake 
 themselves from their home to the temple. And we 
 have every reason to accept as historical these reminis- 
 cences from the history of the parentage of the Baptist. 
 Our John might have as a priest's son, nay, as according 
 to St. Luke's narrative, a particularly late born child, 
 grown up accordingly and lived on in all honour and the 
 abundance of common life: but we see repeated once 
 more in him all the stricter view of life and willing 
 devotion, which, as on many occasions we saw above, 
 is with no priesthood of antiquity so peculiar as with 
 that which the true religion subsequent to Moses had 
 established among this people. Nay, it is remarkable 
 enough, that now towards the conclusion of the course of 
 this whole history, when the deepest, the strongest and 
 most enduring which lay in the people was incited once 
 more to reveal itself most strongly and aim at every- 
 thing possible to it ; it is again a born priest, who out of 
 the purest impulses of true religion prepared a new 
 spiritual movement and advance, which must go beyond 
 everything which in former times an Aaron, a Samuel, 
 or an Ezra had attempted and effected. If, in fact, we 
 
26 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 will riglitlj appreciate his life-work, we must well 
 observe the entire foundation on which it rested, and 
 which we yet may know well enough from his own 
 words and deeds. And here we must first of all notice, 
 that he it was first who among the people reflected more 
 deeply on the hope of the Messiah, and consequently 
 made it for the first time a true life-question for the 
 whole people. He knew assuredly, with all clearness of 
 conception, that this hope might not be left unproductive 
 and barren in books, in mere thought and reminiscence, 
 but that it was high time to take up with all honesty, as 
 well of spirit as of action, what ^ it involves as a moral 
 call immediately practicable for the whole people : and 
 he was resolved boldly and skilfully enough not merely 
 to rightly know all this, but also to carry it out for him- 
 self and the whole people. In this double power of true 
 knowledge of what was necessary for the time, and of 
 the decided and persistent action corresponding thereto, 
 herein lies his peculiar importance and his lasting service : 
 but that his work was in itself so successful and so lofty, 
 and through the success of the revival kindled by him 
 produced such a wonderful after effect even beyond its 
 own limits, the cause of this lay not in him but in the 
 pure truth and infinite loftiness of the conception of the 
 hope itself: the miraculous power of the Truth raised 
 any spirit which had the simple courage to trust to its 
 leading, so far as it was capable of being led by it. It 
 is not right, and least of all at this time is it right, 
 to wait doing nothing for the Messiah and His 
 coming : His coming is truly to be expected, and never 
 
IV.] JOHN THE BAPTIST. 27 
 
 more than now : but if He is to come for the salvation of 
 Israel, Israel must prepare itself rightly to receive Him 
 when He comes. He will, as almost every king, come 
 as a strict ruler to set up His Kingdom with the proper 
 sharers in it ; but at the same time as quite a different 
 king from any that had been on earth, as the king of 
 the kingdom of the perfect true religion. Let the people 
 then raise itself to the perfect true religion, that the 
 Messiah, when He comes, may use it as the right in- 
 strument of His Kingdom; let it go resolutely out 
 from the inrooted errors, perversities, and corruptions 
 of the whole life of the day, and leave behind it all 
 the deficiencies of its whole bygone history, in order to 
 raise itself to that new pure life which the Messiah 
 when He comes can approve, and to which He can 
 attach the strongest threads of His blessing-bringing 
 rule. 
 
 Israel is indeed His first people to whom He will 
 come and whom He will rule : but not Israel as a 
 people and the ancient Church is properly that which 
 He will seek and which He will bless with His salva- 
 tion : the perfecting of the true religion and its kingdom 
 is that which He will seek and which He will bring ; 
 but Israel He will exalt to His salvation only in so far 
 as it is worthy of this kingdom, (vgl. s. 101.) Therefore, 
 in sum, it concerns Israel not as a whole people, but in- 
 dividuals in it : each individual then must prepare him- 
 self for this true kingdom, and as a completely regenerate 
 man seek to be more receptive of all that is pure, per- 
 fect, and best ; nay, as a man not drawing back even 
 
28 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 before the highest when it comes, wait for the mysterious 
 and yet certain coming of the Lord. This is indisputably 
 the close connection of all the first thoughts and in- 
 tuitions of the Baptist, from which he started and which 
 so powerfully filled his soul beforehand, that they quite 
 early determined the whole direction of his life, and 
 made him the singular man of his time, which he 
 actually was. What he thus strove for was something 
 completely new in its firmly resolved faithful direction 
 towards the certain and speedy coming of Christ, and 
 in its severe moral preparation for it, which indeed 
 already in effect was made into a new law of life. And 
 yet the requiring strict penitence and an entire return 
 to the first declared divine will, with the giving up 
 also of all national pride, was nothing strictly new 
 in Israel. 
 
 The old prophets had already demanded all this ; but 
 with more eloquence and with greater depth had the 
 ^' Great Unnamed One" at the end of the banishment 
 exhorted to such a complete national regeneration, and to 
 the bold conception of the perfect true religion (Bd. iv. s. 
 54 ff), and, in fact, many of his inspired words were plainly 
 what now distinctly reechoed, and helped to urge on the 
 Baptist to his enterprise. But if that ^' Great Un- 
 named," in the beginning of this whole last great re- 
 volution in the history of Israel, had at the same time 
 to exhort to a new gathering of the dispersed people, it 
 had now likewise long become plain that even with the 
 revived ancient people, completely reformed into a new 
 people, the Perfect was not yet come : and while that 
 
IV.] JOHN THE BAPTIST. 29 
 
 mighty call, which sounded at the beginning of this 
 new phase of history, reechoed yet more mightily to- 
 wards its end, it at the same time took quite another 
 direction and proceeded from a penetrating truth, which 
 at that time could not properly be sounded aloud. In 
 fact, John undertook what at his time could most rightly 
 be undertaken by the purest and deepest spirits of the 
 people, and what had never been undertaken before. 
 That the Messiah could not come so easily, since Isaiah's 
 times were past and his prophecies had sounded ap- 
 parently without result, was a dim feeling which became 
 ever more overmastering, and after short intervals of 
 excited hope ever returned : hence there arose along with 
 this hope, as has been shown more at length (s. 93 ff.), 
 the other consciousness, that a great prophet must first 
 return to prepare the way of the Lord by the preparation 
 of His people for Him — a consciousness which could not 
 be more true and exact, and by which the whole circle 
 of the Messianic hopes would at length be so closed, 
 that these could now rest and wait for their own fulfil- 
 ment. But was now the coming of such a prophetic 
 forerunner of Christ in this prophetless time not likewise 
 very difficult ? That this prophet, in order to lead the 
 people and transform it from the lowest depths to 
 worthily meet the Messiah, must be of the mightiest 
 power, was likewise doubtless felt; and hence there 
 had (Nach. s. 94 f.) formed itself the hope, that none 
 less than Elias would return to execute the indispensable 
 work preparatory for the Messiah. But could not men 
 wait in the same inaction for the coming of Elias as for 
 
30 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 tliat of Christ Himself? Could not some timid, self- 
 fancying, acute interpretation of Malachi's prophecy find 
 in it actually a duty to do absolutely nothing for the 
 furtherance of the great cause, till Elias, from heaven or 
 from some other place of His concealment, should return 
 in His own body and prove Himself the true Elias? 
 Yet all this did not frighten back our John before he 
 became the Baptist ; he recognised the divine call to his 
 age as directed most specially to him, and followed it 
 as though he had thus simply to fulfil his duty. And 
 as towards the end of the long course of the history 
 of Israel, all the greatest, the purest, and mightiest 
 which ever stirred in it is compressed into the small- 
 est and compactest form, and long-perished power re- 
 turned wonderfully renewed ; so does this John, in the 
 time now become quite prophetless, yet become a pro- 
 phet, but a prophet of quite different sort from those 
 whose time was long gone by. 
 
 He promises with all prophetic certainty the near 
 advent of the Messiah, and requires with all true pro- 
 phetic strictness a life conformable thereto : but as 
 though by his own deepest striving to hasten the 
 coming of Messiah's time, he exchanges the whole 
 previous life of the community for a new life alone 
 worthy of the coming Messiah, will lead the united 
 people without exception to Him, and live with his 
 disciples as though the hourly Expected were already 
 come. Thus was he urged on to fulfil the first of the 
 three above described previous conditions of the coming 
 of Perfection. The agonizing grief that the Expected 
 
IV.] JOHN THE BAPTIST. 31 
 
 still comes not, this served to goad on his thoughts and 
 actions ; while his clear view on the divine call to his 
 time, and on the extent and limits of his own higher 
 duty, made him collected and calm in his bold enter- 
 prise. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Carrying out of the Idea of John; 
 The Baptism. 
 
 Urgent and unspeakably seductive as was the idea of 
 the Baptist, equally great was the difficulty of its 
 execution : here stood one against the whole people, and 
 would with it prepare himself for a perfect state of 
 things waiting to appear, which he only inwardly 
 divined and hoped for, but did not see further into 
 and comprehend, so that he would never have thought 
 himself capable of introducing it. 
 
 For this reason there is repeated once again in the 
 course of this history, and now most strongly, that 
 spasmodic and violent beginning, which we often saw 
 appear at the commencement of great developments, 
 only now softened and glorified because the Perfect, to 
 which men not in vain wished gradually to approach, 
 threw forth already its rays from the darkness, and would 
 spread its soft light even before it actually burst forth. 
 
 As he had to entirely reject for its tendency all the 
 civilisation of the day, noble and brilliant as it was 
 in many respects, and, yet more, all the ruling powers 
 of the day, he retired out of this luxurious world 
 
v.] THE BAPTIST. 33 
 
 to the solitudes and wilderness on the Jordan, and took 
 Elias for his model in his mode of life. Like him he 
 clothed himself in a rough garment of camel's hair kept 
 together by a girdle of skin, and lived on nothing but 
 what the wilderness spontaneously offered him, locusts 
 and wild honey, which he might collect in the season 
 and the places where they could be gathered in greater 
 abundance, and keep them in his hut which was as 
 simple as his life. No one then could begin with 
 greater earnestness and resolution, and more entire 
 renunciation of the old world, that new life soaring 
 towards the Messiah, whose speedy coming was con- 
 stantly expected, than did John : but this life struggling 
 towards the Messiah was assuredly one also of deep 
 mourning and sighing, which, as well through all the 
 other deepest efforts of the soul, as in particular by 
 frequent praying, weeping, and fasting, would excite as 
 it were God's mercy to send the Messiah, and would 
 strike sparks out of the hard stone of the present. 
 Thus teaching and thus living he gathered around him 
 a circle of closer friends and followers, to whom he 
 opened all his inner life, whom he consecrated to be his 
 closest fellow-soldiers in his mighty undertaking, and 
 who with him would not fear even all the hardest efforts 
 of mourning and fasting. He also taught his disciples 
 new prayers, which were long used amongst them. 
 They doubtless shewed forth in the most pointed ex- 
 pressions the elevation to which he would raise his 
 followers. In this retirement from out of the luxurious 
 world, and in his dwelling in the wilderness on the 
 
34 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Jordan, he seemed only an old Nazarite or modern 
 Essene, in frequent praying and fasting to Ibe only 
 perhaps a stricter Pharisee : and yet how different was 
 he in the depth of his aims from all such older sects ! 
 Accordingly, for a right initiation, and for the putting 
 a stamp on this his real effort, all former modes of life 
 and symbols did not suffice: an entirely new symbol 
 must be formed for him, in order to be both the actual 
 beginning and the plain expression of what he would 
 found in Israel ; potent enough to serve for the com- 
 mencement, and yet simple enough to be applied 
 indifferently by all members of the people, as they 
 in view of the effort needed were all alike. This 
 instrument and this sign was found by Lim in Baptism 
 after sincere confession of sins : every member of the 
 people who would look on himself as meet for the 
 speedy coming of the Messiah and his salvation, must 
 with all sincerity confess his sins before him who called 
 him to repentance, and promise a new and better life ; 
 then, at the hand of him, whose it was to make this 
 sacred promise in God's stead, immersed in the depths 
 of the water, rise purified from the stain of his deeply 
 repented sins to the new life which had already been 
 explained to him in its meaning and its duties ; and then, 
 at the conclusion of that which was the very instrument 
 and token of his cleansing, receive the divine promise of 
 forgiveness of sins and fresh grace. The immersion in 
 the depths of the flowing water under the Baptist's 
 hand became thus the strongest visible and sensible 
 token of the life-cleansing and spiritual regeneration of 
 
v.] THE BAPTIST. 35 
 
 this race, and served, as it were, for a pledge that every 
 one thus born again was worthy of the coming salvation 
 of the Messiah, so long as he remains as pure as he 
 had then vowed to remain. It need hardly be said that 
 this baptism, regarded even outwardly, was of a far 
 mightier and more downright kind than that which in 
 the following period, gradually enfeebled, proceeded 
 from it. It is true, this instrument of cleansing seemed 
 at first far less sensibly impressive and less sensibly 
 enduring than the original circumcision, the place of 
 which it now almost occupied, for the purpose was now 
 to found a new, purer, and worthier Israel: but it was 
 evidently intended originally to cause a momentarily 
 violent shock and trembling through the whole man 
 after the confession of sins which had just been made. 
 Nor is it demonstrable, or even probable, that the bap- 
 tism, as John applied it, was to be extended also to 
 children or women ; or that, from its intention, it could 
 be repeated : it would thus only have suffered in its true 
 meaning. It further hardly needs remarking that it 
 was with John something entirely new, and just as 
 creative as the thought itself, of which it became the 
 answering expression and visible token. For though 
 bathing in the Jordan had been earlier looked on as 
 purifying and healing, and highly also as bathing in 
 certain holy places of the Ganges and other " Tirthas" 
 was esteemed by the Western Indians at that time, who 
 •have become gradually better known ; still this deep 
 immersion under the hand of a confessor, with this strict 
 acknowledgment of sins, this vow, and this forgiveness 
 
36 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 of sins which it was to symbolize, as well as this whole 
 preparation for the Messiah, — this was something which 
 as yet had not been, and the most striking mark of the 
 mighty change of thought, totally new, which was to be 
 brought about in Israel. But in fact, too, the magnificent 
 ideas and images of certain prophetic passages might 
 hover before him, and lead him to the choice of this very 
 symbol of his purpose. And certainly he could choose 
 no simpler and yet more impressive token of his suc- 
 cessful effort. 
 
 For that John for a time produced a remarkably 
 great effect, and made a most salutary impression on 
 the whole people in all its orders, sects, and aims, appears 
 in all the traces of the history ; and we should certainly 
 know it more clearly if we knew more particulars con- 
 cerning the beginning of his active working. The peo- 
 ple streamed to him in continually increasing numbers, 
 most of them from Judea as well as Perasa and the 
 neighbouring provinces, but evidently also from the 
 more distant Galilee: many even from the learned 
 schools of that time did not hold back. The bold 
 speaking and unwonted actions of the man attracted 
 both luxurious and irreclaimable men of the day to 
 follow the new strong attraction of hearts to him, in 
 order, through a lightly spoken confession of sins and 
 the shock of immersion, to receive the promised new life 
 with its attractive fruits : but the severe man demanded 
 more than an outward confession, desired a complete 
 renunciation of all even the most widely spread and 
 cherished errors, and of all even the national perverted 
 
v.] THE BAPTIST. 37 
 
 pride; and declared to every single order, nay, to every in- 
 dividual man, to whose spirit he approached more closely, 
 what was to be done by him in particular and what 
 left undone. The more sharply he thus dealt, and the 
 more severely he chastised the prejudices and destruc- 
 tive tendencies of the time, the sooner must he have 
 frightened away the proud schoolmen of his time, 
 Pharisees as well as Sadducees, who thought themselves 
 so clever, and driven them most generally from his 
 simple, rough work-place : very few comprehended him 
 and approved of his initiation for long, still less sub- 
 mitted to his call and his baptism. That the Sanhedrim 
 also at Jerusalem did not overlook his undertaking, 
 which was so striking and so successful, and sent to him, 
 as to a distinguished priest's son, priests and Levites, 
 but these selected at tlie same time from the school of 
 the crafty and learned Pharisees, to try him with cap- 
 tious questions, as the fourth Evangelist briefly tells 
 us, is quite credible. Accordingly they put to him the 
 questions, whether he took himself for Christ or for 
 Elias, or, even more indefinitely, for the prophet pro- 
 mised in the Pentateuch, like unto Moses, (s. 83) : but he 
 was able dexterously to evade the questions, as he in 
 fact was undertaking something which had never been 
 even imagined of this kind and manner, and he never 
 thought of being or seeming a prophet of the old sort, 
 not to say a great prophet, no more than he even gave 
 signs after the old sort, did miracles, or wished to do 
 them. He knew that he was simply doing his duty as 
 God required from that time : and that he would thus 
 
38 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 prepare for the Messiah, that he had never denied, for it 
 was the ground and impulse of his whole life, nor even 
 now did he deny it before his spiritual authorities : but 
 the Sanhedrim also could not utterly deny the Messiah, 
 nor have any handle against a simple preacher of re- 
 pentance who pointed to Him. From this quarter they 
 must likewise give him free play, and, so far as we 
 know, in spite of the Sanhedrim and the doctors, the 
 result of his activity went on ever increasing. The 
 extended field for his labours became soon too large for 
 his own exertions : he already allowed his more intimate 
 followers to baptize. And how deeply he had worked 
 on the spirit, of some in particular, of these his nearer 
 friends and adherents, appeared quite clearly at his 
 death and in the time following, as is further to be 
 enquired into below. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Yet the greatest result of his activity was that result 
 humanly least expected : it actually called forth not 
 without his cooperation the Messiah, but this Messiah 
 was "quite different from him whom he had expected, 
 and yet the only proper Messiah. In the following this 
 thread, lies the whole of the further history which has 
 here to be told, as it developes itself from the al- 
 ready explained commencement ; quite consistently, yet, 
 humanly speaking, out of the most unexpected and 
 sharpest contrasts. For first it is indubitable that the 
 Baptist, his whole position and mighty efiect being 
 really such as above described, could not hesitate on 
 any external ground to accept as the Messiah one who 
 came before him bearing the right tokens. For as 
 surely as he had not expected to see the old Elias, in 
 the vulgar sense, again come forth from his concealment, 
 but, following the divine call to that period, himself did 
 what he recognised as his duty : so must he also con- 
 ceive as possible a Messiah who should not, in the vulgar 
 sense, descend from heaven in the clouds in a moment ; 
 
40 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the one thought in fact leads to the other. Nay^ that 
 he the first in this, so far as we can know, could have 
 such clear insight into the heavenly kingdom, this was 
 in truth one of the first and richest fruits of his own 
 efibrt. And if he, according to his whole doctrine as 
 well as his own strict conduct, held fast to this above 
 all, that the overmastering strength of sin alone has to 
 answer for the ruin of the people and the delay of the 
 divine salvation promised to it, he could not be strange 
 to the thought and hope, that One in whom he could 
 find no trace of the power of sin might be He whom 
 the divine purpose had appointed to be the Messiah, 
 and on whom, at the right time, all the divine power 
 might descend for the accomplishment of His infinitely 
 exalted work. What is great and extraordinary in the 
 Baptist is, that he was not only a man for the most diffi- 
 cult enterprise and the hardest labour, as well as of the 
 purest honesty and the boldest speech, but, at the same 
 time, of the most cheerful hope and most intense expect- 
 ation: and nothing but the greatness and nobleness of 
 these could render endurable to him the burden of his 
 hard labour. No one hitherto had stood like him be- 
 tween two worlds, in action, in views, in hopes, and in 
 faithful waiting, and raised his eye so boldly and so 
 deliberately into the boundless regions of the obscure 
 future: nay, his whole effort, according to his deeper 
 view and its best consequences, was directed to this — the 
 drawing forth from under the repulsion of the old per- 
 versity and confusion, the purest and highest possible 
 in Israel, which could only be accomplished through the 
 
VI.] THE BAPTIST AND JESUS OF NAZARETH. 41 
 
 Messiah. And can it be conceived that, in this his 
 agonised seeking and most ardent hoping, he should 
 have failed to discern such an one as came to him bear- 
 ing the tokens of the possible Messiah, and from Him 
 expect the fulfilment of His own difficult work ? As- 
 suredly his spirit must cheer him on when it met him. 
 He could, it is true, only think to see the divine marks 
 of the future Messiah, and then meet Him with His 
 elevating, hopeful address, leaving to the future the way 
 in which the Messiah would carry out under God's 
 government the whole work of the Messiah shewn be- 
 forehand by Holy Scripture: just as he, on a smaller 
 scale, had had striking experience of in his own case : 
 but to cheerfully recognise these marks, and when they 
 should shew themselves, joyfully to greet them, this was, 
 through his whole calling, held by God before him as his 
 aim, and as the second, the higher and fairer half of his 
 whole work, whenever his prophetic eye met unmistake- 
 ably such tokens in any one who came across him, as 
 he learnt to know him more accurately. He could not 
 certainly proceed in his own person to look for and 
 anxiously weary himself to find these marks ; but when 
 they unmistakeably came across his spirit, cheerfully 
 hopeful and an experienced enquirer, skilled in men and 
 spirits as he was, then not to fail to discern them was his 
 duty, and thereto his innermost spirit impelled him. The 
 vital point, in fine, was that he should not deceive him- 
 self when his eye perhaps lighted on one unworthy, 
 not hold back when it lighted on the true Messiah : and, 
 as a good intimation of the correctness of his eye and 
 
42 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the honesty of his faithful finding, this is remarkable, 
 that we never find a trace of his having wavered be- 
 tween two or more future Messiahs, and having lightly 
 cast his eye from one to another. 
 
 Nay, it is not to be gainsaid (and this is the second 
 preliminary important point) that he, until he had half 
 run through the course of his noble activity, knew no- 
 thing of Him in whom he then thought to find the 
 tokens, and was not at all previously acquainted with 
 Him. The older Gospels presuppose this as self-evi- 
 dent; but our present fourth Evangelist, who had an 
 especial reason for telling more exactly and completely, 
 both in this and everything else, all which concerns the 
 relationship between the Baptist and Jesus, expresses 
 this sufficiently plainly by the words in which he makes 
 the Baptist exclaim immediately after the baptism of 
 Jesus : " I knew him not," nor have begun, as one 
 might think, all my labour in Israel because I knew 
 Him before, or in order that He might after my wish 
 come to me; hut I am a Baptist, and stir up Israel 
 in order that He^ although unknown to me, through 
 my human activity indeed, but without my aiming at 
 it, and thus through divine arrangement alonej should 
 be revealed to Israel as the true future Messiah. And 
 how important this is, and how certainly he had in- 
 deed (according to our previous expression) borne in 
 mind the marks of the Messiah, but had not known 
 Jesus up to the moment of His baptism, the Apostle 
 points out again by a new saying of the Baptist, ex- 
 pressing the same, only yet clearer and more definitely. 
 (John i. 32 f.) 
 
VI.] THE BAPTIST AND JESUS OF NAZARETH. 43 
 
 We must hence hold fast this circumstance as one of 
 the highest importance for the whole connection of the 
 previous history, and consequently not be led astray by 
 the narrative at the beginning of St. Luke's Gospel, 
 as to a relationship and particular friendship of the 
 two mothers, and the visit of Mary in her pregnancy to 
 Elizabeth. For, however the whole of this account, 
 which is quite peculiar to St. Luke, may have appeared, 
 it must not do away with the great important truth of 
 the history which we see here. The most decisive ac- 
 count of the feelings, the hopes, and the certainties of 
 the Baptist's mind previous to this moment, is that 
 which the fourth Gospel likewise expresses in short and 
 pointed but clear words, wherein it makes the Baptist 
 exclaim, at the beginning of his ministry, " There standeth 
 one among you whom ye know not," the true Messiah, 
 of whom you do not even know the right tokens, much 
 less His real being, so that you may easily quite fail 
 to know Him when He appears ; He who comes after 
 me," (briefly to describe His real being as I have known 
 it) although He, as already said, is in the midst of you, 
 though He is not indeed visible among you, but will not 
 come till after me, yet assuredly will come, as already 
 in spirit present among you, and is only waiting for the 
 right moment of His visible manifestation ; whose shoe 
 latchets, when He appears, I am not worthy to loose — 
 the true Messiah (John i. 26 f.) ,* or, in a yet shorter, 
 more pointed, more mysterious expression, " He that 
 cometh after me has been before me, for He was before 
 me :" with yet, that is, more decided reference to the 
 
44 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 doctrine of the Logos, according to wliich the true 
 Messiah was already existing in His heavenly conceal- 
 ment from the beginning of creation ; nay, before it — how 
 much more before all then living! With such a view 
 of the Messiah, a view especially of such clearness and 
 certainty, incomprehensible to the world in its heartiness 
 and confidence, the Baptist, in fact, could not but, from 
 the beginning of his work, hope for the speedy coming 
 of the true Messiah, nay, with his eye of faith look on 
 Him as already present ; and in the eternal truths which 
 the view of the true Messiah embraces in one in their 
 remotest issues and apparent contradictions, is wrapped 
 the meaning — mysterious to the common mind — of this 
 short, decided, but yet clear expression. Allowing that 
 the Baptist may not perhaps in quite these very words 
 and short pointed sentences have expressed his mean- 
 ing, there is yet not the least doubt that the same pious 
 hope in its essential and necessary elements filled him 
 from the first, and so determined with the warmest glow 
 as well as bright clearness all his actions, to an extent 
 found in no other single member of his people. 
 
 This all being so, it follows that we have a quite 
 unexpected meeting of the two men, and a real pro- 
 phetic event before us, which is for us now as infinitely 
 great and momentous, and then likewise was as signi- 
 ficant for the moment, as the meeting of such spirits in 
 such time and such circumstances must be ; and the 
 same results from all the recorded reminiscences, as well 
 the oldest and briefest, as those somewhat later and 
 gi'adually more definite expressions. 
 
VI.] THE BAPTIST AND JESUS OF NAZARETH. 45 
 
 Every divine truth and power, which appearing in 
 the history of mankind becomes an eternal possession 
 and an inextinguishable spark to kindle humanity, can 
 only, through the deeper emotion of a moment and a 
 shock of the soul at the right time, spring forth from the 
 world's mysterious bosom, and go forth into the world 
 a sturdy form from its birth. For if every deeper 
 truth of mere science can only by an emotion of the 
 spirit, seizing in their deepest meaning and conglome- 
 rating the several materials and threads which make it 
 up, or, so to speak, by violent rubbing and kindling 
 strike a spark ; much more such a truth which is for man 
 no truth at all, unless it be at the same time a corre- 
 sponding power which strengthens and drives him to 
 action, and such is a truth of religion : so that in short 
 it is really rather a power than merely a truth to be 
 grasped by the intellect. The several components and 
 primary materials of such a truth may long be present, 
 nay, for many centuries be stirring themselves on their 
 proper ground, and, ever more living and energetic, 
 strive more and more to meet each other : but only the 
 most violent emotion and shock of a moment so drives 
 them to and into each other, that the whole new truth 
 and power, which will form itself out of them, shoots 
 forth in effect like sudden fire, and quite fills and glows 
 through that spirit or those spirits which are meet for it. 
 And if this happens generally, most of all here at this 
 moment, which will be the true beginning of the highest 
 perfection of all this long history. Hence, this is pre- 
 cisely also the true prophetic or the creative in religion, 
 
46 LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 whicli now in this history, after so long subsidence, 
 again appears mighty, as though it would at one blow 
 and at one mighty advance seize on all the ultimate re- 
 sults which in the whole course of this great history are 
 yet possible to it, and all that is past as well. In the 
 Baptist we have the climax of the previous prophetic 
 spirit, rising at once to the highest prophecy which, 
 after that of the old prophets, was yet possible through 
 the collision of the most real searchings for and evo- 
 cations of the Messiah. But as what is in itself pro- 
 phetic-creative seeks also always for its corresponding 
 expression and finds it, even so does this shew itself 
 here in a new most important case, as well as in all 
 similar cases, in the history which is now quickly rising 
 to its zenith. We saw above the several efforts now at 
 work. We saw, too, the mighty beginning and the life 
 and doings of the Baptist, calling forth all that survived 
 in Israel most deep and mysterious, nay, as with irre- 
 sistible supremacy driving it forth. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The History of Jesus before his Baptism. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth now first came into this sphere ; and 
 not onlj the older Gospels, the form of which is still 
 preserved to us in the Gospel of St. Mark, but also the 
 Apostle John himself, in much later time, does not 
 deem it worth while to tell anything of his earthly 
 being and life before this moment ; because all the 
 historical importance of it, singularly high as it stands, 
 not only begins with this moment, but at this moment 
 becomes at once so clear and radiant, that all that goes 
 further back vanishes, as it were, before this brilliant 
 appearance, and in fact is hardly worth mentioning, so 
 soon as one is bent only on firmly grasping the simple 
 principal fact on which all at last depends. Yet can it 
 not be forbidden to glance back over these limits into 
 the earliest life and being of the Christ of history : 
 curiosity is here excited from the most varied impulses : 
 and as many Gospels so early met this craving, we have 
 now — in order that we may rightly understand the in- 
 finitely important moment before us — the great crisis 
 in the history of the coming completion ; we have yet 
 
48 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 stronger motives to look back so far as we may into this 
 previous history, unrivalled as it is in its kind. Jesus 
 the Son of Joseph was of Nazareth in Galilee, where His 
 father's house had plainly been long settled and seemed 
 naturalized. Joseph was a master workman, and Jesus 
 was supposed to have intended following His father in 
 this employment; His mother Mary had besides Him 
 four younger sons and several younger daughters ; 
 among his brethren, James, Jose (as was now very often 
 said for Joseph), Judah, and Simon, were later, par- 
 ticularly the eldest and next to him the third, to become 
 more celebrated. The father of the house died some 
 years before Jesus came to the Baptist ; and the mother 
 was now generally looked on as the head of the house, 
 so that Jesus was distinguished among the people from 
 others of the name shortly as her son : for the name 
 Jesus was not uncommon, and Joseph was quite one of 
 the commonest names of that time. Although the family 
 were now looked on as naturalized in the little town of 
 Nazareth, which is not once mentioned in the Old 
 Testament, and here lived the sisters of Jesus, doubtless 
 married, they appear however, from reasons of which 
 we have now no more particular knowledge (probably 
 because after the father's death they found here no further 
 livelihood), to have changed their abode, a short time 
 before Jesus' baptism, to the somewhat more northernly 
 Kana, and not long after that to have moved to the 
 greater commercial city of Kafar-nahiim on the western 
 shore of the lake of Galilee, and here remained living 
 during the largest period of the public ministry of Jesus. 
 
VII.] HISTORY OF JESUS BEFORE HIS BAPTISM. 49 
 
 They moved to Kafar-nahiim, from all appearances, 
 because they found here the best friends and relations : 
 a like motive probably prevailed for their migration to 
 Kana. 
 
 If we enquire more particularly into the kindred 
 of the family, something at least more precise can be 
 discovered about it. On one hand, the mother of the 
 two sons of Zebedee, James and John, named Salome, 
 was, according to all the evidences we can discover, 
 a sister of the mother of Jesus : the early acquaintance 
 of these two (later so famous) Apostles with Jesus, and 
 the special advantages in the kingdom which their 
 mother seems to have thought she might ask and expect 
 for her two sons from Christ, are thus most simply ex- 
 plained. This relationship might be looked on as probable 
 from the earlier Gospels : but if they rather presuppose 
 as known the relationship between the two sisters, 
 St. John remarks it more distinctly, though, quite in 
 keeping with his well-known delicate feeling on such 
 matters, rather with brief allusion than with any boast 
 of such relationship. The father Zebedee was a well- 
 to-do fisherman (Mark i. 20) living in Bethsaida on the 
 lake of Galilee, but appears to have died during Christ's 
 public ministry, so that in later time it would be more 
 natural for the mother to accompany her sons. On the 
 other hand, the mother of Jesus was, according to un- 
 doubted recollections, related to the Baptist's mother, 
 (for further remarks on which see below). The father 
 Joseph had, on the contrary, so far as we can see, no 
 relations in Galilee as the mother had j so that it is the 
 
 E 
 
50 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 more easily explained how his family, as above remarked, 
 had no fixed abode in Galilee. As the family then, 
 though it may have resided in Nazareth about thirty 
 years, was at any rate not so rooted here through old 
 inherited landed property, but that it could easily move 
 elsewhere, it is in itself not improbable that in earlier 
 times it probably lived in other places outside of Galilee. 
 The Apostle John indeed, who does not elsewhere in 
 his Gospel shew himself very well informed and com- 
 municative on such information about home and family 
 matters, mentions nothing of another birthplace of Jesus. 
 With him Jesus is simply a Nazarene and a Galilgean, 
 and so He was everywhere generally regarded. Yet no 
 importance must be attached to this, as this Evangelist 
 in general, as above remarked, passes over as unessential 
 all which concerns the birth and childhood of Jesus, and 
 begins the earthly history of Jesus with His baptism. 
 But the two Evangelists who embrace in their view 
 the previous history of Jesus, in spite of the great diver- 
 gencies in other respects in their independent narrative 
 agree in this, that the parents about the time of His birth 
 were on a journey : according to both He was born in 
 Bethlehem of Judsea while Herod the Great was still 
 reigning: according to St. Matthew, this was followed 
 by a journey to Egypt, and the parents did not till after 
 Herod's death, from fear of the cruelty of his successor in 
 Judsea, Archelaus, settle designedly far from Judsea, in 
 Nazareth : according to St. Luke they resided here be- 
 fore, and went merely to Bethlehem on a visit on an 
 external ground ; and when they were here Jesus was 
 
VII.] HISTORY OF JESUS BEFORE HIS BAPTISM. 51 
 
 born. And in truth these recollections cannot be quite 
 without grounds. For, allowing that all accounts about 
 the early history, as they are given us in these two 
 Gospels, were certainly composed comparatively late, 
 when Mary, and most of the others who had more exact 
 knowledge of these distant events, were already dead, 
 and only scattered reminiscences could be collected 
 about them ; allowing also that it is actually the 
 higher Christian view which does not collect these 
 records in their dispersion with mere curiosity, but fills 
 them with its spiritual knowledge, and through a creative 
 power puts new life into them, and this again very 
 differently in St. Matthew and St. Luke, so that we 
 can see very plainly from St. Luke, as compared with 
 St. Matthew, the nature of the progress of the whole of 
 this more definite formation of the narratives of the early 
 history ; also that the accounts found in St. Luke must 
 have arisen quite irrespective of those in St. Matthew, 
 and hence cannot be objectively harmonized with them ; 
 yet on this very account whatever is common to them 
 must all the more be reckoned as their proper earlier 
 foundations. But to this category belong especially these 
 recollections of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, as they 
 appear in the existing St. Matthew's Gospel, shorter 
 indeed and more abrupt, but evidently much simpler, 
 more original, and in their actual matter more complete 
 than in St. Luke. Very intimately dependent on this 
 recollection of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, David's 
 city, is that of his descent from David ; and we must 
 assuredly pronounce a like verdict on this. For though 
 
52 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 one miglit readily suppose that the idea of deducing 
 Christ's lineage from David — and hence, too, the idea of 
 his birth in Bethlehem sprang originally from the wish 
 to see in this too the fulfilment of the prophecies of 
 Isaiah and Micah in his person ; yet this supposition is 
 in itself a quite arbitrary, nay, quite groundless one, 
 because the Christian spirit in the Apostolic age, sup- 
 posing it were known that Jesus was not descended from 
 David, would very readily have thought of another 
 mode of reconciling with each other the known history 
 and the Old Testament prophecies. But now we find in 
 the actual narrative, that Jesus, after He was well known 
 and recognised, was greeted, by those who perhaps 
 wished to flatter Him, as David's Son: that He, while 
 not entirely rejecting this title, lays no weight at all on 
 such a name and reputation, would rather discern some- 
 thing else and infinitely higher recognised in the Messiah, 
 before which all such human descent and human glory 
 vanishes utterly. From these considerations, then, we 
 have all the less reason (even had not the recollection of 
 his descent from David in very manifold ways been 
 interwoven in the narrative of the early history) for 
 looking on it as simply unhistorical. Rather, here too 
 the very variety of the structure of these recollections, as 
 we now find them in the two mentioned Gospels, refers 
 us to a true ancient historical basis. Then too it admits 
 of no doubt, that even in this late century many of the 
 race of David, in spite of having lost all outward respect, 
 and in fact also having now become defenceless and un- 
 settled, might very well be known and pointed out. We 
 
VII.] HISTORY OF JESUS BEFORE HIS BAPTISM. 53 
 
 know how much importance was laid, and necessarily- 
 laid, on exact genealogies : but, least of all could the 
 descendants of David's house be readily forgotten : and 
 how little they were forgotten in these centuries, and 
 how a residue of faint hope ever clung to them in the 
 minds of many, we know also well enough. It may 
 however be readily imagined, that it was often difficult, 
 without long investigation, to trace out the descent in the 
 case of any one who lived 600 years after Zerubbabel : 
 and thus in St. Luke a quite different stem-tree has been 
 preserved from that in St. Matthew ; for that given by 
 the latter appears more like a mere first attempt, that 
 adopted by St. Luke, on the other hand, as the result of 
 more exact investigation. Besides, the descent from 
 David (putting aside these Gospels) appears early 
 enough, not only in the Apocalyptic John, but also in 
 St. Paul. But in truth the Apostle John, in direct con- 
 trast to the Apocalyptic John, expressly mentions that 
 Jesus' assumed mere Galileaean descent, excluding his 
 descent in Bethlehem from David, was to many a 
 stumbling-block. And at least on his mother's side, He 
 seems to have been of not quite unmixed descent from 
 David, as (for example) the high priest who could take 
 a wife only out of the tribe of Levi. That Mary was of 
 the race of David, the accounts in St. Luke do not tell 
 us : according to those in St. Luke she was, as related 
 to the priestly house of the Baptist, rather of the tribe 
 of Levi ; and although this relationship itself, as before 
 shewn, can have little historical meaning, its mention in 
 St. Luke shews that he had no fear of putting her down 
 
54 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 as of the tribe of Levi. In many Apocryphal Gospels 
 yet in existence she appears indeed of the race of David, 
 but in other older ones her descent was either left un- 
 determined, or traced back to Levi: and how widely 
 spread this view was at the beginning of the second 
 century after Christ, is seen from another book written 
 at that time. 
 
 But we can pursue all this much more definitely 
 in detail. When St. John mentions that Jesus' coat 
 was, as at the crucifixion may generally have been seen, 
 a seamless coat, and so woven all in one piece, he 
 can only have brought forward this as important, in 
 order to shew his descent from a mother of the priestly 
 tribe ; as their sons appear to have had the privilege of 
 wearing such a coat. And St. John, being (see above) 
 the son of the sister of our Lord's mother, we find also 
 in his case tokens of a relationship with the priestly 
 race. Had, then, in the earliest Christian period, any 
 one wished rightly to exalt Christ in human fashion, he 
 might have been able to allege how in Him the best 
 blood of ancient Israel, that of David and that of Levi, 
 flowed together, as it were to form a higher whole. But 
 the New Testament nowhere lays weight on such 
 matters, as Christ's own dignity far outshines all such 
 outward advantages. 
 
 That Jesus was born in the lifetime of Herod the 
 Great, on this, too, the narratives from the two sources 
 agree in a remarkable manner, as has already been more 
 particularly investigated (Chap. II.) : thus this, too, be- 
 longs to the basis of older reminiscence and tradition. 
 
VII.] HISTORY OF JESUS BEFORE HIS BAPTISM. 55 
 
 But in respect of tlie earlv fate of the child born in 
 Bethlehem, the two traditions diverge so widely from 
 each other, that it would be vain to try to unite them 
 by violence. To bring forward here only one principal 
 aspect of these divergencies, the pictures in St. Luke, 
 generally esteemed as of more depth and brilliance, point 
 to a circle of a so thoroughly peaceful, heaven-blessed 
 life of the families of Jesus and of the Baptist and their 
 neighbourhood, that we should not in the least dream of 
 severe persecutions and misfortunes with which they 
 were visited. But it is quite otherwise in St. Matthew : 
 the narrative brings us into the storm-troubled beginning 
 of this life, beside which the penetrating sunshine of de- 
 livering grace, together with the backward glance on the 
 already risen star out of Judah, promises a so much 
 brighter day ; and, plainly, much more of original tra- 
 dition has been preserved in these shorter but many- 
 sided reminiscences in St. Matthew. 
 
 Certain however as it is that these narratives, not 
 formed till the second half of the Apostolic time, express 
 only weak and very scattered reminiscences, we may 
 not, in an historical point of view, overvalue them, nor 
 deduce from them anything not otherwise supported. 
 Much less close is the view into the misty period in the 
 background which the story in St. Luke, of Jesus when 
 twelve years old, offers to us. 
 
 The 12th year of the boy was the time at which, 
 according to old custom in Israel, he ceased to be looked 
 on as a child, and for the first time could share in the 
 higher religious ceremonies of the people. We must 
 
56 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 then imagine to ourselves, that Jesus also then, for the 
 first time, was taken by his parents up with them on 
 their yearly journey from Galilee to Jerusalem for the 
 passover, and for the first time was taken into the temple 
 and into the halls built around for renowned teachers of 
 the law. How He now here for the first occasion, and 
 to Him the most memorable, forgot his parents and 
 everything human, discussed with the wisest doctors as 
 one who was a match for them, nay, to the supreme 
 astonishment of all present, all day long, and replied to 
 the parents seeking Him sorrowing, and at length find- 
 ing Him, " Wist they not that He must be about his 
 Father's business," and yet immediately, with childlike 
 obedience, again submitted to the parental will ; this gives 
 us a distant view indeed, but yet a very clear one, into 
 a boundless and sublime fulness of expectation, quite in 
 harmony with that which we afterwards see realized in 
 his great public history. But it is only a single glance 
 which we can cast from this into the threshold of the 
 history, for on the whole of this life, before the baptism 
 in the Jordan, the New Testament has nothing further 
 to tell us. What the after-shoots of the Gospel litera- 
 ture, which we now name Apocryphal Gospels, tell us 
 about the parents of Jesus and Mary, as well as about 
 the history of his birth, childhood, and youth, is too 
 unhistorical for us to pause at. We cannot, to sum up, 
 say anything more definite than that the New Testa- 
 ment narratives allow us to cast a glance on the two 
 stages in life before the riper manhood of Jesus and his 
 baptism, synchronous with this — into the time of child- 
 
VII.] HISTORY OF JESUS BEFORE HIS BAPTISM. 57 
 
 hood and that of youth at the very beginning of each ; 
 a glance just sufficient to stir our curiosity to know more 
 closely the great public history which follows, as the 
 unfolding of those first mysterious tender germs ; and 
 enough to enable us to know this much at least for 
 certain, that He, before the outwardly great and decisive 
 moment now to follow, was in spirit always the same ; 
 nay, that He, from the first conceivable beginning, was 
 by the Divine will already destined for that, which now 
 in Him is visibly to shew itself to the whole world. 
 And in the attempt, which some of these narratives 
 adventure on, to open an expectant glance on all the 
 infinite loftiness and uniqueness of the life to follow, if 
 the human side of the history draws back somewhat to 
 make way for the purely Divine, the story is yet, because, 
 breathed on closely enough and quickened by the first 
 Christian spirit, too healthy to be able to quite overlook 
 the human side and leave it unmentioned. We see 
 this particularly in the natural, briefly-told, events where 
 such narratives betray an inner impulse to drop again 
 from their height to the more earthly and human. We 
 only know one thing more of those early times, and this 
 is in many respects important. In Jerusalem there still 
 existed (vgl. oben) a high School for the Doctors of the 
 Law, which was much looked up to, and education at 
 which was esteemed as a particular distinction. Now 
 we know by a definite testimony that Jesus never visited 
 it, and received there no sort of foundation for his edu- 
 cation. Not till we know this does the story of the 
 boy Jesus, when twelve years old, become quite plain, 
 
58 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 when He, who later also never needed instruction in this 
 high School, could maintain so young with its masters 
 the most learned disputes. But, in truth, all edu- 
 cation of old turned almost exclusively on the true re- 
 ligion, and the high School had little power of restrict- 
 ing this privilege, open to the least member of the com- 
 munity, of enquiry and instruction. So well^ had a 
 happy freedom in this respect been maintained as well 
 for scholars as teachers. But that Jesus had no inward 
 need of the high School of that time, only shews us all 
 the plainer what spirit from the beginning had dwelt 
 in Him. In fact, Jesus would not have become what, 
 as seen in the light of his great public history. He sub- 
 sequently became, had not his spirit from his earthly 
 beginning received the Divine appointment and full 
 powers for it. All that is purely spiritual is above 
 history, being itself the first spring and life of all his- 
 tory; and in contemplating it, we are led to a mys- 
 terious height which we can but acknowledge for what 
 it is, and bow before it : we have here the most remark- 
 able example and proof of this. When the spiritual, 
 nay the very highest spiritual substance, or from its 
 origin and source the Divine substance itself, entered the 
 human body, it became indeed subjected to all the ne- 
 cessary limitations and weaknesses of this; and the 
 knowledge of the individual, that is of the mundane, is 
 for the individual spirit just as much subject to the limit- 
 ations of space and time as action is, so far as it has 
 reference to and acts on the individual : but amid these 
 limitations and these weaknesses, the individual spirit can 
 
VII.] HISTORY OF JESUS BEFORE HIS BAPTISM. 59 
 
 in knowledge and action not only completely recover the 
 purely Divine, but even completely hold it fast and give 
 itself up wholly to its working ; so that its knowledge 
 and its actions, though more or less limited by time and 
 space, yet in its clear subject-matter, as well as in its 
 goodness and happiness, becomes the Divine itself; and 
 the weak, the mortal, and the changeable is transfigured 
 to the mightiest, immortal, and eternal, where the world 
 sees these glorified in human body. And either this 
 higher ideal is never realized in the world's history, or 
 it is first realized in one made wholly fit for it: but 
 where it has actually been wholly realized in one, then 
 the perfect true religion has come forth into history as 
 a pattern shining bright and conspicuous, never to be 
 lost out of it, because its appearance and rule is the 
 goal of all human history. The perfect true religion, or 
 the Fulfilment, was at that time most markedly in Israel, 
 as in the ground alone prepared for it, sought for above 
 everything, and, as become the most indispensable, 
 summoned forth from this country with the mightiest 
 spiritual struggles. If, then, on this proper ground the 
 spirit made capable for it were actually there, then 
 must his bearing in face of the task before Him, his 
 approach to it and entering on it, all his doing, striving, 
 and sufi'ering for it, themselves be the evolution of this 
 completion, and the highest life-work could here be ac- 
 complished which had ever been appointed to any single 
 spirit in the frail human body. 
 
 There is a wonderful charm in the nature of a task 
 which germinates by Divine appointment and necessity, 
 
60 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 and places itself face to face with the spirit : when the 
 right man comes face to face with it, it shews him all 
 its real difficulty, but also the majesty of its recompense 
 which beckons him on, and leaves him no rest till the 
 task is done ; and the more gigantic the task, the greater 
 struggle does it impose on him, but adds therewith all 
 the higher eternal recompense. Here was the highest 
 task set which could be set to any, even the ablest spirit. 
 It had long been imagined, and was waiting for him who 
 should satisfy it; it floated however singularly near 
 since the Baptist had brought it forth from the mists of 
 the time and placed it radiant in heavenly splendour. 
 Who as the true Messiah is to bring the completion, 
 as the old Prophets in prescient glance had beheld it, 
 as all the pious faithful of centuries had waited for it, 
 as now the Baptist with most living energy was longing 
 for and hastening it? Who, after that the first con- 
 dition of the three above-mentioned had been accom- 
 plished by the Baptist himself, is sufficient for the two 
 other far harder ones, which, even though they did not 
 float before the Baptist's eye so clearly as they have 
 been above deduced, yet lay in the task itself? Who 
 first has even the courage to enter with thought and 
 action into the meaning and the requirements of this 
 task ? Him indeed who had the human courage and the 
 divine capacity to enter thoroughly into them ; on him 
 must they themselves react with their giant power in 
 wonderfully exalting and bearing him on. But who could 
 rightly think to see and keep before him the never- 
 sought, the immeasurable, which its accomplishment 
 requires, or from whom could one in faith hope for this ? 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Jesus' Baptism. 
 
 One thing however could the Baptist, from his nature as 
 above described, know ; and that he knew this one thing 
 rightly and in faith held it fast, naj, allowed himself to 
 be guided aright in divine faith by what he knew aright, 
 this forms the keystone to the whole of the further 
 development. He knew for certain, as has already been 
 said, that he only who is quite free from the power of 
 sin can be the true Messiah : and if this divine token 
 should come across him on any one coming to baptism, 
 he was resolved for certain to announce to him this 
 divine destination, and wait for the further consequences 
 from it. Nay, this consideration and this resolution 
 must spring from him quite spontaneously out of his 
 calling as confessor and forgiver of sins. For no one had 
 learnt to know the infinite consequences and fearfulness 
 of sin as it then so visibly and unveiled appeared in 
 Israel, as he had; he who before all others had in- 
 disputably struggled much with its power in himself, 
 and only by putting on himself the severest discipline 
 could become such a preacher of repentance : but he had 
 
62 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 certainly found no one yet, in wliom he had not discerned 
 the power of sin, and whom he could not consequently 
 have forgiven his sins. But now, how if at last he 
 found such an one ? Should he treat him too, from first 
 to last, just like the others? or must not his heart, if he 
 were really a pious and faithful man in Israel, exult in 
 having at length found the desired One, and in faith 
 submit himself to him, in place of merely forgiving him 
 his sins as his spiritual lord? That he should not 
 deceive himself in doing this was ensured by the probable 
 circumstantiality which the conversation and address 
 before and after baptism allowed ; for, as above observed, 
 we have every reason to think that he was very par- 
 ticular, and was in no hurry with any one who desired 
 baptism from him. When Jesus came for baptism. He 
 was following the better feature of that time as described 
 above; nor was He the first Galilsean who came for 
 baptism and tarried some time with him : and certainly 
 the Baptist had at that time long been known, for the 
 Galilseans, after an express historical reminiscence (Mark 
 i. 5, Matt, iii 5), were the last who visited him in great 
 crowds. The Baptist, of course, first conversed at some 
 length with Him on his desiring baptism from him ; 
 then must he soon discern that he conversed with one 
 like none other who had come before him, and his 
 heart must tell him with joy, that here at length appears 
 He whom he had been continually seeking; and ac- 
 cording to the fourth Evangelist he said, with an Old 
 Testament expression (Isa. liii. 7, quoted freely), "Behold 
 the Lamb of God who takes on Himself the sins of the 
 
VIII.] JESUS' BAPTISM. 63 
 
 world!" He said in this only what he, practically at 
 least, must have actually experienced and known as true ; 
 for He who, free Himself from the power of sin, comes 
 into the world for man's redemption from it (as the 
 Baptist, engaged as he was with sin and its burden, ex- 
 pected from the Messiah), He must now take the burden 
 of them on Himself, as in a less degree every one who 
 will keep himself freer from sin, and yet will help the 
 world, must first resolve to suffer with them from their 
 sins. Supposing at least, among the other Messianic 
 characteristics which the Baptist directly thought to see 
 in Him, were marked mildness and gentleness in no 
 small degree, he might naturally be led to this ex- 
 pression, as he could not at least at first expect in Him 
 only the severe judge : whether indeed he expressed his 
 first feelings exactly in these words or in others, is for 
 the history itself of less importance. According to the 
 present St. Matthew's Gospel the Baptist speaks more 
 simply, merely objecting to Him, " I must be baptized 
 of Thee, and Thou comest to me?" Yet Jesus persisted 
 in his request to be baptized, expressly assuring us, 
 according to St. Matthew, " thus it becometh us to fulfil 
 all righteousness," to shrink from nothing which God 
 demands from Israel as His duty, on the same principle 
 which later also ever guides Him, as will appear below. 
 This whole divine commencement of the Baptist was 
 the necessary portal for the coming of the Messiah Him- 
 self : no living member of the community might keep 
 from Him, at least according to the higher obligation, 
 not even he who might become the Messiah, but was not 
 
64 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 yet. So He came and was baptized : and as this shock 
 of baptism, following deep self-searching, was adapted to 
 work strongly on every catechumen, so that his counte- 
 nance, as it came forth from under the Baptist's hand, 
 furnished to his sharp practised glance various tokens as 
 to the effect of the whole on him and the true condition 
 of his inward purification and renewal ; so must He, 
 whose characteristics the Baptist had discerned before- 
 hand, have come forth, another indeed than he had been, 
 but in his own purity and majesty only more markedly 
 resplendent. The Baptist must at this moment have 
 clearly discerned in Him that heavenly token which he 
 was ever expecting ; and not less must the moment for 
 the Saviour Himself, if the baptism were to be not 
 without effect and result for Him, and not rather most 
 strongly seize on Him just as on others under the 
 Baptist's hand, thrill through and cleanse, it must become 
 likewise to him a complete purification and regeneration ; 
 but the cleansing was for Him only that He, at the 
 Baptist's call and consecration, suddenly, as Messiah 
 felt himself become another man, free from the duties of 
 the past life now seeming to him as quite cut off, became 
 simply conscious to himself of the highest divine appoint- 
 ment as the new obligation and duty of his life, and in 
 all sincerity consecrated himself to it alone. This 
 glorious moment thus became the true birth-hour of 
 Christianity : the highest in all previous antiquity was 
 compressed in Him to form a New which must be the 
 very perfect, and this New developes itself from this 
 moment, unchangeable and irresistible, according to its 
 
VIII.] JESUS' BAPTISM. 65 
 
 proper spirit, so that all futurity rests in liira. And in 
 face of this great fact, it is indeed of slight importance 
 in what outward signs the eternal truth, greatness, and 
 exaltation of the moment may have immediately ex- 
 pressed themselves. Yet, as the most spiritual and 
 highest ever seeks, and finds also, its fitting tokens and 
 most striking expressions ; so, very early the infinite and 
 purely divine facts which are here before us were com- 
 pressed into two most lively pictures and striking words, 
 and a whole short Gospel narrative has formed itself 
 which is quite sufficient to let shine through it clearly 
 and strikingly what was here actually disclosed. The 
 Holy Ghost in His whole fulness and power descended 
 on Him as He emerged from the water ; and descended 
 not merely fluttering and hovering doubtfully, but abode 
 on Him, and was seen as certainly as a dove descending 
 from heaven can be seen : this is, in the most touching 
 picture, the truest conception of this moment, since the 
 eye too would see the Divine where it reveals itself, 
 and can see it in innocence : the Holy Ghost in all His 
 living fulness must rest on the Messiah, if He is what 
 the Messiah must be ; this was indeed the Old Testament 
 thought (Isa. xi. 2, xlii. 1, and other places). But if the 
 Old Testament in its early times could conceive the 
 descent of God Himself upon the portentous Cherub, it 
 is something quite new that the Holy Ghost also is 
 looked on as so coming down, yet, as beseems his delicate 
 tender nature, only as a small white dove ; and thus was 
 given the first speaking picture in which Christianity 
 with creative power revealed a bright picture of one 
 
 P 
 
66 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 of the most forcible ideas of its peculiar truth. And at 
 the same time (as the plain word may still less be 
 wanting) a heavenly voice proclaims Him aloud the 
 Messiah, again in Old Testament words (Ps. ii. 7, Isa. 
 xlii. 1), and thus He was here divinely appointed, whose 
 coming had been long expected, and for whom such 
 Old Testament words had long waited their fulfilment. 
 What is there in all this which was not ratified by the 
 event, and is thus only expressing itself in the shorter 
 and most striking manner? Further, nothing can be 
 by this intended, which according to the purport of the 
 narrative could not have been literally seen and heard 
 by every one — for it is a matter of course that this as 
 well as every other baptism was quite public; and at 
 least the two principal actors in it must, according to 
 the purport of the narrative, have at the same time 
 experienced all this. It is true that the oldest and 
 simplest narrative, as it has essentially survived in all 
 the first Gospels, confines the seeing and hearing to the 
 Saviour, but plainly only on account of the shortness 
 and artlessness of the story. If the fourth Evangelist, 
 on the contrary, lays particular stress on the Baptist so 
 seeing and hearing and maintaining aloud that he had 
 both seen and heard, he is in this only in so far com- 
 pleting what, strictly speaking, was a matter of course : 
 for to him, who is here ever the principal actor, the pro- 
 phetic man, in the simplest sense the heaven opened to 
 let him see and hear from out of it what no one else saw 
 and heard; just as, according to the Old Testament, heaven 
 can open to every true prophet, and to him immediately. 
 
VIIT.] JESUS' BAPTISM. 67 
 
 This is all which we now know for certain of the 
 meeting of Jesus with the Baptist. It might probably 
 be supposed that the mere particular day and moment of 
 the Saviour's baptism was of little importance, and that 
 it is the present narratives in the New Testament which 
 first thus condensed all that was most important into 
 this one moment : for that Jesus would not have become 
 Christ without the powerful impulse which the Baptist 
 gave to the whole period, and without the meeting with 
 the Baptist, this is certain. We may conclude with 
 truth out of the fourth Gospel, that Jesus' meeting with 
 him lasted several days. Of a stay however of any 
 length with him, as a scholar with his teacher, no trace 
 is anywhere visible : and as baptism in these first times 
 in general had something extremely violent and over- 
 mastering in it, the power of the moment could at most 
 quickly call to light all which already lay concealed 
 deeper in the spirit. The Baptist's lightning struck no- 
 where on such a subject as it did on Jesus. And thus 
 we have no ground for imagining differently to ourselves 
 the essential truth in those narratives. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Baptist's End. 
 
 Once, eleven centuries ago, when the first human king- 
 dom was established in Israel, a rightful longing for it 
 had long prevailed ; and when at that time, in Samuel, 
 the true prophet came to stablish it rightly, a prophetic 
 glance had also quickly decided on the right man for it : 
 so piercing like a lightning flash is the prophetic eye, 
 and with such necessity is that, which had long in the 
 secret sway and commotion of all virtuous energies been 
 prepared, at length decided by a single piercing glance 
 and the higher emotion of one divine moment. At that 
 time also the tokens of divine salvation shone round 
 him who had thus been chosen, and all the future tokens 
 of high success before the first steps of him who thus 
 became king, ushered him in. Then also through the 
 new kingdom the true theocracy purposed to receive 
 new youth and strength. All this is now repeated after 
 long waiting and yet deeper longing. Here at length 
 stands forth a recognised great Prophet, and there comes 
 a King summoned by him as it were from far, and then 
 in the happy moment acknowledged and consecrated as 
 
THE baptist's END. 69 
 
 King, who, like the former, has first to collect his fol- 
 lowers and found his kingdom. But this King, emerging 
 from the water of the Jordan, holy of old, was to found 
 quite a different kingdom with quite different means 
 from what Samuel had once expected from Saul and 
 afterwards from David : this, too, the Baptist knew, 
 only he could not know and recognise it so particularly 
 as He who then himself took it in hand. And just be- 
 cause the kingdom of perfection, if it were the true, 
 must become, and soon did become, actually a quite 
 different one from what the most penetrating prophetic 
 glance had been able to foresee and the warmest desire 
 to wish for ; accordingly the ways, and hence also the 
 views and hopes, of the two heroes of the Eegeneration 
 must again diverge ever more widely. It was not that 
 the men wished to separate, still less become hostile; 
 but the very change of position and effort which each, 
 and the Saviour especially, must now follow, led them, 
 the longer they went on, the further from each other, as 
 is to be shewn below. As the perfect religion could 
 never have come into being without all the foundations 
 of the true religion as laid in the Old Testament, still 
 less could the religion of Christ without that of the 
 Baptist. The whole deeply earnest, inflexible ten- 
 dency of the grand ancient truth towards the Perfect, 
 with that strict requirement of most sincere repentance 
 and complete renewal and purification of life which 
 belongs to the essence of the Baptist's religion, nay, is 
 its very purest and original essence, passed over from 
 him into Christianity, and for ever forms its deepest 
 
70 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 foundation and most necessary condition. In fact, 
 Christianity in youth lives and moves in the thoughts, 
 efforts, words, and ideas of the Baptist's religion ; and 
 rises from this basis gradually, ever loftier, more in- 
 dependent and imperative : even the great instrument 
 and token of this mighty purification and regeneration, 
 Baptism, has passed from it to Christianity, and al- 
 though gradually changing its form, yet points plainly 
 enough to its origin in time, as well as to its indispen- 
 sable eternal antitype. We can certainly not rate the 
 Baptist and his work too highly ; and yet Christianity, 
 summoned forth by him as it were by force (so far as 
 this lies in man), such as it actually formed and per- 
 petuated itself, is something quite different and higher. 
 
 He laboured and lived after that moment above 
 described, which we may well name the highest moment 
 of his life, long enough to rejoice in the first progress of 
 Christianity called forth by him, and himself advance 
 it; but long enough also to go astray, on its further 
 development (see below). But his days were numbered: 
 the rulers feared his word and his work, for he was 
 much respected by the people; and though the Sanhedrim 
 could find nothing against him, soon enough another 
 yet more powerful imagined he had all sorts of danger 
 to fear from him for himself. 
 
 He did not stay at any fixed place on the Jordan, 
 but on both banks of the river, as he thought best to 
 advance his mission; mostly indeed on the southern 
 Jordan, but also further north. He could not allow his 
 energy to be limited by the provinces of the various 
 
IX.] THE baptist's END. 71 
 
 rulers of the time ; and he could not be anxiously careful 
 to spare with the severe word of his mouth these rulers 
 themselves, w^hen it seemed necessary. So he had — 
 (either on this or the other side Jordan in Per^ea, 
 which had been put into the hands of the Tetrarch 
 Herod Antipas), we know not on what occasion, but 
 certainly in no unjust censure — spoken out about the im- 
 moral, sinful second marriage of this Tetrarch ; and such 
 free speech had come to the ears of this prince. This 
 led him to take prisoner the strict preacher of repent- 
 ance, who was so gladly listened to by the people, and 
 thus might easily become dangerous : this probably 
 happened once, when he was without suspicion fol- 
 lowing his mission somewhere beyond Jordan : yet 
 fearful in every quarter as this prince was, he could 
 not have him executed, spite of the repeated urgent 
 prayers of his wife, who rightly felt herself the most 
 injured ; but put him instead in the fort Macharus as 
 prisoner, visited him indeed here also, wondered at the 
 force of his address, and often became serious when he 
 heard him. This state of things must have lasted some 
 time, as will further appear below: his disciples were 
 meanwhile allowed freely to converse with him. But 
 at length Herodias drew from the prince the order 
 for his execution, through (as St. Mark tells us) a 
 surprise of the prince. Among the people, many found 
 in the unfortunate war of the Tetrarch soon following, 
 a divine punishment for this murder of so righteous a 
 man : while his disciples not only continued his la- 
 bours even after his death, but buried with all honour 
 his body dishonoured by the execution. 
 
V 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 SECOND ADVANCE OF CITRISTIANITY. 
 
 jesus as christ. 
 
 His Actions previous to the Baptist's Areest ; 
 The Messianic Beginnings. 
 
 On this earlier period of the public activity of Christ, 
 the earliest sources are almost entirely silent : in 
 such remote background did it lie for the general re- 
 membrance, and so certainly did this activity become, 
 after the Baptist's removal from the scene of this great 
 drama, far greater and more public. We must hence 
 acknowledge all the more thankfully, in every respect, 
 that St. John in his particular Gospel has made it one 
 of his aims to complete this very deficiency : a con- 
 siderable portion of his Gospel is given up merely to 
 this ; and although the Gospel as usual holds it super- 
 fluous to indicate this its view of filling up the deficiency 
 by any express statement, it is yet from the work itself 
 unmistakeable. There are given the words and doings of 
 Christ till He returned the second time out of Jerusalem 
 
THE MESSIANIC BEGINNINGS. 73 
 
 and Judaea to Galilee, each time distinguishing his first 
 entrance into it by one of his most memorable miracles : 
 and though he found the first time very little belief 
 in Galilee, his country in the more restricted sense, 
 (according to the well-known experience of the little 
 honour of a prophet in his own country), he found the 
 second time, on returning out of Jerusalem and Judaea, 
 immediately on his entrance into Galilee, all the more 
 general recognition and willing belief, for that he had in 
 Jerusalem done much in public. This is the simple 
 summary into which the Apostle groups the reminis- 
 cences of that earliest period. And soon after it the 
 Baptist must also have been taken prisoner, as this 
 Gospel does not indeed particularly inform us, but in- 
 telligibly enough intimates. 
 
 But also these accounts, from their contents, un- 
 designedly shew themselves true reminiscences of the 
 real first times of commencement. Every one who 
 knows them more intimately and comprehends them 
 with more lively interest, readily feels how surely the 
 Saviour, when He began to work and be recognised as 
 Christ, must come forward in public much in the way 
 which is here described : it seems as if the Apostle had 
 with all the more affectionate care recalled to recollection 
 this very portion neglected by the earlier narrators. 
 In truth there lies, on this account, a peculiar charm in 
 these narratives : we are sensible here of, as it were, the 
 fresh delicate scent of the early manhood of the future 
 Christ, and see Him rising before oui: own eyes to his 
 full greatness and power. If the highest manifestation 
 
74 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 historically possible, even at the time when its flower 
 is pushing forth with all its power, only shoots forth 
 when stirred by the world itself, with a so to speak cool 
 fanning; we see clearly in this history the way the 
 world itself animates the future Christ ; first in true 
 presentiment and speech, as well as in mighty works, 
 to shew Himself Him whom He must become. But 
 hardly has He so done, not forcing himself forward, nor 
 drawing back from proper calls upon Him, and already 
 discovers his royal power in full activity when this 
 power in return forces Him, unasked even by the world, 
 to shew Himself, as well in working as in teaching, the 
 true Lord and King in his own province : and He is re- 
 cognised even by dwellers at a distance, if at first only 
 by individuals, yet by people of the most various kind ; 
 till He at last gives free play to the power of His Spirit's 
 ever more mighty working. We have here the course 
 of the inner development of the spiritual powers once 
 set in motion in the mutual contact of spirits : and this 
 progress is so direct from its first timid beginning, that 
 nothing can be conceived more direct and more majestic 
 as well as more simple in its advance. The duration of 
 this beginning time cannot be defined quite accurately ; 
 it probably was not more than a year. A tradition 
 tells us the Saviour's active working began in spring ; 
 but this is connected with the erroneous view (Chap. II.) 
 that his whole ministry only lasted one year. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The first Stirrings of the Messianic Power 
 IN Knowledge and Speech. 
 
 True power never tlirnsts itself forward uncalled for, 
 at least in the commencement and before it has quite 
 learned to know itself; it is rather timid and reserved, 
 free from all presumption, and, as it were, mistrusting 
 itself, till it unexpectedly is led from without by an 
 irresistibly favourable call for working. And this in 
 every kind of working, and first in the mere knowing 
 presentiment and speaking. For assuredly tlie power 
 of the true Christ must express itself in the glance 
 which penetrates into man's deepest soul, and most 
 truly knows his thoughts as well as in the quickly 
 striking appropriate saying, or indeed in this first of all. 
 An occasion was found soon enough after the bap- 
 tism of the Saviour. He staid for some time in the 
 Baptist's neighbourhood ; and when the Baptist used to 
 see Him appear even at a distance walking about, the 
 sight constantly called forth in him the very feeling 
 already described, and he broke forth constantly in the 
 same words of higher wonder and expectation. Now 
 
76 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 once, when he was thus speaking of Him as He went 
 bj, while two of his disciples who were just out of 
 Galilee stood round, they, all the more that they were 
 Galilaeans, conceived a strong desire to go up to the Man 
 thus pointed out : they went after Him ; but when He in 
 a friendly way turned to them asking what they wished ; 
 somewhat put out at the first moment, they had no reply 
 but that they wished to know where the teacher (Rabbi) 
 had his dwelling. With the simple reply " Come and 
 you shall see it" he invited them to follow Him to it : 
 they followed Him thither were at once taken by His 
 discourse. His doctrine, and His whole nature ; and with- 
 out noticing how the time passed, spent the night with 
 Him, although it was forenoon when they met with 
 Him. Nay, they were at once within these hours so 
 entirely convinced that He was Messiah, that one of 
 them even the next morning would not again leave Him ; 
 while the other, named Andrew, went to look for his 
 brother Simon, communicated to him his new-found joy 
 in having found the Messiah, and at once brought him 
 likewise to Jesus. Jesus had hardly cast on him a more 
 serious look, when He discerned in him the unwonted 
 blunt firmness, tenacious power of soul, and quiet de- 
 cision, which remained with him through life even to 
 the death, and the future King and Lord had found in 
 him His most rock-like servant and confessor ; the man 
 who, even under the most violent change of inward 
 revolution in his own spirit, and the most violent storms 
 of the world rising ever higher, never again became in 
 heart untrue to Him. It is not surprising that the 
 
XI.] THE FIEST EPIPHANIES. 77 
 
 Saviaur immediately named him a rock, and that since 
 then this name, gladly repeated by him, and by others 
 not less gladly used, became his surname Kefa, which, 
 afterwards rendered also into Greek Peter, almost threw 
 into the shade his original name, and became one of the 
 highest names of honour in the new community. Where 
 an entirely new spiritual tendency, or rather a new 
 community, will form itself, there also arise naturally 
 new names, accidental as at first the origin of any par- 
 ticular one may be : we see this recurring here, but in 
 the most eminent example. Who one of the two who 
 first sought for Jesus was, the Apostle John does not 
 inform us, but certainly only from the same modesty 
 and loveable reserve which leads this tenderly-fashioned 
 spirit throughout his Gospel to at most gently intimate 
 his singular personal relation to Him, never to boast of 
 and speak loud of it. Doubtless it was he himself, who 
 first with Andrew sought out Jesus from the Baptist and 
 his school, but directly on his first meeting with Him 
 was so taken captive by His royal spirit, that he was 
 happier with no one than with Him, in sweet fancy, as 
 it were, forgot himself when close to Him, and never 
 again went from his side for long. In what advances 
 from this first moment his faith grew, and his love to the 
 Saviour passed into that nameless charm which raised 
 it above all mere belief, and thus made him through 
 a long life even to his late death most specially the 
 Lord's disciple, — this we are not further told by him : 
 but we cannot take it amiss that he allows to be clearly 
 conspicuous in his own history that first moment in 
 
78 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 whicli he who wrote and lived also latest; before all 
 others, came into Christ's presence the first time. Not 
 until quite the close of this highest earthly history does 
 he suffer some like traits to appear : the event can but 
 most strongly carry on and confirm in the highest degree 
 the connection which so charms at its first commence- 
 ment. 
 
 In the other older historical sources, John and James, 
 (the latter, because always put first, certainly the older), 
 belonging to a well-to-do family (as we can conclude 
 from the tokens of it, Mark i. 20), with the other two 
 brothers, Simon and Andrew, are constantly spoken of 
 as the earliest disciples of Christ. We see how firmly 
 this fundamental element of all recollections of the earlier 
 times was rooted. But if in their common narrative 
 Peter with his brother is always named first, this is to 
 be explained by his higher dignity, just as simply as the 
 reason why John, in his particular narrative, neither here 
 nor elsewhere speaks of James ; for his sensitiveness and 
 the reserve of his language doubtless extended thus far. 
 These four firstlings of grace had this too in common, 
 that they were alike descended from two families of 
 fishermen comfortably off on the lake of Galilee, nay, 
 were strictly from the same town of Bethsaida, (John i. 
 44, xii. 21). But if in the earlier narrative the call of 
 this double pair of brothers is transferred in the Gospels 
 to Galilee by the lake of Genesareth, this is quite con- 
 sistent with the whole tenor of this earlier narrative, 
 according to which the public working of Jesus falls in 
 that somewhat later period. And, in fact, the more 
 
XI.] THE FIRST EPIPHANIES. 79 
 
 constant living together of these four first Apostles and 
 Christ cannot have resulted at once ; we shall see later 
 the time and the causes of its commencement. When 
 He took later these four into his closest confidence to 
 live constantly and inseparably with Him, and marked 
 them out thereby before all others who had hitherto been 
 somewhat more closely bound to Him, then may He 
 also, in natural allusion to their previous employment of 
 fishermen, which they were now to abandon, have used 
 that beautiful image, that from henceforth He would make 
 them fishers of men : that image, with the deeper thoughts 
 which lay at its root, belongs quite to that time. At 
 present however the relation between the Master (Rabbi) 
 and the disciples who became his more intimate friends 
 was a somewhat loose one. It is however a matter 
 of course, though following from the " ive have found" 
 in the mouth of Philip (John i. 45), that these three 
 or (probably with James) four accompanied Him on the 
 return to Galilee which soon followed: and when He, 
 on the day of His journey home, met with Philip, who 
 was of the same town with Him, it needed only one 
 word on the Saviour's side to make him also a companion. 
 Thus was the fourth (or the fifth) about Him of those 
 who later made up the number of the twelve. 
 
 The journey home was (as remarked earlier) to Kana 
 in Galilee. But on the journey this Philip had re- 
 cognised so completely the truth of Christ, that directly 
 on arriving at Kana he looked for his friend Nathaniel, 
 declared to him with high elevation of spirit, " he had 
 found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets 
 
80 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 had written," and silenced his unbelief, which had broken 
 forth in the question " Can there any good thing come 
 out of Nazareth ?" with calling him to come and see for 
 himself. Jesus now, when He saw him coming to 
 Him, only, as was his wont for others, dropped the remark 
 "There comes a true Israelite in whom is no guile;" for 
 He had seen before in him at the first glance, when 
 passing by unobserved, a guilelessness and simplicity of 
 spirit, such as every member of God's true community 
 must have. But struck with the inner truth of this 
 exclamation, which was well heard by him, he replies 
 quickly "Whence knowest thou me?" And on Jesus 
 replying to him " Before that Philip called thee, when thou 
 wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee ;" he quickly remem- 
 bers himself likewise the deep and difficult thoughts to 
 which his mind had been drawn on, when sitting under 
 the fig-tree of his house and concealed by its branches, 
 thinking himself alone : he sees, guileless, as he had been 
 described, the deepest thoughts of his soul suddenly in 
 a mysteriously surprising manner spread clearly before 
 Jesus' spiritual eye, and sinks at the Master's feet Avith 
 the most sincere confession of belief in Him as the Son 
 of God and the King of Israel. The first remark had 
 at once deeply struck him : the memory of the moment 
 just passed, when he, thinking himself quite alone, full 
 of deep desire, was thinking probably on the misery of 
 Israel, and unawares was seen and rightly judged by 
 the Master, quickly completed his belief. Yet this first 
 overflow of belief is not enough for Plim : He, as with 
 admiration, points him and all standing round on to the 
 
Xr.] THE FIRST EPIPHANIES. 81 
 
 time when, if he now believes because he had seen him- 
 self known when unnoticed under the fig-tree, they all 
 shall soon find quite other causes for belief in Him ; 
 should see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending 
 and descending upon the Son of Man. For so soon as 
 the Messiah with all his heavenly powers is in full 
 activity, this far higher spectacle opens for every one to 
 recognise who will not mistake it, and is most clearly to 
 be seen, looking at it from the end after its accomplish- 
 ment, as did the Apostle, who dashes in these slight 
 sketches of reminiscence of the earliest beginning of the 
 public activity of Jesus : and has learnt from the con- 
 clusion constantly to look back with infinite ecstacy on 
 all this which he too had once experienced. So un- 
 sought and yet so inevitably shews itself the activity of 
 the true Messianic knowledge of the depths of man's 
 heart, and its grasping them also by the correct glance 
 and the true word ; and ah-eady this power is in full 
 operation. Who this Nathaniel was, appears to us at 
 first somewhat obscure, as the name is only found in 
 this Gospel : yet he must certainly have been a man of 
 great importance in the circle of the first confessors of 
 Christ, as he once more appears in this Gospel in such 
 a way that he must be accounted one of the twelve (Jolm 
 xxi. 2). Now as in the ancient catalogue of the Apostles 
 Bartholemas constantly follows close on Philip, we have 
 full rio'ht to look on these as the same : St. John mi^rht 
 then have kept his proper name ; the Apostolic catalogue 
 on the other hand, the name by which he was popularly 
 known, Bar Tolmai. 
 
 G 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Messianic Activity in Woeking and Helping. 
 
 The Messianic activity shews itself soon enough, quite 
 spontaneously, nay, almost against its will, and for this 
 very reason from a higher necessity. On the third day 
 after the return to Kana, the story goes on, there was 
 a marriage, to which Jesus' mother as well as He Him- 
 self and His disciples were invited. Now His mother 
 had observed the change which had lately come over 
 Him more plainly than all others ; she looks accordingly 
 to Him as Messiah, more full of expectation than His 
 as yet few disciples : and when at the wedding, visited 
 by so many^ the wine ran out, she says to Him " they 
 have no wine," as though she would say, how well it 
 would be if He would give help in the unexpected 
 difficulty, especially as He Himself, with an unexpected 
 number of His disciples, had been invited. He is sur- 
 prised by the presumption of His mother, and refuses 
 her request, because " His hour was not yet come," and 
 therefore He does not yet feel in Himself the full 
 Messianic power : but she keeps her favourable belief in 
 it, and bids the servants do what Jesus says to them. 
 
MIEACLE AT THE MAHRIAGE FEAST. 83 
 
 Thus is it then, this motherly belief, which suddenly for 
 the first time drives forth the whole slumbering power in 
 Him. He just now felt a timidity keeping him back 
 from acting and helping; just now He felt his hour not 
 yet come, but suddenly it is come ; and the water, which 
 at his command was poured into six large water-pots 
 standing by, serving at other times for washing the 
 hands before or after meals, changes at his will into such 
 excellent wine, that the master of the feast himself, un- 
 prompted, pronounces it better than the first. Thus this 
 first of the miracles of Christ appears in every respect 
 a true beginning work, and in this very respect is most 
 instructive. It appeared in the midst of a cheerful time 
 which might easily become disorderly, as it were in the 
 sport of life, yet was it great and solemn enough : even 
 in the midst of the joy of life, in which He and his 
 disciples are guilelessly shaiing, He is collected and 
 earnest. The action was suitable as well to the un- 
 usually cheerful season of this family feast, as to the 
 commencing Messianic activity. To change water into 
 wine is otherwise not one of the usual miracles of the 
 first Christian times, yet here it is as it were a cheerful 
 gift for the commencement of the whole royal life-work 
 now coming on ; somewhat as other kings, on the happy 
 days of their coronation, cheer the people's hearts with 
 distribution of wine. But here is quite another King 
 just entering on his kingdom with full power; here is 
 no outer preparation, no worldly riches and worldly sub- 
 stance of his own which this future King could or 
 would distribute : He has no wine, and yet he has — the 
 
84 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 water itself becomes under his Spirit the "best wine : He 
 does not think about preparing it for this day to celebrate 
 this occasion with it, and receives it unsought, nay, almost 
 against his will, at the right time for its celebration, 
 (Sofa, John ii. 11). We should ourselves dilute the wine 
 which since that time may yet ever flow for us, if we 
 ask here in the material sense how from mere water wine 
 could be made in a moment ; for must not the water in 
 the best sense everywhere even now become wine, where 
 his Spirit is in full activity? Without question, this 
 side also of the Apostolic reminiscence and Christian 
 intuition might have been touched on at length and for 
 spiritual improvement : our Apostle in other places does 
 not miss doing this. But here, in this first work, which 
 he relates as an example more expressly, he is more 
 concerned to bring into prominence the right beginning 
 itself; and in this respect the narrative, in spite of its 
 brevity, is plain and instructive enough. No good, 
 blessed, beneficent work follows the independent human 
 willing, urging it on, least of all a commencement work : 
 reserve and delicate modesty, a quiet and patient en- 
 durance, till, unobserved at the right time, the Spirit 
 itself comes with power and impulse, this is here a first 
 and higher command ; but with what wonderful great- 
 ness and power can this Spirit itself work, when it thus 
 comes in the right manner and in the right time ! then it 
 works infinitely more than the man himself shortly before 
 thought, and then bestows powers and blessings which 
 surpass all which the modest mind shortly before ex- 
 pected : but pious belief, meeting from without the inner 
 
XII.] MIRA.CLE AT THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 85 
 
 power and encouraging it to its benevolent work, is thus 
 the beginning of the miraculous itself. If this is so 
 everywhere, so in the highest and plainest manner in the 
 case of the Messiah : and if the first great work of bene- 
 ficence be everywhere the hardest and at first seem almost 
 impossible, so that in it especially true divine modesty 
 and reserve must combine with right belief coming from 
 all sides, this was also the case with the first Messianic 
 miracle. The mother's faith at the right time met Him 
 for the right work, unexpected as it was, exalting and 
 encouraging : thus the whole hidden power of the Mes- 
 sianic Spirit slumbering in Him came forth in Him 
 suddenly, when it had been once awakened in the right 
 wav and at the rio;lit time for a beneficent work ; never 
 to fail again in activity and helping power, but carry 
 forward the Messianic life-work thus begun, without in- 
 terruption and without fainting, to its proper highest end. 
 This is the special lesson of this first story of its sort in 
 St. John's Gospel : and, as was to be expected from that 
 Evangelist, this narrative of the first Messianic miracle 
 has something much more instructive, and penetrates 
 deeper into the boundless depths of this whole history, 
 than the narratives corresponding to it in the other 
 Gospels. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The fiest moee Public Appearance and Working, 
 AND THE Beginning of the Recognition of 
 Christ in Wider Circles. 
 
 Christ did not however remain long dwelling with his 
 mother, his brethren and disciples in Kana ; the family 
 moved to Kaphar-Nahtim on the western shore of the lake 
 of Galilee, where we see them afterwards permanently 
 settled, and where too Peter and Andrew lived, both of 
 them in the house of Peter's mother-in-law (Mark i. 
 29 — 31). Thus in Kaphar-Nahiim (Capernaum) several 
 families of friends seem to have met. Not far from it, 
 probably somewhat to the south, lay the Bethsaida already 
 spoken of, which is mentioned rather as a small place, 
 and, probably in another direction, Chorazin ; two places 
 of wdiich as yet no certain traces have been recovered. 
 Within the limits of these three towns, as far as we can 
 now be certain, the earliest Messianic activity of the 
 Saviour appeared. It was a somewhat small circle in 
 which it first moved, but the surer was the ground on 
 which it gradually rose, and that higher experience 
 which might here be gathered. In truth this experience 
 
VISIT TO JERUSALEM. 87 
 
 which these three towns offered was little encouraging, 
 although Jesus dedicated to them the first flower of all 
 his now so powerfully blossoming activity : even in 
 later times this better remembrance forms a deep enough 
 undertone, little softened as it were by the remembrance 
 of the following period. But all the more urgent on 
 Him was it, outside also of this more contracted circle, 
 even at the very highest place of the time, to let Himself 
 publicly be known as He whom He would be and was. 
 Only Jerusalem and the temple, with its halls of learning 
 and all its other advantages, was the proper place for 
 this : and if He would be known to any effect as the 
 Messiah, He must from this high centre shew publicly 
 as soon as possible that He was the Messiah, and what 
 sort of Messiah He wished to be. Not that corner, nay, 
 not even the whole of Galilee, was sufficiently suited for 
 his end : and though this little country had many ad- 
 vantages (as will appear below) which even Jerusalem 
 did not offer, yet, in all which, concerned the temporal 
 and spiritual rule, it looked always only too humbly 
 and expectant to Jerusalem. Now the Saviour would 
 doubtless, in any case, have taken at this time the usual 
 journey to the feast in Jerusalem ; but the fact that He, 
 in spite of his Messianic sayings and doings, found little 
 true recognition in the first smaller circle, contributed to 
 determine Him, so soon as possible, namely at the next 
 passover, to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (John ii. 
 13, iv. 43—54). 
 
 There is just one action of this his first stay as 
 Messiah in Jerusalem, which the Apostle brings forward 
 
88 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 as important, and relates more at length. He certainly 
 did not go there to make an outward cleansing of the 
 temple ; but when He saw the dishonouring abuse of the 
 holy places, which was carried on from mere covetousness 
 and love of comfort, the Messianic zeal which had already 
 been stirred within Him overmastered Him, and with 
 irrestrainable power, with the help of a scourge hastily 
 made from small cords. He drove forth the sellers of sacri- 
 ficial animals, with the animals themselves, out of the fore 
 court of the temple ; overthrew the tables of the money- 
 changers, who had stationed themselves here, (because 
 indeed by old custom all the dues of the temple must be 
 paid only with coin of the country, not with foreign 
 coin), and did not suffer that such vessels as did not 
 belong to the temple service should be carried in or out. 
 Such profanation of the holy places is in truth every- 
 where possible enough, and has often even in Christian 
 times been repeated, and is not seldom even called forth 
 through the priest's laziness or even covetousness : but 
 never was it more insufferable than in that sanctuary, 
 which would be looked on as unique and could alone 
 minister to the true religion. 
 
 And every good man may easily be zealous there- 
 at ; so that it is hard to say how one should properly 
 punish the individual, who feels himself more powerfully 
 impelled to put an end to the disorder which has found 
 itself in. But before all others can, nay must, the 
 occasion being given, the Messiah feel Himself destined 
 thereto. He has, it is true, what is much greater to 
 purify and amend ; yet even the less must He not dis- 
 
XIII.] CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. 89 
 
 dain to purify, when the occasion for it calls Him so 
 closely and irresistibly as it did then : and besides, when 
 He is at the commencement of his higher activity, He 
 may not despise even the smaller, as this may serve of 
 itself for the token and beginning of yet greater purifi- 
 cations. Thus was this surprising action not designed 
 after any far-fetched plan, nor out of place, but proper in 
 its place and full of meaning for its time ; not one to be 
 hastily begun by any one, still less to be hastily carried 
 out, but conceived by his heroic zeal, to be carried out 
 also with his irresistible, heroic strength. He Himself 
 appealed in it to nothing but some passages of the Bible 
 here appropriate; and his followers, although at first 
 sight astonished at the strangeness of it, could readily 
 compose their minds by thinking on similar passages of 
 the Bible. The priests and temple warders could only 
 put it as a question to Him, how He dared do such 
 things? and what particular right for it can He shew? 
 And so, according to St. John, they did in fact ask Him 
 what sign (from God), that is, what particular divine 
 credentials and authority, He has to shew for doing such 
 things. But this question in truth made Him think not 
 only of his own right as Messiali, but at the same time, 
 or rather yet more in the final view, of the right of the 
 whole existing state of things : and those who asked such 
 a question should have first asked themselves, whence 
 comes their weakness in face of such profanation of the 
 sanctuary ; and whether some one else besides the Messiah 
 might not completely cleanse this sanctuary, not merely 
 partially and for a time, but for ever and completely. 
 
90 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Thus He meets them with an answer, which if possible 
 might surprise them yet more than did the deed itself, 
 " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it 
 again;" not going beyond the temple in his reply, as 
 was necessary, but leading them on at once to something 
 infinitely higher, as likewise He must do in order to 
 silence them. " Your whole religion, as it rests on this 
 temple, is corrupt and perverted ; but He also is present, 
 who, when it passes away, as it must pass away, will 
 easily restore it again in far higher majesty, and thus is 
 able to accomplish, not merely a common miracle as you 
 ask, but the very highest miracle." That was precisely 
 his meaning in that riddle ; here, as is elsewhere his 
 wont, at once rising above the vulgar thoughts and pur- 
 poses, to the highest which are directly in question, and 
 raising the more vulgar strife from the dust of this earth 
 into its heavenly height and eternal purport. " Will you 
 indeed have a token from Me in reference to my divine 
 authority over the temple ? be it so ; you shall have the 
 highest which you can expect and ask of any one : 
 Destroy this temple, which so long as it stands I wish to 
 see purified and worthy, but which will yet certainly one 
 day fall ; destroy it yourselves if you will, and throw 
 away with it all your perverted religion : I tell you that 
 in a short time I will rebuild it, the eternal and indestruc- 
 tible Temple, which will be, of course, infinitely nobler 
 than this visible defaced one." How little they were in 
 truth able to reply, and how they preferred under- 
 standing the noblest spiritual words in a material sense, 
 nay, tried thus to laugh at it, is at once apparent : but 
 
XIII.] CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. 91 
 
 then they had to leave Him in peace, whose offer they 
 could not take, and whose riddle they could not solve. 
 
 If now the action was surprising, still more the 
 answer and declaration. In it lies already the whole 
 boundless presentiment of all futurity : He has already 
 in his mind the true indestructible Temple just as much 
 as at the close of his whole earthly activity. And if 
 every fire and every zeal, when first it can break out 
 quite freely and spread itself, is likely also to be the 
 most violent, so is this action and this saying. Nay, 
 this saying is so extremely abrupt and sharp and so 
 mysteriously sublime, that we cannot be surprised at 
 the many misconceptions to which it gave occasion. 
 How it stuck to his enemies' ears in variously perverted 
 forms, and at length, at the final capital arraignment of 
 the bold speaker, how it was made use of, will appear 
 below. The issue of the whole history is so closely 
 connected with its beginning, as happens in all great 
 developments, that with the very first step the last is 
 given. That splendid temple of incomparable sanctity 
 was destroyed soon enough, chiefly through the guilt of 
 those who would most carefully maintain it with all its 
 abuses ; and, not after its outward destruction, but in a 
 wonderful way, almost before it fell, in the stillness of 
 the period, another had been built in its place of simply 
 imperishable nature : yet ZTe, who at the beginning of 
 his course in mysterious presentiment announced it, and 
 before anyone desired it was building this incomparably 
 firm new temple, fell a victim to the truth of this riddle 
 when it was intentionally perverted ; and thus was the 
 
92 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 truth which might lie in His prophetic word, fulfilled in 
 another far more immediate and visible manner. 
 
 The yet far more wonderful and nobler Temple of 
 his own body had been destroyed by his enemies, and 
 was yet raised again by Him in three days. It is no 
 wonder that John, with other disciples, applied the re- 
 mark to this, nay to this in preference. Against the 
 enemy it had almost as much meaning, nay, for those 
 early Apostolic times more immediate meaning : for 
 this interpretation of our Lord's saying certainly ori- 
 ginated at the time when the temple was yet standing ; 
 and from that time it must have been so retained in 
 St. John's mind, that he actually repeats it at the time 
 when the temple was already overthrown, and when 
 the more natural and higher explanation of the saying 
 would have been much easier. We however, who this 
 long time have been able to look at it with less pre- 
 possession, must turn to the strict meaning of the whole 
 story and the full sublimity of the saying and deed of 
 Christ, but thank the Apostle for having preserved it 
 to us in its first abrupt sublimity. But if now the 
 Saviour, through many such words and actions, whose 
 wonderful power and effect may be discerned in the ex- 
 amples above given, thus aroused the general observation 
 in the metropolis in Jerusalem, it is readily intelligible 
 that here too many began to believe on Him. But it 
 might seem surprising that He took into his closer 
 circle none from all the multitude in Jerusalem, and 
 especially from the great scribes and eminent men here 
 assembled : and that, although many trusted (believed) 
 
XIII.] JERUSALEM. 93 
 
 Him, yet He trusted Himself to none of tliem, not in 
 the way in which He took the well-known Galilasans, 
 some at least, into his closer confidence. But what we 
 see here occurs again later. It must then have a general 
 cause, and this is not very obscure. The Galilseans 
 stood in every respect closer to Him ; and if He wished 
 closer confidence He found it sufficiently among them, 
 at least among some, for a large number is here out of 
 the question. The people of Jerusalem were, on the 
 contrary, (as frequently in all capitals) compared with 
 the more simple agriculturists, on the whole, rather a 
 curious and novelty-loving people than deeply earnest : 
 and the old scholasticism here flourishing was little 
 adapted to understand Him more intimately, and join 
 Him more closely, as the result will on the whole shew. 
 The penetrating glance of Jesus saw this truly from 
 the beginning ; and, besides, He had no need of human 
 support and help, with trouble sought for and re- 
 tained. 
 
 There were many among those of high renown and in- 
 fluence in Jerusalem, who felt vaguely the deficiencies of 
 the dominant scholasticism and priest-rule ; and neither 
 enjoyed the rule of Herod nor of the Romans, and who 
 consequently would have been well inclined to adhere 
 to a true King of Israel, nay, who silently marvelled at 
 Christ, and were ready to acknowledge Him, if it had 
 appeared sufiiciently safe for them so to do. But the 
 Apostle (who though in his Gospel he relates so much 
 of Jerusalem, yet felt himself before all a Galila3an, and 
 knew that Jesus had only Galilseans for His closest 
 
94 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 friends) observes on this occasion that He had deter- 
 mined not to trust Himself to those of Jerusalem, " be- 
 cause He knew all men, and needed not that any should 
 testify of the man," that is of Himself as man, (though He 
 did not despise witness to Him as to God's Son when it 
 came to him freely) ; for He well knew what was in man, 
 whether men wished, merely in consequence of His sur- 
 prising works and miracles, to honour Him as a human 
 King, and did or did not expect a Messianic kingdom 
 from Him. He who in the usual manner will rule 
 among men, must look around for influential men, who 
 humanly, i. e. from temporal grounds, because they seek 
 thereby their own human profit, as is acknowledged by 
 the general feeling of men, praise and recommend him, 
 who would fain become his closest counsellors and minis- 
 ters, to spread and support his kingdom, which is not 
 grounded on eternal truth. Such He neither sought nor 
 needed. 
 
 Yet a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a man of position 
 and wealth, and a member of the Sanhedrim, seemed to 
 wish to make an exception to the general holding back 
 of the great men of Jerusalem : he was struck by the 
 great deeds of Jesus, and felt some wish to confide more 
 closely in Him as the true Messiah, in order to get for 
 a time behind this secret of the age, seeming to him so 
 remarkable, or indeed to offer himself to Him as his 
 first friend and counsellor, but at first only secretly. 
 So he came to Him by night, and joined Him in con- 
 fidential conversation ; he had a real longing " to see the 
 kingdom of God," and himself to share it, and thus wished 
 
XIII.] NICODEMUS. 95 
 
 likewise to know its conditions, and how Jesus will in- 
 troduce it. We cannot doubt the historic truth of this 
 partly earnest inclination of such a man to the Saviour 
 and his undertaking. He became in fact, through the 
 mere confidential conversations with Him, confirmed in 
 his growing belieT, and subsequently shewed publicly, so 
 far as he thought safe, his earnest interest in Him : still 
 he, in his position as a distinguished man and privy- 
 councillor in Jerusalem, could not become such a disciple 
 as the twelve, and like to them ; the Saviour therefore, 
 while disclosing to him the full truth, makes no further 
 effort to draw him to Himself. He thus remained hon- 
 ouring Him in silence ; not reflecting that in face of clear 
 truths and duties, silent honouring is only fit for women 
 and children, while all the great evils of the time are 
 advancing in spite of them. But the extended discourse, 
 in which the Saviour places before him the true con- 
 ditions of participation in God's kingdom, has in its 
 peculiar structure (as all such in this Evangelist) received 
 its definite form from the narrator. That this Apostle 
 repeats single sayings of the Saviour in their most exact 
 and original form, we have lately seen in the history of 
 the temple cleansing : but of course this cannot be the 
 case with all longer artificially elaborated discourses. 
 So with this discourse, it is a model of Christian truth 
 and perspicuity, and certainly, in its deepest foundation 
 grown out of thoughts which Christ Himself constantly 
 announced : little more than the putting together of the 
 words in this whole is the Apostle's own. 
 
 The fundamental condition of sharing in the kingdom 
 
96 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 of God and His salvation is regeneration (as the Baptist 
 had ah-eady required) ; but this must result not merely 
 (as in baptism for example) through water, but at the 
 same time through the Spirit, so that man becomes 
 a wholly willing instrument of the Divine Spirit, and 
 lets himself be driven by Him as by a favourable breeze. 
 But if this is obscure to any one, so that he does not 
 comprehend how he can suffer himself to be taken hold- 
 of by God's Spirit and led to eternal salvation, let him 
 believe on Htm in whom this has all been most com- 
 pletely fulfilled, and who is destined by God, through 
 the deepest suffering and the highest glory, to bring in 
 eternal life, and at the same time the judgment of the 
 world; let him thus look rightly into these heavenly 
 secrets, in which to believe is diflScult indeed, and which 
 yet must be believed by everyone whom the Spirit has 
 not led as powerfully and as certainly as Christ Himself. 
 In these three propositions lies, in fact, the deepest and 
 most exhaustive declaration of the course which each one 
 must tread, who will really share in God's kingdom and 
 salvation. But the peculiar intuitions and phraseology 
 of St. John in the colouring of the sayings, appear more 
 freely the longer and more freely the discourse pours 
 forth ; and the two questions which St. John makes 
 Nicodemus himself throw in, serve, in fact, only for the 
 inner advance of the evolution of the long discourse, 
 and for the clearer defence of the three great propositions 
 about which it all turns. 
 
 Meanwhile the Saviour was tarrying with his dis- 
 ciples yet longer in the country of Judaea; and his 
 
XIII.] BAPTISM BY CHRIST's DISCIPLES. 97 
 
 closer followers, who had earlier (see above) been them- 
 selves disciples of the Baptist, and so could be used by 
 the Baptist to help him in baptism, continued the baptism 
 at the water proper for it ; but now, of course, baptized 
 in the name not of the Messiah undefined, but on the 
 coming Messiah appointed in Jesus. That the baptism 
 must be continued generally in Christianity, we saw 
 above (Chapter IV.) : but though baptism, so soon as 
 Christianity was established, must in so far, as will be 
 seen below, take a somewhat different shape, seeing that 
 now the very giving of the Holy Ghost was the principal 
 point, so that, even former disciples of John were rebap- 
 tized ; it could at that time, when Christ had hardly ap- 
 peared, and in the whole time of his earthly life, only differ 
 from John's baptism in that the hope of the catechumen 
 was no more to be directed to the undetermined Messiah, 
 but quite definitely to the Messiah to be hoped for in 
 Jesus, as shewn above (Chap. VI.). Besides, as Christ 
 from the beginning defined the purity of spirit which 
 baptism was to give quite differently in many respects 
 from the Baptist, and changed the uncultured life which 
 he called for into a life of divine joy and love ; baptism 
 at once within His circle received a new meaning, which 
 might lead to great variances from the Baptist's views 
 and principles. 
 
 Of course the Saviour must allow this new baptism, 
 but could not Himself baptize, as otherwise He would 
 have had to baptize into Himself, which on account of 
 his dignity He could not do (no more than a Christian, 
 that is a conscientious, king with us will offer the oath of 
 
 H 
 
98 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 fealty to himself), even had He not avoided it from 
 modesty, as unbecoming. Some certainly of Jesus' 
 disciples began first at that time their particular baptism, 
 the baptism in the water of Jordan or in other places 
 appropriated to it : the baptism in the consecrated waters 
 of Jordan was still too new and attractive ; this new 
 baptism found quickly so many friends, that the disciples 
 of John, who continued the old sort, soon fell into 
 a dispute with a Jew who maintained that the purifica- 
 tion which the new baptism furnished must be much 
 more potent and spiritual than the old. When John's 
 disciples now complained of this to the Baptist himself, 
 and sought to irritate him against the rapid progress of 
 the new baptism, he soothed them, and shewed them that 
 a quick growth of the new movement was only a matter 
 of joy. The way the Apostle makes the Baptist speak 
 on this occasion is, in its phraseology, rather coloured in 
 the Apostle's style, than an exact repetition of what the 
 Baptist may have said of the Saviour : but that he then 
 expressed himself in this sense, admits of no doubt. 
 He was in this only true to that which he from the 
 beginning (Chap. VIII.) had felt and wished about 
 Jesus : but if he had not then expected that Jesus would 
 so long delay the full Messianic appearing, nay would 
 himself allow a new kind of baptism and preparation, 
 yet anything which seemed to him an essential part of 
 the evolution of the new movement, as did this baptism, 
 must be to him an object of desire. 
 
 He might then, in fact, admirably, in the figu^'e in- 
 timated by the Apostle, compare himself with the bosom 
 
XIII.] JOURNEY THROUGH SAMARIA. 99 
 
 friend of a bridegroom, who must rejoice at his bringino- 
 home the bride as soon as possible, and who waits at- 
 tentively on all his steps and commands, if at length 
 there may come the proud moment of boundless joy at 
 the actual bringing home the bride. The bride which he 
 meant, as did Christ, was the perfected Church of God 
 and God's kingdom itself; only that he had other views 
 of the way of winning and bringing home this bride. 
 His touching figure often returns in those times of bound- 
 less expectation and joyful hope. 
 
 Meanwhile the year, at the commencement of whose 
 passover Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem, was already 
 far advanced : there were but four months to the cornins" 
 harvest (John iv. 35). The new kind of baptism of his 
 disciples, too, had not a little aroused the attention of the 
 Pharisees and other clever men of the capital : but He 
 held it better for the present to go out of the way of 
 their rising suspicion, and resolved to return to Galilee 
 through Samaria. 
 
 Making experiment, that is, of all for the first time, 
 He had at present no reason for avoiding Samaria, as He 
 certainly had later: still less had He any fear about 
 bringing his truth, should it be enquired after, into 
 a half heathen land. He thus arrived in the neighbour- 
 hood of the ancient and as yet very large town of Sichem, 
 at a small town named Sykhar ; and as it was already 
 rather late, about six in the evening, He sat Himself, 
 wearied as He was, on Jacob's well lying here on the 
 way, which, famed of old, was peculiarly holy to the 
 Samaritans as a mbnument to the ancient renown of their 
 
100 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 own country. Whilst now his disciples had gone into 
 the town to buy food, He begged a drink of water from 
 a Samaritan woman just come to draw water : when she 
 wondered how a Jew, from the known enmity between 
 the two people, could speak to her about anything, and 
 was little inclined to give him anything,-He spoke of the 
 infinitely better return which He could give to her of in- 
 exhaustible water of life, and explained to her somewhat 
 more closely, on her not at once comprehending, what 
 this is. Still somewhat confused as to his exact 
 meaning, yet become very eager, she begs now very 
 urgently for the gift of this water of life : but as she was 
 yet not at all prepared to understand. He suddenly turns 
 the conversation to something apparently strange and 
 unimportant, telling her to call her husband. She then 
 is detected in her attempt to hide the true state of her 
 immoral life from His penetrating eye, and cannot help 
 at length clearly feeling that a remarkable prophet 
 stands before her ; and, further, the misgiving will force 
 itself on her, that the advantage possessed by the Jewish 
 religion which brings forth such prophets may be well 
 founded (John iv. 20). Then is the time arrived fo^ 
 explaining to her the whole relation of true and false 
 religion; to point her to the completion of all true 
 religion, which must at length be expected, rather is 
 already coming with power, and to tell her things which 
 she had never before heard in this way. Already she 
 divines, and then hears, that surely the Messiah Himself 
 stands before her, and hurries into the town to impart 
 her growing belief to others. The disciples before this 
 
XIII.] BELIEF AMONG THE SAMARITANS. 101 
 
 were returning from the town, but find the two not 
 engaged in strife and angry conversation (as they might 
 have feared, from the hostility between the Jews and 
 Samaritans), but in the most unexpected peace, and the 
 woman now hurrying for joy into tlie town. Astonislied 
 themselves at this spectacle of a converted Samaritan, 
 they at length, when she had gone away, invite Him to 
 eat : but He is now so occupied Himself with the fresh 
 truth of what He had just been teaching, and with the 
 thought of the completion one day of the conversion even 
 of non-Jews here begun, that He has forgotten bodily 
 hunger and thirst, and prefers for Himself thinking on 
 that eternal food which the carrying out and completion 
 of his work offers to Him ; and, although all this is only 
 a first slight beginning, and as it were a first scattering 
 of seed, already in spirit He sees the great harvest 
 ripen, yet more for the disciples than for Himself. For 
 if Samaritans indeed believe, what new ground for hope 
 of the general completion of his work ! just as then, at 
 seed-time, the harvest at the end of autumn seemed yet 
 very distant, but his Spirit could see the fields already 
 white to harvest. And in fact, the story tells us, the 
 Samaritans now came forward to Him so friendly, that 
 He had to stay with them longer than He meant ; nay, 
 many believed in his claims, not on account of the mere 
 saying of the woman, but led to it as well by their own 
 growing conviction. Thus every, apparently even most 
 trivial occasion may serve for the unfolding even of the 
 highest truth ; and as certainly there must at length vanish 
 before this truth even the most hardened enmities of 
 
102 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 nationalities and of existing religions : these are at first 
 sight some great truths which this story may give ns in 
 passing. We have the less ground here for doubting an 
 historical basis of the story, as we are here brought so 
 completely into the first commencements of the Messianic 
 activity ; although here also we must not fail to recognise 
 that the Apostle, whilst he went in memory back to those 
 commencement times, with their apparently trifling and 
 yet so weighty occurrences, could not fill up the several 
 points of the picture without the colouring of his own 
 language and higher intuition. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. . 
 
 The Happy Eeturn to Galilee, and the New 
 Position of the Messiah. 
 
 When He returned this time to Galilee, as a man 
 who had much approved Himself in the capital, He 
 was received with much greater belief than before; 
 and immediately on his entrance into the midst of this 
 country a miracle took place, which, in consequence 
 partly of its similarity of time and place, but also in itself, 
 seemed to the Apostle worthy of being placed as the 
 second, beside that at the marriage-feast, already men- 
 tioned as the first. 
 
 He returned to Capernahum by Kana, which had 
 earlier been so dear to his spirit ; it was, too, no great 
 way round to pass by this. Immediately on his arrival, 
 there spread quickly, even to Capernahum, the news of 
 his slow return. There hurried then to meet Him from 
 thence a man of note, who had for some time settled 
 there, a captain in the service of the prince ; who, though 
 himself a heathen, had long taken great interest in the 
 welfare of the Jews, and, in fact, had helped in the most 
 practical manner in the building of the synagogue there. 
 
104 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 His son was now very ill, and, accompanied by the 
 thankful rulers of the synagogue, he came to Kana to 
 meet the Saviour, to pray for the healing of his son, and 
 for a quick return to Capernahum afterwards. Jesus, 
 although actually begged by the principal Jews to help 
 the son of the heathen, at first refuses his help ; dis- 
 pleased with reason that they should want always signs 
 and wonders in order to believe in his higher truth. 
 But the simple firm belief of the man would not give 
 way. According to one account, he was, like a true 
 soldier, so staunch, but withal so simple, that he thought, 
 just as he, as captain, obeyed a higher command, and 
 himself, on the other hand, imposed on his soldiers un- 
 conditional obedience, so can the Messiah command, by 
 a word, the great and less demons to leave the man tor- 
 mented by them. 
 
 So the Saviour promised him help, and bade him 
 journey back in hope. It was in the evening : he passed 
 the night in Kana. But, the next morning early, ser- 
 vants from his house met him on his way with news 
 that his son was better, and he learnt to his astonish- 
 ment that the fever had left him at exactly seven oclock 
 the evening before. He felt consequently wonderfully 
 confirmed in his belief; and his whole household as well, 
 embracing many members, believed, offering at once the 
 first and a great example of its kind. But the whole 
 was important for this as well, that it was a heathen 
 household. The story of this event must have soon 
 spread widely, and for this very reason taken many 
 different forms. It appears essentially again in the 
 
XIV.] RETURN TO GALILEE. 105 
 
 older circle of traditions, and is there^ according to their 
 system of grouping, transferred to a somewhat later 
 time ; but it appears there, too, at the passing through 
 an important crisis in Christ's public life. 
 
 At this time, in fact, or soon after, must the Baptist 
 have been put into prison : we cannot indeed specify the 
 date quite accurately ; but we know for certain that the 
 event falls somewhere at this period. This had also an 
 important reaction on the Saviour's work now just com- 
 mencing. His work was, in its temporal purpose, a 
 carrying on and completion of that of the Baptist : the 
 external ground was now as it were shaken, on which 
 the bolder edifice of his own work was rising. And if 
 the world with such malice threatened and busied itself 
 to overthrow the essentially far less work of the Baptist, 
 much more must He fear that it would likewise soon 
 seek to violently crush and annihilate with all its power 
 his own hardly commenced undertaking. Unless then 
 content to immediately drop his work, now was his very 
 time for continuing it more earnestly and powerfully, 
 nay, one might say for beginning it again from the 
 beginning. For hitherto the great work of giving new 
 life to Israel, and the mighty effort for the perfecting 
 of all its higher blessings, rested in almost equal pro- 
 portions on the elder well-known man and on the 
 younger, who was just beginning to be rightly known : 
 hence, when the Baptist fell, and his disciples also evi- 
 dently suffered a hard blow through the captivity of 
 their master, the higher duty of not letting this whole 
 work fall to pieces again fell at once on the Saviour 
 
106 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 alone ; and the new obligation began for Him, of now 
 first actually beginning his true life-work, as it were 
 from the beginning, with a power and decision, but also 
 with a foresight and higher wisdom, none of which had 
 before been necessary. All his Messianic work till 
 now had been only a prelude and trial of strength for 
 that which now rose of itself facing Him ; and must in 
 later times all the more so appear, the greater the de- 
 velopment of the work proved, which now began to 
 reveal itself to the world. This was a principal cause 
 of the memory of it in the usual Gospel story quite early 
 fading away, while it could not be utterly lost. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The History of the Temptation. 
 
 It is thus readily apparent how the narrative of the 
 earlier Evangelists might make the imprisonment of the 
 Baptist the great beginning of the Messianic activity of 
 Jesus : it was usually by them simply stated, that after 
 the apprehension He went into Galilee, to begin the 
 clear announcement of the Gospel. Yet the space be- 
 tween Jesus' baptism and this his first appearance in 
 Galilee was left for that simpler narrative by no means 
 unfilled, so enduring had been the thought that there 
 had intervened here an interval of some length. The 
 thought, too, lasted, that the interval must have been 
 a time of first trial and of the right preparation of spirit : 
 for only when the spirit first tries itself, can it prepare 
 itself to win the final strength, clearness, and decision, 
 which for the real beginning and the successful carrying 
 through of a great work is indispensable. But when 
 a mere attempt (versuch) is first in progress, there just 
 as closely lurks always temptation (versuchung), for the 
 wholly right is not yet in progress ; so that errors also, 
 of all sorts, injustice and wrong, stir themselves yet 
 
108 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 more stronglj, at least in thought, and the power of 
 error may try again to come at least into closer converse 
 with the spirit as a power, and rule it. This is temptation 
 as it may present itself even to the purest and strongest 
 spirit, as it comes more inevitably the greater the work 
 to be attempted: and, while it is in fact providentially 
 necessary, in order to remove the possible error before 
 great activity, it may, too, providentially become ricli 
 in blessings, if it serve merely in any particular work 
 to separate these possible kinds of error, and to dis- 
 miss them beforehand. Nay, we may also, in so far, 
 deem it a Divine mercy for the Messianic as the greatest 
 life-work in the world's history, as it would commence 
 and perfect itself too in Jesus, that, before it had after 
 the Baptist's removal to immediately reveal itself in the 
 purest and highest activity, at the right time a short in- 
 terval v/as found for self-trial and the learning to know 
 completely all the various forms and powers of error, and 
 for ever reject them, which must have been to Him 
 dangerous, nay, destructive, had they not in advance 
 been put to the most decisive rout. Whilst now that 
 interval in the Saviour's life from the baptism, where 
 He received from God power to become Messiah to 
 the moment after the Baptist's removal, survived in 
 memory, only as a dark, but yet for the following time 
 most important commencement ; it was early learnt to 
 take it as the time of the Messiah's temptation, and thus 
 the way was prepared for a true representation, which 
 only needed to be carried out by the higher contem- 
 plation of his whole history to illustrate an abundance 
 
XV.] THE HISTORY OF THE TEMPTATION. 109 
 
 of higher truths belonging to the very commencement 
 time, truths themselves taught us by it ; as is seen in the 
 more detailed history of the temptation. But the imme- 
 diate occasion of the particular account (that this tempta- 
 tion which, according to the well-known examples in the 
 Old Testament, lasted forty days, and was carried by 
 Satan into the wilderness, inhabited by wild beasts 
 alone) was due, doubtless, to the remembrance of the 
 above-described stay of Jesus in southern Jud^a and 
 in the Baptist's neighbourhood : this residence had also, 
 from the evidences given above, lasted some time ; so that 
 forty days for it gave a particularly suitable estimate : 
 from it, too, he had immediately gone to Galilee to make 
 a complete beginning of the great work which we are 
 about to witness. In so far, then, there is a good deal 
 of true recollection in this narrative also. But further, 
 of this first Messianic time, while we have to thank St. 
 John for preserving more accurately to us some single 
 features in the narrative, some single features have been 
 preserved to us in the earlier Gospels : they have, how- 
 ever, in them been moved forward to other connections 
 of time. We have noticed some above in their several 
 places : probably some more belong here, only that it is 
 difficult now to bring them back into their original order 
 in time. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Founding of the Messianic Kingdom. 
 
 Looking now at the new position of the Messianic 
 proclamation and the personal labour which the Sa- 
 viour now took on Him, it only consisted, in its inner- 
 most nature, in a still more decided direction of every 
 power to the one mark which had already been put up 
 and become perfectly plain ; and hence also in, if pos- 
 sible, yet greater laboriousness and consistency, as well 
 as decision, publicity, and boldness, united with that 
 greater foresight and wise reserve, which this greater 
 decision as well as his previous experience demanded. 
 Thus it must be from the necessity of the case, and thus 
 the surviving traces of historical reminiscence shew that 
 it was. It was not He that now changed in the depth 
 of his spirit, in thought, will, and effort; but his position 
 in the world had changed, as this world had changed. 
 His task was now to shew Himself, in every respect 
 and unremittingly already perfect, as the actual ruler in 
 his kingdom : and it needed his peculiar elevation and 
 nobility of character to approve themselves at once, at 
 this stage of his calling, through all its duties and 
 labours, as well as its joys and victories. 
 
XVI.] THE MESSIANIC KINGDOM. Ill 
 
 But when the whole activity reaches its greatest 
 intensity and effort, then must it necessarily all the 
 more limit its sphere of action, if it would not, through 
 unnecessary fragmentary work, weaken and annihilate 
 itself. And as in the whole Messianic activity the 
 inner necessity of Jesus and the outward constraint 
 meet so wonderfully and so perfectly, so is it also here. 
 For if the widely extended, as yet quite unlimited, ac- 
 tivity, which in that time of beginning and trial was 
 perfectly right, must now be limited by its own higher 
 intensity ; this concurred with his previous experience, 
 which constrained him and shewed him the right way. 
 
 For already it had been proved that the great ma- 
 jority of the wise and mighty in the proud capital had 
 themselves no sense of the deep meaning of his enter- 
 prise : whilst it had likewise appeared, how ready the 
 countrymen of his own Galilee were to enter into his 
 meaning, after having witnessed his great deeds in Je- 
 rusalem, and the high respect to which, in the minds of 
 some at least. He had attained. He resolved then to 
 devote Himself in general wholly to the Galilseans, and 
 in that smaller but so much the more intimate circle, to 
 lay the most enduring foundation of his kingdom: and 
 to this resolve the peculiar circumstances of the Galilasans 
 might in themselves contribute. For the Galileans 
 stood, as remote country people, in no high esteem with 
 the proud inhabitants of the capital ; and people were 
 offended with their less refined pronunciation, by which 
 they could be easily known : but, in fact, none of the 
 populations, then so various of the ancient Holy Land, 
 
112 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 were so capable and so available for receiving the Gospel 
 into their hearts from its earliest, and consequently most 
 difficult, beginning, as were these very Galilseans. No 
 corner of the Holy Land, since the first days of the 
 decline of the old power of the people, had suffered so 
 much through the encroachment of the heathen as the 
 northern and the eastern portions of the land, according 
 to its ancient limits, as we find the great prophets bitterly 
 complaining; but the communities, often quite scat- 
 tered, which under these severest sufferings and longest 
 trials had yet remained faithful to the true religion, 
 only approved themselves the more in all new hours of 
 danger. And if the eastern lands had been continually 
 more occupied by heathen populations, the Galil^eans, 
 at least within extensive tracts, lived close together, 
 and, since the erection of the modern Jerusalem, had 
 adhered all the more decidedly and simply to the new 
 Temple ; and, in spite of all distresses of war and other 
 various trials through all these five centuries, had re- 
 mained true. (Bd. IV. s. 109, 359 f.) 
 
 The Samaritans, indeed, gradually formed, between 
 them and the Jews proper, an intermediate population, 
 evermore decidedly and harshly separating them, and 
 on all sides, too, these Galilean Jews were much 
 straightened by heathen towns, and without fixed bound- 
 aries; but only the more tenaciously for that did they 
 always cleave to the distant sanctuary. Compared 
 with the inhabitants of the capital and their neighbours, 
 the Galilieans were, in their fruitful plain in the south, 
 their mountainous country in the north full of caves, 
 
XVI.] THE MESSIANIC KINGDOM. 113 
 
 and the rich and prosperous shores of the lake of Gen- 
 nesareth, and the right bank of Jordan ; had yet re- 
 mained simpler, more vigorous, and more susceptible 
 of enduring impressions. 
 
 We observed, coming into prominence, since the 
 days of the Asmonasan dynasty, a more powerful in- 
 fluence of these simpler and sincerer Galilasans on the 
 southern Jews ; often the Jews persecuted in Judah fled 
 into their castles, ravines, and caves, and readily found 
 amongst them their most tenacious defenders. But now 
 they were to range themselves round one out of their midst, 
 as champions of an all-unknown kingdom ; and strange 
 as was the call, never has a call in the end been so 
 completely answered, as this was by chosen spirits 
 among these Galilsean peasants, fishermen, and pub- 
 licans : but, in truth, neither had any corner of the earth 
 before resounded with such a call, and been filled with 
 such a new miraculous vital power, as were these not 
 less checkered than confined and torn, thickly populated 
 tracts of Galilee. And if it be an internal law of the 
 higher retribution, that, like everything unreasonably 
 despised, so also a much humbled and despised land, 
 often misused for centuries, arrives at length at all the 
 higher honour ; here is the beginning of the most splen- 
 did ennobling of this hitherto all but ruined corner of 
 the Holy Land: and then indeed, aftei' that this ennobling, 
 already patent enough, had been made a part of universal 
 history, certain passages of the Old Testament must 
 seem to have received a quite new, nay, their best ful- 
 filment — the passages in which once the heart of the 
 
 I 
 
114 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 great prophet, overpowered by the sad spectacle of the 
 sufferings of these countries, raised to a bolder flight by 
 the hope of the Messiah, saw in spirit a just future en- 
 nobling also of these. But the same higher effort which 
 induced Jesus now to confine his activity principally to 
 Galilee, led Him also to take some of these Galileans 
 into his closer intimacy, that they might be constantly 
 about Him and suffer his spirit to pass wholly into 
 them. It was not the Twelve, whose appointment will 
 be found later : a definite number in the case of these 
 was as yet of no importance, nor was instruction and 
 practising needed so definite, as we shall see below in 
 the case of the Twelve. But assuredly the relation to 
 Him of these now taken for his constant companions, 
 was quite different to that of his first companions and 
 disciples: if they had most of them joined Him un- 
 invited, and He only did not send them back ; these 
 lived probably at home and in company with Him, and 
 went with Him wherever He wished. Many might for 
 this reason not find it suit them : and, according to a 
 permanent reminiscence, this select circle only com- 
 prised the four, who (see above) had voluntarily and at 
 first joined Him, and whom He had for some time known 
 more intimately — the brothers Simon and Andrew, and 
 the sons of Zebedee, James and John. He may at this 
 time have called to Him these fishermen's sons with the 
 saying, which seems long to have been well remembered, 
 " Come, that I may make you (something much better) 
 fishers of men," as He meant now to take them for ever 
 into His closer life-companionship : we may well suppose 
 
XVI.] . THE MESSIANIC KINGDOM. 115 
 
 that they at once followed Him all the more willingly ; 
 even the sons of Zebedee, although they came from 
 a home of some wealth, and now left it almost for ever. 
 The two pairs of brothers lived, we see from this, by the 
 lake of Galilee, not far from each other. 
 
 In place of this simpler narrative, St. Luke has 
 adopted from a somewhat later account, one more grandly 
 conceived, in which only Christ and Peter are the two 
 principal actors, and the two sons of Zebedee appear 
 merely as Peter's companions in occupation, and subse- 
 quent companions in faith : here, too, the commencement 
 of the higher faith is painted with more depth. Whilst 
 the Saviour is engaged in the teaching at length of the 
 people. He sees on the bank of the lake two boats lying- 
 unoccupied, whose sailors are now occupied with the 
 mending of their nets : they have taken nothing in the 
 past night. He enters Peter's boat, desires him to let it 
 down somewhat further into the water, and thus from 
 the high prow of the boat teaches the people, who were 
 standing closely packed on the shore. Then He has 
 the boat pushed further into the lake, and gives orders 
 to cast out the net. Peter has at first, from tlie bad 
 luck of the night before, doubts of a successful haul ; 
 but, on the other hand. He has been so penetrated by the 
 higher faith through the teaching of Christ which he 
 had just heard, that he now at His word throws out the 
 net. He then takes more than could have been ex- 
 pected for both ships, even with the most successful 
 haul ; and the first impression of this undeserved bless- 
 ing on him is so overpowering, that he sinks at the 
 
116 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. • [CHAP. 
 
 Lord's feet, as of one too holy for him : for, however the 
 neighbourhood of the Holy One may bring blessings, 
 the man oppressed with the burden of sins feels himself 
 more bowed down than exalted by it ; because he must 
 fear that the same power which he has had experience 
 of in unexpected blessing, another time, when he perhaps 
 unwittingly sins against it, may just as unexpectedly crush 
 him. But, rejoiced at this sincerity also of Peter, Christ 
 raises him, comforting him the more, driving away the 
 troubled fear into entire closeness to Himself; and now, 
 raised by Christ to be fishers of men instead, the three 
 follow Him, who seem generally in the reminiscences 
 of the Gospel closest to Him, now more entirely for- 
 saking everything earthly. 
 
 Many of the higher features of this narrative doubt- 
 less owe their origin to a generally more spiritual class 
 reminiscences. But, however the story may have 
 received this its form, based on a thousand earlier spi- 
 ritual intuitions and perceptions, its ultimate teaching is 
 but, how the lower faith is transfigured into the higher, 
 and, this that is the consequence of all true following 
 of Christ. Even for earthly good and bodily blessing, 
 the active nearness of the true Spirit, and Christ's own, 
 may be a blessing, and in its joy be received with 
 double measure of joy : this is one blessed truth of the 
 Gospel experience and history which recurs in other 
 times, and some actual experience must originally have 
 lain at its root: but he who experiences merely this 
 blessing, to him there yet cleaves from it a lower fear 
 which must first be transfigured into the higher, in 
 
XVI.] THE MESSIANIC KINGDOM. 117 
 
 order to arrive at the right commencement for right 
 serving the Lord in and with alL Of others, whom the 
 Saviour during this period took into his closest con- 
 fidence, Levi, the son of Alpha3us, is now only men- 
 tioned. He was a well-to-do collector of customs, and 
 as such was in no good repute : yet the Saviour invited 
 him to Himself, and he gladly gave up, to follow the 
 call, all his previous earthly advantages. We know 
 however nothing of his later fate : he afterwards cer- 
 tainly did not belong to the twelve. But the house of 
 Alphasus appears later also, as one joined in close friend- 
 ship with Christ : and the James out of this house, who 
 subsequently appears among the twelve, was probably 
 a younger brother of this Levi. Such was, in a general 
 view, the position of Jesus at this time. As the com- 
 mencement period of his most perfect and uninterrupted 
 Messianic activity, in which the very first lasting found- 
 ations of his kingdom were to be laid, it must have 
 been, in many respects, most laborious and difficult, 
 full of the most endless efforts and exhausting labours ; 
 and this time lasted, as will appear below, about a full 
 year. But of the characteristics of this time of laying 
 the deepest foundation of the whole Messianic structure, 
 we still know less than we might perhaps wish. For 
 firstly this time also, although in it everything is now 
 pressing on towards perfection, yet lies behind the time 
 of the highest perfection of the Messianic activity ; so 
 that even the Gospel of St. Mark, to which alone we 
 are indebted for a somewhat fuller and more distinct pic- 
 ture of this period, relates comparatively but little of it. 
 
118 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 Secondly, just at the period when the older Gospel 
 narrative began to enter more fully into the distinctive 
 features, the Gospel of St. John, with its more lively 
 recollection of these earlier times, ceases, evidently not 
 without design ; for St. John for the subsequent time, — 
 for what at least concerned the Galilasan activity of 
 Jesus, — looked on the older narratives as so complete on 
 the subjects, that he found nothing of much importance to 
 add. Still, so soon as we only carefully put together all 
 that the Gospel of St. John has preserved to us of the 
 period, we may sketch a tolerably satisfactory picture of 
 it ; if not giving all particular points exactly in their pro- 
 per order, yet accurate in respect to the principal sides of 
 the Saviour's activity in the course of its most funda- 
 mental and laborious effort. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Daily Occupation. 
 
 Of the nature of his daily occupation at this time 
 St. Mark's Gospel gives a sketch, in the description at 
 length of all his manifold activity on one day and the 
 time next following. It is the picture of his active work 
 on the first day of his entering Capernahum as the per- 
 manent seat of his future life : this day however serves 
 but as an example for all similar ones during this whole 
 period, whenever not much broken into by special ac- 
 cidents. It was a Sabbath, He went early into the 
 synagogue to teach ; and his mode of teaching was so 
 different from that of the scribes, and the matter of the 
 doctrine itself so mightily overpowering, that there was 
 general and natural wondering how the divine power, 
 out of which it flowed, was poured into Him. But in the 
 synagogue was also present a man tormented with an 
 unclean spirit: and it seemed as though this spirit, 
 the more powerfully the discourse was inspired by the 
 divine Spirit, and the more deeply all others present 
 were affected by it, could the less keep himself quiet 
 and hide his true nature. At length, unable to contain 
 
120 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 himself longer before the Holy One, he broke forth in 
 loud talk; and as though he felt himself one with all 
 his kind, he bade Jesus cease : " they knew well that 
 He was the Holy One of God, and that He was come to 
 destroy them." But, on the contrary, Jesus bade him 
 be silent and come out ; nay, He pressed him so strongly 
 that he, rending and crying aloud, gave much pain to 
 the man, but at length came out and let him go. Thus 
 was shewn that the new doctrine and power of Christ's 
 quiet word does not even leave the unclean spirits at rest, 
 till at length, so soon as they are excited, a stronger word 
 of His express command drives them utterly out : and if 
 the flight of evil spirits before Him caused astonishment, 
 the world must have been yet more astonished that the 
 power merely of the new doctrine is so great, and that 
 all ultimately results from this alone. Well are we told 
 that this very thing spread his fame everywhere, even 
 in the whole neighbourhood of Galilee. On coming out 
 of the synagogue, accompanied by the sons of Zebedee, 
 He visits Peter's dwelling : he was then already married, 
 and his mother-in-law, in whose house he lived with his 
 brother Andrew, lay now sick of the fever, which they 
 did not conceal from Him. But going in and taking 
 her by the hand^ He raised her up ; and the fever left her 
 so suddenly that she was actually able on that very day 
 to prepare a meal, and be present at it as hostess. Then 
 the evening came on: He betook Himself to his own 
 house. But now they were bringing in the cool of the 
 day — the Sabbath too being over — all the sick with their 
 various bodily or mental diseases, and it was as though 
 
XVII.] THE DAILY OCCUPATION. 121 
 
 the whole citj had assembled before his door. He 
 healed many sick of each kind : but He sought to quiet 
 beforehand the spirits of the possessed, that they might 
 not break out into so painful wild a cry about Him as 
 the dreaded Messiah, as they had done in the synagogue. 
 
 After a short night's rest, He arose very early when 
 it was yet dawn, to go into a solitary place before the 
 city. He was here praying, alone with God : but Peter 
 and his friends soon went after Him, discovered Him, and 
 told Him that already many were seeking Him in the 
 city. But He bade them to visit with Him the smaller 
 adjacent places, to work there also as He had for that 
 end now left the city. So He journeyed with His re- 
 doubled activity to the remaining places of Galilee. 
 
 Thus wide in its extent and laborious was the 
 Saviour's day's work at that time, as shewn us by 
 St. Mark, who sets it before us the most clearly. We 
 know, from the same Gospel also, the occasion of the 
 somewhat violent interruption of this peaceful life, so 
 calm in its self-collectedness, with all its zeal and all its 
 powerful activity. 
 
 While the Saviour was staying somewhere in Galilee, 
 a leper pressed in on Him into the house, quite against 
 the law, which expressly shut such an one out of society. 
 But the Saviour, touched with deep compassion, laid on 
 the unhappy man, who in faith trusted Him entirely, his 
 healing hand ; immediately however, after healing him, 
 commanded Him in the strictest terms to go forth in all 
 haste from the house and from the whole country, to tell 
 no one about his healing, but before all, announce him- 
 
122 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 self to the priests at Jerusalem, according to law, as 
 a healed man, and then quietly to return to his occupa- 
 tion. But the man could not, for his great joy at his 
 recovery, do without telling aloud everywhere the history 
 of it ; so that Jesus, known everywhere in consequence, 
 and expected beforehand in every town, could hardly 
 enter one of them quietly, and preferred remaining out- 
 side the towns in lonely places. But even so they came 
 to Him from all sides continually seeking help. He 
 returned of course in time to Capernahum as his fixed 
 abode. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Joueney of this Year to the Feast. 
 
 If however the position and effect of the Saviour was in 
 this whole period as above described, it was the natural 
 consequence that He preferred staying in Galilee as per- 
 manently as possible, to making the customary journeys 
 to the Feasts. To make every one of these journeys 
 three times a year, was for the dweller at a distance not 
 absolutely necessary ; there were admissible excuses for 
 him, and indeed he might also perform all connected 
 with his offerings by representatives. And the Saviour 
 had, in truth, now something more important to do. 
 Just at this point St. John's narrative comes in again 
 with its more exact discrimination of times and circum- 
 stances. According to it, Jesus journeyed in this year 
 once at least to the feast : for, that the narrative of such a 
 journey (John v.) should be placed just at the commence- 
 ment of this time, admits of no doubt. St. John, it is 
 true, does not define here more exactly which of the 
 three yearly feasts it was. For the substance of the 
 narrative here to be related, a more exact definition was 
 not much needed, and for this reason he might be con- 
 
124 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 tented with the briefer expression. If however we must 
 mention the most probable conjecture about it, it was 
 the great Feast of Tabernacles, to which the Saviour 
 now journeyed to Jerusalem : at the Passover, as appears 
 above, He had not been long in Galilee ; and yet He 
 wished now, for a time at least, to confine Himself as 
 much as possible to Galilee : for this reason then we 
 naturally think of the Feast of Tabernacles. To these 
 considerations may be added the parallel case in the 
 following year (as will be explained below), when also 
 He journeyed to Jerusalem for this feast. And if this 
 be the feast intended, the explanation is most simple of 
 St. John long afterwards calling it a feast of the Jews : 
 it was very far then from having for Christians the 
 importance of the Passover, and might, at the late period 
 of the composition of this Gospel, and by a man like 
 St. John, be thus denoted briefly. But the subject of 
 the discourse, too, which Jesus, according to this Gospel, 
 then delivered in Jerusalem, quite suits this year : and it 
 is principally for the sake of the great truths of the 
 discourse that St. John relates the journey itself, and the 
 more immediate occasion of the speaking of these exact 
 words. 
 
 At a north-eastern gate of Jerusalem, named (pro- 
 bably from the many sheep here entering to be sacrificed) 
 the " Sheep Gate," was a pool — Bethesda; whose water 
 being not far from the Temple, might all the more be 
 looked on as health-restoring, as it seemed in a mys- 
 terious manner to sink and rise : according to the common 
 notion an angel in the air moved it at times, and the first 
 
XVIII.] THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST. 125 
 
 sick man who then went in, might according to the same 
 notion be healed. In the five halls built about it by 
 public charity, there lay constantly a multitude of blind, 
 lame, withered, and other sick ; also a man who had 
 been a cripple for thirty-eight years, who, arrived at 
 length probably from a distance, had yet found no 
 sympathetic hand to help him at such a moment of the 
 water's rising, and prevent others pressing in. Jesus 
 wished, as was to be expected from his whole present 
 position, to avoid at this time all notice in Jerusalem ; yet 
 seized with sympathy for the poor man. He healed him 
 without using that half superstitious means, bade him 
 take up his bed with his own hand and go forth, and 
 immediately, apparently intentionally, was lost again in 
 the press close by. But, as it was now the sabbath, 
 the Jews reproached the man with a breach of the law, 
 which forbad changing one's abode on the sabbath, and 
 desired he should name Him who had commanded it : he 
 could not however find again his benefactor. Some days 
 later Jesus met him in the Temple, and gave him now 
 further admonitions to keep his recovered strength by 
 stricter morals : the man now first named Jesus to his 
 earlier complainants as He whose advice he had then 
 followed. When called to account by them. He answered 
 as He was wont in the cases, not rare, of such a complaint 
 about sabbath-breaking. But as Messiah, He could, in 
 the rising ardour of his discourse, point out that in such 
 help, administered even on the sabbath. He was only 
 following the example of his heavenly Father, who since 
 the Creation does not cease working for man's help, not 
 
126 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 even on- the sabbath. Even this admirable and quite 
 logical and decided thesis for the final laying of doubt, 
 by which Jesus must have only the more irritated the 
 sneaking enmity of the prejudiced Jews, was now, ac- 
 cording to St. John, the occasion of a very diffuse and 
 precise discussion of the relation of Jesus as Messiah to 
 God, which forms the true principal subject of this whole 
 account. In this freer outpouring of deepest truths, the 
 conception and colouring of the speech is due to this 
 Apostle's tone of thought, which appears more uncon- 
 strained the harder it is to exhaustively represent these 
 truths. There are four such truths, which, brought to- 
 gether here according to their inner sequence, exhaust all 
 which belongs to the subject. It is shewn here, first, how 
 certain is the essential unity of will and similarity of 
 working of God and Messiah, which now in its highest 
 working subsists for the salvation of man ; a salvation 
 which extends from the moment of the immediate present 
 to the last limits of all development of human history, 
 and which the more miraculous and incredible it is, 
 will only the more certainly arrive. But on account of 
 this complete highest unity of will and of working of the 
 Messiah and of God for man's eternal salvation, the last 
 and only ultimately decisive testimony for the truth of 
 the Messiah must be his own divine mission, appearance, 
 and activity ; although the Holy Scriptures of the Jews 
 themselves, which are by them so infinitely honoured, 
 when rightly searched out and known in their deepest 
 sense and purpose, give testimony for Him. But though 
 the nature of the exposition of these four fundamental 
 
XVIII.] THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST. 127 
 
 truths here given is peculiarly St. John's, they certainly 
 lay in the Saviour's mind, and were by Him, in words 
 and actions, for the man of intelligence and faith every- 
 where literally taught. And at no time taught by Him 
 more plainly and definitely than, as opportunity offered, 
 at this very time, when He, after the Baptist's removal, 
 had fully revealed Himself as the Messiah, and when He 
 had to discuss with calm grasp even the highest relations, 
 the solution of which now pressed. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Opposition and Enmity of the World. 
 
 We saw how strictly Jesus at this time, everywhere, as 
 well in the city of his more permanent residence as in 
 the towns where He made a shorter stay, and in Jerusalem 
 not less than in Galilee, avoided attracting notice, and 
 how firmly He adhered to the wise limitation which He 
 had prescribed to Himself. He did not wish to check 
 the circulation and publication of the truths which He 
 proclaimed : neither would He reject the Messianic ac- 
 knowledgment of his working, when it met Him freely 
 without his cooperation from its own inspiration and the 
 genuine beginnings of a faithful recognition. But when 
 He worked his miraculous cures, He did all He could to 
 avoid notice and calling forth the public excitement, which 
 singular, unwonted, and at the same time so beneficial 
 actions naturally occasion : and thus He worked cures 
 only when his inmost compassion was too strongly 
 stirred, and sought most to withdraw Himself and his 
 mission from the world, when He might probably sup- 
 pose that it would be forced into the world unnecessarily 
 and injuriously. 
 
XIX.] OPPOSITION AND ENMITY OF THE WORLD. 129 
 
 For He had to fear above everything, any too early 
 and too injurious disturbance of his great work, and He 
 knew for certain how easily such an arbitrary disturbance 
 of it might proceed from the rulers of the time. And in 
 such a determination He persisted, as will appear below, 
 even during the following first development of his work 
 as a whole. But yet no wise foresight and self-con- 
 straint sufficed to prevent the tidings of his deeds being 
 carried ever more widely, and the general notice of Him 
 becoming ever more excited : his whole mode of acting 
 too was so entirely different from the customary ; and in 
 his discourses and thoughts likewise, which He could 
 least hold in, there was matter enough to wound the 
 prejudices of the time, and call forth ever more decidedly 
 the opposition of the world. The attention of the 
 highest authorities in the country was not, it is true, at 
 this time so turned on Him as to cause Him apprehen- 
 sion from them ; but the dominant tendencies and schools 
 of his time came into collision soon enough, in the most 
 varied ways, with his working and his nature ; and it was 
 just these who, through his mere existence and public 
 working, must feel most deeply threatened and most 
 unexpectedly attacked. We saw above some cases, in 
 which He sought in vain to check greater attention to 
 his works and his words : but a very lifelike and his- 
 torically remarkably instructive picture of a multitude 
 of such cases, where his deeds and actions excited the 
 embittered observation, and soon the censure and the 
 envy, nay the evil suspicions, of the ruling tendencies, 
 is sketched by St. Mark's Gospel in a continued series 
 of the most speaking characteristics. K 
 
130 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 When He some time after returned from the tour 
 above mentioned to his home at Capernahum, and the 
 news had hardly spread, immediately such a crowd 
 assembled, that the open space before his door did not 
 suffice to hold them. While He was now fully occupied 
 instructing the throng from the window of his house, 
 there was brought a man so completely crippled, that he 
 had to be carried by four men on a light bed ; and as it 
 was impossible to get at the door with the bed through 
 the throng, they carried him up by a staircase lying at 
 the back of the house to the flat roof, no doubt, ac- 
 cording to their way of building, provided with an upper 
 storey ; they took off the tiles at a part behind, and so let 
 down the sick man into the roomy chamber where Jesus 
 was discoursing from the window to the people. This 
 desire, in spite of all difficulties, to approach the healing 
 Hand of the Saviour, certainly proceeded chiefly from 
 the cripple himself: Jesus then was, at sight of the strong 
 belief of the sick man as well as of his benevolent 
 bearers, taken with compassion, and began the healing 
 at once, by offering to the sick man the higher trust in 
 divine help and the comfort of absolution, to impart 
 which lay entirely in his prerogative. But in the same 
 room were sitting not far off some scribes, curious, 
 and full of inward suspicion, listening to all that He 
 said: these did not express themselves aloud on the 
 forgiveness of sins, which the Saviour here again was 
 assuming to Himself, but He knew exactly what was 
 passing within them. Like true scribes of the time, they 
 doubtless thought (if we would enter somewhat more 
 
XIX,] OPPOSITION AND ENMITY OF THE WORLD. 131 
 
 closely into their line of thought) the sick man should 
 first bring the offerings prescribed in the Old Testament, 
 if he felt himself oppressed by the consciousness of his 
 earthly un worthiness or sin, in order then to receive in 
 God's name from no one but the regular priest the for- 
 giveness of sins ; thus, forgiveness of sins by another 
 appeared to them nothing less than an attack on the 
 divine prerogative, and, since the name of God was 
 brought in, blasphemy against God Himself. To leave 
 them in this error as to his authority was not Christ's 
 part, and, as usual, He at once overthrows the error most 
 directly, by urging against it not only its opposite, but 
 also the higher and final truth, and thus leads the 
 question through a bold but true advance to its best end : 
 so now asking them at once openly, which then is easier^ 
 to announce the forgiveness of sins to a sick man, or 
 actually to help him as well ? He at once heals the sick 
 man, and bids him straightway take up his bed himself, 
 and go forth with sound limbs. For all relieving and 
 strengthening of the spirit, through the elevating as- 
 surance of new divine grace and forgiveness of sins, can 
 and ought only to prepare the man to be not unworthy of 
 healing, and not to fail of it, when it now is waiting to 
 come, and is perhaps already near: but this itself is 
 something higher, and only even to powerfully stimulate 
 and further its coming, is something far higher than the 
 mere expression of forgiveness of sins : this power of 
 healing is, when it reveals and approves itself, a proof of 
 the inward power of the spirit, wliich passes immediately 
 into the divine itself and cooperates with it. Through 
 
132 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the most practical proof possible were thus then refuted 
 these doctors, dried up in their law-books ; and all the 
 people as well, standing round, were, as this reminiscence 
 concludes, astonished at the sight of this Messianic 
 power, and praised God "who had given such new 
 power to men :" for it is quite a part of the first Christian 
 feeling, as something almost of course, that the new 
 higher powers of the Spirit brought by Christ into the 
 world, and by Him first revealed, survive also in his 
 people, and thus bring forth fruit a thousand fold. 
 
 If it was now the greatness of the action at which the 
 Scribes were offended, and yet could do nothing, there 
 were on other occasions customs of His which appeared 
 to them too low and unworthy, on which they fastened 
 their astonishment and censure. 
 
 When He, on escaping again to the shore of the 
 lake, found sitting at the toll-house the Levi mentioned 
 above, and he at the Saviour's call willingly followed 
 Him, and, perhaps on the evening of the first day of his 
 accompanying Him, prepared for Him in his house a feast, 
 at which, besides his earlier disciples, many publicans 
 and others accounted sinners took part, partly as invited 
 by the host, and partly as lately having joined his 
 company more closely ; the Scribes and Pharisees could 
 not contain their astonishment at his eating '^with 
 publicans and sinners," and censured this behaviour 
 publicly in presence of their own disciples. But this 
 was not the place for going into the question of the 
 greater or less guilt of the publicans and of other men : 
 He therefore replied to their reproach only by a general 
 reference to the nature of his Messianic mission. 
 
XIX.] OPPOSITION AND ENMITY OF THE WORLD. 133 
 
 On the other hand, He was blamed another time for 
 not keeping fasts, as was customary in the schools of 
 John's disciples and of the Pharisees : it might then be 
 the very time after the Feast of Purim and before the 
 Passover, when fasting, on account of the time of year, 
 might readily seem peculiarly appropriate, and thus have 
 been introduced by the stricter schools. This censure 
 might have been intended, as well as taken up, more 
 earnestly, as it was known that He Himself had origin- 
 ally passed through the baptism, and so also in a certain 
 sense through the discipline of the Baptist ; and some 
 also of his disciples had passed through the school of the 
 Baptist. Add too, that the whole period tended towards 
 this more gloomy strictness, and the very school of the 
 Baptist was then (see above) in such tokens of earnest- 
 ness, of yet more earnest and fresher zeal than the 
 Pharisaic, so that the latter could at this time be moved 
 to new zeal in it. But not only was it in general ac- 
 cordance with Christ's spirit to leave such exercises and 
 tokens of earnest piety to the free impulse of the spirit, 
 but He reminded them now with yet greater truth of 
 the exceptional case of the time, in which his disciples, 
 gathered round their Lord and Messiah, could with more 
 reason turn, as if at a wedding-day, to the brighter side 
 of life ; the more surely that one day after his departure 
 they must give way to gloomy mourning. 
 
 But as concerned in particular the views of John's 
 disciples, He specified them in striking figures as half 
 views and self-contradictory, as in consistency they must 
 actually and wholly desire the New, and so the Messianic 
 
134 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 with its bright glory, cheerfulness, and joj, and yet 
 would hold fast the Old with its more gloomy constraint, 
 and thus join together elements incompatible and neces- 
 sarily repugnant to each other. 
 
 With the disciples of John He came, on this almost 
 solitary occasion, into a somewhat closer contact : other- 
 wise He plainly took care to keep from strife these two 
 shoots, still so weak, of the same noble stem, and 
 suffered, even after the Baptist's imprisonment, the 
 working of his disciples along with his own : only rarely 
 did the followers of these two schools (see above) come 
 into controversy. But the remaining schools of the time 
 reproached Him, as well in his life as in his works, with 
 downright offences of all sorts against the daily practice 
 of the established laws. On one sabbath, perhaps four- 
 teen days after Easter, when some of the first crops 
 (barley especially) might be standing ripe, his disciples, 
 in walking through them, plucked some ears for imme- 
 diate eating. The Law allowed this to a hungry man 
 (die Alterthiimer, s. 213), but the Pharisees reproached 
 Him for this as a breach against that most holy special 
 law, which commanded to take nothing required for 
 eating on the sabbath, but to have everything prepared 
 for it beforehand. He refuted them then as well from 
 examples out of history, as from the thing itself. The 
 sabbath is for man, not man for the sabbath : man was 
 not made merely to serve the sabbath as a supreme 
 moral law, in no single case to be broken, as he must 
 serve God ; He told them too what want of charity it 
 shewed to condemn innocent men ; that Messiah as such 
 
XIX.] OPPOSITION AND ENMITY OF THE WORLD. 135 
 
 is empowered to remove even the rigidity of the existing 
 law when it would overthrow the highest divine duties 
 of compassion and love. When one now examines all 
 reproaches made against Him by the world, and which 
 seem now to have taken such fixed and definite form 
 that nothing strictly new was added in the time yet 
 remaining of his public activity, there were essentially 
 only two subjects at which the existing spiritual power 
 could take offence, according to the laws of the true 
 religion as then understood and applied. For that his 
 aims were Messianic, and that He spoke of the fulfilment 
 of the kingdom of God, nay, even (as was by degrees* 
 commonly known) did not wholly reject fealty to the 
 Messiah when it freely met Him, all this could not seri- 
 ously be objected against Him, for the hope of the Messiah 
 belonged to the treasure of all Israel's consecrated hopes ; 
 and besides, every one saw He would set up no common 
 kingdom. If the whole undertaking of his public work, 
 as He carried it out, had been completely revolutionary 
 in this community of the true religion which might not 
 renounce the spiritual power, then assuredly it would 
 not have been so long tolerated. It was then only first- 
 ly the forgiveness of sins at which (see above, in this 
 chapter) legal offence could be taken. But where the 
 Law expressly enjoined certain offerings for one to be 
 cleansed (as for example for a leper) , Jesus in the case of 
 one healed by Him always urged the fulfilment of the 
 legal duty. Again, spiritual assurance and consolation 
 might be given to each other by all members of the true 
 religion according to its fundamental laws : and the 
 
136 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 wholly new peculiar way in which Jesus offered it was 
 consistent with his Messianic beginning, which no one 
 could check. Here too then, in spite of all ill-will, no 
 proper occasion could he found for legal punishment. 
 
 It was, in the second place, especially the laws on the 
 sabbath, in their then minute development, against which 
 the scribes learnt to watch for slips on his part. And 
 we must allow that this was the point most open to 
 attack. The sabbath had become, since the founding of 
 the community of the true religion, their most peculiar 
 and highest sacrament, afterwards in these late times, in 
 accordance with their whole spirit, had been most pain- 
 fully elaborated, and was regarded as the proper token 
 of a true Jew, to be shewn forth in every part of the 
 world. But just because in this law, as it was then 
 treated, the whole perverted elaboration of the true 
 religion culminated as it were in one point, Christ might 
 here least of all follow the prejudices and dangerous 
 traditions of the schoolmen : and thus on this very sub- 
 ject a number of disputes arose, which, springing doubt- 
 less from other much weightier causes, became ever more 
 decided, and of which the whole history of His public 
 working is full. 
 
 St. Mark relates a similar event, which had worse 
 consequences, and for the first time shewed him quite 
 plainly what fearful rage had already gathered against 
 Him among his enemies in Galilee. Once, when He re- 
 turned to Capernahum from one of his Galilsean tours 
 and had gone into the synagogue on the sabbath, there 
 appeared before Him, begging help, a man with a badly 
 
XIX.] OPPOSITION AND ENMITY OF THE WORLD. 137 
 
 twisted and withered hand : but He remarked how the 
 Pharisees, already watching Him, were noticing whether 
 He, in spite of their repeated admonitions, would on that 
 day again desecrate the sabbath by healing, that is, in 
 their view, by a work. So He the more made the 
 petitioner come quite openly before their eyes, asked 
 them whether to do good and save, or the contrary, is 
 forbidden on the sabbath, was strongly indignant against 
 them, as they, in their embitterment and hardness of 
 heart which had long grown in secret against Him, 
 would never answer his natural questions, and threatened 
 Him with public accusation before the council of the 
 synagogue if He still persisted in healing ; He then at 
 once healed the man's hand, seized with compassion for 
 him, with deep sorrow for them. But the Pharisees now 
 departed at once with open hostility, and it was soon 
 found that they, with their enemies the Herodians, were 
 devising a plan to destroy Him. The Pharisees, proud 
 ol their moral purity and observance of the Law, from 
 whose midst had proceeded the Zealots abhorring every 
 human kingdom (oben Judas der Gaulonaer), who were 
 always in danger of merging into them again, now united 
 with those who before were their direct opponents, with 
 the morally lax Herodians, who were well disposed to 
 the king and flattered the house of Herod; and this 
 merely because these were in Galilee then powerful 
 enough to destroy Him, whose nature must seem to them 
 every week more inexplicable and alarming. 
 
 This first outbreak of plain mortal enmity followed 
 perhaps late in the summer of this year : probably this 
 
138 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 was now a principal purpose of his visit to Jerusalem to 
 the Feast of Tabernacles (above spoken of), that during 
 it the irritated fury of his Galilgean enemies might some- 
 what abate. But in Jerusalem, also, He was, in spite 
 of all reserve, entangled in the very similar dispute on 
 sabbath -breaking described in the last chapter : and this 
 also concluded with the same embittering of the men of 
 the Law, so that these, here too, formed plans for de- 
 stroying Him. In both halves of the Jewish country, 
 then. He was openly threatened with the danger of de- 
 struction in the world, in spite of all wise foresight and 
 reserve : and as He might be charged^ unlike John the 
 Baptist, with blasphemy against the Highest, a violent 
 end was easy to be foreseen by Himself. Probably at 
 Jerusalem there followed thus early the suspension over 
 Him of the lesser excommunication, or thrusting out of 
 the synagogue, under the pretence that He by breaking 
 the sabbath had made Himself unworthy to teach or 
 appear in the synagogue. It was the mildest penalty 
 which they thought in Jerusalem they could now apply 
 against Him ; and under this there was concealed for 
 the present the deadly hatred which gathered against 
 him in Jerusalem. That the Pharisees, in fact, somewhat 
 about this time carried such a measure, and first indeed 
 in Jerusalem, St. John's Gospel intimates very clearly ; 
 and the proceeding is quite in accordance with the 
 further unravelling of the now tangled skein of this 
 whole history. 
 
 The measure doubtless appeared to its originators 
 tolerably mild. The lesser excommunication was only 
 
XTX.] EXCOMMUNICATION OF CHRIST. 139 
 
 for a single synagogue, as we see that Jesus some time 
 after this appeared in the Galilean synagogues : it could, 
 besides, after some time be again removed. Still it was 
 quite hard enough for Jesus, such as they deemed Him, 
 because they knew how much He had hitherto discoursed 
 and worked in the synagogues, and how much He liked 
 this public activity. Add too, that the example once 
 given by the synagogue of the capital might likely be 
 imitated by the others. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The New Attitude of the Messiah towaeds the 
 
 World, 
 
 It was however, in fact, not his own death which Christ 
 feared or in any way tried to avoid ; nor did his spirit 
 now for the first time recognise and dread its necessity : 
 for, from the first commencement of his Messianic work- 
 ing He must have made Himself familiar with this 
 thought. The only thing which He had now every 
 reason to fear, was the premature interruption and de- 
 struction of his work in the world : for this had now 
 been begun right earnestly, but was yet far from com- 
 pletion, too far at least for Him to remove from it as yet 
 his earthly hand. But one thing had been unmistake- 
 ably taught by the course of the last year: that the 
 world, as it then was, would not suffer either Him or 
 much more his work, nay, was resolved to crush it in the 
 bud. Hence, if He would not suffer this his work to be 
 overthrown by it, when it was yet hardly grounded, He 
 must put it now in quite a different attitude towards the 
 world, in order to ground it uushakeably in the world, 
 in spite of his too probable violent death. And the 
 right means thereto could not be doubted. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHEISt's KINGDOM. 141 
 
 His work was the founding and active commence- 
 ment of the perfect kingdom of God, by the forming 
 a community to close in round Him as its founder and 
 visible head. 
 
 This community had to be made from its commence- 
 ment quite different from that of the existing true 
 religion : for that this, as it then was, was past mending, 
 and therefore, whether earlier or later, was devoted to 
 destruction, He had been taught as plainly as possible 
 by the experience of the past year : and this stood, if 
 before none other, yet before his spirit, fixed as a divine 
 necessity. And yet it was, as experience had likewise 
 sufficiently taught, properly only the heads of the exist- 
 ing Church of the true God, or rather, to express it more 
 precisely, only that tendency became dominant in it, 
 which could not endure the undisturbed beginning, much 
 less the happy progress of his work ; and which, because 
 it had a dim consciousness of having been by Him 
 wounded to death, began seriously to think of his ruin. 
 
 But, in truth, this tendency in it, now wholly domi- 
 nant, had not thus by accident or temporarily arrived at 
 this absolute rule : it lay of old wrapped up in the in- 
 completeness of the whole ancient Church ; but had at 
 length, after so many other changes in this the Primitive 
 Church, as one of those tendencies most deeply wrapped 
 up in it, arrived at its most complete form and attained 
 absolute rule ; and now, as the most dangerous impulsive 
 power concealed in it, had become so despotic and 
 irresistible, that its maintenance was the condition of 
 that of the whole existing Church, and its fall threatened 
 
142 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 to drag down with it the Church of all true religion. If 
 then it was only one particular tendency in the existing 
 Church of the true God, though that arrived at absolute 
 power, which was now threatened with death by Christ's 
 work, and not, properly speaking, that Church itself 
 with its fulness of eternal truths and strength, now, it is 
 true, clouded over and obscured, without which the 
 Messiah could never have appeared and worked : it 
 followed that this his own new Church, when He had to 
 establish it for the living and enduring instruments of 
 this kingdom, must be founded, not without the ancient 
 Church, but in and out of its midst. Only in it were 
 the living stones already furnished, which might form 
 the firm corner-stones and pillars of this new structure ; 
 nay. He had already, unobserved, formed them for Him- 
 self on this old holy ground, and could now at the right 
 time choose them as they best fitted. When once this 
 as a providential necessity was present to his spirit, the 
 consequence must be that his whole work must take 
 up a new position and tendency. He must now draw 
 about Him a small and very close, but yet large enough 
 circle of disciples ; for within this and for this, that work, 
 which was the Idea of his whole life and working, was 
 now to be carried on by Him with, if possible, yet in- 
 tenser ardour and power. If the world was yet too dark, 
 and the ancient Church of the true God too weak as well, 
 to receive his Spirit immediately into them, He must for 
 that reason work with more simplicity and power, to plant 
 it in full life, and naturalized in the circle of a new 
 Church of the same true God, to be drawn closely around 
 
XX.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRIST's KINGDOM. 143 
 
 Him ; that hereafter at the right time it might burst 
 forth from the narrow limits in which it must first find 
 refuge, in order to find a firm hold on the earth, and 
 irresistibly spread over the universe. 
 
 And hence now, for the first time, the whole activity 
 of Christ developes itself to its full stature and majesty : 
 when thus openly threatened by the world, and in con- 
 stant view of this declared open opposition, with all 
 the more certainty and clearness does the Imperishable 
 stablish itself, invincible by the whole world ; and amid 
 the ever-growing straitening from without and limita- 
 tion from within, it becomes the most ardent and warm, 
 but also the most mighty and victorious which the world 
 has ever seen. It was, so to speak, by accident that 
 Jesus now took just twelve of his disciples into his con- 
 stant closer confidence, and formed them to be the found- 
 ation of the New Church : He could not have chosen 
 a much smaller number, for in every community, however 
 small it be at first, there must be a certain manifoldness 
 in its impulses and actions, if it is to endure and grow. 
 But always with Him the Spirit's free action and pro- 
 vidential necessity are in the most wonderful unison, the 
 one always harmonising with the other ; and so was it 
 here. 
 
 Among these twelve — a number of old holy in Israel 
 for all peoples and communities, relations and employ- 
 ments, (as is sufficiently shewn in the earlier volumes of 
 the Author's History), a number which naturally recalled 
 the early beginnings and the eternal importance of Israel — 
 there had thus, in the midst of the ancient Church, been 
 
144 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 laid the smallest and yet the sufficient and firmest ground 
 of a new Church, in which the old itself, though it 
 should fall, could yet rise again with new strength and 
 youth, as it were with the indestructible might of a 
 second immortal life. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Founding of the Christian Church. 
 
 As shewn above, it might have been late autumn when 
 Jesus resolved to take up this new position. He was 
 then just come back from the feast days in Jerusalem, 
 and now resorted again, first with his older disciples, to 
 the lake country of Galilee. But there was already ac- 
 companying Him a constantly increasing crowd, even 
 out of Judah and Jerusalem whence He had come, and 
 out of Idumaea in the furthest south, as well as from the 
 neighbouring Phoenicia in the extreme north-west, and 
 from the regions beyond Jordan. Here He continued 
 his earlier daily work, as it was above described ; con- 
 stantly so wonderfully besieged and thronged, that He 
 commissioned his four first disciples to keep a small 
 vessel ready on the lake, that He, at least for some 
 moments, might remain more solitary and independent. 
 It was assuredly chiefly sympathy with the crowd, which 
 moved Him, after his return, first to give Himself again 
 wholly up to his earlier days' work of ministering to the 
 sufferers of all kinds who waited for Him. 
 
 But He seized the first moment suitable to carry out 
 
 L 
 
146 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 what He had discerned to be his now higher providential 
 work. Even in earlier times, when He would have 
 a somewhat longer time for Himself, He used to retire 
 to a range of hills, which stretched to the west from the 
 lake of Galilee, and which would not he too far from 
 Capernahum. To this quieter solitude He resorted again, 
 but invited this time those twelve to accompany Him, 
 who henceforth were to form around Him the exclusive 
 circle of a community. He doubtless knew these on the 
 whole, at that time, more intimately; and chose, from 
 a much larger circle of those who would have been 
 just as ready to follow Him in all his wishes, these only 
 because they seemed to Him the best adapted for the 
 higher end which He now saw before Him. 
 
 The acquaintance and the motives which guided the 
 Saviour in the selection of disciples have already been 
 discussed under many aspects. Many met Him volun- 
 tarily, many He encouraged by his own call ; no one was 
 kept by Him, whom his own freest choice did not attach 
 to Him. As He became continually better known and 
 more renowned, his cause seemed, at least in some 
 obscure future, to promise imagined benefits of all kinds : 
 many constantly streamed to Him with a request for 
 closer participation in his work ; but no one discerned at 
 once so truly the deeper motive of the would-be follower, 
 nor so strictly with the most suitable reply rejected un- 
 suitable requests and their perverted views. The oldest 
 Gospel narrative puts together three examples of this 
 sort, which may serve for all. To a learned man who 
 offered to follow Him everywhere. He shewed the great 
 
XXI.] THE NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS INCREASES. 147 
 
 dangers of following the man who on earth had not where 
 to lay his head ; and thus indeed extinguished for ever 
 the too quickly kindled fire of the learned man, who was 
 probably used to worldly honour and comfort. 
 
 To another, whose zeal was plainly more earnest, but 
 who asked for leave to first bury his father who had just 
 died, He replied, the dead had their own province, and 
 kind, and care ; he might let the dead bury their own 
 dead, but himself at once, without further worldly care 
 and encumbrance, as well as without putting off and 
 delay, be active for the kingdom of God. Here is no 
 death, and no vain care for the dead ; here all is living, 
 and that life must be communicated ; and thus He cer- 
 tainly excited this good man, who had yet only some 
 smaller scruples to overcome, to the bold venture, the 
 more resolutely to live wholly to proclaim the truth and 
 work for it alone. To a third, who, when asked by Him 
 if he would follow Him, replied, requesting that he might 
 be allowed first to say good-bye to those he had at home. 
 He rejoined that no one who, as it were, lays his hand 
 to the plough and yet looks backward, who thus is a half 
 man at willing and working, is fit for God's kingdom : 
 through this solemn reprimand He was doubtless quit of 
 a follower who would have joined Him, yet not with all 
 his heart. 
 
 Thus grew and thus melted away the number of his 
 more independent followers. And if an old tradition 
 fixes at seventy the number of those who adhered to Him 
 more truly, and, though constantly remaining loosely 
 bound to Him, would gladly have followed Him every- 
 
148 LIFE OP JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 where, the calculation may be approximately correct. 
 But the formation of the number of such disciples, and 
 its somewhat more particular introduction into the Gospel 
 narrative, belongs to a rather later period of this depart- 
 ment of narrative and literature. It is quite otherwise 
 with the twelve, whose singularly high importance, as 
 well in the older Gospels as in St. John, and elsewhere 
 in the early Christian literature is so prominent, and 
 first in St. Luke, is thrown somewhat in the background 
 behind those named by him the seventy. These twelve 
 were chosen first from out the wide circle of disciples, 
 and must have been taken more closely than any one 
 else into Jesus' closest intimacy and confidence. To 
 them He would impart his whole spirit and let it over- 
 flow into them in most absolute fulness, so far as a living 
 teacher and leader can do this towards his nearest dis- 
 ciples and friends. All the deep insight and peaceful 
 serenity, but also all the sublimity, of the indescribable 
 flight of his spirit should become theirs ; all the inex- 
 haustible activity of his saving love should be their 
 sweet life's solace, ilnd because all this can only be 
 reached through discipline and self-trial. He would, as 
 soon as possible. Himself send them out as companions 
 in his own work, that they might learn to advance God's 
 kingdom, as well by preaching and teaching as by the 
 power of active healing and deliverance, and might 
 accustom themselves also even without his immediate 
 presence so to live and to work as if He were continually 
 among them : nay, more, this their mission for working 
 by themselves for God's kingdom must have been in his 
 
XXI.] SELECTION OF THE TWELVE. 149 
 
 mind a principal cause of their appointment, so that He 
 doubtless Himself distinguished them from the other 
 disciples by the name Apostles. But, in so far as they 
 before all and in all, whether gathered round Him, or on 
 his commissions far from Him, wherever they might be 
 active seemed to form a closer circle round Him as their 
 teacher and guide, a circle drawn close not only by love 
 to Him and his work but also by fidelity and faith. He 
 formed in them the foundation of a new community, 
 which, small and weak as it was at first, might yet 
 become the irreversible beginning of an eternal Church 
 of the perfected true religion, to embrace the whole 
 world. 
 
 The goodness, capacity for instruction, and endurance 
 of the several members of the twelve, was hence in great 
 measure the first point : and the whole of the following 
 history shews how little Christ was mistaken in their 
 selection. He had to select them from the circle of his 
 existing disciples, and this was already provided for 
 Him. He evidently chose in preference his first dis- 
 ciples, whom He had the longest trusted more closely, 
 in so far as they seemed to Him suited for their new dif- 
 ficult calling ; and in addition to them, from those who had 
 followed Him somewhat more recently, such as He had 
 noticed as the most willing and able. He looked in this 
 not to earlier position, nor to means and other externals ; 
 not even to marriage or celibacy, for Peter had before 
 been married ; probably also one or two more, certainly 
 not all. That they were taken less from the learned 
 class, resulted from the then quite perverted tone and 
 
150 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 position of that class. As the Messiah and his work 
 could least proceed from the then dominant schools, 
 officials, and authorities, onlj from the deepest soil of 
 the whole ancient Church, which alone had remained 
 freer from the errors of the time and more receptive of 
 the eternal truths and hopes of Israel ; so it was in this 
 quarry that He found the first fitting stones and pillars 
 for his new Church. Several of the twelve, as shewn 
 above, had been in the school of the Baptist ; another 
 came out of the school of the Zealots, as his second name 
 Kananaos probably shews ; and, according to the exist- 
 ing primal constitution of Israel, all its members indiffer- 
 ently had free access to all the deepest truths and the 
 highest aims of the new Church. Of the power and 
 privileges of the old priestly stock, of long time only 
 some remains of little importance for the higher spiritual 
 life had been preserved : the old tribe of Levi itself, never 
 too sharply severed from the rest of the people, had long 
 been almost merged in the rest of the people : yet there 
 were even from the race of the priests (Chap. VII.) some 
 among the twelve. So too the twelve were on the 
 whole without much property, yet some of them in- 
 herited (as e. g. the sons of Zebedee) comfortable means, 
 and the toll-collector, Matthew, had been as such cer- 
 tainly not a poor man. 
 
 Every one from that circle became a man whose 
 name among men has never been lost, and whose memory 
 in after times spread ever more widely in the great world. 
 Yet among them also great differences soon shewed them- 
 selves, according as either Christ Himself more dis- 
 
XXI.] THE CATALOGUES OF THE TWELVE. 151 
 
 tinguislied individuals among tliem, either as being his 
 oldest friends, or also, as the result shewed better, the 
 measure of their activity and fidelity. Thus was formed 
 pretty early, in the age wliich we have accustomed our- 
 selves to call from them the Apostolic, a definite circle, 
 in which men loved to number the twelve after their 
 names, and in which they loved also to add the second 
 names by which some were wont to be denoted, according 
 to distinguishing names given by Christ Himself. This 
 numbering of the twelve in order remained fixed in its 
 essential features ; only smaller differences were allowed 
 in it. At the head were named constantly the two pairs 
 of brothers who were the first disciples, and had besides 
 remained very close friends of Christ. But among these 
 agaip, Simon, surnamed Cephas or Peter, was put first : 
 by age, calm firmness and decision, by readiness too in 
 word and spirit, distinguished not only among men but 
 also by a peculiar trust of Christ Himself in him, he soon 
 ranked as primus inter pares, and continued to preserve 
 this willing deference from his companions in the sequel 
 also. Immediately in connection with him was often 
 named his younger brother Andrew, who also remained 
 constantly in more close union with Jesus and had freer 
 access to Him. Yet it was preferred to insert between 
 the names of these two brothers the other two brothers, 
 the sons of Zebedee, of whom John the younger espe- 
 cially was accounted the Lord's favourite, while he him- 
 self gave constantly the precedence to his brother, and 
 both together were regarded as very close friends of the 
 Lord. Both being unmarried, but accompanied by their 
 
152 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 equally zealous mother (on whom see Chap. VII.), were 
 the most fiery amongst these four ; but Christ once stilled 
 their too violent zeal by addressing them with the name, 
 not afterwards to be soon forgotten, of " sons of thunder," 
 instead of naming them after their father who was already 
 dead, "sons of Zebedee" : probably it was on that 
 occasion, of which we are informed by the earliest Gospel 
 narrative, when they wished in a village of the Samaritans 
 to bring down fire from heaven on its inhospitable in- 
 habitants. He might then at the moment with ad- 
 mirable truth address them, " ye sons of thunder, know 
 ye not of what spirit ye are?" not, that is, of such 
 a thunder spirit as you are constantly shewing, but of 
 quite another, which I have taught you and which you 
 should better understand. The eight remaining it, was 
 early learnt to divide into groups, four in each : and the 
 same Apostle was constantly put at the head of each of 
 these two groups, while the places of the rest in their 
 groups was somewhat uncertain. The four which were 
 constantly placed together after the first group, ap- 
 parently ranged themselves, in goodwill and other ex- 
 cellence, next to the first four. Philip, who is constantly 
 placed at their head, was likewise among the earliest 
 disciples (Chap. XII.), and is mentioned elsewhere, also 
 as distinguished, although as somewhat slow in his con- 
 ceptions. Bartholomew, who is always named in the 
 second place, and is the Nathaniel described at greater 
 length Chap. XII., was added as the first born of 
 the disciples on Galilsean ground. Matthew, who here 
 occupies the third place, is only somewhat better known 
 
xxij THE CATALOGUES OF THE TWELVE. 153 
 
 to US through the Gospel named after him : he was 
 according to this a publican, and his calling is told so 
 similarly to that of Levi son of Alphseus (Chap. XVII.), 
 that his name was actually inserted in the Gospel named 
 after him in place of the corresponding account of Levi ; 
 doubtless because the last composer of this Gospel was 
 well instructed as to his position, and thought it worth 
 to be principally attributed to him, somewhat better 
 while to make the readers also of that Gospel, which is 
 acquainted with his circumstances. The man of honour, 
 but somewhat hard to convince of higher things, — 
 Thomas, or as his name was translated into Greek 
 Didymos, who in the old lists closes the group of these 
 four, but after repeated revision of the whole list of the 
 Twelve goes up to the third, nay, even the second place, 
 — was from many evidences one of the oldest disciples. 
 
 We know, comparatively, least of the four of the last 
 group, amongst whom Judah, Simon's son, commonly 
 called from his birthplace " the man of Karioth," as the 
 subsequent traitor, occupies the last place. Where 
 womanly forethought and help were wanted, several 
 women were glad to render them ; some, relatives of the 
 members of the company, some, more independently 
 connected with them, but all giving their services quite 
 freely, simply as led by the higher love to the one 
 common object : among them some were plainly better 
 off, who joyfully offered their whole worldly substance 
 to the higher cause of Christ. But neither the brethren 
 of Jesus nor his mother formed part, even of a less in- 
 timate band of the community, though they also did not 
 
154 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 remain quite indifferent to his proceedings and his for- 
 tunes. 
 
 But the Twelve themselves had already given up all 
 worldly hopes for the sake of the one end, which Jesus 
 explained to them as that of the kingdom of God : of this 
 they might boast ; and the community which, keeping in 
 sight only their heavenly goal and subordinating to it all 
 earthly blessings, came forward in the Apostolic time, 
 was in plan and idea already really in the world. 
 
 Such however are only the outlines of this com- 
 munity, as it gradually formed itself. Within it Christ 
 was now, on the wider and more general basis w^hich He 
 had already laid, to lay a second and at the same time 
 more finished foundation for his life-work. The labour 
 at this work must now, if in extent probably more 
 limited, in substance be all the more delicate and weary- 
 ing: it was to provide a body in which his own spirit 
 might work on in the world even when He Himself 
 should be removed from it. 
 
 And this period of the highest intensity of his labour 
 lasted, as will be shewn below, only about a year and 
 a half. The world's tooth might indeed gnaw already 
 even at this tenderest germ of a true community of the 
 perfected religion, so soon as it took a somewhat more 
 settled form : all which, as a visible institution and out- 
 ward body goes forth into the world, be it never so 
 divine, and first kindled and formed by the purest spirit 
 from above, must at once have imposed on it the limita- 
 tion of space, number, and bodily conditions of all sorts. 
 Twelve, no more and no fewer, were to comprise this 
 
XXI.] Christ's varied labours. 155 
 
 circle : are they on being chosen insured against tempta- 
 tion as the community expands ? and money, subordinate 
 as it is here, cannot be entirely dispensed with : are they 
 all constantly protected against its attractions, as well as 
 against a hundred other attractions ever newly appear- 
 ing ? But we must now first see, what is far more im- 
 portant, how the Saviour Himself laid in fact in detail 
 the foundation, far more delicate and difficult to lay, of 
 his life-work. 
 
 In conclusion, it need hardly be said that Jesus, in 
 spite of the education of the twelve being necessarily now 
 his grand object, did not for that cease to labour for the 
 whole multitude, nor did He intermit anything which 
 He could do in the wider circle in teaching and healing. 
 Towards the whole multitude He remained always the 
 same : only his own activity must now be doubled, in 
 order in two kinds of day's work at once to pursue the 
 same end which He had set Himself from the beginning. 
 Indeed, in order to teach the twelve rightly how they 
 also must work among the people, and thus fashion them 
 into his true disciples and continuers of his own work, 
 He could not cease during this whole period to work for 
 the multitude also, and that too as far as possible and 
 desirable before the eyes of the twelve, and not weary in 
 further enlarging the first layer, and constantly stablish- 
 ing it anew, on which He would now lay a second. 
 Thus one of the present aims of his life crossed with the 
 other, and nothing which was done for the one was 
 without fruit for the other. 
 
 To avoid however the notice of the world must seem 
 to Him now still more necessary than before. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Higher TEACHiNa on the Kingdom of God 
 AND His Earthly Community. 
 
 When we now survey all which was done by Christ, in 
 the course of perhaps a year and a-half, towards his 
 present great object, as it is told us by the most exact 
 accounts we can command, we must admire not only 
 what He did, but also liow^ and the gradual way of his 
 doing it. We are, it is true, now little able to dis- 
 tinguish in detail the many discourses and teachings, 
 as well as the rich abundance of deeds and adventures 
 found side by side with them, so as to describe each in 
 its exact order of time ; although we shall see that even 
 here we are not wanting in all data for knowing as a 
 whole the course in time of this manifold activity of 
 Christ in its intensity. But it may safely be assumed 
 that the behaviour of Jesus to the twelve, as well as his 
 deeds and experience, in this period, sketched roughly 
 and as a whole, developed itself in its connection as St. 
 Mark first attempted to describe it. So soon as Jesus 
 saw Himself surrounded by the twelve, his first business 
 must be to communicate to them in respect of both the 
 
XXII.] THE INSTEUCTION OF THE TWELVE. 157 
 
 inner and the outer side of God's kingdom, that more 
 definite and higher instruction which alone was capable 
 of accustoming them gradually to work aright for God's 
 kingdom. It was necessary that there should be a time 
 in which this higher teaching in such smaller circle 
 should become his most important daily work ; and He, 
 in the midst of his other working, with most pleasure 
 and most necessity, took every opportunity for this : 
 this was however the first time — this time of his greater 
 intimacy with the twelve — in which He could venture to 
 let them also take a more independent share in his life- 
 work. More express instruction on the nature and the 
 duties of the Church of the perfected religion, was thus, 
 now again, the first and most necessary point. This 
 Church He was fully resolved to found as soon as He 
 chose the twelve, and it was already existent so soon as 
 they followed Him as their Lord and King leading them 
 to God : only in such a community could the richest 
 seed for the Kingdom of God grow up and promise fruit. 
 What the perfected true religion is in itself, and especi- 
 ally in its relation to that then taught in Israel, and which 
 pleaded in its support some passages from Holy Scrip- 
 ture, and what it demands ; and secondly, what virtues 
 are the right means of maintaining the high spiritual 
 life demanded by it, — these must be the two great sub- 
 jects of this instruction, as well as the way of applying 
 these to such disciples as had advanced above the lower 
 stages of knowledge, and were resolved themselves to 
 work with the Messiah Himself more immediately for 
 God's kingdom. When Jesus accordingly took with 
 
158 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Him the twelve whom He had chosen up the "Mount" 
 with Him, whither He had long preferred to resort alone, 
 it is quite probable that He here also immediately gave 
 Himself to the instruction of the new community on such 
 fundamental truths, and continued some time so doing. 
 The " Sermon on the Mount" has accordingly its true 
 historical meaning, to which is due the peculiar import- 
 ance given it in the Gospel narrative ; it contains al- 
 though with something of artificial animation and 
 structure, yet certainly an abundance of such truths 
 as sounded then for the first time, and could not after- 
 wards be heard again. It treats, strictly speaking, of 
 the double subject only, spoken of above, but is intro- 
 duced like a true address of welcome, and concludes 
 with a short pregnant glance into the future with its 
 temptation and trial. St. Mark had given it at this 
 place, as we have the strongest reason for believing, 
 though perhaps, as usual, more briefly ; but unfortunately 
 at this very place in his Gospel the great hiatus has 
 been left by the last editor which we now cannot restore 
 (chap. iii. v. 19). If however it stood originally quite 
 at the beginning of St. Matthew's collection of dis- 
 courses (" Sprachsammlung") we can the more easily 
 understand how the last composer of the present first 
 Gospel could give it a place so prominent, that it 
 appears the first express saying of all which Jesus 
 uttered; which can only be explained by the fact of 
 people having gradually accustomed themselves to look 
 on the whole period with the choice of the twelve, in 
 which certainly Christ's activity culminated as almost 
 
XXII.] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 159 
 
 the whole of his active life. Just as (Chap. X.) the 
 memory of the first of the three periods of the entire 
 public activity is almost totally lost in the Gospel of 
 St. Mark, and by St. John first was again more clearly 
 separated 5 so too the second of these stages in Christ's 
 history (Chap. III.) began to be obscured and mixed 
 up with the third as the principal period : this is very 
 noticeable in the present first Gospel, whilst St. Luke 
 has escaped much better from this mixing up of facts. 
 
 This explains the fact of this discourse, which as 
 delivered, at least in some of its principal sayings, can 
 only be intended for the closer circle of disciples, or (to 
 speak more precisely) for those only already ranking as 
 members of the new community, appearing in the present 
 Gospel of St. Matthew (Matt. vii. 28) and similarly in 
 St. Luke, as one heard by the whole multitude ; so that, 
 in short, it was quite in keeping when St. Luke de- 
 scribes it as delivered after Jesus had descended from 
 the Mount, " upon a plain," when many hundreds might 
 easily hear it. When once the community of the per- 
 fect religion is in existence,- God's kingdom is already 
 constantly preparing itself within it with much greater 
 power than when his King (Messiah) first walked quite 
 alone on this earth, without having around Him any fixed 
 close band of adherents and companions. If the Saviour 
 had, immediately on the first commencement of his public 
 working, to proclaim at once the speedy coming, nay 
 the actual commencement, of God's kingdom upon earth; 
 now that a more definite way was opened for sharing in 
 it, and a more intimate experience of it was possible. He 
 
160 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 could discourse on it with a zeal quite new, and declare 
 its nature. And He had to speak on it continually to 
 the multitude as well ; for He must at the commencement 
 speak to them of the same subject — it was, in fine, the 
 one great subject on which He had constantly to speak : 
 He could then, when in the already existing community 
 of the perfect religion a firmer commencement had 
 been made for advancing it on earth, speak of it with 
 more exalted plainness, joy, and hope. But God's 
 kingdom was with Him, even after the true and enduring 
 beginning had been made, only one continually in for- 
 mation though tending to its completion ; never occupy- 
 ing the whole Present, because before all spiritual and 
 heavenly. Thus Futurity and the ideal engrossed his 
 spirit, in its striving to express in thought and speech 
 more accurately what only the spirit's eye can behold, 
 but which it must seize with as much certainty as though 
 it were present to the eye of sense. But where this 
 domain of the inner sense predominates, there the spirit, 
 deeply drawing it in and with beautiful clearness 
 and easy abundance applying it, transforms its several 
 intuitions into the most admirable images and pictures 
 of actual life ; and just so did Jesus love to represent his 
 intuitions on the toilsome beginning, often disappointing, 
 yet not to be entered on in a murmuring spirit, the after 
 all joyful progress and the inestimable value of the 
 Kingdom of God, representing it to the multitude in 
 parables just as true as attractive. We cannot say that 
 the Saviour composed these parables merely for the 
 sake of the multitude; rather, many of the truest in- 
 
XXII.] THE PARABLES OF THE GOSPELS. 161 
 
 tuitions, can be no otherwise expressed so shortly and 
 truly : but He was fond of speaking to the multitude on 
 such subjects in rich abundance and attractive gracious- 
 ness, if perchance many a one might be attracted by the 
 parable to think deeper for himself on the hidden mean- 
 ing. But that this hidden meaning was to be revealed 
 to the disciples, whether they themselves asked for it or 
 not, need not be said : with them it was all-important 
 that their conception of the truths themselves should be 
 sound and correct on the basis of which alone such in- 
 tuitions and images can be raised, and none of them 
 was to be left without an independent insight into these 
 simple truths. The beauty and completeness of many 
 simple parables which Jesus had uttered, doubtless led 
 on and attracted the disciples later, as they recalled them, 
 to exhaust more completely their sacred meanings, and 
 explain them in Christ's own sense : we still see this 
 from those preserved in the Gospels. For a string of 
 such parables — seven in number, of some length, which 
 the Saviour once, speaking from a vessel in the lake of 
 Galilee, had delivered to the people in St. Matthew's 
 " Sprachsammlung" — has been admitted as a counter- 
 part of the Sermon on the Mount: but although St. 
 Mark, and still more th5 last composer of St. Matthew's 
 Gospel, drew primarily from the same source, yet the 
 parables and their meanings are given in the two with 
 considerable differences. Between the flow of such 
 lessons on the building up of the Kingdom of God in 
 the community, and the actual first founding of it, an 
 interval of some length must however have elapsed. For 
 
 M 
 
162 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 the first lessons presuppose the commencement and the 
 growth of this in a definite, sometimes smaller, some- 
 times wider field ; and already speak, from a fulness of 
 the most varied experiences, on the nature of this higher 
 manifestation only seen' in flashes of intuition. Christ 
 must, further, continually return as soon as possible to 
 the wider circle of his full activity, and work on in it 
 with all his power. It is then quite in harmony with 
 the development of the whole history, that St. Mark, 
 between these two grand divisions of the higher teaching 
 on the inner nature, and its fundamental condition (i. e. 
 how the perfect religion is to rule in the true Church), 
 and on the sublime history of God's kingdom, inserts 
 a more narrative portion, in which we see Christ, after 
 his descent from the Mount to Capernahum, at work 
 after his earlier manner : for St. Mark likes in such 
 cases, by stringing together narratives alike in idea, to 
 lay before us a picture of an entire portion of the great 
 manifestation true to history. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 The Relation between the Lord of the New 
 Church and Men and Spirits. 
 
 St. Mark's design in his way of grouping incidents 
 together is particularly observable in the picture he 
 presents to us of Christ's doubled energy, power, and 
 esteem in the world, and at the same time of his re- 
 doubled exhausting activity in it with all its suspicion, 
 and its good-natured perhaps but unworthy, on one 
 hand, its malicious notions on the other : for now, just 
 at the commencement of his new position, his activity 
 must be most intense and powerful. His spirit being 
 now doubly active, doubly energetic, and doubly power- 
 ful, the evil spirits fly, it is true, more helplessly from 
 before Him ; but so much the more mysterious and 
 obscure does his own spirit also appear to men of the 
 most various descriptions and most different positions 
 towards Him. The first half of this double truth, which 
 the history of Christ collectively had taught, and which 
 was to be continually proved most strongly during this 
 period of his activity, is taught us in the account of how 
 the evil spirits, who tormented the son of a heathen 
 
164 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 centurion in Capernalium, fled from before Christ's pre- 
 sence, when He came down from the Mount where He 
 had been founding his Church. We saw however that 
 this particular story in St. John's more exact recollection 
 falls properly at a much earlier time ; a time, however, 
 when Christ likewise, after a longer absence and driven 
 as it were by a spirit of higher experience, was return- 
 ing to Capernahum. But when once in the narrative 
 the story had been shifted to this later date, to a time 
 when the community had already been formed; then, 
 quite in keeping with the exalted state of Christ's spirit, 
 there was appended to it very appropriately the words 
 in which Christ's spirit, delighted at such belief in 
 a heathen, had divined that heathen as a whole rather 
 than Jews would come to God's kingdom. If the 
 Church of the perfect religion is in existence, it stands, 
 rising as it were in the midst of Israel, and at first only 
 capable of forming itself out of it, yet already face to 
 face with the whole world, and so also freely offering 
 itself to it ; so that before it, all older distinctions of 
 various forms of religion vanish : a truth which could 
 become plain immediately after the founding of Christ- 
 ianity, and doubtless was early enough expressed by 
 Christ. With yet more certainty does the narrative of 
 the increased activity and energy belong to this period. 
 When Christ is again at home with his disciples, then 
 appears at once such a crowd of people asking for help 
 of every sort, gathering about him and the twelve, that 
 they did not even find time and room to refresh them- 
 selves with food. The less is it to be wondered at, if 
 
XXIII.] CHRIST IS SUPPOSED DERANGED. 165 
 
 He Himself, in the midst of the most stupendous excite- 
 ment and exhaustion of these days, to those who without 
 rightly knowing Him noticed only his outer behaviour 
 and the violent struggle of his spirit therein visible, his 
 becoming as it were raving, He appeared to be approach- 
 ing from frenzy, a collapse of mind, and to be only 
 acting and suffering as it were spasmodically. And 
 this appearance in so unwonted a case had produced 
 most opposite effects on the wider outside circles. The 
 report had already spread in the town that He had gone 
 raving mad from exhaustion. When his kindred (i. e. 
 his brethren and his mother) hear this report, they 
 hasten to look for Him and bring Him home, but 
 find his house closely beset by crowds, and for a long 
 time they cannot come near Him. They were quite 
 straagers to all his present exaltation of spirit, yet feel 
 in this unexpected distress human compassion, and 
 think they must help Him somehow. But while these 
 are gradually coming to look for Him, in the room itself, 
 or at any rate close to Him, and perceptible enough, 
 there has broken out quite another kind of commotion. 
 Some scribes from Jerusalem, come down with a bad 
 intention, have at once adopted eagerly in their own 
 sense the idea of his mental state which has gone abroad, 
 and find in this his condition a confirmation of their 
 long-cherished suspicions, that He was possessed by the 
 supreme spirit of evil diseases (Beelzebub), the same 
 through which He works his miracles, — casts out, that 
 is, the demons of others. But if so malicious a reproach, 
 and that too proceeding from such wise rulers from the 
 
166 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Capital, miglit bring others in such a case to complete 
 despair, it only furnishes Him with the occasion of ex- 
 posing the absurdity of the charge, and at the same 
 time of so discussing the whole subject that the reproach 
 falls back on the heads of those who thus thought and 
 spake evil ; and this all the more, the more perversely, 
 in course of the dispute kindled by them, they wish to 
 tempt Him further by the demand for a miracle to be 
 wrought before their eyes. The discourses which the 
 ^' Sprachsammlung" (though it is true on another oc- 
 casion composed for the confutation of such reckless 
 reproaches and demands upon Christ, in their wonderful 
 elevation are not inferior to all the rest, and lead us up 
 to an elevation where we feel not too far removed even 
 from the surpassing sublimity of St. John's reports. 
 Meanwhile He has become the centre of all who " are 
 listening to his wonderful sayings. Then comes to 
 Him the information that his mother and brethren are 
 standing without seeking Him. 
 
 But if He is engaged at a work before whose divinity 
 all the lower relationships, thoughts, and cares of the 
 previous life vanish, how much more must He at this 
 moment, in such high employment and such blessing 
 on his work as Head of the Cliurch, hold those for 
 mother and sister and brother, who like these are crowd- 
 ing around Him attracted by his words! And how 
 little need has He, whilst drawing in, instead of ex- 
 haustion and weakness, only new strength from his 
 sublime work, of the help however well intended of 
 those who do not yet understand Him, and are not yet 
 labouring with Him at that which never exhausts ! 
 
XXIII.] THE saviour's SATISFACTION IN HIS WORK. 167 
 
 Another time He made a similar reply, when a 
 woman, carried away by the unsurpassable truth and 
 power of his discourse, having blessed her who had borne 
 Him, He applied her words to bless rather those who 
 heard and kept the word of God. And if He at this 
 time of highest excitement and effort, standing already 
 as Head in his Church, in spite of all such miscon- 
 ception and hostility, yet knew such sublime experi- 
 ences, we the more easily understand how He from the 
 disquiet of the town, taking refuge again in the freer 
 bank of the lake, could there utter to those who sought 
 Him out such still brighter pictures of the commence- 
 ment, of the growth, and of the value of God's kingdom 
 which was touched upon above (Chap. XXII.) . It was 
 thus He tasted the firstfruits of his activity, now at its 
 zenith, and which his spirit clothed in refreshing lessons 
 amid the labours of the sultry noon. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Practical Education of the Twelve. 
 
 I. THROUGH TRAVEL WITH THEIR MASTER. 
 
 But He was soon to prepare for Himself far sweeter 
 fruits of this sort. After that the Twelve had received 
 higher instruction enough for the commencement, it was 
 time to practise them more directly in their life-work. 
 Their great life-work falling to them as the first members 
 of the community, must be the announcement of the 
 Gospel in the whole world. He resolved accordingly 
 to take them first for companions on a new round which 
 He Himself wished to enter on to proclaim the Gospel. 
 They were in the distant country to collect more ex- 
 perience than they could in the one town ; were to share 
 with Him the dangers of such a journey into unknown 
 regions ; were to hear how He proclaimed everywhere a 
 varied and a new, and yet everywhere the same Gospel ; 
 and to see how He everywhere also actively helped and 
 healed where it was practicable to help, and a higher 
 compassion called Him thereto. 
 
 That such a prentice journey was undertaken by 
 
XXIV.] Christ's travel with the twelve. 169 
 
 Him for the practical preparation of the Twelve for 
 their own journey, needs not be added. We know not 
 now very accurately at what period of the year it hap- 
 pened ; but from the criteria, to be explained below, 
 it may have been undertaken in the late autumn of 
 this year. 
 
 To extend it very far was objectless, and could not 
 be intended : yet it must also through its variety be 
 sufficiently instructive, and so indeed may have lasted 
 a full month, or perhaps somewhat longer. We still 
 possess through St. Mark a somewhat more minute 
 representation of it, since here too He brings forward, 
 in a course of several pictures, the most prominent 
 features in it, and those which remained most fixed in 
 the memory. The very commencement of this journey 
 might serve for a new lesson to them. As St. Mark 
 tells us, Jesus — on the evening of the very day in which, 
 on the western shore of the Galil^ean lake. He had been 
 setting before the people still brighter similitudes of 
 God's kingdom — started on a voyage towards the eastern 
 shore. He had on that day, as we read of his doing at 
 other times, discoursed from the high prow of a vessel 
 to the people crowded on the shore : He now com- 
 manded the Twelve with Him in this vessel to steer 
 towards the other shore : He had not provided Himself 
 with victuals or other stores for the journey, still He 
 wished to commence the journey, and the Twelve were 
 ready, after dismissing the assembled people, to thrust 
 forth with Him into the lake; other vessels also ac- 
 companied them on the voyage. 
 
170 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Then there arose a great hurricane, and the waves 
 beat over the ship so that it was abeady almost sinking 
 under them. But He Himself was meanwhile sleeping 
 in the stern on the cushion brought here to him : as 
 though even the most violent turmoil in the world could 
 not awake Him. We think here naturally on the similar 
 situation of that ancient prophet, described in the book 
 of Jonah : but what a totally different result appears , 
 here ! When they venture at length to awake Him, not 
 without a gentle reproach for want of care for them, He 
 commanded stillness to the wind and the sea ; and when, 
 unexpectedly and to the astonishment of all, suddenly 
 a great calm comes on. He censures the unnecessary fear- 
 fulness and want of faith of the twelve. Thus appears, 
 at the commencement of the journey, how much they 
 were wanting in the highest trust in God and quiet 
 self-possession amid outward turmoil. But their trust 
 in his Messianic majesty was not a little increased. On 
 the south-eastern shore they came into the region mostly 
 occupied by heathen, which was denoted the Ten Cities 
 (Decapolis), because it belonged to the province of the 
 Ten free towns (Bd. iv. s. 518) in the north-east of 
 Palestine. A region less occupied by Jews it was hard 
 to go through ; it is significant then that Jesus did not 
 disdain even such for his present purpose, or rather 
 chose it designedly. Here now, not far from the lake, 
 He found in the mountainous district belonging to a town 
 Gergesa a man possessed, the most terrible being con- 
 ceivable: he felt himself tormented by countless evil 
 spirits, and hence named himself with the Roman word, 
 
XXIV.] THE DEMONIAC. 171 
 
 then new in Palestine, '' Legion," raged and raved 
 against all men, but had with it all a wild strength so 
 untamed that he had continually rent all sorts of fetters 
 with which it had been attempted to bind him ; he had 
 accustomed himself to the lonely dwelling in the tombs 
 on the mountain before the town, and lived here like 
 a naked animal, crying, striking himself with stones, as 
 if to be freed from the torture. Yet even such a hardly 
 human being had the Saviour, should He approach him, 
 power of love and saving mercy sufficient to release. 
 And in fact, as all possessed feel a secret desire to be 
 released, he was seen to hasten from a distance to the 
 Saviour : but when he heard how Jesus commanded the 
 unclean spirits to come forth out of him, the apprehen- 
 sion of the violent pains of this coming out overcame 
 him, and when come quite close he falls at his feet and 
 begs Him not to torment him. But Jesus leaves him 
 not, rather probes him with questions still more deeply, 
 as though He would evoke and drive all the thousand 
 evil spirits the more irresistibly to make themselves 
 known and trust him. And already these feel, and the 
 man possessed with them feels, that they cannot longer 
 resist his mighty word ; but both the man and the demons 
 feared to die at once and have to go to hell, and they 
 beg at least to be treated as gently as was possible, and 
 not to be sent away into the distant deserts : and as if 
 the unhappy man, doubtless originally a man of Jewish 
 belief, before the fixed severe and yet loving gaze of 
 Christ, ventured at last to remember again the nobility 
 of his Jewish descent, and in doing this to quite recover 
 
172 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 his reason, he begs Him to suffer the demons to go forth 
 into a herd of swine feeding there quite close by, as 
 though such were the only place meet for them. But so 
 violent was (so the story soon shaped itself) their leap 
 forth into these, so soon as Jesus allowed it, that they 
 forthwith drive the swine into the wildest flight, and 
 hurl them down the precipice into the lake ; the swine 
 thus perishing carry these unclean spirits themselves, 
 however sorely against their will, into hell with them, 
 whilst the man, set free from them, comes at once to his 
 long-desired rest. This narrative — one of those given at 
 the most length, and in its kind the most instructive 
 which St. Mark gives us — furnishes the deepest insight 
 into the notions then in vogue on the evil spirits and the 
 possessed, and was doubtless among those most frequent- 
 ly repeated. That the district was heathen, the mention 
 of the herd of swine also shews ; but the representation 
 could only ascribe to one possessed, who was not origin- 
 ally heathen, the desire of the evil spirits to go into such 
 a herd. Further, that the herd perished is a certain fact 
 preserved in memory; the possessed man, by his last 
 most terrible convulsions and violent motions, might 
 easily come into closer contact with one of the herd, and 
 one become unruly easily takes all the others after it : 
 thus, from the place and manner of it, men might easily 
 see a closer connection between this event and the last 
 convulsions, and hence with the immediately following 
 healing of the possessed. But only the Jewish popular 
 wit, in the midst of the agitation of the notions on un- 
 clean spirits and their pleasure in unclean swine, could 
 
XXIV.] RECOVERY OF THE DEMONIAC. 173 
 
 combine so closely, and thus connect into one narrative 
 these two ideas. The owners of the herd, moreover, and 
 the rest of the inhabitants of the town, although natur- 
 ally vexed at the loss of the herd, do not bring Jesus to 
 account, as though He had been the immediate cause ; 
 but, as the story concludes, astonished at it all, and not 
 least at the possessed now healed and become quite sane, 
 whom they themselves had been so unable to tame, only 
 desire Jesus to leave their district. On his embarking, 
 the once unfortunate man, actually as a new convert, 
 begged to be allowed to accompany Him ; but the Sa- 
 viour bade him rather in his own country, and so in the 
 midst of heathen, proclaim the praise of the true Deliverer 
 and of God, as one of the most speaking living witnesses 
 of divine deliverance. In this also Christ was great, that 
 He did not, as we might have supposed, seek to count 
 among his companions one redeemed from a heathen land 
 and the worst superstition ; whilst yet He took none the 
 less interest in the fate of the " children of Abraham" 
 scattered among the heathen, nay of the heathen them- 
 selves, and helped them, when salutary, individually, just 
 as He did his own countrymen. Of other events of this 
 journey on the eastern shore we now know nothing. 
 When He returned over the lake into the neighbourhood 
 of Capernahum, immediately a multitude again assembled 
 about Him, so that He staid some time on the shore. 
 Then came one of the elders of the synagogue, named 
 Jair, out of the town, with the equally reverential and 
 instant request, that from compassion to his dying daugh- 
 ter of twelve years old He would hasten to his house to 
 
174 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 heal her. Whilst on his way there and accompanied by 
 the throng, there pressed in a woman who had been 
 a great sufferer from an issue of blood for twelve years, 
 had spent in consequence her whole substance under the 
 treatment of many physicians, and yet only became con- 
 stantly worse. 
 
 She had probably come here from far, and knew none 
 who could commend her to Jesus, of whose healing 
 power she had heard ; but she had so much faith in Him, 
 that now hardly had she touched trembling the fringe 
 of his garment trailing behind (die Alterthiimer, s. 265), 
 when she felt herself already relieved and healed. But 
 yet it was in no wise his mere garment which worked 
 the cure ; and, though the woman might think so, He 
 feels and knows it to be otherwise, and may not let such 
 a new superstition spring up. So He turns round to see 
 who had done it, asking who had touched his clothes ? 
 His disciples do not understand his meaning and the 
 purport of his question, as in such a throng it was not 
 surprising that his garments should be touched ; but He 
 feels more truly what must have happened, and repeat- 
 edly looks round with severe look; and not until the 
 woman, feeling herself found out and timidly hastening 
 to Him, had acknowledged the whole truth both of her 
 action and her belief, does He with reassuring word con- 
 firm the healing. During this unexpected delay, tidings 
 arrived from the house of the elder of the synagogue, that 
 his daughter was already dead, he should not further 
 trouble Jesus : but as though the Saviour had not heard ' 
 this He exhorts the father only to have firm belief: He 
 
XXIV.] RAISING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 175 
 
 hastens forwards with his three most intimate disciples, 
 enters the house, full on one side of flute-players who 
 were playing the established death's melody, on the other 
 side of bewailing kindred; He utters words of hope, 
 enters alone, although laughed at for it, with the elders 
 and his three disciples into the upper chamber of the 
 house where the child lay by herself, and quickens her 
 through taking by the hand and a mighty appeal. He 
 then bade take care of the restored child, but wished, as 
 usual at this period (Chap. XXII.), that not much should 
 be said of his help. 
 
 It is quite likely, as the old account here continues, 
 that Jesus now, without further stay in Capernahum, took 
 again his twelve on a tour with Him towards the south- 
 west. But here they were to have just the opposite 
 experience. In his own town of Nazareth, which He 
 likewise visited in this tour. He appeared teaching one 
 Sabbath in the synagogue, but found by experience that 
 the people here, the greater the power of his word, and 
 the report of his miracles which had preceded Him, 
 would the less believe in Him ; because, led by small- 
 minded criticism and mean envy, they preferred looking 
 at what was best known to them, the human side of his 
 descent and earlier history among them, and of his 
 relations still living among them, rather than on the 
 pure and divine side in Him : the evil report of (Chap. 
 XIX.) his exclusion from the synagogue might here be 
 spread abroad from Jerusalem, and eagerly turned to 
 account by his enemies. This was not unexpected by 
 Him, as this world goes, for He knew how such envy on 
 
176 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the part of one's town and kindred has ever been strong 
 in the world : but yet again he had most cause to marvel 
 at their unbelief, as nowhere certainly in the world had 
 this been so groundless as here. Neither could He — as 
 this old account, with great truth, from correct re- 
 miniscence, has no scruple in relating, on account of this 
 very predominant unbelief among them — accomplish 
 among them any mighty work worthy of remembrance : 
 only He healed some sick by the laying on of hands and 
 other means generally used by Him. 
 
 This rejection of the Gospel in Jesus' own town of 
 Nazareth formed always certainly a very prominent re- 
 miniscence in the older Gospel narrative; and much 
 more, besides that above touched on, was related about 
 it. The latter town thus gained a particularly ill report 
 for Galilee — and rightly, for Christ first appeared in it at 
 a time when a higher respect should have met Him even 
 in his own country, as one long approved, nay already 
 surrounded by many honourable disciples. For, that 
 this was the first time in which He visited Nazareth 
 appears by all analogy, and the way of speaking of it by 
 the older narratives : He had doubtless, as He knew 
 them so well, good grounds for not giving them such 
 a trial earlier. The small-minded envy of towns seems to 
 have had an effect on other Galilean towns, Capernahum 
 for instance : this was, probably at least, the principal 
 design of the " Sprachsammlung" in having shortly 
 touched on the circumstance, and put together some 
 discourses with reference to it. He asked from them 
 repentance and faith ; they on the contrary asked Him 
 
XXIV.] THE SYNAGOGUE AT NAZARETH. 177 
 
 first to shew such miracles as they had understood He 
 had done in Capernahum : if He wanted something 
 from them, so did they too from Him, and so the old 
 proverb was good here, "Physician, heal thyself." 
 
 Then He shewed them this truth, that higher works 
 and divine blessings may not be had at command ; just 
 as the old great prophets had not received their mission 
 to help all the many who probably expected it in their 
 bodily needs, only specified individuals. He knows for the 
 rest, and any one may well know from ancient history 
 that the true prophet is nowhere less acceptable than in 
 his own town. Such truths were in fact appropriate 
 here, and in this particular case were sufficiently dwelt 
 on : the saying also about the prophet in his own town, 
 as remarked (Chap. VII.) according to old reminiscence, 
 was traced back to Christ. But a later author held it 
 right that Jesus should have appeared at the very com- 
 mencement of his public ministry in the town of his 
 youth, Nazareth : He there, after his wont visiting the 
 synagogue on the sabbath, had presented to Him the 
 Holy Scriptures for the lesson and the lecture; He then, 
 from the prophetical book of Isaiah, read the very pas- 
 sages which most minutely touch on the first appearance 
 of the Messiah, nay, seem to evoke and at the same time 
 to attest his claims ; and amid the most intense interest 
 of the hearers He delivered an exposition, whicli at first 
 called forth the highest astonishment at such gracious 
 words ; but then, when at length with severer words He 
 had called for true repentance and amendment, in fact 
 called on them to forget their earlier human relations as 
 
 N 
 
178 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. 
 
 his fellow-citizens, He excited them to such displeasure, 
 nay, towering rage against Him, that they drove Him 
 from the town and to the brow of a hill, to throw Him 
 down from thence ; yet He safely escaped, going through 
 the midst of them. And doubtless the tradition {Chap. 
 XIII.) was not without good reason, for informing us that 
 such fate of extreme contempt and danger of life befell 
 Him at the first time of his appearance : so again that 
 He once took for his text those prophetic passages, 
 sounds like quite true history. But that this all hap- 
 pened in Nazareth, and thus early, nay, that his whole 
 public appearance commenced from thence, is contrary to 
 the older accounts and recollections, and seems to have 
 been first brought by St. Luke, so far as he thought he 
 could, into more close connection with these older accounts. 
 But He did not allow Himself to be checked, through 
 the contempt experienced by Him and his disciples in 
 Nazareth, from pursuing everywhere in the neighbour- 
 hood, in the company of the Twelve, his great life-work. 
 At this time too may be placed the help which, moved 
 by deep compassion, He rendered to the widowed mother 
 of the only son who was being carried to the grave : this 
 happened in the little town of Nain, south-east from 
 Nazareth, on one of the southern slopes of Tabor. But 
 we now only have the account preserved by St. Luke, and 
 from indeed a later source, where doubtless it was only 
 very shortly related : a closer view of the circumstances 
 of the event, as we see them always sketched so in- 
 structively by St. Mark, is wanting here : and thus much 
 only can we say, that the burial here spoken of, in those 
 times followed usually very soon after death. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Pkactical Teaining through their own 
 
 Mission. 
 
 When the Twelve, through such experiences in their 
 wanderings with Himself, as well as by the earlier more 
 express instruction received from Him, were prepared 
 more minutely for their last life-destination, He might 
 now venture to send them out themselves to learn to 
 further the kingdom of God through their own activity. 
 The time was thus now come for which He Himself had 
 so longed. For to accustom them to work as early as 
 possible at an independent work of their own for the 
 kingdom of God, must be one of his highest endeavours ; 
 and no one could more than Himself wish for their 
 readiness and reliability to grow and ripen. No one too 
 knew better than He, how much the infinite domain itself 
 which was the region of his activity needed the most 
 varied labourers, and how in that domain even the 
 smallest labour, if only rightly begun and rightly con- 
 tinued, brings its own infinite reward. They were now 
 to learn so to advance the kingdom of God, after the 
 great example He had set, and on the firm foundation 
 
180 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 He had laid. As then with Him teaching and preaching 
 were the first steps, but corresponding active helping and 
 healing were equally important : so they were to learn 
 to proclaim the near coming, nay, the already successful 
 commencement of the joyful kingdom of God, with its 
 earthly community and their duties in the world ; and at 
 the same time also, by their own helping and healing, in 
 all right ways to advance the great salvation of the 
 kingdom of God. The latter part of their mission must 
 be most closely connected with the then most necessary 
 and salutary acts for helping and healing, as may be 
 seen (s. 217 ff.) in the case of Christ Himself. It is 
 hence plain that, before sending them. He gave them 
 a closer knowledge of the means of healing and relieving 
 the many wants of the time which He Himself (Nach s. 
 224) used as outward means in his works of healing, so 
 far at least as they could well be imparted and applied 
 by beginners. Nothing can be more historical than that 
 such a mission of the Twelve was once appointed by Him : 
 He might send them forth from that very journey on 
 which He was then engaged, as the old narrative gives 
 us pretty plainly to understand. But it is equally 
 certain that He had to use a certain caution, in order on 
 this trial journey not to bring them into too great dif- 
 ficulties. We know, for example, that He commanded 
 them to enter no heathen or Samaritan province: the 
 management of such provinces was in itself much harder ; 
 and if He Himself on good grounds (Nach s. 237 ff.) 
 limited his working almost wholly to Israel, He might 
 now still more require of the Twelve this self-limitation, 
 
XXV.] MISSION OF THE APOSTLES. 181 
 
 since many questions would here have come before them 
 which they were as yet quite unable to solve. He pro- 
 bably wished them to limit themselves to the province of 
 Galilee, which was generally best known to them, and 
 where at present they could most easily begin their 
 difficult work. 
 
 It is equally certain that He gave them before their 
 mission many more particular instructions and exhorta- 
 tions, such as were particularly appropriate for this new 
 work : but none could be so weighty and important as 
 those on the proper spiritual means which they had to 
 use for their purpose, and on the reception which they 
 were to expect in the world : higher glances also could 
 not be wanting on the whole Messianic work and fate, 
 as well as predictions on the development of all Messianic 
 effort, wherein they themselves were now to take a nearer 
 part. The '' Spruchsammlung" had put together at this 
 point all which Christ spoke in reference to the mission 
 of his disciples and their reception in the world : and 
 although into this whole, for the sake of convenient con- 
 nection, many particulars may have been admitted which 
 Christ did not till a much later time, in the clearest 
 prospect of his speedy death, utter to his own ; still 
 these golden sayings belong, taken altogether, to the 
 deepest and most important which have been preserved 
 from his mouth. For a great part of the deepest feelings 
 which moved his own breast, as that of the very first 
 evangelist and ambassador of God Himself into the 
 world, and which governed his whole Messianic life, must 
 find utterance in those words wherewith He encouraged 
 
182 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 his disciples to the like life-work. He may have then 
 given them many more particular counsels at that time, 
 and much necessary only for this particular purpose may 
 have been settled : for example, how long their absence 
 was to last ; when they were again to meet with Him ; 
 and what directions they might severally best take. 
 That they were sent out in pairs must be an old recollec- 
 tion. The journeys of the Twelve might certainly begin 
 and end the very winter, as each two, in one month or 
 two months, might see and experience enough. Yet 
 it is certainly possible that some such prentice-journeys 
 were repeated also in the following year, although we 
 have no information on this. That Christ sent forth the 
 seventy essentially as He had sent out the Twelve on 
 prentice-journeys, is a somewhat later view and account, 
 which St. Luke from one of his manuscript sources has 
 admitted into his history. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The Doubt of the Baptist, and his End. 
 
 At this period falls one last closer contact of Jesus 
 with the Baptist, and the closing of the Baptist's earthly 
 career could not remain without influence on the more 
 speedy development of the history of Christ. For the 
 remembrance of this in many respects very important 
 event, with its most immediate consequences, we are 
 indebted to the " Spruchsammlung," out of which one of 
 the most beautiful and also most historically instructive 
 portions on this has been preserved. The Baptist lived 
 (Chap. XIV.) over a year in prison ; and though out- 
 wardly spared by the Tetrarch Antipas, nay, receiving 
 considerable deference, might, considering the arbitrary 
 character and caprice of this man, be hourly contemplat- 
 ing his end. No wonder that this long imprisonment 
 gradually somewhat subdued and clouded his spirit : 
 the grand hope of his life that the Messiah, if the right 
 way be prepared for Him, will speedily come with power, 
 had not been fulfilled in the way he at first expected ; 
 and Jesus, on whom he had then laid all his hopes, as 
 on Him who would soon prove Himself the promised 
 
184 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Messiah, whose first steps He had Himself helped for- 
 ward, so free from envy and with such success, had not 
 within the space of two years and a half appeared as 
 such a Messiah as from passages of the Old Testament 
 he had expected. With intense interest he followed his 
 steps, and might be, not a little, partly surprised and 
 partly rejoiced, that Jesus, who was carrying on a life- 
 work akin to his, was allowed to work freely: but 
 though no more offended with the lowliness and desultory 
 character of his deeds of healing and other miracles than 
 He had been with the freer and more cheerful rule of 
 life to which He accustomed his disciples, yet these were 
 not the works which he had expected as the final works ; 
 for if he looked on them as the proper beginning of 
 Messianic deeds, he yet thought that the Messiah could 
 not stop at them ; and it seemed to him at length time 
 that He should display openly a greater power in the 
 world. But now the Saviour's day's work remained 
 uniform, or at most made progress such as seemed to 
 the Baptist little glorious, and the whole Messianic sal- 
 vation seemed to him strangely delayed, notwithstanding, 
 as he had hitherto supposed, the Messiah being already 
 come. It is not then very surprising that he, in his 
 present state of continued anxiety, and in the only too 
 certain prospect of his speedy end, wished to receive from 
 Jesus Himself a future beyond that which he dimly fore- 
 saw. Doubtless also he was much driven to it by his 
 disciples, who had not gone over to Jesus. How one of 
 these, before the Baptist's imprisonment, fell into a dis- 
 pute with Jesus' disciples, we saw above (Chap. XIII.) ; 
 
XXVI.] JOHN S EMBASSAGE TO CHRIST. 185 
 
 but after this captivity they must have become much 
 more uncertain in their whole position, and doubtless 
 pressed in to the master to learn from him decidedly 
 whether they should go over to Jesus. Thus might the 
 noble-minded man, pressed and subdued by all this, 
 resolve to send two of his disciples to Jesus, to learn 
 from Himself whether He were really the expected 
 Messiah, or whether He with his disciples should hope 
 for another. 
 
 In this embassy lay no faithless doubt, rather an 
 encouraging invitation to Jesus to become at once in its 
 full scope that which he had once expected of Him and 
 was still not disinclined to expect. But a doubt of Him 
 as the complete true Messiah lay certainly therein : that 
 John, who (Chap. VIII.), once conquered by the first 
 sight of Him, firmly trusted at once to have found in 
 Him the future Messiah, was no longer he who thus 
 enquired in doubt; and we see in this at one glance 
 how things had changed since to the two men, and how 
 little the elder, simply because he had remained where he 
 was, had really followed the development of the Saviour, 
 consistent yet ever forward, and striving to mount ever 
 higher on the only right way towards the goal. The 
 doubt, humanly excusable as it was, must have in- 
 wardly pained the Saviour as a providential indication : 
 for it was only the same doubt, which in a harsher form 
 sounded in his ears from so many other quarters : but 
 that He was rejected even by Mm who had first called 
 forth the whole Messianic movement of the time, nay, 
 who had himself once discerned in Him, with joyful 
 
186 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 trustfulness and encouraging appeal, the future Messiah, 
 and even for long after had admitted no doubt of Him, — 
 this must the more sensibly touch Him ; and surely at 
 no moment of this year did the whole picture of the 
 checkered part of his whole history, since that meeting 
 with the Baptist, come so freshly before his spirit as it 
 did then. 
 
 But it was not fitting to give utterance to such pain 
 and dejection, however well warranted, before the am- 
 bassadors of the Baptist, nor even to let him be publicly 
 informed of it : no one in the keeping back of well- 
 founded depression was greater than He. So he calmly 
 shews them his incessant and uniform daily work ; how 
 those needing help of every sort, even the most extreme 
 in body as well as in spirit, are relieved and benefitted 
 by Him — that is his office and his business ; and how far 
 He was from working at it in vain they might readily 
 see ; the further development is not his alone, but also 
 God's work : but blessed is he who finds in Him no 
 offence, and does not, in consequence of the unobtrusive 
 commencement of God's kingdom, doubt of its presence 
 and its mighty movement. This they might report to 
 the Baptist, and in this He had said all which He had 
 here to say, and on which the Baptist with his disciples 
 might further reflect. Yet, after the departure of the 
 embassy He could utter before his closer friends who 
 then surrounded Him, as well as before all others, the 
 painful thoughts which stirred his deepest soul : and we 
 yet possess from the " Spruchsammlung" the gist of the 
 words so admirably pungent in the thought, and at the 
 
XXVI.] Christ's testimony to john. 187 
 
 same time so transparent in their picturesqueness, which 
 unquestionably belong to that time, and are for us the 
 brightest mirror of it. Who the Baptist is, and how- 
 men behaved to him and to the Messiah, once and now ? 
 When men once in great troops went out to the Jordan 
 to the Baptist, what should they have seen and looked 
 for in him? a doubting man like a reed shaken by the 
 wind? at that time he was not (as now) a doubting 
 man ! but no more would they have looked for in him 
 an effeminate luxurious courtier, which he is not yet, he 
 who in any case even now in his doubt was an honest 
 man, who was a prophet, nay, as the mighty pioneer of 
 the new Messianic period more than one of the Old 
 Testament prophets, and might in truth be accounted 
 the returning Elias promised in the Old Testament ; but 
 who yet, on the other hand, as one doubting of the actual 
 appearance into the world of the kingdom of God, stands 
 far below even the least of those who do not doubt in it, 
 and because they believe in it may already be true 
 members of it. For this is now to be discerned as the 
 true distinction between the Old and the New, and in 
 this the Baptist forms the bridge from the one to the 
 other, that now the Kingdom of heaven, with all its powers 
 and blessings, stands free to every one to conquer it, and 
 as it were takes possession of it, (for without such bold- 
 ness and spirit no one can win its blessings). But if it 
 were now unavoidable that the Baptist with his followers, 
 the more the Kingdom of God proclaimed by him de- 
 veloped itself according to its beginning, should meet it 
 with all the greater doubt and be rooted where he 
 
188 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 stands ; what is to be thought of the wisdom of the 
 children of this world, who will neither have the Baptist 
 with his rough severity, nor Messiah now come with his 
 gentle cheerfulness ; will give the harshest accounts of the 
 one equally with the other, nay, who actually admire 
 their own wisdom in censuring and rejecting both, dif- 
 ferent as they may be ! Truly the divine wisdom which 
 sent both men, and which these her wickedly wise 
 children would censure for sending both, is by this very 
 censure best justified ; in that these with their wisdom 
 do not themselves know what they wish, playing like 
 children with the most solemn subjects, never satisfied, 
 and in their continued frivolity only becoming ever more 
 unhappy. Oh, for how long and how earnestly He 
 wished in the most varied ways to save this generation, 
 if it were yet to be saved, and not rather wholly devoted 
 to ruin ! With such words He spoke of all the various 
 human efforts and sects of the time ; going in his sorrow 
 over the Baptist's doubt now become apparent. What 
 he said then to his disciples when the Saviour's reply 
 was brought to him, and what advice he gave them, we 
 know not from these old and most reliable accounts; 
 but we can easily conclude from the course of the history. 
 In truth, the Saviour's short reply was not capable, was 
 not even designed to overthrow his doubt ; and he might 
 have himself made earlier that deeper reflection which it 
 was designed to call forth. He remained, according to 
 the best conclusion we can form, persistent in his waiting 
 and doubting. But his days were numbered. Certainly 
 soon after this, the fate already mentioned (Chap. IX.) 
 
XXVI.] JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DOUBT. 189 
 
 overtook him in the prison ; but unjust and horrible as 
 this was as regarded its human instrument, it can hardly 
 be said that as regards its providential side it happened 
 too soon. For that which was truly new and creative 
 in what the Baptist was called to establish, lasted and 
 worked on for long even without his own further human 
 working ; and what was really divine in his effort and 
 work, nay, what was a necessary and in itself infinitely 
 important element in the development of all history of 
 the true religion, even now in its strongest effort towards 
 completion, that like a true hero of God he had striven 
 for and won. The day when his work culminated was 
 that in which he baptized the Saviour ; and the deepest 
 discovery made by his penetrating eye was his discern- 
 ment in the Saviour of the only one who could become 
 the Messiah. But because he did not discern the only 
 right way, in which He might actually become and did 
 become what he hoped from Him, the paths of the two 
 from that moment must separate ever more widely, 
 though slowly and without the least fault of the Baptist. 
 The doubt which grew in him during his long suffer- 
 ing he certainly did not retract in the few days yet left 
 to him : otherwise his disciples would not have con- 
 tinued his work and his whole manner of considering the 
 future, as they nevertheless did (s. Unten). Thus he 
 died, only testifying for us in his late-born doubt and in 
 his death, how hard it was, practically, even for firm 
 faith to rise to the elevation of Christ ; and in truth this 
 was then infinitely harder than it is now, or even than 
 it was in the later Apostolic age. 
 
190 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 His disciples took away his body, after his death in 
 imprisonment was known, to render it the last honours : 
 many disciples remained true to his teaching and his 
 hope, though they gave up the particular hope in Jesus. 
 And after that his outer work was finished, might his 
 disciples with all the more decision again assemble and 
 agree among themselves what was now to be done to 
 continue his work after his views. In the whole of 
 Israel his memory lived on (s. 52) in high repute. But 
 no one before his death judged him so rightly, and 
 brought forward what was divine in him so simply and 
 clearly, as He of whom he doubted at last, and whom he 
 troubled by this doubt ; and what was of imperishable 
 nature in his work, that could but survive in Christianity 
 undisturbed for all times, and it has thus survived. 
 
 For the rest, important and instructive as it is that 
 we should thus, through the precious remains of the 
 *^ Spruchsammlung," have such complete information on 
 this last phase of the inner life of the Baptist, it is 
 equally certain that this gradual darkening of the now 
 setting but once so brilliant star of the Baptist, had no 
 higher importance for the pure truth of the now com- 
 pletely risen light of Christianity, nay, could exercise 
 but little influence on its further development. It is the 
 dark side of the Baptist, important for the complete his- 
 torical narrative, instructive in itself, as everything con- 
 nected with so great a hero of humanity must be, better 
 for the simple Christian friend and admirer of the Bap- 
 tist to be left in obscurity and passed over in silence. 
 Hence we cannot wonder that the Baptist's former 
 
XXVI.] JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DOUBT. 191 
 
 disciple, the Apostle John himself, in his Gospel neither 
 touches on the death of the Baptist^ nor on this, as it 
 doubtless seemed to him, slight darkening of the Bap- 
 tist's mind. He does not deny what the earlier Gospel 
 writings contain about it, but will not speak of it in 
 his own, and prefers, at greater length than had been 
 done in the earlier accounts, telling all that was Christian 
 of the Baptist ; for the disciples of St. John at that time 
 recalled most gladly those good words which the Baptist 
 spoke of the Saviour after his baptism, and only some of 
 them lingered at his last gloomy words. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 The Return of the Twelve, and their new 
 Practice. 
 
 Not very long after that painful experience from which 
 Christ was not spared, He was to have a joyful one 
 quite calculated to throw a far penetrating stream of 
 sunlight into the whole boundless future of his life-work. 
 The Twelve returned, and gave Him an account of all 
 which they had seen, learnt, and done : they were greatly 
 rejoiced at the good success of their work, particularly at 
 their having begun to learn even to cast out evil spirits 
 in the manner and in the name of their Master. But 
 He could not allow their joy to pass witliout enlighten- 
 ing and warning them. It was like that of novices, and 
 might well prove dangerous to them. For of long time 
 He was beholding Satan fall like lightning from heaven ; 
 who fallen can no longer hurt nor is longer to be feared : 
 this is the true meaning of God's Kingdom, that the 
 ■power of Satan is broken, and that he has fallen to the 
 earth as if from the sky, where he mysteriously and by 
 pure surprise could hurt man, he is now where, being as 
 it were visible, he can be easily seen and avoided. 
 
xxvii.] Christ's joy. 193 
 
 Christ Himself quite differently and far earlier ex- 
 perienced this subduing of Satan's power, nay, He has 
 first made it possible : in so far then is the present joy 
 of the Twelve over their power that of novices ; but every 
 such joy, however justified, is to novices so much the 
 more dangerous, because it may rouse their human 
 pride and make them too confident. Therefore should 
 a man rejoice and take courage, not in victory over the 
 power of the enemy, but in this, that he knows himself 
 by faith a member of the Kingdom of Heaven, and feels 
 sure in his spirit that he does not stand as an enemy 
 against the forces of heaven. With such words and 
 corresponding images He subdued at that time the first 
 overflowing joy of the Twelve, as He always did in like 
 cases, and thenceforth more constantly as they began to 
 work more independently. So soon however as He has 
 parted with the Twelve, and sees Himself more alone, 
 then breaks forth more freely the bright sun-gleam, 
 with which the experience of the commencing inde- 
 pendence and joyful working of the Twelve for the king- 
 dom of God must fill his spirit : and as though He gave 
 now, without design, an example of that pure joy before 
 God, which, as He had just said before the Twelve, is 
 allowed to men. He exulted in deep spiritual emotion 
 and in bright clear gaze into all futurity, praying to 
 God, thanking Him that the truth of the kingdom of 
 God on earth being actually begun, misconceived as it 
 was by the wise and prudent of the time, and even by 
 the Baptist, had been by Him revealed to those who, 
 like his disciples, might have counted before as the infant 
 
 
 
194 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 souls of the time, only that they had a spirit simple and 
 guileless enough to be receptive of pure truths and 
 become true members of God's kingdom. The older 
 have no purer joy than to watch and see how the first 
 germs of the higher divine thought and action exult in 
 their struggle to come into being: but yet purer and 
 brighter must have been the joy of the Saviour, when 
 He found how the seed of the kingdom was springing 
 up in his disciples ; his own spirit would become young 
 again in theirs. Against all the petrified errors and 
 inveterate perversities of the time, to preserve that spirit 
 and make it receptive only for the truths of God's king- 
 dom on earth, and able and strong for working in it ; 
 that they should face this world as innocent children, 
 but for God's kingdom be unyielding industrious children, 
 this only had been his endeavour for them at this time : 
 He saw now the first-fruits ripen of his purest wish and 
 of his culminating activity, and could thus the more 
 easily comfort Himself for the mistaking even of such 
 men as the Baptist ; and beheld in spirit more stead- 
 fastly the whole future development of his eternal life- 
 work. And let none ask how such joyful overflowing 
 utterances of his thankfulness to God and his deep pre- 
 sentiment (as given here from the " Spruchsammlung") 
 could be heard by others, and thus ultimately written 
 down : his spirit was not so divided between God and 
 men ; nor was his most secret thought and speech so 
 concealed from his most trusted disciples, that it could 
 have remained dark to them also ; and that too when it 
 touched so immediately and firmly, as here, the basis 
 of his whole earthly working. 
 
XXVII.] FURTHER INSTRUCTION OF THE TWELVE. 195 
 
 But in spite of this first so joyful success, whicli the 
 Twelve's own activity achieved, the Saviour perhaps did 
 not think it opportune to send them forth again on new 
 conversion journeys, in the view of drawing as soon as pos- 
 sible all He could into his circle. Rather He gathers them 
 again closer around Him, as they had yet so much to learn 
 of the higher matters of belief, and of the right beliaviour 
 in the difficult situations of life. How He now, at this 
 elevation of his whole public life, worked both for the 
 Twelve and for the whole multitude, and how He then 
 was regarded by them — of this St. Mark, in the more 
 connected history of one or two days, has again sketched 
 a picture similar to that which he gave us of the 
 previous period (Chap. XII.). But St. John wished 
 here to explain one of the more remarkable expressions 
 which the Saviour uttered on occasion of the most im- 
 portant of the events here related by the older Evan- 
 gelists : and it seems, in fact, as if on reading the older 
 Gospels, or rather only one of them, namely St. Mark's, 
 he placed himself intentionally back most vividly amid 
 the whole state of things of those days, in order to be 
 able to give the more certain account of the grand saying 
 of the Saviour on that occasion. Thus at this place the 
 two principal channels of Gospel narrative again meet, 
 to flow on even fuller of the whole public activity of 
 Jesus, but each with its own living stream. St. John 
 adds here too, by way of supplement, and to throw a 
 bright light on the whole temporal course of things, that 
 at that very time the Passover was near. As we may 
 now somewhat better from the two sources understand 
 
196 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 these events, they might have taken place somewhat as 
 follows. 
 
 When the Twelve met again round Jesus, He wished 
 to be able to stay and converse with them in a more 
 lonely place, because the people, who went in and out 
 seeking help from Him at the place where He had now 
 been staying for some time, formed such an immense 
 crowd, that He could here do nothing for Himself with 
 the Twelve, nay, the Twelve found hardly even space 
 here to enjoy food with Him. He accordingly embarked 
 with them on board the vessel which stood always ready 
 on the lake for such voyages, in order to seek a more 
 lonely part of the coast : but those from the multitude 
 seeking help and instruction had, at the first sight of 
 them starting, soon guessed the place, hastened thither 
 quickly on foot, and were actually there to meet Him 
 on disembarking. So St. Mark tells us, and doubtless 
 this place, which is nowhere named by him, would natur- 
 ally be supposed to lie not far from Capernahum, as we 
 might well assume that Jesus gave his Twelve instruc- 
 tions to meet Him here at his former usual fixed place 
 of resort. But He might have groimds for not staying 
 long just now in this same Galilsean neighbourhood of 
 Capernahum, as we shall again see. When then St. 
 John here at once assumes a situation at the further side 
 of the lake of Galilee, he may have supplied this from 
 more exact memory, which we have no ground for wish- 
 ing to dispute. 
 
 Even here then He could not be much alone with the 
 Twelve ; and taken with compassion for the " sheep 
 
XXVII.] FEEDING OF THE MULTITUDE. 197 
 
 which have no shepherd," He devoted Himself even 
 here, in teaching and healing again^ to the wants of the 
 multitude. 
 
 Approaching evening surprised Him as well as the 
 crowds hanging on Him : and the Twelve remind Him 
 in this lonely place to let the people depart in good time, 
 that they may go into the villages round about and 
 there buy themselves food. But He who had been 
 satisfying them with higher food, so that they hung on 
 Him as if they forgot place and time, would fain, in this 
 unexpected need, give them the lower food as well, and 
 enquires of the prudent Philip whence bread could be 
 bought for them : but Philip thinks, hardly could enough 
 be bought for a great sum, sufficient for the five thousand. 
 When meanwhile Andrew finds at a refreshment dealer's 
 in the neighbourhood five loaves and two fishes, the 
 Saviour holds even this small store sufficient to feed the 
 great crowd in this solitude ; He bids them sit down, 
 takes the food, with believing glance up to heaven 
 divides it and gives thanks; and not only are they 
 satisfied, but there remain over the most abundant frag- 
 ments. Thus does He still, infinitely more than the 
 Twelve hitherto understood and supposed, supply the 
 wants of the needy : and if the power of his spirit sur- 
 prises, it must all teach the true disciples how much 
 they were yet wanting in the higher belief; that belief 
 which in genuine love despairs the least where the need 
 is greatest, and under whose sway in cheerful giving 
 and imparting all doubles itself, and suddenly in place of 
 want there is superfluity. 
 
198 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 We have here a narrative like that of the marriage 
 feast : only that here the miracle is greater in proportion 
 to the growth of Christ's activity since that its first 
 beginning, and already it embraces many thousands. 
 And here we can also shew how old and enduring the 
 narrative is. For St. Mark again inserts essentially the 
 same narrative, varying only in some accidental circum- 
 stances of small importance, in another somewhat later 
 place in his narrative : but it is here also (which is very 
 important and a sign of its true origin and great antiquity) 
 placed in the same lonely situation on the further shore, 
 and agrees so entirely with the first account in every- 
 thing which concerns the Twelve and their yet weak 
 faith, that we cannot possibly allow in the vulgar view 
 that the event originally happened twice. And this 
 reminiscence, belonging certainly to the older stock of 
 Gospel narratives, early received a more settled form, 
 but was soon repeated with such variety of circumstance, 
 that a collector, who like St. Mark found two somewhat 
 divergent forms of it, could at once so take it as if the 
 event had been repeated and suitably divide it into two 
 groups of facts. We cannot now state with more accu- 
 racy in particular, what furnished the first occasion to 
 a narrative, which, in addition to that said already, only 
 teaches us how the Saviour, with the smallest outward 
 means, but infinitely more through his spirit, his word, 
 and his prayer, satisfied in the most miraculous way 
 even the bodily wants of all who came to Him on that 
 evening, as to the father of the family ; and how easily 
 the spiritual blessing may be followed also by the 
 
XXVII.] THE CONTRARY WIND. 199 
 
 bodily. The peculiar form of the tradition was doubt- 
 less naturally affected by the sense of infinite blessing 
 drawn from the higher satisfying with the bread of life, 
 which the disciples ate after Christ's resurrection, as 
 broken and distributed to them by the Lord Himself; 
 and recalled how once He Himself on earth had broken 
 to a great multitude such a miraculously satisfying 
 bread of life, and distributed it with accompanying 
 blessings. 
 
 But it is not surprising that, after such a day of 
 most unexpected and most intense work, He wished in 
 the evening to be alone by Himself: to this desire con- 
 tributed, as St. John tells us, the excitement of the 
 multitude, who would seize on Him and " make Him a 
 king," and thus lower the Messiah in Him from his pure 
 elevation to the vulgarity of the temporal life of the 
 time ; so seductive is experience of bodily benefits. 
 But only the more eagerly does He withdraw from 
 them, sends the Twelve alone to Bethsaida, dismisses 
 the people, and goes into the mountain for solitary 
 prayer. But towards morning He looks down on them 
 from his height with his watchful eye, battling with a 
 contrary gale in the midst of the lake: To see this and 
 to help them is all one with Him, and over the midst of 
 the lake reaches his helping arm of love. But his ap- 
 proach and his approaching help was so mistaken in the 
 dark night, that they thought they only saw a ghost 
 in the figure hastening on over the water to their 
 help, nay, almost passing by them ; and instead of 
 meeting Him half way with the higher faith, they were 
 
200 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 only frightened at Him. How little then were they 
 even yet, in spite of all their earlier experience, ac- 
 customed to the higher faith when in great mortal 
 dangers ! Not till He had come on board and spoken 
 words of assurance to them, did the wind, according to 
 the older narrative, calm, and their dread of the storm dis- 
 solve into a yet greater dread of the power of their Master. 
 
 Into the somewhat later narrative, as the present 
 St. Matthew's Gospel shews us, was interwoven a notice 
 of the behaviour of Peter towards Christ in this great 
 mortal danger ; and generally from this time this peculiar 
 bearing of one to the other is often touched on, and in a 
 way which leaves no doubt that Christ, from His present 
 exalted position towards the Twelve, directed His view 
 especially to Peter's behaviour as the most remarkable 
 and strongest of the Twelve, and laboured above all to 
 raise him to a truly rocklike faith. With this view we 
 are also told here that Peter recognised before all others 
 the nearness of the Lord approaching over the lake to 
 help him, and desired, for the confirmation of his own 
 belief, to walk with Him likewise on the waves of the 
 sea : but when this permission had been granted to him 
 by the Lord, he nevertheless in the midst of the danger 
 becomes afraid, and only in the Lord's extended hand is 
 help found. 
 
 A most speaking picture also of the whole later 
 behaviour of Peter. But, evidently with fuller under- 
 standing of the original meaning of the tradition, St. 
 John tells us in conclusion, quite shortly, the Twelve 
 would have taken Him into the ship ; but swifter than an 
 
XXVII.] THE WIND SUDDENLY BECOMES FAIE. 201 
 
 arrow, with the wind suddenly become favourable, the 
 vessel flew on to land. Thus favourable is His mere 
 proximity : and how little need has he of human help ! 
 And thus assuredly this narrative, just at this place, 
 has no other lesson than this, how the Twelve were to 
 learn, even alone, to meet fearlessly the greatest danger 
 in the world, they having been taught in their earlier* 
 journey (Chap. XXIV.) the same lesson of faith when 
 His bodily presence was with them. The older narra- 
 tive goes on to tell us, that when at length after sucli 
 anxieties in the night they came to shore, and land, 
 they find themselves driven south to the land of Gen- 
 nesareth, which thus appears somewhat south of Beth- 
 saida, the spot where they should have landed. But 
 hardly have they landed when He is recognised even 
 here, and in the renewed streaming of petitioners of 
 all sorts, hours and days slip by Him, even in walk- 
 ing through these regions. Thus closes the more con- 
 nected series of pictures, wherein the older narrative 
 sketched the daily movements and occupation of the 
 Saviour at this period. But St. John's aim was, to 
 build up on a great saying, which he indisputably had 
 once heard the Saviour declare aloud before all the 
 people, an express exposition of the great truth, as to 
 what in Christ's mind and saying is the eternal food, in 
 contradistinction to such bodily eating and bodily food, 
 and how man should receive this. He therefore goes on 
 to explain that the people on the eastern shore had, 
 greedy of further such benefits, remarked to their as- 
 tonishment, that one boat in which the Saviour had 
 
202 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 come with the Twelve is there no longer; while yet 
 He was not be found on this shore, although He had 
 been seen to retire in the evening to the mountain : 
 hence, as accidentally other vessels from Tiberias were 
 not far off and were going to return, they shipped in 
 these to the west coast, and sought for the Saviour in 
 Capernahum : on their asking Him however, from 
 curiosity in bewildered astonishment, when He arrived, 
 He, in the well-founded misgiving that they wished 
 merely further to enjoy his bodily benefits, and for 
 this came so eagerly after Him, turned the conversation 
 at once to the true bread of life, and afterwards, when 
 they were offended, Himself continued it in the synagogue 
 at Capernahum. This grand discourse is itself dis- 
 tinguished from the earlier like great ones in St. John 
 only by its subject, which is fitting for this later period 
 of elevation of soul in the Saviour's public activity. 
 Not till the Messiah has, with His whole spirit. His 
 word, and His work, so given Himself to the world as 
 now in this advanced stage of His work, can He assert 
 that his word, as He had already imparted it wholly to 
 the world, nay, He Himself with his whole life and 
 being, effulgent as it had appeared in the world, is, if 
 received in faith, that truly satisfying food, which, unlike 
 that bodily food then sought by the people from Him, 
 gives eternal life and immortality : the discussion before 
 us only carries out this truth in all its aspects ; whilst 
 here also, after St. John's usual mode of representation, 
 the short questions and objections, the doubt and be- 
 wilderment of the men, serve only for the ever stronger 
 
XXVII.] SPIRITUAL FEEDING ON CHRIST. 203 
 
 assertion of the great truth even in the most pointed as- 
 sertions ; and every interruption of the discourse serves 
 only to carry on the subject to its highest sublimity. 
 The eternal food must however be won in the way it is 
 now offered to the world, namely, through faith in Him 
 who gives it (John vi. 28 f ) ; that belief which, without 
 asking for sensible miracles, knows that this alone is the 
 bread of life, which coming down from heaven in quite 
 another way than the manna (vv. 30, 33) gives life to 
 the world ; and that this bread of life is the ^lessiah 
 Himself truly and rightly understood (vv. 34, 40). If 
 this seem too incredible or too lofty an assertion, that 
 the Messiah Himself is this bread of life ; it must, on 
 the contrary, in logical sequence, be maintained (and on 
 this the discourse goes on, as in a second higher advance 
 to the declaration of the mystery of the sacrifice, as the 
 Apostolic period saw it completed in Christ) that, if the 
 true Messiah only proves Himself the true Messiah by 
 giving his flesh and blood for the life of the world, this 
 very flesh (vv. 41 — 51), nay this blood alone (vv. 52, 58), 
 is the heavenly food which gives immortality, without 
 eating and drinking from which, no one can receive the 
 true life. But because the thought of this discourse 
 thus naturally passes on to the time when Christ has 
 already in fact given his life for the world, and thus 
 must be hard of comprehension to the hearers before 
 that time, it takes somewhat of a turn, through the 
 question, whether men would doubt of its truth when 
 Christ has been already glorified through his death and 
 resurrection, and when belief in the vanishing of all 
 
204 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 corporeal substance will be mucb harder, but, because 
 the highest conceivable miracle shall then be completed, 
 be also far more inexcusable. Only he whom the 
 Spirit impels by faith can at any time conceive this 
 (vv. 60 — 65) : and the Twelve at least, with Peter at 
 their head, are prepared for this faith — although He 
 Himself knows better than they do, how difficult in its 
 actual realization this faith is even among them. Thus 
 does this discussion, because it falls at this period of 
 such intensity of activity in the Saviour, lead us already 
 to that highest pinnacle of all knowledge and intuition 
 of Him, where the firmest and highest faith alone is 
 enabled to abide, and for this very reason, where un- 
 belief lurks so close, even in the circle of those who 
 would raise themselves up to Him. And freely as this 
 grand discourse and discussion has been here repeated 
 by St. John, the older Gospels support him in this, 
 that from henceforth all now turns upon belief or dis- 
 belief in Messiah now almost sufficiently manifested, 
 but especially upon that higher belief which must be no 
 passing visitor in the circle of the Twelve, and in all 
 who like them come closer to Him, and which is yet 
 quite different from that of the first beginners and of 
 mere petitioners. 
 
CHAPTEH XXVIII. 
 
 Increased Frequency and Extent of the 
 Journeys with the Twelve. 
 
 But whilst the formation of the Twelve into the stem 
 of a true community of the perfected religion was con- 
 tinued by the Saviour thus incessantly and with ever- 
 increasing success, as his great daily work at this 
 period, the sultry clouds of the dea'dly storm were 
 gathering ever thicker over his head. For however He 
 sought in the time yet allowed Him (see above) to con- 
 fine Himself to the education of the Twelve, and to take 
 from the world all pretext for working against Him ; 
 yet this world saw ever more plainly, how even his 
 most peaceful and silent working threatened their whole 
 structure with the most open danger : and though, when 
 called on to define this danger more minutely, it might 
 float very vaguely before them, they naturally felt it all the 
 more, since everything which proceeded from Him, both 
 the smallest and the most helpful to suffering humanity, 
 proceeded immediately from a quite different spirit to 
 that which possessed the ruling power of the time. 
 
 No saying expresses the whole situation, as it gra- 
 
206 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 dually shaped itself, more briefly and plainly, than that 
 which, according to St. John, He Himself uttered at this 
 time to those who stood not as his downright enemies, 
 but yet indifferent and unsympathising towards Him. 
 '* The world cannot hate you, but me it hateth because 
 I testify of it that its works are evil." This He need 
 never have testified aloud : his whole life and working, 
 and every gentle innocent word from his mouth, gave 
 testimony to this. It was about this time that the 
 nearest prince, Herod Antipas, first was troubled in his 
 spirit about Him. He had doubtless heard of Him for 
 some time : not so much his doctrine as his works of 
 mercy had long spread his name everywhere : but it is 
 also not at all surprising that the multitude judged very 
 differently of his proper nature, and sought in a variety 
 of ways to solv6 the riddle of his manifestation. The 
 vulgar popular understanding sought at any rate for 
 something uncommon and miraculous in Him : but that 
 He is the very Messiah was the last conclusion they 
 arrived at (Nach. s. 231 f.). But every one might easily 
 know that He and many of his most intimate disciples 
 were from the Baptist's school, or at least that his 
 design was somewhat the same, and that his works were 
 greater than John's. Many therefore thought he was 
 the promised Elias ; others that he was at least Jeremiah 
 risen again (Bd. IV. s. 194) ; others were satisfied to 
 look on Him simply as some prophet, without seeing in 
 Him the resurrection of one deceased. But the most 
 terrible idea about Him was fixed in the mind of Antipas : 
 he feared that in Jesus, the Baptist murdered by him 
 
XXVIII.] HEEOD'S message to CHRIST. 207 
 
 had risen again, and therefore he possessed such won- 
 drous powers. Thus the bad conscience from his guilt 
 fastened in his mind on the vague superstition of the 
 time: and what a short step it was, from this tormenting 
 view of the Saviour to the command to put Him in 
 prison and execute Him, like the Baptist shortly before. 
 If he did not at once do this he deferred it certainly only 
 for a time, from a vague fear, as from the same cause 
 he had so long let the Baptist also alone. But at least 
 he now tried a fox-like trick to get Him out of his pro- 
 vince : some Pharisees feigning good will must advise 
 Him to be gone, as the Tetrarch would kill Him. The 
 reply He made to " that fox," who had not addressed 
 Him openly, has an unmistakeable resemblance to that 
 in which He replied to the last message of the Baptist : 
 He shortly declared what was then his duty in life, and 
 how He would not let Himself be disturbed in it, al- 
 though the Divine Voice told Him that He would soon 
 enough have to leave Galilee, not from fear of Antipas' 
 threatenings, but on quite other grounds. 
 
 In fact there was an enmity against Him far more 
 deadly at the centre of the existing spiritual power 
 itself, with its proud position in Jerusalem, and its 
 troops of Pharisees and other schoolmen dispersed every- 
 wherCj whose enmity burned ever more deeply because 
 their pretended religion felt itself ever more oppressed 
 by his perfect true religion. His call was not like the 
 Baptist's for a mere preparation for a new better time : 
 He called for entry at once into the duties of the King- 
 dom of God 5 and it was not by single blunt remarks 
 
208 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 that He irritated the wrath of the rulers of the world, as 
 the Baptist had done ; He worked like a king in his own 
 kingdom — in the world, yet floating above it. And 
 thus was there kindled against Him, not as against the 
 Baptist, a partial, calculating, and well-defined ani- 
 mosity : the spiritual power itself, as the great centre of 
 the true religion in the form it had then become petrified 
 in the world, with all the abuses which adhered to it, 
 felt itself most immediately and powerfully attacked by 
 Him, and could not, if it would make head against Him, 
 coexist. The opposing power was the spiritual might 
 of the people of the true religion, that is to say, the 
 most exalted power of the whole world at that time, as 
 it had risen up furnished from its armoury of the most 
 exalted truths, and, proud of a history of many centuries 
 grand beyond compare, was willing to overlook its own 
 offences : this power it was which now felt itself within 
 these last few years oppressed by the Baptist, and then 
 far worse by this Galilsean, and sought in the destruc- 
 tion of this man, which seemed as yet so easy, to anni- 
 hilate from out of the corner of Galilee his chiefly 
 Galilean followers. The rulers had already adopted 
 a milder measure as they might suppose, if only a 
 temporary one, against Him apart from his followers : 
 they had, as stated above (Chap. XIX.), put him under 
 the lesser excommunication ; and it seems that they ex^ 
 tended the same punishment gradually to Galila3an 
 synagogues, as they henceforth threatened with it his 
 open followers ever more bitterly, and in part actually 
 applied it. As however this punishment- served them 
 
XXVIII.] JOURNEYS WITH THE TWELVE. 209 
 
 in little stead, they caused Him and his most intimate 
 disciples to be watched more closely, in order to find 
 matter for new charges. This storm, which, in spite of 
 all his innocence and all his reserve, rose ever more 
 fiercely against Ilim, might have long been foreseen by 
 Him : He had known from the first what He and what 
 the world would have ; and since He had laid the founda- 
 tion of his Church, the most cruel sting had been taken 
 from their fury and their wrong. But yet He had to 
 avoid the world's enmity as long as possible, in order to 
 continue as long as possible the diflScult work which He 
 had begun in the formation of the Church : for it had 
 long been apparent how much, after the first favourable 
 beginnings, was yet to be done ; as also, how hard it was 
 for the higher belief to find here an abiding place. But, 
 with the suspicion and hatred of his enemies ever on the 
 increase, He found nowhere a resting-place for long: 
 henceforth then He undertook with the Twelve the more 
 frequent and distant wanderings even to the remotest 
 borders of the ancient Holy Land, and could the more 
 easily, among the many unforeseen accidents of every 
 day, accustom the Twelve to that higher belief and that 
 firmness of their whole spirit which was yet wanting to 
 them, and at the same time give help to more, who were 
 worthy of his loving help ; it seems, indeed, as though 
 his spirit had driven Him to calmly visit all the chief 
 places in the whole land, which it was his first business 
 to invite to the perfect true religion. But the nearer his 
 life-work was to its completion, the nearer insight must 
 He give to the Twelve into the whole virulence and true 
 
 r 
 
210 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 nature of the enmity of the world in its then ruling 
 powers, and also into the necessity, to Him alone clear, 
 of his near death ; and if for this short glimpses in 
 deeper lessons sufficed, these must be given more ex- 
 plicitly on every opportunity. We find from good proofs 
 that the warnings of Christ, on the perversity of the 
 dominant Schools, did not reach their greater frequency, 
 directness, and sharpness, till towards the end of his 
 whole active working : it was when his work appeared 
 in the world more complete and distinct that this enmity 
 also met Him more decidedly; and then the Twelve 
 had been sufficiently prepared to understand more com- 
 pletely this antagonism, and more rightly to compre- 
 hend it. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The distant Journeys in the North. 
 
 These journeys occupied at least the whole summer of 
 the last year, and of them we know from St. Mark many 
 particulars ; only that his peculiar mode of narration must 
 here not be overlooked. Christ preferred staying in 
 Galilee, and journeyed through it with the Twelve to the 
 most varied quarters, so that He visited besides Decapolis 
 (iv. s. 51 f.) the north-easternly neighbouring countries^ 
 which were then still ruled by the mild Tetrarch Philip ; 
 his residence in Galilee under Antipas became at the 
 same time constantly more insecure. The repeated 
 voyages over the lake of Galilee, and the constant journeys 
 towards the three different provinces abutting on it, shew 
 how fleeting his foot must already have been on earth ; 
 and there assuredly lies in these constant cruises on the 
 lake a good portion of certain reminiscence. Once more, 
 when He was staying in the district of Gennesaret 
 (described Chap. XXVII.) , some Pharisees and Scribes 
 just come from Jerusalem reproached Him with his dis- 
 ciples not being sufficiently observant of the laws of 
 bodily cleanliness. But He seized this opportunity to 
 
212 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 establish not only in their presence, but in the presence 
 of the multitude and especially of the Twelve, the true 
 view of all which is clean or unclean for the spiritual 
 man; and also to shew the whole perverseness of the 
 Pharisees, and in general to lay down moral regulations. 
 He went from thence north-westernly to the borders of 
 the ancient city of Tyre, and went into a house intending 
 to stay some time, but wished to remain here quite un- 
 known. There soon however hastened to Him a woman 
 of Greek education, but born here, to beg Him, as the 
 Messiah of whose power she had heard, to heal her 
 daughter possessed by an evil spirit. At first He would 
 have nothing to say to her, but so much the more 
 anxiously did she hang on the Twelve assembled before 
 the house, so that even these, moved with compassion, 
 beg Him to give her a decided answer. Then He in- 
 forms her. He had not been sent to the heathen but " to 
 the lost sheep of Israel," who had a nearer claim on his 
 help : but as she succeeded in putting aside even this 
 hindrance, through her meek humility. He gives in to 
 her petition, moved by so much true faith. So little 
 then will He reject even heathens from sharing in his 
 gifts, and hence in his kingdom (for the kingdom is 
 where his gifts work), if they, as is fair to ask, with 
 stronger faith break through the stronger barriers which 
 separate them from it. It seems even as though He 
 would designedly give a plain example of this, as He 
 was visiting countries where the heathen population 
 predominated. The journeying extended further north 
 even to the ancient province of Sidon, as far as any 
 
XXIX.] DEMANDS FOR A SIGN. 213 
 
 members of Israel had ever settled in these quarters — 
 soon again to be principally occupied by heathen. From 
 thence He turned back in a south-easternly direction, 
 probably crossing the Jordan north of the lake of 
 Galilee, then eastwards from this into the midst of the 
 province of Decapolis, and so among a predominant 
 heathen population. Here He healed a deaf man who 
 stammered, by a mode of healing touched on somewhat 
 more minutely (oben 224) : but in vain did He charge 
 most earnestly those who had brought the deaf man for 
 healing, not to speak of it ; they could not refrain for 
 astonishment. 
 
 At this time and place is fixed a second feeding of 
 the multitude of which we spoke above (Chap. XXVII.). 
 From the eastern shore of the lake He crossed over to 
 the province of Dalmanutha, by which probably is meant 
 the south-west of Galilee. The Pharisees left Him no 
 rest even here : they demanded of Him a sign, but only 
 to lead Him into temptation. He decidedly refused to 
 accede to such demands of unbelief appearing under the 
 pretext of belief, and declared at that time, with special 
 meaning, what was generally to be thought of such 
 askers for a sign. The Spruchsammlung, and still more 
 St. John, intimate very clearly the meaning of his answers 
 to such demands : but no expression of this sort from his 
 mouth took naturally deeper hold, than that only one 
 great sign would be given to that generation, very much 
 against their will, but all the more surprising and crushing, 
 that of the old prophet Jonas. As he returned from the 
 depths of the sea in order to speak with all the more 
 
214 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 force by his own person and his fate, witnessing for the 
 truth of his words ; so would He, after his apparent de- 
 feat, return to this generation speaking with words all 
 the more potent. This prophetic intuition, the truth of 
 which we shall see marvellously fulfilled, was long and 
 deeply rooted in their minds. 
 
 Vexed at such perverse demands. He withdrew again 
 over the lake to the eastern shore : and the old narrative 
 preserved from this journey a remarkable saying of his. 
 They intended to visit again that twice-mentioned lonely 
 district on the eastern shore: but the Twelve had, at 
 their hasty departure, taken only one loaf with them ; 
 they had forgotten all other stores, their absence not 
 being remarked till they were on board. Then He 
 snake to them of the leaven of the Pharisees and the 
 Herodians, and how they were to beware of it : so full was 
 his heart yet of displeasure with those perverse demands, 
 which only shewed an impure heart ; whereas the mem- 
 bers of God's kingdom must keep their heart constantly 
 as pure as though they were continually keeping the 
 Paschal feast with pure food, after careful putting away 
 of the old leaven. But they thought He intended 
 merely to warn them ; as they had forgotten the bread, 
 to take no leavened bread from the Pharisees ; and for 
 the third time they need the solemn reminder to dismiss 
 such lower considerations and cares. For plainly this 
 narrative was intended to complete the course of lessons 
 begun with the two above : even one small loaf suffices 
 easily for them all ; and to forget too anxious care for the 
 corporeal, is better than forgetfulness and misunder- 
 standing of higher things. 
 
XXIX.] ENQUIRY INTO THE APOSTLES' VIEWS. 215 
 
 It is plain that they now staid at this lonely place 
 for some time. When they went later on the eastern 
 side of the lake district, into a small town whose name is 
 now somewhat doubtful to us, there was brought to Him 
 a blind man whom He healed, but strictly charged him, 
 in order to avoid notice, to remain at home and not let 
 himself be seen much in his own place. From hence, 
 keeping constantly east of the lake and of the Jordan, 
 He visited even the extreme north-east of the Holy 
 Land, pressing on till He reached the place, where, 
 below mountain peaks rising ever higher towards the 
 north, near the then newly-built Csesarea Philippi, poured 
 forth the sources of the Jordan ; without however visiting 
 the capital, He staid some time in the smaller places. 
 Thus far had He now been persecuted and driven away 
 even to the furthest mountain peaks in the land, and 
 that, if not openly yet plainly enough, by the rulers of 
 the people of the true religion : the providential fate 
 determined for Him revealed itself in its inner develop- 
 ment ever more plainly to his Spirit's eye, and He had 
 long been prepared for all ; but He felt equally sure that 
 it was high time to make gradually plain before the 
 Twelve even the worst and most painful which He fore- 
 saw as to his own position in the world, in order to 
 point out to them what, in this respect also, are the 
 duties of the true members of the Church of the com- 
 pleted true religion. For the first time He now pur- 
 posely started in the circle of his Twelve the question of 
 his own nature : the various views formed of Him in 
 Israel had been repeated, when Peter expressed solemnly. 
 
216 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 in the name of all, his rock-firm conviction that He was 
 the Messiah. It is here certainly to be noticed that 
 St. John (vi. 69) connects this solemn utterance of Peter 
 with an earlier occasion : but there might well be several 
 such moments, in which this conviction thrilled more 
 strongly through the hearts of the Twelve, and sought 
 even in open speech an inspired expression ; though the 
 several Evangelists might have different opinions as to 
 which of such moments was the most sublime and least 
 to be forgotten. The present moment had this peculiar 
 to it, that the Saviour Himself called forth this con- 
 fession of belief without any external occasion ; but the 
 great question must at some time become the subject of 
 solemn conversation, and at the right time He had 
 occasion enough within Himself to bring on the subject. 
 Doubtless at such a free cheerful confession his own 
 Spirit deeply rejoiced : He experienced for the second 
 time that pure joy which (Chap. XXVII.) once before 
 the joy of the Twelve in their life-work and his had pre- 
 pared for Him ; but if then they might rejoice at their 
 success in their first attempt, it was here rather the pure 
 belief embracing the whole future, the first condition of 
 all higher joy, which was here uttered from Peter's 
 inspired mouth. Only where this is present, is there 
 actually present the foundation for an inexhaustible 
 working for the kingdom of God ; and hence likewise is 
 there laid firm as a rock the foundation for an unspeak- 
 ably fruitful working in his Church : and when this 
 rock-firm faith met Him from the midst of the now long 
 founded community of the perfect true religion so freely 
 
XXIX.] CHRIST FORETELLS HIS END. 217 
 
 and cheerfully, there was given to Him again one such 
 a moment of purest joy, nay, of the most blissful looking 
 forward into the whole boundless progress of the Mes- 
 sianic life-work. And yet, according to the Spruchsamm- 
 lung and the older narrative, He now strictly forbade 
 them to speak of Him as the Messiah in such un- 
 restrained joy ; rather He shewed them at this very time 
 the destiny, deeply painful and yet providentially de- 
 termined, which was before the Messiah in the world : 
 and when Peter, directly He gave this unexpected turn 
 to the discourse, whispered He had better be silent on 
 such things. He was so little to be checked from utter- 
 ing clearly and completely all that was now to be said, 
 that He all the more repeated, quite openly before all the 
 Twelve, the same painful presentiment according to its 
 hidden truth, and shewed the duties which God's king- 
 dom lays on every one of its members for this as well as 
 for every similar crisis. So little then had He proposed 
 that question on what He really appeared and was 
 esteemed in the world in order merely to elicit that con- 
 fession, and so closely joined in his mind with the 
 joyful presentiment which it called forth was the painful 
 likewise : but He shews this just as plainly, and prepares 
 his own to meet the dangers with the right weapons. 
 And so too in St. John's account of the joyful exclama- 
 tion of the disciples (John vi. 70), no thought is to his 
 spirit so immediate as that of the black destiny of 
 betrayal which lurked among the Twelve. But the 
 Twelve can now at most hear such painful intuitions and 
 solemn admonitions in silence : and thus is seen a con- 
 
218 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 straint from the contrast between that their joyful faith 
 and these so troubled forebodings of his. No former ex- 
 perience of theirs is able to explain this contrast : yet to 
 the pure faith, that faith which had now at least in some 
 of them become firm as a rock, it is possible to overcome 
 even this contrariety. Faith already penetrated by the 
 heavenly truth, and again directed simply to this, is 
 enabled to see, just as surely and certainly as if they had 
 been already realised, the transfiguration and victory of 
 that divine life-work, which the gloom and suff'erings of 
 time yet cloud over. But now at that time the earthly 
 life-work of Christ with the rock-firm foundation of his 
 Church was all but completed, although its conclusion, 
 its outer veil, so to speak, was yet to come : that founda- 
 tion once laid, the whole inner glory and transfiguration 
 were there : and although the outer glory could as yet be 
 seen by no eye of flesh, yet the spirit's eye was enabled 
 already to see it ; and though not yet clear and not yet 
 permanently or by many with equal clearness, still 
 already it could be seen by some chosen spirits in 
 moments of higher intuition : and if everything spiritual 
 can at first be seen only momentarily quite clear and 
 shining as in heavenly transfiguration, wonderfully sur- 
 prising indeed and inspiring is the first moment of this 
 glory, when mortal man, so far as he may, is surprised 
 for the first time by the glorious picture irresistibly over- 
 powering him, and what his spirit inwardly sees as 
 certain comes before him radiant also from without. 
 This is the great and eternal importance of the history 
 of the Transfiguration, which is rightly inserted at this 
 
XXIX.] THE TRANSFIGURATION. 219 
 
 place : now the three most trusted disciples at least, on 
 a high mountain whither the Saviour had led them, sud- 
 denly see Him transfigured and conversing with Elias 
 and Moses, and hear Him out of the cloud, which again 
 removed these heavenly visitants, declared aloud to be 
 the Messiah. A second exalted moment since the 
 Saviour's baptism is possible for Him on earth : but if at 
 his baptism heaven opened for the first time, it opens 
 here much more gloriously to pour its light on the earth. 
 Elias and Moses most naturally represent not only what 
 was most exalted, but also what was most enduring 
 in the Old Testament : with them is now linked the 
 Messiah : not till his transfiguration do they appear 
 again on earth, but only that the earth may hear again 
 from heaven not only ^' This is my beloved Son," but also 
 ^^ hear ye Him." This is all, for the present elevation of 
 the Messianic history, not too high : we have in view at 
 once the whole course of this development from that 
 moment of the baptism, and see here at once, as in a 
 prelude, the eternal glory beginning, hardly held back by 
 what was first to be completed on earth. Thus the most 
 exalted will here put on intelligible form, the unutterable 
 exhaust itself in words : and everything lower, which 
 perhaps might have given occasion to this reminiscence 
 and representation, is lost here in the purest shining 
 sublimities. The narrative belongs also indisputably to 
 the oldest Gospel fund of narrative. But should we, 
 after 2000 years, form fancies of building huts here, the 
 whole shining manifestation would at once again escape 
 us, and nothing of it be left save the " to Him shall ye 
 
220 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 hearken" (Deut. xviii. 15). It is further expressly told 
 us that the three did not tell of this glorious sight till 
 after the Resurrection. But further, how easy it might be 
 to the inspired glance to see the return of an Elias, the 
 old appendix to this narrative in fact informs us. For 
 when the three, as it continues, asked the Saviour how 
 then about the tradition of Elias preceding Messiah? 
 He allowed indeed this view after its inner truth, but 
 declared that if the Messiah must, according to the 
 Scriptures, suffer much and die, and that this was now 
 speedily imminent; so must his predecessor, who had 
 already come, be a like sufferer, the Baptist namely, 
 whom on other occasions He likened to Elias. Thus 
 surely did all the older ideas and hopes, under the quite 
 new creative ardour of Christian experience and intuition, 
 readily flow into a new mould, and took naturally new 
 forms. And further, the thing itself teaches us, that all 
 such heavenly words, though Old Testament words, yet 
 sounded now with such divine truth and power as was 
 never heard before in this world, and whose new truth 
 must for the first time thus powerfully impress itself. 
 And yet, in truth, how far the Twelve, excepting the 
 three, at least in harder cases, were yet behind what 
 they should be, was here shewn in an example given at 
 some length. When He returned to them He saw them 
 surrounded by a crowd, and in violent dispute with some 
 scribes. His appearance (as though He had been long 
 expected) put all at once into violent commotion, and 
 they hastened towards Him with greeting. On his 
 enquiry into the cause of so violent a dispute, one tells 
 
XXTX.] HEALING OF THE EPILEPTIC. 221 
 
 Him lie has brought to them his deaf and dumb son, 
 suffering from the demon of the falling sickness, that 
 they might heal him ; but they had not been able to 
 heal him : we may readily imagine how the scribes now 
 attacked the disciples, who hardly knew how to defend 
 themselves. Then deep pain seizes Him, not so much 
 on the disciples' account as for the whole unbelieving and 
 perverse generation, in whose perverseness however the 
 disciples shared more than was reasonable. His own 
 treatment which He then at once begins convinces Him 
 indeed of the peculiar difiSculty of this case, and on 
 further enquiry He learnt from the father that his son 
 had suffered from a child of this sickness : yet from 
 compassion on the father, who willingly declared the 
 right belief in his healing power. He made preparation 
 to heal him undisturbed by the increasing crowd, which 
 after considerable labour completely succeeds. To the 
 disciples, who afterwards in the house asked Him the 
 cause of their failing. He shews tliem how they are 
 yet wanting in the whole magic power of entire belief; 
 and how nothing hard can be successfully accomplished 
 by that kind of men who always (as perhaps the Phari- 
 sees) go to work with fasting and praying, and think 
 they thus possess all the divine means of strengthening 
 the spirit. In this reply, as applied to the case before 
 them, lay only the reproof that they had too hastily 
 remitted believing zeal for their healing work, led astray 
 by their own doubt and by the perverseness of the 
 opposing scribes : fasting and prayer are not, as taught 
 by the existing schools, everywhere sufficient means to 
 
222 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 strengtlien the spirit in difficult work. Thus arrived 
 then the last days and weeks which He could spend in 
 the north. He wandered much with the Twelve through 
 Galilee proper, wishing to remain as far as possible un- 
 known ; and his chief care was to accustom the Twelve 
 ever more firmly to the thought of his approaching 
 earthly end. 
 
 He visited in the concluding period specially Caper- 
 nahum, as though He felt most difficulty in parting with 
 the very place where He had once the longest unfolded 
 his higher activity. Here too it was, where, according 
 to the Spruchsammlung, He seized every opportunity, in 
 those last days, of shewing both by his own example and 
 by the instructive saying, in what manner the members 
 of the community of the perfect true religion must 
 behave in questions on rule, rank, and honour : the 
 Spruchsammlung at least makes use of this crisis to put 
 together all the marvellously deep utterances on such 
 more complicated relations of life. And doubtless it was 
 in the somewhat later times of this period that He spoke 
 most and most decidedly about them, although He 
 continued even to his earthly end everywhere to treat of 
 the same higher moral duties here discussed. For the 
 community needed first a firmer foundation and longer 
 duration, before these duties of the higher Love could be 
 profitably taught in it : now however, after that He Him- 
 self had, in the midst of his Own, everywhere proved the 
 power of the higher Love to be inseparable from that of 
 the Truth, it was easy to teach this harder duty in plain 
 examples and words as well. We propose here, merely 
 
XXIX.] THE TEMPLE DUES. 223 
 
 for the sake of meeting its difficulties, an example some- 
 what harder to comprehend, which He gave of the 
 dealing of Him and of His towards the existing author- 
 ities. When He again visited Capernahum with the 
 Twelve after a longer absence, having Himself gone, 
 somewhat the first, into the house which was here ever 
 open to Him, the collectors of the yearly temple impost, 
 who had probably long waited in vain for the Master 
 of these Twelve, who was still properly a citizen of 
 Capernahum, fell in with Peter, and asked him, as the 
 recognised chief of the disciples, whether his Master does 
 not pay the double drachma. It might be supposed 
 that, as the Messiah, for which He was taken by many, 
 and as the opponent of the scribes and the existing 
 spiritual authorities, as He might be regarded. He would 
 probably not pay the tax; and the Master's precedent 
 would then bend the disciples also. Peter said " yes" 
 to the question, but had first to get the Master's decision. 
 Christ however asked him first the question, whether in 
 his opinion the taxes of a kingdom ought to be exacted 
 from the king's relatives or from strangers. As they 
 serve for the support of the existing order of things, and 
 so fall into the hands of those who maintain the estab- 
 lished order, the king and his immediate ministers ; it 
 follows that those who exist merely to rule, and in ruling 
 must get their livelihood, need not themselves pay taxes. 
 Thus among the people Israel the Levites paid no taxes, 
 because, as standing according to the original constitu- 
 tion as Jehovah's immediate representatives, they had to 
 keep up the established order ; and the Romans paid no 
 
224 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 taxes as having become the lords of ail other countries, 
 and having undertaken for them the care of the govern- 
 ment. Hence, also, Christ, as Head of the true Kingdom 
 of God and of the new Israel into which the old had 
 passed, and with Him his highest officers, should be free 
 from taxation, and need trouble themselves no longer 
 about the old order of things. But in order to give no 
 offence, He will with his people pay the taxes, and 
 respect the existing authorities so far as thej were only 
 demanding obedience in temporal matters : and how 
 easy it is in truth to find such worldly possessions as are 
 needed (for e. g. paying the required taxes) ! In the 
 mouth of the first fish which Peter takes, on casting 
 a line at the Lord's bidding, he shall find a stater, equal 
 in value to four drachma — sufficient to pay the tax for 
 both. That this was done and the tax paid in this way, 
 we are not told : the expression originated from well- 
 known though very rare examples of such supplies found 
 in fish : but how the blessing of the higher religion rests 
 even on such temporal employment is often dwelt on in 
 the Gospels (compare Chap. XVI). Such then were 
 Christ's views on the relation between Him and His and 
 external rule. (Compare Matt. xxii. 15 — 22.) 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 The Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. 
 
 Unsettled meanwhile as was Christ's foot more and 
 more, and continually as He wandered in the north with 
 the Twelve ; He had no desire, since his last visit to the 
 feast in Jerusalem, and since the founding of his Church, 
 to go thither again. The Passover had passed this year 
 without his having appeared there ; and the Feast of 
 Tabernacles now approached without any apparent symp- 
 toms of his journeying up thither. And why should 
 He needlessly and prematurely visit a place, which He 
 had already known by experience, and constantly newly 
 experienced, to be the focus of all the hostility against 
 his life-work ? He had constantly, in the education of 
 the Twelve, and the completion, so far as possible, of the 
 rest of his daily work, work infinitely more important to 
 do than contending with the leaders and supporters of 
 the spiritual authority and the laying bare their naked- 
 ness. Yet it could not have been his intention to avoid 
 for ever the centre of all existing true religion and its 
 authorities, nor evidently ever was it. Kather, if his 
 life's w^ork, present as it ever was to his Spirit, and 
 
 Q 
 
226 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 daily as He was advancing it in the world, could have 
 conquered for all time and all nations without a fatal 
 conflict (and the possibility of this He can never have 
 quite given up, still less in his human will rejected it) ; 
 it must have conquered from this centre; and in any 
 case He needed to have strength and courage enough, 
 once more freely and openly, at this high centre itself, to 
 offer it for their free judgment to the heads of the people, 
 when it was already nearly completed so far as He 
 could now complete it — would they make it their own 
 or not ? He must once more appear openly before them, 
 just as He was, as He taught, and as He worked ; to 
 see whether they would let Him thus be and teach and 
 work ; in fact, lay no intentional impediments to the 
 advance of the complete true religion, or would they 
 not? 
 
 When now in this year the Feast of Tabernacles 
 approached, and He (as we must assume) was just come 
 to Capernahum, his brethren living here (who were not 
 indeed downright hostile to Him, but indifferent and 
 lukewarm towards his doctrine) proposed to Him the 
 question, if He had Messianic powers and works, why 
 did He not appear quite openly with them in Judfea? 
 Galilee, in which alone for a year He had moved, was 
 held, as compared with Judah and Jerusalem, a country 
 in which one only works, so to speak, in the dark ; 
 Jerusalem alone is the high illustrious world in which 
 He must reveal Himself. To such words, reported by 
 St. John (John vii. 2 — 5) with remarkable honesty. He 
 only replied '' his time was not yet come ;" He must put 
 
XXX.] JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. 227 
 
 up with much suspicion and hate, of which they now 
 knew nothing ; they might go up, He would not go up 
 yet. So they went up without Him. He had however, 
 in thus replying, only refused to go up in the usual 
 manner, namely in the public Galilsean caravan, in order 
 not to enter before the feast into the Holy City in 
 a festal procession : He would thus have been at once 
 known there, and would have, as if intentionally, excited 
 the notice of the authorities, which now He earnestly 
 wished to avoid j for He still felt that his life's work was 
 not to be broken off through his own impetuosity ; and 
 He had still cause to be eager for every hour, in which 
 He could continue to devote Himself to the Twelve and 
 to other sufferers. There was however in this matter 
 another course open to Him. He might go up some 
 days later : He thus avoided the public festal entry, and 
 yet, as the feast lasted seven days, and had too a con- 
 cluding great day in the eighth, could come into the 
 midst of the throng, and discover how people in Jerusalem, 
 amid the concourse of such numbers, were disposed 
 towards Him and his work. This course must seem to 
 Him, in fact, to offer many advantages, irrespective even 
 of the needless great dangers which the earlier entry 
 would have occasioned. For it was far more moderate 
 and forbearing to appear in this great centre, where in 
 any case his cause must be ultimately decided, once more 
 making indeed no denial of the Truth, yet otherwise 
 seeking all quiet reserve and pea:e ; in order to gain all 
 the more leisure for the complete exposition of his cause, 
 and to try all that could Le acliieved by the deepest 
 
228 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 self-negation and quiet on his part. It may even be said 
 it was a providential duty of love not to make the dis- 
 turbance of his work too easy to his enemies ; and, with 
 all the honesty and boldness which the work itself 
 demanded, still, so long as possible to keep out of the 
 way. He did not then enter Jerusalem till during the 
 week, but " as in secret," avoiding purposely all notice, 
 far differently from the time when He entered for his 
 final Passover: He was however accompanied by his 
 most trusted friends. His enemies had long waited for 
 Him in vain, whilst the judgment of the multitude, 
 always so loudly expressed on feast days, was divided 
 about Him : but at the same time, from fear of the lesser 
 excommunication with which the spiritual authorities 
 had already threatened his followers, it was a good deal 
 suppressed. 
 
 Yet He appeared in the very middle of the festal 
 week, in the colonnades of the outer sanctuary, teach- 
 ing; and actually escaped all more violent interrup- 
 tion among the people, as well as the snares of the 
 enemy, longer than He usually did in the capital. We 
 must indeed, from the reports before us, assume that He 
 actually remained till the feast of the dedication of the 
 Temple in December (John x. 22. Bd. I v. s. 356 f.), if 
 not always in the capital itself, still in its neighbour- 
 hood, and in Judasa. 
 
 In this quarter of a year He had thus time and op- 
 portunity enough to learn to know most completely the 
 settled feeling of the multitude, and still more that of its 
 spiritual rulers towards Him and his work ; and to shew 
 
XXX.] QUESTION TO BE DECIDED. 229 
 
 them sufficiently, though with all self-restraint and fore- 
 sight, what manner of man He was at the full maturity 
 both of his doctrine and his activity. And certainly 
 this quiet and yet perfectly plain revelation of his entire 
 being, at the decisive centre of the spiritual power, 
 during the meridian height of his public working, be- 
 longed so essentially (so to speak) to the duties of his 
 Messianic office, that it would have been much missed had 
 it been wanting. Thus only could and must be finally 
 decided, whether his work on earth were to conquer 
 peacefully or not : for here in Jerusalem were bound so 
 singularly close together, all the treasures of science, and 
 all the motives and means of action, as they had been 
 nowhere else : and that the final decision was prepared 
 with such entire quietness, originating in the deepest 
 necessity and without the very least violence of surprise 
 and appeal on his part, was no small advantage to the 
 good cause itself: so that in this, as in everything else, 
 we must not a little admire the heavenly, clear, and 
 sublime view, which urged Him now to act in Jerusalem 
 as He did. We must hence also feel very grateful to 
 St. John, that He in his Gospel has described these 
 encounters much more definitely in time and place than 
 had been done in the earlier accounts. The older ac- 
 counts tell us likewise, that the final decision in Jeru- 
 salem followed after a solemn general battle against all 
 the tendencies then dominant : but in their characteristic 
 manner some only of the most prominent points of the 
 dispute are put together, and these again are accumulated 
 on the last two days of the last festal journey ; nay, this 
 
230 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 whole crisis, as decided by a journey in the autumn, and 
 a final Passover journey preparatory for the final end, is 
 there lost sight of. But we shall be able to speak more 
 at length below, on the more minute events of this last 
 journey. 
 
 In St. John's manner of painting the events of the 
 last stay but one in Jerusalem, he brings forward, in 
 his peculiar manner and in the freer repetition usual 
 with him, many characteristics of what he wished him- 
 self to recall, but nothing except what most intimately 
 concerns the grand question of this very period of the 
 public life and work of Christ. Will the Saviour at 
 length, in Jerusalem itself, on that brilliant elevation from 
 which He now shines forth into the world, and in that 
 entire unreserve of his language which He now uses, in 
 spite of his forbearance, by the rulers or even by the multi- 
 tude in the necessary way, be recognised and accepted ? 
 That is the grand question of this stage of the develop- 
 ment of the history. How much was there to speak for 
 Him in Jerusalem ! and even if the opinions of the 
 rulers, with very few exceptions, had already turned too 
 decidedly against Him ; the multitude was however 
 freer from prejudice, and, less bound by mere scholastic 
 views, might yet decide for Him. But the way in 
 which the multitude, after long wavering and uncer- 
 tainty in the strife between the most diverse conceptions 
 and opinions, was at length carried away into the 
 general rejection of Christ, nay, his persecution to the 
 death, — this is here most vividly described : and tlie way 
 in which all the several considerations on which it all 
 
XXX.] THE MULTITUDE IN DOUBT. 231 
 
 turned in this long fluctuating strife, through Christ's 
 merit carried on tolerably quietly, are portrayed- — with 
 such truth, though only with the slightest touches ; this 
 is the most instructive lesson in this narrative. And as 
 in this manner all the characteristics are here related, 
 yet only so far as they are important for enabling us to 
 see before us the last great event which the history of 
 these three months had taught ; so the whole narrative 
 of these days is subordinated to the proper treatment of 
 one single subject, which, once entered upon, proceeds 
 through a hundred changes in word and in action on its 
 shifting course, till it arrives at length at its final con- 
 clusion. We shall give here a slight sketch at least of 
 it, as from it we get the clearest insight into the reasons 
 why Christ's cause could not conquer even in the multi- 
 tude as it was ; and here, as nowhere else, can look into 
 the confusion of the strife about Jesus' true character, 
 which one time, before and after his death, was to be 
 debated with such animosity. 
 
 When He appeared teaching among his enemies, the 
 doctors object He is not a learned man worth listening 
 to. This is a first reproach then, which is not without 
 weight with the unlearned mob. But He shews how 
 surely it is a question of something else than school learn- 
 ing ; it is the question of doing the will of God, that is, the 
 complete true religion necessary alike for all men, the 
 same which He preaches and for which they would kill 
 Him (John vii. 15 — 19). When the multitude think 
 this cannot be so, and are inclined to look on it as an 
 exaggeration of his fancy, He shews how wrongly the 
 
232 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Scribes condemned Him for his former work of healing 
 in Jerusalem (Chap. XVIII.), in which the multitude 
 were not guiltless : the people then are surely in danger 
 of ill-treating Him still worse, doing Him even fatal 
 wrong. They have no fitting reply to make to this ; so 
 the popular favour inclines towards Him ; they cannot 
 help also thinking that the rulers, who say nothing to 
 Him, probably had already recognised Him as Christ : 
 only that He is of such well-known descent perplexes 
 them ; to meet which He shews how little important 
 earthly parentage is here. But when He, on this, 
 touches on his heavenly descent, the maintaining of 
 which long before seemed to the rulers blasphemy, they 
 wish to arrest Him at once ; but the multitude rather 
 incline to the miracle-worker, and the rulers do not 
 venture to take Him. The rulers now, in consequence 
 of this favourable feeling of the people towards Him, 
 only send spies to take Him, if perhaps the people 
 might again become disinclined to Him : but a kind of 
 unintentional scorn sounds in his last public saying for 
 the day, that He will go soon enough from thence ; but 
 this too is miserably misunderstood by his enemies to 
 mean that He would go among the heathen, of which 
 they have secretly greater fear than they will allow. 
 On the eighth, the great concluding day of the festival. 
 He spoke with unusual emotion to the assembled people 
 on true faith : the Apostle here, in breathing new life 
 into the sayings of Christ, proceeds from the two funda- 
 mental conceptions, the most exhaustive of the true 
 notion of the Messiah, and on which also the perverse 
 
XXX.] INCLINATION TOWARDS CHRIST. 233 
 
 iudo:ments of men were sure to take most offence : be- 
 cause it became now more and more essential to have 
 right notions about Him. These conceptions are of 
 life and light ; only that Christ here (as doubtless the 
 Apostle remembered), on account of the peculiar ceremony 
 of the day, instead of speaking of life generally, spoke of 
 the water of life. Then were many much moved and 
 inclined to account Him the Prophet, the forerunner of 
 the Messiah, or Messiah Himself; while others had doubts 
 of the last, as He was not from Bethlehem, of David's 
 stock ; others were even inclined to take Him prisoner ; 
 yet they did not venture, held captive simply through 
 the power of his words ; so that the officers returned to 
 the rulers having done nothing : among these rulers, in- 
 deed, only very few ventured to remark on the great 
 wrong they had been on the point of doing (viii. 
 21—30). 
 
 When He then next proceeded, from the notion of 
 light, to speak of right faith in order to cling to his 
 manifestation, the Pharisees, fettered by their low earthly 
 thoughts, raised their ever returning objections; but 
 sought in vain thus to work on the people. Nay, when 
 on another day, an ordinary sabbath, in view of his 
 speedy departure — in spite of all the constant, almost in- 
 tentional misunderstanding on the part of his enemies — 
 He called with increasing emphasis for true faith, He 
 found thereupon many inspired by such faith. But 
 when He now would speak to those very men who 
 would believe on Him of tlie higher duties and con- 
 sequences of true faith, and would convince them that 
 
234 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 only the truth to be won bj faith can procure them the 
 freedom thej desired ; their national pride took offence, 
 and they became gradually more bitter against Him, the 
 more decidedly He defended his expression and followed it 
 through all its consequences ,* so that they would actually 
 have stoned Him, had He not, preventing the full out- 
 burst of their fury, got quietly away from them out of 
 the temple. 
 
 But that same day He healed, according to his wont, 
 one born blind : when this got abroad, forced as they 
 were to admit the truth of the miracle, they pretended 
 to have found in Him a great sinner for having done 
 this kindness to the poor man on the sabbath ; they 
 persecuted in consequence the man restored as well as 
 his parents : and when he rejected (as no sound argu- 
 ments) their advice to regard his benefactor as a sinner, 
 they put him under the lesser excommunication ; but 
 could neither prevent the blind man becoming even more 
 deeply rooted in his faith, nor their being by him 
 denoted, as they deserved, ever more plainly and openly, 
 blind leaders ; disagreeable as it was to them to hear it, 
 and much as many of the people were influenced by it : 
 thus a great inclination began again to arise in his 
 favour among the people. But when at length He 
 appeared publicly at the feast of dedication in a rather 
 numerous assemblage, and there to the passionate demand 
 He should at length, if He were the Messiah, openly 
 shew Himself such, and put Himself accordingly at 
 their head as an earthly king; He only replied, they 
 should first have the true faith, in order to see that with 
 
XXX.] FIXAL OFFENCE IN CHRIST. 235 
 
 Him is eternal life and salvation, and tliat He and liis 
 work and word are inseparable from God : their furj 
 breaks out again against liis imagined presumption to- 
 wards God, and they are so little to be softened by his 
 most true representations, that He has to hurry away to 
 escape from their full fury. 
 
 Thus then had it been decided by this so long- 
 suffering and patient long-continued stay in Jerusalem, 
 that even the multitude, in spite of its pitiable condition, 
 and in spite of the sparks of a less corrupt, better spirit 
 which at certain moments flashed forth to the shame of 
 the hardened leaders, was yet incapable of actually 
 taking hold of the true salvation when it was at length 
 brought near to it ; because at last, even when otherwise 
 they had not been wanting in willingness, some too 
 firmly rooted prejudices of various sorts blinded their 
 eyes and made them miserable tools in the hand of their 
 blind leaders. When this attempt had also been in vain, 
 Christ might mourn, as according to the oldest Gospel 
 writing He did mourn towards the close of his manifesta- 
 tion : how often had He laboured in vain to gather like 
 a hen the chickens of Jerusalem under his wing ; but 
 they themselves would not be so saved by Him ! Of 
 other events during this stay in Jerusalem and Judah, 
 we know nothing certain. Yet this is the probable date, 
 when the Saviour was staying so long in the capital, and 
 tormented by the schoolmen with all possible tempting 
 questions, at which we may place the story about the 
 woman taken in adultery, which was inserted quite 
 early in St. John's Gospel at this place where it pro- 
 
236 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 bably seemed appropriate. It is assumed in it that He 
 had by night his lodging on the Mount of Olives. 
 When then He had one morning returned to the outer 
 court of the temple, and sat down to teach, the Scribes 
 and Pharisees brought to Him an adulteress taken in 
 the very act, in order to enquire of Him, whether He 
 would apply to her the punishment of death by stoning 
 appointed by the old Mosaic Law for such adulteresses. 
 Without doubt they long knew the gentleness of his 
 judgment on such sinners among the lower orders whom 
 the spiritual rulers condemned most deeply; whilst 
 hypocritically they avoided in their own case rather the 
 appearance than the essential part of the corresponding 
 sins. But He made as though He heard it not ; stooped 
 down, and with his fingers wrote on the ground, ap- 
 parently in spirit only busied with Himself, while He 
 doubtless began to write down the same as He after- 
 wards said aloud, and thus meant at the same time to 
 make those present, who so forgot their own characters, 
 mutely attentive : but as they did not stop asking, He 
 looked up, and called on him who felt himself innocent 
 among them, to first cast the stone at her; He then 
 stooped down and quietly wrote on for Himself. So- 
 lemnly however as the embassage from the Sanhedrim — 
 the oldest at its head — had come to Him, they shewed 
 little solemnity in leaving Him punished by their con- 
 science, the eldest first : when the last of them was gone. 
 He dismissed the woman with the solemn command 
 not to sin again. This narrative belongs in truth, in its 
 whole character, to the later narrative stock ; and it is 
 
XXX.] THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. 237 
 
 hard to say, how far in its several features it is historical : 
 yet in its final purport it agrees very well with the rest 
 of the narrative, which shews us the behaviour of the 
 Saviour, and that of the equally proud hypocritical 
 spiritual rulers of that time towards the sins of the lower 
 orders. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 The Stat on the East and on the West of 
 THE Jordan. 
 
 DECISION OF THE SANHEDRIM ABOUT CHRIST. 
 
 When tlie Saviour, as above related, resolved to depart 
 from Jerusalem, He resorted to Bethany on the other side 
 Jordan towards the north, to the same place where he had, 
 under the Baptist's hand, felt the first moments of his 
 Messianic mission. The choice of the place just now is as 
 remarkable, but also certainly just as intelligible, as his 
 having for the last time visited Capernahum (Chap. 
 XXIX.) He foresaw how soon his earthly daily task 
 must come to an end : and where could He more 
 suitably prepare Himself for this end, than at that place 
 where everything reminded Him of the first consecrated 
 moments of his public activity ? For the end must be 
 not less divine and great than was the beginning. 
 
 Then met Him likewise here at this place, where 
 the Baptist had so long worked, many believers, finding 
 that all which the Baptist had expected and prophesied 
 of Him had actually been fulfilled in Him (so feir, that 
 
XXXI.] NEWS OF LAZARUS' ILLNESS. 239 
 
 is, of course, as it could as yet be fulfilled). He might 
 have staid here not many weeks, when He received 
 very sad news from a household very dear to Him in 
 the other Bethany, which lay not far from Jerusalem on 
 the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. This was the 
 comfortably off household of Lazarus, whose hospitality 
 He had often enjoyed in his wanderings : the two sisters 
 of the head of the house also loved to listen to his 
 words ; and in no house did He feel so much at home 
 as here. Martha was probably the younger, while Mary 
 managed the house; Lazarus was probably younger 
 than both ; Simon the father, surnamed the Leper, 
 appears to have been dead at this time, but to have 
 been living at Jesus' first public working. It used to 
 be told, how in earlier time, on a visit once of Jesus 
 to this house, the sisters had at the same time busily 
 attended on Him, but in very diiferent ways : Martha 
 waiting on Him, and feeling she could not shew loving 
 attention enough ; Mary engaged in silent listening to 
 the Master's word, she too feeling as if she could never 
 be satisfied with listening. When now Martha, un- 
 wearied in bringing external comforts of all sorts which 
 she thought would please the Saviour, came to Him and 
 asked Him to bid her sister help her also in such offices 
 of love ; in loving anger He reproved her too great care 
 for such things, and added, one thing only was needed 
 for every one — care for the higher divine matters; and 
 that was the good part Mary had chosen which could 
 not be taken away from her. 
 
 The brother and sisters had probably been converted 
 
240 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 to the higher faith, when Christ in earlier times used 
 to stay much with their father since dead, when he, 
 whether agreeing or doubting, had discussed much with 
 them the new Master. The sisters now sent Him word 
 that his friend Lazarus was dangerously ill: and as they 
 sent this message a long way to Him, they plainly 
 wished Him to come and help them. 
 
 He certainly was not lacking in good will to help 
 his dear friend : but He had to reflect that a return 
 into the neighbourhood of Jerusalem might at once be 
 fatal to Him : this the Twelve also knew, and they cer- 
 tainly spared no pains to keep Him back from such 
 a project, of going thither again and that so soon. 
 
 He overcame however this hesitation, and saved the 
 friend already deceased. So St. John tells us; and 
 nothing can be more historical than this event, the only 
 one of much importance which he tells us, belonging to 
 this last period before the Paschal journey. For that 
 it is omitted in the older accounts is not of much import- 
 ance : the events of this last period, from the departure 
 out of Galilee to the last procession to Jerusalem, are 
 not in them so accurately separated; whilst St. John 
 supplies with most obvious intention this defect : and, 
 like everything else which he tells us, this particular 
 event also fits in most perfectly into the true course of 
 the whole development, as was touched on at greater 
 length above (Chap. XXVIII.) But it is at all events 
 plain that St. John, in giving us a most vivid picture 
 with even unusual interest, starts in his narrative from 
 the same general view of Christ's earthly being and 
 
XXXI.] ST. John's purpose in this n; . ive. 241 
 
 working, which is the spirit and the spring of his whole 
 Gospel. We cannot even fail here to detect a certain 
 art suitable to the general design of the Gospel. It is 
 in fact observable, that St. John, in his whole Gospel, 
 gives only one example of each of the principal " works" 
 of Christ, but a satisfactory and sufficiently pregnant 
 example : and so this is the only example of raising the 
 dead which he instances. But as he delights every- 
 where to set forth Christ's life and light as the true life 
 and light ; so it seems to him, since this eternal life must 
 extend even into this earthly life, that a raising from 
 the dead is the best illustration of this great truth. 
 And since now the earthly period of the shining of this 
 single light in the earth's darkness must soon come to 
 an end, he evidently thought it worth while to shew 
 that in this last act also the same miraculous power of 
 divine life revealed itself as in all earlier miracles. 
 Thus no narrative of the Apostle is warmed by such 
 a deep ardour and bounding vigour as this before us, where 
 he attempts in one grand picture to portray the palpita- 
 tion of His life for the life of the friend, as also His fight 
 with the darkness of the world, and amid all, His calm 
 of victory and His joy of victory shewing itself from first 
 to last. These burst forth amid all the yet higher notes 
 of the consciousness of the Messianic glory and this mighty 
 proof of it. So soon then as He hears of the sickness. 
 He exclaims at once with sublimest confidence, that 
 the sickness would not lead to death, but to God and 
 Messiah's glory ; and remains quite quietly two days 
 more at the same place. On the following day, as 
 
242 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 though a deep feeling said to Him suddenly, the sick 
 man was then at the point of death, — as not a moment 
 more is to be lost. He calls quickly his Twelve to go 
 again with Him to Judaea; replies to their hesitation, 
 " We must work as long as it is day," and then tells 
 them more particularly, " Lazarus is fallen asleep :" on 
 their understanding this of the ordinary sleep only, and 
 consequently not being inclined to go with Him, He 
 tells them at length plainly, as though only the more 
 deeply convinced of it by their opposition, " Lazarus 
 is dead," yet He would be glad to go with them to him 
 that they might learn to believe on Him ; and finally is 
 least of all to be kept back from going by Thomas's 
 somewhat cynical unbelief. But when they, coming 
 down the eastern bank of the Jordan, and then crossing 
 the river, arrived at Bethany on the fourth day from the 
 moment of death, they learn he had been that long laid 
 in the rock-hewn grave ; and find many mourners as- 
 sembled about the sisters. Nevertheless, Martha, who, 
 at the news sent in advance of his coming, receives Him 
 without the village before her sister, is clear in her faith 
 in his Messianic power ; Mary, who was sent for by her 
 sister, came followed by the rest of the sympathizing 
 friends, who thought she was hurrying out to weep at 
 the grave. Then, while He sees all weeping, the 
 moment comes for Him to act ; and as though He must 
 by repeated sighing, in deepest emotion and weeping, 
 gather together all the deepest powers of love and com- 
 passion. He begins his work ; bids them shew the grave, 
 goes up to it in sight of the mourners, some of them 
 
XXXI.] THE EESUERECTION OF LAZARUS. 243 
 
 perhaps angiy with Him that He had not come earlier 
 to save ; He bids roll away the stone, while Martha gives 
 her opinion that the dead '^bj this time stinketh;" He 
 looks up in prayer and thanksgiving to his Father, full 
 of divine assurance of victory, and with powerful voice 
 calls forth the dead yet wrapped in his shroud ; thus 
 strangely refuting all the various doubts. And who, on 
 reading this long, deeply inspired story, does not feel, 
 from its whole manner of telling and construction, that 
 boundless joy of victory beam forth, with which the 
 first Christians contemplated the death of Christ's 
 friends, and his own appearance in due time to give 
 them new life? It is only the glance forwards, even 
 into the great future, which could fill the Apostle's 
 recollection of that great incident of the past with such 
 heavenly joy, and shed a halo round his words here ; 
 and he misses the most beautiful part of the story, who 
 fails to see or denies this. The Saviour's return into 
 the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and the recommence- 
 ment of his work of all sorts so close to them, must 
 have at once put the chief priests of the capital into 
 greater disquiet. They had expected indeed He would 
 not lightly return to Jerusalem or its neighbourhood 
 again, and meanwhile would be left in the more remote 
 frontier provinces, more and more forsaken by his fol- 
 lowers who had been already excommunicated : they 
 were disappointed soon enough by the occurrence in 
 their neighbourhood, at which so many Jews in autho- 
 rity were present ; and hence resolved to lay the matter 
 before the Sanhedrim, in order to arrive at a plan for 
 
244 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the future. We know not now what Pharisees and 
 other ecclesiastical chiefs were fhe first and most active 
 enemies of the Saviour : as his cause advanced upwards 
 from below, some time might elapse before the acting 
 high-priest Caiaphas took closer notice of it. But if 
 these enemies would now be no longer satisfied with 
 small penalties against Him and his followers, but 
 would induce the Sanhedrim, under the high-priest's 
 presidency, to a measure of more complete destruction 
 against Him, they must first of all think of a satisfactory 
 pretence against Him ; and such they could hardly fail 
 to find. The deepest ground of the opposition lay, as 
 has been remarked, in this alone, that on the one side 
 the complete true religion, in all its rock-firm certainty 
 and insurpassable splendour already in full action in 
 the world, incarnate in the Saviour, met in the spiritual 
 powers, on the other side no proper inclination; nay, 
 not even the proper first condition for its reception was 
 present in the great majority of those who would have pre- 
 ferred letting wither the true religion, which they thought 
 they had in their hands and defended; and just when it 
 was in greatest need of its proper completion, had no 
 conception of the only right way in which this could be 
 achieved. Had now this completed true religion come 
 before them in an outwardly brilliant form — for example 
 in that of a great conqueror over the Komans — they 
 would have readily joined such a Messiah and accepted 
 his innovations of any sort: but as every truth, still 
 more the highest truth, must commend itself purely by 
 its own merits to men ; nothing then was more necessary 
 
XXXI.] CONSPIRACY AGAINST CHRIST's LIFE. 245 
 
 than that the completion of true religion should offer 
 itself in the least imposing forms to those who had to be 
 first prepared as individual members of that community, 
 in which alone they could arrive at its correct know- 
 ledge and cheerful acceptance. The ecclesiastics were 
 from their whole education and position quite incapable 
 of this : and as they despised the Saviour's doctrine, so 
 they despised his w^orks also, blinding themselves to its 
 true nature with all manner of pretences. It was then 
 inevitable, that as they would not accept the truth which 
 presses them so close, they must become from step to 
 step its most implacable enemies, and fall into the 
 delusion that they could crush it likewise through the 
 outward destruction of its Founder. Accordingly, if they 
 would now overthrow Him through the accusation of 
 heresy, they must take care to charge Him with nothing 
 from which, as they well knew. He could easily defend 
 Himself, for example, that He obstinately broke the 
 sabbath : such a complaint moreover could not have 
 brought about a sentence of death to be confirmed by the 
 Roman procurator, as was then the custom. But there 
 was one question from which the fatal blow might be 
 more easily brought to bear, even his assertion of being 
 the Messiah. This must have been now notorious, 
 however He had striven to ripen the belief in Him as 
 the Messiah among those alone with whom this belief 
 served only as the incentive to tlie completed true 
 religion ; and it might easily have been most shamefully 
 misinterpreted, however great the effort to steer clear of 
 every injurious misconception. But if the wish were 
 
246 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 not to go into the ground and meaning of this funda- 
 mental tenet, but merely use it as a pretext for his 
 bodily destruction, none better could have been found. 
 For even the name and idea of a king at those times of 
 subjection to the Komans, and the experiences of the times 
 of the later Maccabees and of the Herods, had power to 
 spread abroad a paralysing terror. The most timid might 
 tremble at the thought, that if the people should follow 
 further this hing^ a rebellion might arise against the 
 Romans yet more terrible and destructive than the 
 former : the fear at least of such a spectre might easily 
 be spread everywhere, but nowhere more widely and 
 successfully than in Jerusalem and the Sanhedrim itself. 
 And those who wished to act with true acuteness and 
 finesse in the matter, might, through such an accusation 
 of the man to the Romans, think even to gain especial 
 credit with them and praise for their vigilance and 
 foresight. 
 
 Such sort of man was the acting High-priest 
 Caiaphas. When the question about Jesus was de- 
 bated in a sitting of the Sanhedrim, and many thought 
 with a sigh, if He were let further seduce the people, 
 the Romans would come to destroy both land and 
 nation, and overthrow the already so much endangered 
 sanctuary; Caiaphas suddenly broke in, as if a new 
 higher light had dawned on him, almost ridiculing the 
 others : he sees here no danger, but on the contrary 
 a great advantage which might be gained for the people ; 
 the death of the one might bring advantage to the 
 people, namely, gain for it anew the favour of the 
 
XXXI.] THE PROPHECY OF CAIAPHAS. 247 
 
 Romans ; let them reflect " what a gain it is for them 
 that one man should die for the people, and that the 
 whole nation perish not." This maxim was of course 
 at once sufficient to lead them to a conclusion : it is at 
 the same time equally intelligible, that the Christians 
 afterwards, after that the Lord had fallen in quite 
 another sense for the nation and for all mankind, found 
 in that saying the truest prophecy, which the high- 
 priest had uttered as against his will, and only as moved 
 by the higher spirit of his priestly office. And so 
 many another man prophesies the truth against his 
 will, especially in a crisis of such importance : and it is 
 a witness only to the very guileless thoughts of the 
 first Christians, and St. John especially, that in such an 
 answer of the high-priest they found something divine, 
 and only in so finding were satisfied. The Sanhedrim 
 resolved now, after this preliminary inquiry into the 
 matter, that Jesus must be had up before their court, 
 and hence any one who knew where He was staying 
 was to shew the place. But even in the Sanhedrim 
 He had a friend, Nicodemus : it is not impossible that 
 He was now warned by him. It would indeed have 
 been rashness, had He now at once, and as if to brave 
 them, gone to Jerusalem, to shew Himself to his mortal 
 enemies. He knew his time to be not yet come : He 
 resorted therefore with his Twelve, not indeed beyond 
 Jordan, but to the waste district on the north-east 
 border of Judah, not far from Jordan, to a town named 
 Ephraim. The Paschal festival was already not very 
 far off : and from that district where He was now staying 
 
248 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 many people were already going to Jerusalem to attend 
 it ; such, that is, especially as before taking part in the 
 Paschal festival had first to bring offerings of purification, 
 lepers for example, who had been healed but not pro- 
 nounced clean by the priests. Such, on meeting each 
 other beforehand in the Temple, wondered that He had 
 not yet come ; nay, they imagined He would probably 
 not yet come this time to the feast at all : for that the 
 greatest danger here threatened Him must have been 
 pretty generally known. But He had come in his own 
 mind to quite another resolution. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 THIRD ADVANCE- 
 
 Christ's Temporal Fall and Eternal Victory. 
 His Resolution to meet the Crisis. 
 
 Though Christ saw clearly that the world was firmly 
 resolved to crush Him and his work on earth so soon as 
 possible, it was no longer his first necessity to escape 
 from their blindness and fury in the way He had often 
 done before, and had to do for the sake of his own work. 
 For already his life-work, amid all the difficulty of the 
 time and all its discredit with men, in the founding and 
 educating of a church of the perfected true religion, was 
 so firmly grounded that it might stand against all storms ; 
 and his spirit, which is itself the spirit of the perfected 
 religion, had found in this community such a possibility 
 at least of becoming vital in it and working on for ever, 
 that He had no longer to fear He should quite vanish 
 from this earth when He Himself must bodily leave it. 
 We have seen this above in the development hitherto of 
 his unrivalled history ; and he knew it then better than 
 any one else. For, while his life had been all the more 
 
250 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 laborious and difficult since He had drawn around Him 
 the compact circle of a new family of the perfected 
 religion, and had joined with his care for the whole world 
 the particular care likewise for this little world now 
 nearest to his heart, yet He had felt in this last period 
 moments also of the highest and purest joy, and could 
 now have a taste of his whole future majesty which was 
 here to commence. And if He had already so far carried 
 on the great work of his life that He could leave it to 
 itself and Him in whose Spirit He had founded it. He 
 had at the same time left nothing untried in any quarter 
 to advance its existence and work in the world. His 
 work was the revelation of the perfected true religion, its 
 establishment upon earth through his own work in it 
 and for it alone : and to shew that inexhaustible patience 
 in commending it to that people, or rather that great 
 community, and bring it home to them in every way 
 which they were best prepared and called upon to under- 
 stand and receive ; what He, as an individual placed at 
 that time and in that body, with all human and divine 
 labour and love, could do for this work, He had perfectly 
 done; nay, already in the midst of the great ancient 
 church of the true religion, there stood a new one of that 
 religion perfected, small as it was, all the more invincible, 
 and little formed as it was, yet with a kernel all the 
 firmer, and capacity for more infinite development. 
 
 In this state of affairs and in this confidence He had, 
 accordingly, no longer to fear, as He once had, even the 
 most deadly encounter with the chief priests and the 
 people so easily led by them (Nach s. 63 f.) : for this 
 
XXXII.] THE POPULACE OF JERUSALEM. 251 
 
 people in Jerusalem, dependent on the enjoyments, 
 pleasures and advantages of the ecclesiastical system as 
 it had formed itself in their midst, was certainly as much 
 to be feared as the few rulers themselves who urged on 
 his destruction ; (just as, to quote similar instances, no 
 people are more wretched than the populace of Rome, 
 dependent on the papistical pleasures, enjoyments and 
 feasts ; and no people in the sixteenth century were more 
 relentless against the Reformation than the Parisians 
 under the rule of the court of the Sorbonne and the 
 Jesuits). It is a consequence of the whole position of 
 such capitals, that everything which most concerns the 
 Empire, however remote may have been its origin, must 
 always be decided in their midst ; and there, where with 
 the highest spiritual effort the highest truths can be 
 proclaimed and the most widely effective salvation can 
 be won, may just as easily the most extreme miscon- 
 ception and blindness rule, and the most unutterable 
 woe be accomplished in wild passion. Even the ancient 
 Israel, under the kings in which the noblest prophets 
 worked, was counted the most unnatural mother of her 
 own children, and as the worst persecutor of the pro- 
 phets : it was all the same with the modern Jerusalem, 
 as Christ Himself once exclaimed. In it now was to 
 ensue the great decision on the cause of Christ, greater 
 tlian any one of the earlier great decisions : He could 
 predict the issue of a now repeated new visit to this city, 
 and in his human nature wish to avoid it ; but from the 
 divine view of his cause He needed now neither to fear nor 
 avoid it. But it would have been just as unworthy of 
 
252 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Him to bring about such a final decision through ap- 
 pearing in Jerusalem without reason, and thus sharing in 
 the sin. The feeling of human justice and honour might 
 have led Him, just because the people there wished to 
 destroy Him, to appear under his enemies' eyes the 
 sooner and more openly : but his cause and his character 
 alike were raised infinitely above all human irritation 
 and human bravado. If, on the contrary, a duty in- 
 dependent of the will of man brought Him there, then 
 He could as little hesitate about going there as He had, 
 shortly before, about going to Bethany or the Mount of 
 Olives : it was further due to the position He took at 
 that time, not to appear this time, as at the former feast 
 of Tabernacles, reserved and silent, but freely and openly, 
 although without courting observation. The higher 
 duty was now ever before Him — in presence of his 
 enemies, the more bitter they had become^ all the less to 
 draw back in fear and forgetfulness of his life-work ; 
 when now there was added a particular occasion in the 
 path of duty, the higher duty combined with the lower, 
 and nothing could hold Him back from going into the 
 midst of the most threatening danger. 
 
 Such an occasion now arrived in the Paschal festival. 
 Every man of the people of Israel was entitled, nay, 
 bound to share in it in Jerusalem, although this obliga- 
 tion allowed of exceptions and excuses : nothing was 
 looked on as more meritorious than the festal journey, 
 nothing more impious than to disturb the festal joy of 
 any one in Jerusalem. He resolved then to go this 
 time to the Passover in Jerusalem. And He wished this 
 
XXXII.] Christ's contemplation of his end. 253 
 
 time, like every one else, to appear with the Twelve 
 freely and openly, without the reserve shewn at the 
 previous festival, the cause of which was now wanting. 
 In so doing He considered his life-work already all but 
 finished ; He knew into what danger He was going, and 
 had a clear presentiment of what was impending : but 
 He knew yet more certainly that here also He was only 
 following his higher duty ; He prepared then quietly for 
 the festal journey, and resolved not indeed to court 
 notice, but also not to oppose any public recognition of 
 an innocent nature which met Him voluntarily ; prepared 
 even now in Jerusalem itself, and upon the journey 
 thither, to proclaim only the same truth which He had 
 always brought so home to the people, and although 
 prepared for everything, yet neither in misanthropic ill- 
 humour nor seeking death, nay, not driving from his 
 breast the never-failing hope. He had ever followed the 
 divine will in everything ; He followed it even in this, as 
 He felt clearly, last earthly crisis of his cause, represented 
 as yet in a bodily form by Him ; ready to suffer even 
 the last extremity for it ; and yet as surely hoping even 
 to the last moment of his earthly life for the divine help 
 and grace. It is the same wonderful mingling and re- 
 conciliation of human free will and complete human 
 feeling with the devotion to the higher will, which 
 marked his course through life, only more strongly and 
 clearly the more the history rises to the highest crisis, 
 and the more completely accordingly all here lived in 
 the memory. For no portion of the chequered public 
 life of Christ has come down to us in such completeness 
 
254 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 even in its apparent trifling occurrences, as all this last 
 period. It was rightly thought, that nothing from the 
 first times of the Apostolic age was so important to 
 know correctly, as the last conclusion of that single 
 history, even in all its little details : and although in the 
 effort after most exact reminiscence some trifling variances 
 nevertheless resulted, yet nowhere does the stream of 
 this narrative flow from all its various sources so full 
 and so smoothly as here. Even St. John found just 
 here but little to tell of more particularly; but this 
 little is, considered carefully, assuredly important and 
 instructive enough. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 The Last Fj:stal Journey. 
 
 If Christ at the taking this resolution staid (see above) 
 in the north-eastern corner of Judsea, supposing He had 
 wished to take the most direct road to Jerusalem, his 
 journey would have first been towards the west by the 
 great highway from Galilee and Samaria to Jerusalem. 
 But then He would not have passed Bethany on the 
 eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, past which, both 
 according to St. John and the older account, their 
 journey took them. This very route, stated to us so 
 distinctly by St. John, has an unmistakeable connection 
 with the direction past Jericho, which according to the 
 older account He took on this last journey : and we have 
 every ground for supposing a priori, that the recollection 
 of the older narrative would have been of the greatest 
 possible exactness in respect to these very events which 
 universally seemed of such extreme importance, and 
 consequently that they must be looked on by us as the 
 most reliable possible, where St. John does not con- 
 tradict them, and where we know no grounds for doubt- 
 ing their contents. The journey from the north-eastern 
 
256 LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 corner of Judgea might indeed have passed Jericho, but 
 it would doubtless have been some way round; and 
 a direction past Jericho points rather in itself to a 
 journey from the country beyond the Jordan. When 
 now the Saviour, according to the older account, on 
 his way to Jerusalem, arrived first at the borders of 
 Judasa, journeying beyond Jordan, and so approached 
 the capital past Jericho and Bethany, we have every 
 ground for finding in this traces of more exact remi- 
 niscence. In fact, there is no reason why Christ should 
 now have taken the shortest route : rather — now that his 
 whole life had become continually more and more an 
 unsettled wandering; now too that He had so many 
 followers scattered about ; since too the districts on the 
 two banks of the Jordan especially had, as the places of 
 the earliest Gospel working, become so dear to Him — we 
 can well imagine that He resolved, on going up from the 
 north-eastern border of Jud^a (Mark x. 1), first to cross 
 over Jordan, then cross back again over the river to 
 Jericlio, and so on to Jerusalem. 
 
 We may hence assume that the several occurrences 
 on the journey, which the older narrative has preserved 
 for us as especially memorable, now actually took place. 
 They were doubtless not in themselves more memorable 
 than a thousand others which have no memorial ; but as 
 having occurred at the very commencement of this last 
 journey, they appeared, as did later everything connected 
 Avith it, worthy of more particular notice and more exact 
 reminiscence. As He would this time, like every one 
 else, make the journey quite publicly and solemnly. 
 
XXXIII.] LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. 257 
 
 many gathered about Him before the journey, in order 
 from various motives to give Him one last word : for we 
 may assume that this time, many besides the Twelve 
 joined Him for the journey. Then it was some Pharisees 
 proposed to Him the question "tempting Him" as to 
 his judgment on the question of divorce when desired 
 either by the husband or wife. These Pharisees had 
 doubtless long heard how strictly He judged of divorce : 
 besides at that time the case of the marriage (s. 51 f.) of 
 his country's prince Antipas was much canvassed, in the 
 meshes of which the Baptist had already let himself be 
 caught : it might be supposed that He also would, like 
 the Baptist, be caught in the obscure mazes of the dif- 
 ficult question : this was only one of the temptations into 
 which his learned hypocritical enemies had repeatedly 
 led Him. But He solved the question so decidedly and 
 yet with such extraordinary truth, that they could meet 
 Him no further in this quarter. When they brought to 
 Him (as if to say farewell) some children for his blessing, 
 and the disciples would have kept away from Him this 
 interruption, as they deemed it. He the rather gave 
 Himself lovingly up to the children, and taught on this 
 occasion how the childlike temper must also continue in 
 those who would be the most perfect members of God's 
 kingdom. He had already started to continue the 
 journey, when there hastened to meet Him a rich but 
 in truth rather young man, to ask Him, with signs of 
 high veneration, what he should do to obtain eternal life. 
 His conversation with this man, as He tested his know- 
 ledge and still more his good will and receptivity for the 
 
 s 
 
258 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 duties of tlie true religion, and the way in which on this 
 occasion a like conversation began on the highest duties 
 and the blessed hopes of the true confessors of Christ- 
 ianity — all this must have correctly survived in memory 
 more than many other things, as it happened at so 
 peculiar a time and concerned some of the final and most 
 difficult moral questions of the new Church. It may 
 readily be supposed, and it is also expressly mentioned, 
 that the journey this time passed with unusual solemnity. 
 He walked Himself in front, in good heart, with the most 
 unbroken trust, at the head of the Twelve and of the rest 
 who this time accompanied Him : but some heavy sad- 
 ness and evil misgiving seemed already to have fallen on 
 his companions, and many followed Him walking under 
 a kind of vague fear. From the Twelve themselves He 
 never concealed the fatal dangers which He already fore- 
 saw He must encounter in Jerusalem. But He well 
 carried it all through ; and could not give up a particle 
 of the genuine hope for the cause of God's kingdom one 
 day to conquer even visibly. It is then no way surpris- 
 ing, that on this journey, leading of necessity, as all 
 dimly saw, to some crisis, a certain dispute about rank 
 and honour broke out among the Twelve. The two sons 
 of Zebedee were always closer to Him than the others 
 (although He valued not less the energetic Peter and his 
 brother, nay, wished to see Peter first of all in every 
 action) : the two were probably of better family and 
 richer than the others, and had wholly offered up their 
 goods for the cause of the rising kingdom of God ; in 
 other respects also, in all decision and devotion, they 
 
xxxiii.] Salome's petition for her sons. 259 
 
 competed with the best ; they were also now accompanied 
 by their mother Salome, now a widow, who had con- 
 stantly shewn no less markedly the purest devotion for 
 Christ's cause. They probably had for some time been 
 looked on among the Twelve as the favourites of Jesus ; 
 and were themselves of fiery spirit enough, in return for 
 the highest sacrifices, of which they felt themselves yet 
 further capable, to expect the highest honours in God's 
 kingdom when perfected. It was however, after a more 
 exact reminiscence, only their mother immediately who 
 ventured, on this journey, to speak a word for them to 
 Christ : whilst, indeed, that such a matter was discussed 
 at all between them and the Lord aroused the envy of 
 the others, as they deemed themselves all alike zealous, 
 and might for the most part rightly so deem. The 
 marvellous penetration and truths which Christ revealed 
 on this most delicate occasion, and the noble wisdom 
 with which He stilled such emulations, form the most 
 beautiful appendix to the conversations on rule and 
 power among men which mostly fell in these last times, 
 and in these first appear in their most profitable place. 
 
 But when He, having com.e over the Jordan to 
 Jericho, was leaving it amid the large escort which 
 accompanied Him throughout the whole journey; a blind 
 beggar, who had discovered his presence, besought Him 
 as the Messiah for healing, and would not be kept back 
 from persistent entreaty, in spite of all who desired him 
 not to interrupt the journey. So Christ, willingly in- 
 terrupting his journey, came to the assistance of his firm 
 faith. This occurrence also, as delineated by St. Mark 
 
260 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 in his graphic manner, would hardly have come down to 
 us so accurately, had it not occurred at this last most 
 important time : the older account, as we have it in 
 St. Mark, had, as is quite unusual, preserved the name 
 of the blind man who was cured — Bartimasus. And no 
 doubt, as the story intimates, he remained constantly 
 after that a well-known useful member of the new 
 Church. 
 
 But a story was current of another conversion in 
 Jericho on this last journey. A rich Jew named Zac- 
 chasus, who as chief publican of the city was no favourite, 
 wished to see Jesus as He entered ; and as he was little 
 of stature, mounted a low mulberry-tree standing by the 
 road at a place outside the town where He had to pass. 
 The Saviour had scarcely seen him, when He bade him 
 come down, as He would that day be his guest ; and He 
 did, in spite of all the murmuring, lodge with that un- 
 popular man. But his hope of opening even to this son 
 of Abraham the way to his salvation was at once most 
 beautifully fulfilled : that day brought salvation to him, 
 converting him into the most warm and honest member 
 of God's kingdom. Thus beneficially worked now, as 
 much as at first, the mere nearness and virtue of his 
 presence. St. Luke takes, in conclusion, this little 
 reminiscence of Zacchseus, who doubtless worked on long 
 afterwards in the Apostolic Church, from a later Gospel 
 narrative ; and in placing, as he does, the adventure with 
 Bartimseus before that with Zacchgeus at the entering 
 into the town, he probably followed likewise therein the 
 order of this later account. From Jericho lay the direct 
 
XXXIII.] THE ANOINTING OE CHRIST'S BODY. 261 
 
 road to Jerusalem, past Belli any, which lay to the east of 
 the Mount of Olives : here St. John resumes his narra- 
 tive, partly because on Lazarus' account this place seemed 
 to him of such peculiar importance, partly because he 
 finds here in the old account something to complete and 
 improve. According to the older account (Mark xiv. 
 1 — 11), the Saviour, going thither as usual from Jeru- 
 salem for the night, on the second day before the 
 Passover being at Bethany " in the house of Simon the 
 leper," whilst He was going to the table, there came 
 a woman with a valuable flask of genuine ointment, and 
 breaking the flask poured it on his head. Some how- 
 ever of the Saviour's company took this amiss as waste, 
 and thought it would have been better to have sold the 
 precious ointment flask for a good sum, and given the 
 proceeds to the poor; deeming, in thus judging, they 
 would have met the Saviour's own view, who had always 
 enjoined on his own particular regard for the poor. 
 But Jesus reminded them to offer no reproaches to the 
 woman ; she had done a good work on Him : for they 
 had the poor with them continually, but Him they would 
 soon lose, and they might imagine she had anointed in 
 advance his body for the burial : as her work had pro- 
 ceeded from pure love, so would it (especially as shewn 
 by her at such a time when the love of all the world 
 would turn from Him) be everywhere mentioned in the 
 world in the Gospel with the Gospel itself for a memorial 
 to her. Tliereupon, as the older account tells us, Judas 
 Iscariot went to betray Christ to the chief-priests ; though 
 here it is not expressly said that the traitor was of those 
 
262 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 who murmured — it is for the reader an obvious con- 
 clusion, and indisputably lies in the purport of the whole 
 narrative. 
 
 But in this account the woman who shewed such love 
 to Him had not been more clearly defined : and when 
 the narrative became more circumstantial, a very different 
 occasion of their censure might naturally have been 
 thought of. We have seen in the example of another 
 somewhat later narrative (that of the woman taken in 
 adultery), that, at the time in which the Gospel accounts 
 were talked of with ever livelier interest, Jesus was 
 reproached with excessive consideration for women's 
 frailties : the Pharisees moreover became looked on more 
 and more exclusively as his incessant detractors and 
 spies ; as we see also from St. John's representation. 
 Thus the account of the woman who anointed the 
 Saviour appears to have been gradually drawn over to 
 these favourite objects of the general Gospel narrative, 
 and when inwoven with the earlier times of the Saviour's 
 active working, to have taken a more generalized form. 
 Thus it was told, that when Jesus, invited to the house 
 of a Pharisee named Simon, would have sat down to 
 table, a woman living in the town, but known for her 
 loose life, came with a flask of ointment, and, moistening 
 his feet with her many tears and kisses, had so to speak 
 dried them with her hair and finally anointed them ; 
 when the Pharisee only wondered in silence how He, if 
 He were a prophet, could be ignorant of the woman in 
 her earlier life, He contrasted with the Pharisee's fancied 
 justice, leading him to unloving harshness, the sacrificing 
 
xxxiii.] ST. John's narrative. 263 
 
 love of this woman springing from the candid acknow- 
 ledgment of her sins, and the great longing for redemp- 
 tion from its burden, and finally forgave^ her her sins. 
 This is one of a hundred similar stories, as they kept 
 ever forming themselves anew from the material at 
 hand ; so that not the particular purpose, but only the 
 varied and beautiful composition and form of these stories 
 is new. And this very later account it is which St. 
 Luke admits in place of and to the exclusion of the 
 earlier, and interweaves it with the earlier part of the 
 Gospel history. But if St. Luke himself, through this 
 proceeding of his, intimates 'to us that he looks on one 
 of the two accounts only as a kind of duplicate of 
 the other, we have the less cause for doubting its 
 origin. 
 
 It seems now as if St. John had read both the earlier 
 accounts, and endeavoured to amend what was defective 
 in both, or was to be further carried on by the more 
 exact history. Thus he mentions first of all, that Jesus 
 came on the sixth day before the Passover to Bethany. 
 As now (as will be made clear below) the fourteenth of 
 Nisan (or the Paschal month), on which in the evening 
 the Passover was eaten, being on that year a Friday, 
 was looked on by him as a half- working day, in which, 
 especially in the morning, any business could be per- 
 formed, whilst St. John (John xiii. 1) at the same time 
 accounts it the day of the Passover ; it is plain that he 
 looks on the thirteenth as the proper first day of the 
 feast (which began in the evening), and consequently the 
 sabbath as that sixth day in which Jesus came to 
 
264 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Bethany. He could, on account of the sabbath, travel 
 over no long journey on this day, and had probably 
 early in the morning arrived here from a place quite 
 near. Secondly, St. John tells us it was Mary the sister 
 of Lazarus, in whose house the Saviour took up his 
 lodging, " who anointed, his feet and wiped them with 
 the hair of her head, so that the house was filled with the 
 odour," while Martha waited upon them and Lazarus sat 
 at the table : and in fact this is what we should imagine 
 as probable. Thirdly, he expressly names only Judas 
 Iscariot as he who had expressed his censure on the 
 waste of the costly ointment: but we learn also from 
 him the truest cause which might lead him to such an 
 opinion : as the pursebearer of the company he thought 
 he had a special call to make such a frugal remark, even 
 though he had not been at the same time a thief and 
 spent the money entrusted to him for his own profit, and 
 so made the remark from an evil intention. Christ how- 
 ever then merely answered him, according to St. John, 
 Suffer her to keep this for the day of my burial, as if He 
 would fain have this day looked on as the day of his 
 burial, on which such a custom was fitting ; though on 
 other days it would not have been fitting nor approved 
 by Him. This day He staid in Bethany : but as this 
 village, separated from Jerusalem by the Mount of 
 Olives, was situated in a generally very thickly populated 
 district, we see without difiiculty how, as St. John tells 
 us, the same day in the evening many came into this 
 house to see Jesus and Lazarus at the same time ; that 
 the chief priests also in the Sanhedrim itself, as they had 
 
XXXIII.] INCREASED ENMITY AGAINST JESUS. 265 
 
 outlawed Jesus, were very spiteful against his host 
 Lazarus, and sought to destroy him, as St. John tells us, 
 was all consistent. The now rapid concourse of events 
 made them quite forget the hospitalities received from 
 Lazarus. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 The Entry into Jerusalem. 
 
 For the very next morning He meant to enter into 
 Jerusalem, and prepared quite openly so to do : and soon 
 enough were the proud but withal timorous chief priests 
 to see Him as close as possible at work. There is no 
 doubt that the ensuing entry into Jerusalem was, even 
 by his own desire, to come off as a royal entry : He had 
 no longer cause for hiding Himself either from the mul- 
 titude or from the chief priests, as Him who He actually 
 was and whom He felt Himself to be. Cheerful, showy 
 processions were moreover, according to old custom, 
 always permitted to those entering for the feast, and on 
 these occasions much was overlooked. Further, a good 
 number entered some days or w^eks before to keep the 
 feast in Jerusalem. And so for Him there was to be one 
 day of exuberant and loud joy, such as sounds on the 
 king's entry into his kingdom. He would at least no 
 longer interfere with the conviction and hope of the 
 world freely offering itself to Him ; and both the convic- 
 tion that his kingly work on earth was accomplished so 
 far as He could carry it, and the cheerful courage in face 
 
XXXIV.] TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. 267 
 
 of death, raised Him this day to a festal frame of mind, 
 the direct opposite to that on his last entry. A misuse 
 of the present public Messianic appearance was no longer 
 to be feared : it might now be pretty clear everywhere 
 in what sense He wished to be King and Lord ; or if 
 a new misunderstanding arose about this (Luke xix. 11) 
 that might now be easily removed by Him, as He 
 pointed back to his past and always uniform working. 
 The people of the ancient true religion, as it was then on 
 earth and had its centre in Jerusalem, were now to see 
 Him coming quite openly as He who, if they joined Him 
 with the honesty and love belonging to the perfected 
 true religion, alone could save them ; his destiny was in 
 short all but finished on earth ; but it would have re- 
 mained unfinished, so far as He Himself had to work at 
 it, doing and trying everything, if He had not tried this 
 the last resource which could proceed from Himself. 
 Yet it did not proceed from Him as something designed 
 and undertaken by Him with long-continued cunning 
 design : He only now allowed free play to the open joy 
 of his followers ; just as He, the day before, had only 
 not checked the unwonted testimony of love in his host's 
 house in Bethany. 
 
 The only part which He Himself took in the matter 
 was, that He mounted an ass's foal for his entry: to 
 appear publicly in this way and thus enter into a town 
 was quite unusual with him ; this was generally known, 
 and consequently this resolution of his was regarded 
 afterwards with peculiar attention. The older narrative 
 in simple faith found, in the very way this ass's foal, at 
 
268 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Christ's command, had been sought, found and brought 
 to Him as the rightful Lord, one of the symbols, con- 
 secrated of old, of the favourable commencement of 
 a kingdom and a kingly procession. So the account 
 appears in St. Mark, and quoted from bim in St. Luke. 
 In this older narrative it is further not distinctly said 
 that He spent the last night in Bethany and started from 
 thence in a procession : rather it is bere stated quite 
 generally, that when He approached Jerusalem and had 
 already come to Bethphage and Bethany, He sent two of 
 his disciples into the village lying over against them to 
 fetch such an ass's foal. By this village is, according 
 to all appearance, intended not Bethany, but the village 
 lying somewhat further back, and not yet discovered, 
 Bethphage — probably the same from which tlie day before 
 He arrived at Bethany, and where also He was of late 
 well known. Even then, though Christ never said at the 
 time that He had chosen to enter on an ass's foal in 
 consequence of a Messianic utterance of the Old Testa- 
 ment, which seemed here peculiarly appropriate, it is in 
 itself probable, and we can hardly help so concluding. 
 The oftener these recollections were followed up, the 
 more certain must have seemed this regularly formed 
 design of the Lord in the choice of this animal. The 
 last composer of the present St. Matthew's Gospel inserts 
 the Messianic reference ; but, much more accurately, and 
 in a certain respect with admirable candour, St. John 
 mentions that the disciples at that time had not known 
 Christ's intention in it, but afterwards, on later recollec- 
 tion of this time and this action, had correctly seen its 
 
XXXIV.] HYMN SUNG ON THE OCCASION. 269 
 
 importance from the Old Testament prophecy. Some of 
 the assembled followers covered at once this foal with 
 their own garments thrown on it ; others, going before 
 the procession, threw, according to old custom in such 
 royal processions, their garments as a carpet on the road 
 to make it even and decorate it ; many plucked off green 
 palm branches from the trees of the gardens close by, 
 likewise according to old custom, to do honour to the 
 procession j but all who went in front or followed behind 
 sang a short Messianic hymn, which came suddenly into 
 being in the exalted spirit of this moment, and which 
 may be named the first song of the new Church, and from 
 many tokens it was for long often chanted in the early 
 times of this Church (Matt, xxiii. 39). As soldiers ac- 
 customed to victory and filled with the hope of victory 
 address their general with inspiring words and pray 
 Heaven for him, so are the winged words of this short 
 song, glowing with the spirit of the early Christian hope 
 of victory, true rallying words, around which the first 
 squadrons of the Messianic faith took their stand : and 
 we cannot doubt that they resounded that day for the 
 first time, but afterwards were words never to be for- 
 gotten. St. John indeed touches on the events of this 
 procession only briefly and in passing : for, from his less 
 regard to the behaviour of the people to Christ, this 
 popular occurrence might not have seemed to Him very 
 important as compared with others. But tlie occurrence 
 at the time was certainly an unusually imposing one. 
 The whole capital, the older account tells us, was moved 
 by it ; though most of the people would only acknow- 
 
270 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 ledge a prophet in Him who rode in. And equally cer- 
 tainly did this jubilee among the people, and this tri- 
 umphant excited expectation of the closer followers, last 
 on some time into this week, as even the little boys 
 loitering in the streets began to sing that inspiring song : 
 when some on the part of the ecclesiastics pointed his 
 attention to this, He replied to them, in Old Testament 
 words, that God Himself loves best to be praised by the 
 mouth of infants, or, according to another account, should 
 they be silent the stones would cry out. But St. John, 
 as generally, from the reason above given, he lays such 
 stress on Lazarus' history, informs us how especially 
 Lazarus' history, testified to by so many now entering 
 and loudly repeated, had drawn on Him the general 
 attention in this whole march. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 The Last Public Working in Jerusalem. 
 
 Thus then had the Saviour come face to face again with 
 his deadly enemies, appearing earlier indeed at the 
 festival than they had expected Him, and certainly far 
 more publicly and solemnly than they had imagined. 
 They might now have been able to carry out at once 
 their earlier resolution of taking Him prisoner, the more 
 as He had now shewn Himself quite openly the King of 
 Israel : but the multitude of his followers frightened 
 them not a little, as, besides his closer friends, the mul- 
 titude seemed for the moment not altogether indisposed 
 towards Him, and looked on Him as at least a prophet 
 and a benefactor to sufferers. They let Him then at 
 first move and work freely, but everywhere sharply 
 observed his conduct, and hoped soon some favourable 
 circumstance would occur to second their desire for his 
 destruction. 
 
 He now recommenced his usual work at once, even in 
 the capital. That ruin and death threatened Him at 
 every step. He could not fail to know ; but after that 
 moment of higher joy and shouting of the crowd, He 
 
272 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 only worked quietly on in his usual manner : He again 
 healed sick of all sorts, and especially He taught, if 
 possible with more power and authority than before. 
 His nights He spent at first with his friends in Bethany 
 on the other side of the Mount of Olives, later in a 
 garden on the slope of the hill on this side. From early 
 in the morning He was constantly in the temple. The 
 days and the hours were more indispensable than ever, 
 every moment yet left to Him infinitely more precious. 
 
 He had done now, literally, all which He could 
 humanly do and attempt. After that He had openly 
 shewed Himself at the high holy centre of the people of 
 the true religion as the ^' King" of the completed true 
 religion embracing the true kingdom of God, it was now 
 the business of the people, lower as well as higher orders, 
 to decide for Him equally openly ; with simple honesty 
 and heartiness to lay hold of, that is, the completed 
 religion which He had exhibited, and as whose living 
 illustration and result He Himself stood in their midst. 
 Thus He could only go on as He had begun : but He 
 did not weary of laying this religion before the multitude, 
 even after that moment of more public manifestation only 
 more plainly (if needful) and more urgently. It is in 
 many respects not unimportant to remark, that Christ 
 now, after the public tokens which He had Himself 
 given by his entry, could not find it becoming to his 
 position to give a new sign of the sort, and so in fact 
 He gave none. He could not, consistently with his 
 higher duty, look on his active working as at an end 
 with his public entry, and wait accordingly in quiet on 
 
XXXV.] ONE OR TWO TEMPLE CLEANSTNGS. 273 
 
 his part for the people to join Him of themselves and 
 remain true to Him : what He offered was too unusual 
 and too little accompanied with earthly power and out- 
 ward splendour ; He must work on as He had begun, in 
 order to bring what He brought yet more home to men ; 
 but a new public sign was neither necessary nor useful. 
 The older narrative places indeed at this period a temple 
 cleansing; and this would now have, as accomplished 
 after the solemn entry, a far more important meaning 
 and purport than it might have had in the first days of 
 the Messianic inspiration : it would have been not merely 
 an act of authority of Him who had been now declared 
 to be King, but also a token that his kingdom had 
 actually begun with the entry, and a warning that now 
 his disciples also, and the rest who had already joined 
 Him, ought at once to apply their hand with equal 
 violence to reform the existing state of things. But to 
 judge from the other tokens, not the least action was 
 now done by Him, which the enemy or even his own 
 disciples could look on as a deed of violence ; rather He 
 kept off even the first motions towards it : for we observe 
 that even the older narrative knows nothing of a par- 
 ticipation of the disciples in that temple cleansing. 
 St. John however, who is evidently intentionally silent 
 about it in this place, has doubtless on good grounds put 
 it at a far earlier period, entirely suitable for it on all 
 internal grounds. 
 
 But the great final decision pressed on in these last 
 few days quickly enough. He had not turned out of 
 partiality to the lower orders or those least capable of 
 
 T 
 
274 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 judging, still less had recourse to any deed of violence, 
 or even taught in any way that outer violence should be 
 used. And accordingly his call and his appeal were 
 addressed at first most powerfully and plainly to those 
 only who in any way would be guides and teachers of 
 the people, who were publicly honoured as such, and 
 were responsible to God for the power which had fallen 
 to them in the Church. That his words and his rebukes 
 were specially directed immediately to them, and neces- 
 sarily wounded them most severely, had, as above 
 remarked, been long noticed by them. Now He once 
 more appeared amongst them at the very place where 
 all the most varied forces of the time converged most 
 intensely, and from which they produced the strongest 
 reaction in all quarters ; once more was the divine truth 
 brought close enough to them, but only that they might 
 immediately once more and for the last time unite most 
 shamefully against the One, to follow whom they had 
 long made themselves incapable. This is the great 
 historic truth which the oldest narrative, preserved in 
 St. Mark, expressed in this place most clearly, in paint- 
 ing the way in which at that time all the spiritual 
 powers in Jerusalem, differing as they did otherwise in 
 their earlier history or present position, yet combined 
 to tempt the Saviour in the temple, proposed to Him 
 captious questions the best each could, but were by Him 
 refuted and taught a better lesson; and yet in truth 
 would none of them be taught and improved by Him. 
 The Sanhedrim, appropriately, had Him asked questions 
 as to his authority for all his actions : He silenced them 
 
XXXV.] CAPTIOUS QUESTIONING OF CHRIST. 275 
 
 by representing his life simply as it was, as the proper 
 sequence of the Baptist's, whom yet they would not 
 allow to have been an impostor : the Herodians and 
 Pharisees, otherwise at enmity, wished, united at least in 
 this matter, to snare Him, simply through popular cap- 
 tious questions, but only succeeded in bringing forth yet 
 more plainly his all-sufficient wisdom : the Sadducees 
 wished to annihilate Him through ridicule and wit, and 
 only helped thereby to make themselves ridiculous : 
 a proud Doctor wished to injure Him through subtle 
 pedantry, and only succeeded in making conspicuous 
 here also the Saviour's all-surpassing insight. Thus the 
 attacks of all had the opposite effect to that intended ; 
 and unhappily He had to conclude with the most just 
 condemnation of the behaviour, habits, and position of the 
 spiritual lords of that time, wholly perverse as it was. 
 Even though of the disputes and sayings which this 
 oldest account and other older and later accounts crowd 
 into this crisis, many may have happened originally at 
 other times : yet the purport of the whole composition 
 succeeds well enough in giving ocular proof, that neither 
 in an earlier nor in this last and decisive period could 
 deliverance proceed from any one of the spiritual powers 
 such as they then were. And thus then would, with 
 these spiritual powers, the whole existing Church have 
 been at heart wholly rotten, and in the Messiah's eyes 
 lost irretrievably, had not his eye caught, as it were in 
 its recesses, even in the temple itself one of the most 
 touching examples of that truth and uprightness in 
 homely life, which ever remains the most indestructible 
 basis of all true religion. 
 
276 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Thus beautifully and inimitably does the whole of 
 this narrative close with the picture of the poor widow, 
 whoj unnoticed by passers-by, but not by Christ, threw 
 more in proportion into the temple treasury than all the 
 rich. He had certainly long discovered that at the 
 heart of the ancient people there yet rested a sound 
 fferm, from which could grow the Church of the com- 
 pleted true religion when the beams of the true Sun 
 should fall on it : from this germ He had already selected 
 his Twelve. But when all the ruling powers of a people 
 have long become past improvement, as in these few 
 days was completely decided, it is as though one met 
 a carefully fenced and tended fruit-tree, from which fruit 
 is yet in vain hoped for, and whose improvement is thus 
 hopeless. It is not surprising that such thoughts, which 
 had long been moving Christ's heart in reflecting on the 
 fate of the people, in these last days specially engaged 
 his mind, and rose to a flame which had never so flared 
 up in Him ; nor need we wonder that He gave free 
 utterance to these feelings on every opportunity which 
 offered itself to Him. Thus there passed into the 
 oldest narrative the touching story, how, when He, the 
 morning after the entry into the city from Bethany, 
 again was going into it. He hurried, being now hungry, 
 to a fig-tree which promised a luxuriant growth of fruit, 
 but found it without fruit, and so uttered a curse on the 
 tree which so long had been false to its promise. The 
 next morning, in passing by again, the tree was found 
 completely withered. It was surely a far higher thought 
 than that of a mere fig-tree, which then so deeply moved 
 
XXXV.] THE CURSING OF THE FIG-TREE. 277 
 
 Him, and elicited from his mouth a hard saying never to 
 be forgotten. That over the people of Israel the sudden 
 fall was now irrevocably impending, that was the fright- 
 ful thought, which oppressed Him earlier but with 
 special oppressiveness in these days, and which found 
 its most mild discharge in the curse on the fig-tree. He 
 shewed also no reserve in his forebodings of the speedy 
 end of Jerusalem, as the oldest reminiscences in various 
 ways let us know. The history itself will soon teach us 
 how little He was mistaken, and how frightfully his ill- 
 omened word was fulfilled. And thus it seems, as if in 
 the first Apostolic times before Jerusalem hurried on the 
 ruin prophesied to it, in noticing the unexpected early 
 withering of that fig-tree, a token had been found of the 
 fulfilment also of that much more solemn prophecy ; and 
 that in this way the history of the fig-tree came to be so 
 often repeated. For there were indeed in Jerusalem, even 
 among the members of the Sanhedrim and the rest of 
 the more or less influential members of the ecclesiastical 
 body, both at that most critical period and afterwards, 
 many very honest individual members, who could not 
 quite reject Christ's cause, as St. John in particular 
 plainly enough intimates : but they also, the more threat- 
 eningly the danger gathered about the head of the purely 
 heavenly Champion, became more fearful, and let pass 
 what they thought they could not hinder ; or at most, 
 after the fall of the dreaded blow, shewed some com- 
 passionate interest. But they acted as if they were 
 entire nullities, and by their timid half-and-half nature 
 only furthered the grand downfall. If the chief of the 
 
278 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. [CHAP. 
 
 people thus hung back, He did not on that account 
 appeal to the passions of the crowd, although it had 
 cheered Him on this time in the first hours with so un- 
 wonted joy and hope. It is this his final bearing to- 
 wards the various parties of the crowd, which alone 
 St. John brings before us, in the manner of its decided 
 enough disclosure on that day of the solemn entry. For 
 how his position towards the rulers in general had been 
 decided, had been clearly represented by St. John on 
 the occasion of the last entry to the feast of Tabernacles, 
 so that He tells us nothing further of importance upon it : 
 on their part, as we there saw, the most deadly enmity 
 had been for some time threatening Him ; of this He 
 was aware, and therefore no public dispute of importance 
 arose with them. The populace on the other hand, 
 although at the last feast, led astray by the chief-priests, 
 they had in the end declared against Him, had yet 
 remained less prejudiced, and had once more received 
 Him well : it was yet a question what form at this final 
 period their nearer attitude would take ; and from this 
 view that day of the solemn entry had also, according to 
 St. John, its high importance; it became indeed the 
 grand concluding day of the Saviour's whole public 
 working. And as St. John likewise indicates all the 
 most prominent summits in the Gospel history, in the 
 way the earlier Gospels had described them, but paints 
 them at the same time quite independently more after 
 his peculiar style ; so here He sketches unmistakeably, 
 in his own style, the picture of that heavenly Trans- 
 figuration of the whole earthly work of Christ, waiting 
 
XXXV.] REQUEST OF THE HELLENISTS. 279 
 
 suddenly to burst forth, described partially by the 
 earlier Gospels (Chap. XXIX.) but by them shifted to 
 another earthly scene. St. John here sets before us only 
 some few majestic features which complete the whole 
 picture of the public working of Christ (St. John xii. 
 20—36). 
 
 There were, it is stated, present on that day (as we 
 can well believe) a good number of Greeks arrived 
 among the visitors to the feast: by these Greeks St. 
 John doubtless intends Greeks by nation, Jews by faith, 
 so born, or proselytes from the heathen. All Jews 
 living among the Greeks and other heathen in the 
 Roman empire were then looked on (Bd. iv. s. 290 if) 
 as freer thinkers and less fettered by popular prejudices : 
 some might early divine that Christianity would spread 
 much more easily among them than in the Holy Land, 
 as the history of the Apostles was then practically 
 teaching; and so St. John especially, when He wrote 
 this, had long known by deep experience. In an earlier 
 passage St. John had accordingly expressly told us, how 
 some had so misunderstood an expression of the Saviour's, 
 as though He intended, disgusted with the Jews in the 
 Holy Land, to go to those among the heathen, in order 
 to bring them over to his Messianic doctrine. Now on 
 this day some of these Greeks wish on their own 
 impulse to learn to know Jesus more accurately ; they 
 apply accordingly to Philip, who does not venture to 
 inform the Master of their petition until he had taken 
 with him Andrew, who was on more intimate terms with 
 Christ. And if He had acceded to such a petition, and 
 
280 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 now devoted Himself wholly to the Hellenists, what an 
 entirely new state of things might He not have in- 
 troduced even at this last turning-point of his whole 
 working, what disquiet in the land, and what unforeseen 
 difficulty been able to make for the chief-priests ! We 
 can, in fact, from the history of the Apostolic period 
 rightly appreciate this ; as, in general, none more eagerly 
 took up the Christian doctrine, nor more faithfully held 
 it fast, than did the Hellenists. Thus this became (as 
 we may quite correctly suppose) a last temptation for 
 Christ in this final period : but not for a moment was 
 there doubt of what was here to be done. 
 
 Not thus, — through uproar among the people, or 
 through help from without, — could, as He saw, the great 
 cause, which He had hitherto borne alone, win the 
 victory. He had now been for some time resolved to die 
 for it, if need were, and felt that only thus would it 
 conquer : and though the thought on death, the nearer 
 it approached, must be all the greater shock to Him as 
 a man. He yet would not pray the Father to save Him 
 from this hour, but only that His name might be glorified 
 through his death, in the certain prospect that so at last 
 the Messianic cause itself and the Messiah Himself in 
 his divine side, instead of being destroyed, would be 
 glorified for ever. And as He thus intimated to them 
 that He had now no longer time for such new human 
 acquaintances and connections, and concluded with the 
 highest and purest possible prayer to the Father in the 
 extremest emotion, there came also, St. John tells us, 
 from the Father the true response, and a clear heavenly 
 
XXXV.] CHRIST ANSWERED FROM HEAVEN. 281 
 
 voice announced to the earth this response : just as 
 temptation overcome constantly leads to higher trans- 
 figuring and glorifying. But when the people (St. John 
 goes on) thought to have only heard thunder in the 
 voice — others would at most see an angel's voice in it — 
 He shewed them that such a voice served not for Him 
 principally (as if He had much need of strengthening 
 and attestation) but only for them, to strengthen their 
 faith ; He knows Himself how the whole spiritual issue 
 is already decided, and in spite of his outward fall, or 
 rather in consequence of it, that the time for glorifying 
 his whole cause is beginning. But as they were not 
 able yet to comprehend this. He advised them to make 
 use of at least the short time, during which He was to 
 be visibly present with them. As St. John's represent- 
 ation may be compared in so many places to a bird, 
 which boldly rises to the highest heaven and flutters 
 there till it gently drops down again, so especially is it 
 with this short but most sublime passage. With the 
 boldest flight the thought here rises at once from the 
 immediate occasion to the sublimest truth and the 
 highest wish and prayer, seeking not in vain from 
 heaven itself a response : but should any one mistake the 
 nature of this heavenly voice, then at the same elevation 
 its true end and its own proper meaning are further 
 declared, and at last in the gentlest condescension it is 
 declared what must without fail be done by every one. 
 
 What was decisive at last, according to St. John, 
 was that the whole people of the true religion of that 
 time, taking them as a whole, did not find courage and 
 
282 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 resolution enough to follow Him truly and honestly, 
 blinded through obstinate prejudices of all sorts. The 
 populace cheered Him on, it is true, for a short time, but 
 became again directly more reserved when they did not 
 see immediately the outward fortune, which was strictly 
 all that they sought through Him, and saw themselves 
 only met, as they thought, by his severe demands. And 
 finally, even in matters of outward success, fortune, and 
 welfare, all the several efforts and sects of any nation 
 are dissipated in it again when as a mass it remains 
 behind its duty. Great as were the faults of the ex- 
 isting chiefs, had not the people themselves of long time 
 allowed themselves to be thus moulded ? and did they 
 find at last, at the final hour, the right means to improve 
 the spirit of their chiefs ? As all special efforts and sects 
 first proceed from out of the people itself, so also the 
 errors and failings of these wound the people itself as a 
 whole. Israel should have known as a people, that the 
 purely divine, so far as it can appear in human form, 
 with all the infinite saving grace concealed in it, ap- 
 peared in this inconspicuous form of Jesus of Nazareth : 
 that they did not know it, is in fine its one great fault. 
 And this very utterance is, according to St. John, the 
 last decisive saying which the Saviour makes on the 
 whole behaviour of the people towards Him, though 
 only in those general truths and sentences which go 
 beyond all which is merely national, and therefore may 
 strictly be applied to every nation and every individual 
 in it. (John xii. 44 — 50.) 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The Betrayal. The Bodily Death and the 
 Eternal Hope. The Bodily Separation and 
 THE Eternal Presence. 
 
 According to the older account also, the kind of out- 
 ward interest of the multitude, dreaded by the chief 
 priests in their long-formed deadly plans against Christ, 
 in the course of these few days soon went to sleep again. 
 The multitude saw nothing of the sensible majesty 
 realised, such as they had principally hoped for on the 
 day of the entry ; so its warmer .zeal soon cooled again, 
 there was even an entire reaction against the Saviour : 
 and though the chief priests continued not wholly free 
 from fear lest an arrest and condemnation of Christ 
 might, in the impending feast-days, most liable to out- 
 break of popular tumult, call forth a dangerous disturb- 
 ance among the multitude (Mark xiv. 2), they yet saw 
 clearly that the interest of the multitude since the day 
 of the entry was at least not on the increase ; and thus 
 might they soon again expect to attain their end, if any 
 favourable accident should befall in aid of tlieir continued 
 watchfulness and vindictiveness. But it is the most 
 
284 LIFE OF JESUS CHEIST. " [CHAP. 
 
 beautiful token of the insurpassable goodness of Christ, 
 and of the spiritual majesty of his cause, that they, with 
 all their own industrious e^opionage and with all their 
 most entire and decided hostility, in spite of the fast 
 growing lukewarmness of the multitude, ventured on no 
 fatal step against Him, till treason from his own circle 
 came to their aid. So surely is it established in this 
 greatest historical case, that a cause wholly good in its 
 deepest foundation and pure origin can be really injured 
 only by treason from its own midst. The only im- 
 portant point then here is to discern truly, how such 
 treachery was possible even in this community, then in 
 its first commencement and under Christ's own eyes. 
 Treachery in a good cause, when it appears, is always 
 only the outburst of indecision and perplexity long 
 existing in the community, although perhaps very in- 
 apparent and imperceptibly infecting it; this only ac- 
 cidentally, so to speak, gathers on an individual member, 
 and through his particular guilt leads to a violent blow. 
 We saw however (Chap. XXI.) how certainly Christ's 
 cause, in spite of its original purest goodness, must, 
 through the firm stablishing of the community, descend 
 to the casualties and weaknesses of this earth. Every- 
 thing earthly, if it will put itself under rules, subsist, 
 maintain itself, and advance, must form itself within 
 definite limits, ranks and numbers. As the first firm 
 stones and foundations of his Church, so far as this is 
 and must be in some degree temporal, Jesus chose his 
 Twelve, after a number suitable but established and 
 almost necessary. He surely chose the Twelve as the 
 
XXXVI.] JUDAS ISCARIOT'S TEMPTATION. 285 
 
 best whom He could choose to fill the number, and no one 
 in order that he might be his betrayer. But we may 
 say of the first choice the same as Christ (according to 
 St. John xii. 18) said at the end of his earthly history, 
 " He knew whom He chose," that they, that is, in 
 consequence of the general variety in human spirits, 
 would not of necessity, without exception, even in respect 
 of the great cause itself which should unite them, be all 
 alike; that rather, just because of the singular elevation 
 and difficult task of their new life, the most varied 
 modification of their particular efibrts might find place, 
 even possibly to arrive at the entire misconception of the 
 most certain truth, if perchance special new temptations 
 should supervene. What calls forth the most strenuous 
 and truest activity of the human spirit needs also the 
 highest freedom of motive and resolve: not in order to 
 take this from them did Christ choose his Twelve, when 
 once He had to fix and fill up a fixed number of his 
 closest disciples. Judas Iscariot was entrusted with the 
 money afikirs of the new Church, — for these at some time 
 must be specially taken in charge by some one member. 
 Thus, when the thoughts of all should be turned simply 
 to the things of the kingdom of heaven, this man must 
 busy himself with such earthly things, for they too were 
 indispensable. In this lies for him a peculiar temptation : 
 to collect all the money, keep and increase it, may 
 gradually become too attractive ; and if at the same time 
 his spirit is greedy, self-seeking, and thievish, he can 
 easily find the excuse that his office compels him to 
 bring and keep together as much money as possible : the 
 
286 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 temptation, indeed, thus to protect himself against all the 
 probable emergencies and changes of life may become 
 the stronger even the more as the possession of treasures 
 of this sort is despised by the rest, or the non-possession 
 of them even required by one of the laws of the society. 
 To this temptation Judas Iscariot succumbed. We are 
 indebted to St. John's more particular account for the 
 knowledge of this, and this his last conduct would other- 
 wise in every way be historically far less clear to us 
 than it now need be. His growing inclination to money 
 might, in the course of this year and a half, have re- 
 mained unnoticed and artfully concealed by himself: 
 although however Christ never yet had said anything 
 severe to him in reference to it, the half reproof which 
 He had given him (John xii. 7f.) shortly before might 
 have hurt and annoyed him. When now, being in such 
 a frame of mind on the following days, he also found that 
 the kingdom of God he hoped for — from which with his 
 ruling propensity he must have hoped for special out- 
 ward treasures and advantages — would not be realised in 
 the way he had secretly hoped for ; further, that the 
 people as a mass remained almost indifferent, — might not 
 the desperate thought suddenly have seized on him to 
 have one parley with the high-priests, who as he knew 
 had already set a price on the head of this Messiah? 
 might he not have amused himself with thinking it 
 might be a good plan sometime, at least to have some 
 conversation with them? For we may safely assume 
 that, probably some days before his final separation from 
 the Lord, he had been negociating with certain chief- 
 
XXXVI.] JUDAS ISCARIOT's TEMPTATION. 287 
 
 priests (Mark xiv. 10 f.) : that these represented to him 
 the enterprise, if he would undertake it, as highly meri- 
 torious, and on their part also were every way urgent 
 with him, may well be assumed. That the money 
 promised for the betrayal, with the further temporal 
 advantages which might be shortly pointed out as to 
 follow, had also much attraction for him, is only what 
 we might have expected from him : on the other hand, 
 to the chief-priests nothing could appear more agreeable 
 and advantageous than the opportunity offered of taking 
 Jesus as a prisoner in the sight of the world, and that 
 through the treachery of one of the Twelve. 
 
 Accordingly, as will likely be the case in all more 
 important decisions which originate in evil motives, two 
 causes combined to determine Judas Iscariot to this step. 
 Mere covetousness would hardly have impelled him to 
 the horrible deed ; the amount of money which the chief- 
 priests offered him was indeed small enough. Neither 
 would the fear of the discovery of his covetousness and 
 its possible punishment in the circle of the new Church 
 have been able alone to drive him to it : it had not been 
 much noticed hitherto, and certainly he had not been re- 
 proached by Christ in a way he could not get over. It 
 is indeed quite clear, that afterwards, among the first 
 Christians, covetousness alone was ever thought of as 
 the only motive for so horrible a deed : it is plain also 
 that this Iscariot subsequently received the reward of his 
 crime, and bought for this money, with probably other 
 which he had saved, a field in Jerusalem (Acts i. 18 f.) : 
 this had been hitherto, from some cause which we now 
 
288 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 know not, called the " Potter's field," but the Christians 
 named it after this, on grounds we can well understand, 
 '^ the field of blood." He did not however long survive 
 his crime : he died, as some related afterwards, through 
 a fall as from a precipice, others said it was by self- 
 strangling. The last account is however connected with 
 a particular notion which likewise grew up in the 
 Apostolic age : that so soon as he saw Christ actually 
 condemned, he wished from compunction at once to 
 restore the money to the chief-priests, but when they 
 would not take it back, threw it down to them in the 
 temple and hanged himself : they had however not dared 
 to put it into the treasury, but bought with it that field 
 to bury strangers in. We cannot allow of any other 
 supposition than that the field afterwards actually served 
 for such an end ; while the story of the immediate 
 repentance of the traitor was probably merely devised by 
 Christian charity. 
 
 But neither can we mistake the fact, that the singu- 
 larly disturbed atmosphere in which the spirit of the new 
 Church had now to breathe, and the cruel crisis which 
 in these days awaited the whole cause of the completed 
 true religion, supervened as the other occasion which 
 quickly ripened the seed of the traitor. Now was the 
 time when, in the Church hardly founded, everything 
 temporal and eternal, earthly and heavenly, must be 
 violently parted, and this young Church at once undergo 
 the hardest possible temptation. All hope of an earthly 
 kingdom must be plucked up from the roots, the visible 
 Head of the Church arrested, nay, humanly most deeply 
 
XXXVI.] PREPAEING FOK THE EVENT. 289 
 
 disgraced and killed ; thoughts must be turned away 
 from the Messiah bodily present, and turned towards the 
 heavenly Messiah alone, to appear, it might be, from 
 heaven again. As this danger pressed on ever closer 
 with that issue, which was to the common mind quite 
 unexpected, he who would yet remain faithful in this 
 Church, must make his own an intuition and a hope 
 such as he had never been familiar with or needed 
 before. It is certain indeed that Christ Himself was not 
 in the least surprised by this danger, nor in his entire 
 spirit the least bent by it : we see Him, although in no 
 wise seeking for death and all its horrors, and at the 
 very last prepared for another issue, if God preferred it, 
 yet in the sublimest calm and blissful peace admitting 
 even the hardest and most painful thoughts, and rightly 
 discerning and rightly executing all that was yet to be 
 done on his part. If He behaved towards the great 
 world, to the last moment, as has been above for the 
 most part described ; we have cause for the greatest 
 wonder here, at the way wherein, in the gradual advance 
 of this last crisis and finally in the crisis itself. He 
 behaved towards his own so long as He was still free to 
 deal with them. 
 
 He saw his earthly end approaching more closely; 
 He spoke in the circle of his own ever more definitely 
 and at length, of his intuitions and hopes of the future of 
 the true kingdom of God, even after his earthly decease ; 
 He expressed them in the most striking forms, in the 
 most admirable pictures and instructive parables, setting 
 minutely before their eyes what the eye of flesh had 
 
 U 
 
290 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 never seen and yet was certain, sometimes in shorter in- 
 spirations and regular prophecies ; and He always added 
 thereto the right counsel and the truest comfort. If He 
 had earlier (Chap. XXII.) at the right time explained, 
 not only to his own but to the multitude as well, the 
 essential nature, the right beginning and value, and the 
 eternal meaning of the true kingdom of God in figure 
 and in teaching in the sublimest manner. He now com- 
 pleted this whole course of prophecy and instruction by 
 the equally insurpassable true intuitions and prophecies 
 on the nearer and more remote future of affairs after his 
 return to his Father : but as then He had only sketched 
 the grand features of all true insight into the nature of 
 the completed kingdom of God, for the purpose of at 
 once exercising his own in their corresponding duties ; 
 so even in these last times He revealed none of his 
 many intuitions on the development of its whole future, 
 without wrapping up therewith a corresponding counsel 
 or comfort for his own. And in what fulness He im- 
 parted these last clear glances and intimations to his 
 own we may see especially from the valuable fragments 
 of the Spruchsammlung, which placed the most copious 
 exposition at that time when once, in these last days, 
 leaving the temple He had sat down with the Twelve 
 over against it on the Mount of Olives to reflect and 
 teach (Matt. xxiv. 3). St. John passes over most of it, 
 because at the time when He wrote it had been already 
 in great part fulfilled, and at that time there was much 
 else more important. Nor for us is it the right place to 
 enter into the particulars of it, as the discussion of it 
 
XXXVI.] FULLY PREPARED TO FACE DEATH. 291 
 
 belongs rather to the history of.the time when it had its 
 greatest importance — the Apostolic period. 
 
 If however He now with the greatest clearness dis- 
 cerned the utter and deadly hatred of his enemies, and 
 that He, if He would not abandon the cause of his Mes- 
 sianic calling, could not escape from their fury; He 
 must above all reflect, that He must be constantly ready, 
 gladly and joyfully, should God ask for it without his 
 guilt, to give up his life. And in nothing does He 
 appear nobler than in this, that He nowhere and in no 
 wise, seeking death from despair as one might think, nor 
 in anywise through his own human guilt drawing it on 
 Himself, rather as a man drawing back from the pain 
 and the horror of death, yet the closer the bitter neces- 
 sity advanced towards Him the more calmly submitted 
 to the divine w^ll, should it demand from Him even this 
 sacrifice. Doubtless indeed He was from the commence- 
 ment of his public course prepared for even its hardest 
 issue in what concerned his own life consecrated to the 
 divine call : but in all its plain necessity and its actual 
 terrors, this bitter necessity had gradually come before 
 Him ever more strongly. But although since that first 
 bright commencement of his Messianic activity He had 
 already run through the most varied stages of this 
 activity ; yet even at that stage which He now occupied 
 He might humanly have very easily drawn back from 
 his calling and avoided all danger of death. Not one 
 charge which could be named rested on Him : and how 
 gladly would the chief-priests, if He would now have 
 submitted Himself to their will, have let Him escape 
 
292 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 with probably a short , imprisonment even after the 
 betrayal of Iscariot ! But then He would not have been 
 Christ, that is, not the leader in the kingdom of the 
 perfected true religion : and if we cannot conceive in 
 Him any actual wavering in the two earlier stages of 
 his Messianic activity in all the chief crises of his life, 
 how much less could He now, after He had gathered 
 about Him the community of the perfected true religion, 
 and had laid in it the immutable ground of all com- 
 pletion of the kingdom of God — now, when the eternal 
 salvation of the souls not of the Twelve only, but of all 
 who at any time and in any place on the earth desired 
 this salvation, depended on Him as on no other in 
 history ! He now belonged no longer merely to Him- 
 self nor even to God alone ; He belonged entirely to that 
 community to which from the beginning He had given 
 Himself with his whole immortal Being : and He knew 
 what consequently was his duty, as the Head of all 
 striving for the divine salvation, and as the true Shep- 
 herd of his flock, and could foresee how in the divine 
 pleasure even his innocent death might help to bring 
 about the final and most violent shock to the existing 
 world, and the beginning of a complete breaking up of 
 all the hardened and lifeless guilt of Israel and of the 
 whole world. 
 
 But if He had this higher devotedness and firmness 
 not only always before, but now yet more in view of the 
 immediately coming black destiny ; what deepest pain 
 must it again have caused Him, on the other hand, to see 
 how all Israel and the rest of mankind, and especially 
 
XXXVI.] SYMBOLS OF CIIRIST's SACRIFICE. 293 
 
 his Twelve, must forsake Him ! How much would He 
 have preferred humanly further devoting to them all his 
 most immediate love and care, and how well He knew 
 how much they needed to human view his entire near- 
 ness and ever ready help! He gave then to his own 
 during these last days not only tlie brightest hope and 
 the warmest comfort in the light of his intuition of all 
 futurity; He gave away also at last Himself, as far as 
 He could, with his whole love, nay, as it w^ere, with 
 his whole life in body and soul, so completely that his 
 outward separation from them might become the most 
 abiding spiritual presence. A divine sacrifice, or, ac- 
 cording to the ancient consecrated conception, an offering 
 for all who wished for his light and his salvation, and 
 especially for those who stood closest to Him — such had 
 been in truth, hitherto, his whole Messianic life and 
 effort : and never in the same way as He, has any mortal 
 being sacrificed his whole work and life as the purest 
 offering to the divine will and the eternal salvation of 
 all men. But now, in the last moments of his visible 
 existence, when He foresees the near doom, and best 
 knows with what difficulty the perfected true religion 
 can become at first, even in the circle of those standing 
 closest to it, an inseparable possession and a blessing 
 working on with ever greater might, it is all the more 
 urgent on Him to give Himself away with all which He 
 can, with his whole love and his -whole might, as it were 
 with body and soul, as though He must embrace them 
 more heartily and completely take them to Himself and 
 pass wholly into them, as the final separation more cer- 
 
294 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 tainlj threatens ; as though He were impelled, so far as 
 He could, to leave behind for them all the best part of 
 Himself, at the time when He most painfully realises 
 that He must leave them. Thus would every good man 
 wish to part from the circle of his beloved ones : but 
 who could be more anxious, when separated to sight for 
 ever, to yet remain constantly wholly present, than was 
 He ! When now, on the day before the Passover, that is 
 on Thursday the 13th of the month Nisan, on the fifth 
 day from the entry into Jerusalem, from all the signs of 
 the times, and especially from the bearing of Iscariot, if 
 yet undecided, yet to his sharp eye no longer hidden. He 
 saw how near his earthly end was, and alone with the 
 Twelve was just about towards evening to preside at the 
 daily meal; He rose suddenly, before the preparations 
 for the meal were finished [heiirvov jivo/jbevov according 
 to the correct reading), laid aside his over-garments, like 
 a servant who has something to do in the house, girded 
 Himself with an apron like a servant, who, according to 
 a custom there, would wash his lord's feet before meal- 
 time after the walking and laboui of the day, and took 
 a basin filled with water to wash the feet of the Twelve. 
 No action could arise with Him more naturally through 
 the hasty impulse of a momentary thought : but his 
 presentiment that this would be the last meal with them 
 combined with his boundless love long shewn to the 
 Twelve, so that this love would now suddenly overflow, 
 and He hardly knew what greatest proof of love to shew 
 them. When then, as natural. He wished to begin with 
 Peter as the one recognised by Himself as head of the 
 
XXXVI.] WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 295 
 
 Twelve, Peter strove very earnestly against the thought 
 of being served by Him whom he himself should serve, 
 but gladly gave way on learning that only if he so 
 suffer himself to be served by Him has He part in Him 
 and is one of his ; he then wishes to be washed by Him 
 in his whole body, as he eagerly exclaims, and has to be 
 equally set right in the other direction ; that in the case 
 generally of those who belong to Christ, no such violent 
 handling and change (no complete bath) is any more 
 necessary (as for example at John's baptism), but a 
 gentler handling and amendment (as for example the 
 washing the feet) must be sufficient. After He had thus 
 served them all. He first declares to them Himself the 
 higher meaning of this proof of love : He had touched 
 them with his own hand, and with this touch rendered 
 more than a small earthly service — He had wished with 
 his hand, so to speak, to impress his spirit of love, with 
 the water of the washing to rub it into them : and could 
 any man of feeling among fhem ever forget that his hand 
 had thus touched and consecrated him with more power 
 than with kiss and laying on of hands? The spiritual 
 meaning of the act reaches here beyond its outward and 
 visible meaning, and all words are strictly here too weak 
 to exhaust the whole infinite depth of the meaning. 
 Hence He only tells them, how He had in this given 
 them the example of the genuine love through which 
 alone this his Church had been founded and must sus- 
 tain itself after his visible departure. Not as if such 
 self-sacrificing love (which must constantly proceed most 
 from those very men who stand highest) is to take away 
 
296 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the distinction between the various offices and callings ; 
 the true Lord remains what He is, in spite of his con- 
 descending and all-embracing love : and unhappily Christ 
 knows very well that even among the Twelve whom He 
 had thus touched, not all among them are alike in love 
 to Him, nay, that the traitor is already lurking among 
 them • but nevertheless the .blessing of true love rests on 
 all proofs of it, from those above to those below, as that 
 of the master to the servant or of the teacher to the 
 disciple, and conversely from those below to those above, 
 as the love of the servant, or one who is in any position 
 of receiving, to his master and benefactor. 
 
 Thus commenced this meal, the last which Christ, 
 according to his true presentiment, could enjoy undis- 
 turbed in company with his own, as John with the most 
 touching simplicity tells us in his representation of the 
 Exalted One : and so we easily understand how in a 
 like spirit it was continued, and if possible was finished, 
 with yet higher elevation of the feelings of purest and 
 most exalted love which here crowded in. He must 
 have in this meal reached to them Himself bread and 
 wine, still serving them like one who loved them, and 
 following therein all the boundless thoughts and most 
 sublime truths which here flowed together, and so to 
 speak, in the eating, offering Himself to them to be 
 absorbed into them and transmuted into their every 
 feeling and their life. As He in view of his death 
 breaks this bread to them and reaches this wine to them, 
 as if He were giving with them his body also and his 
 blood soon to be shed for them : so is it his will that they 
 
XXXVI.] INNER MEANING OF THE ACTIONS. 297 
 
 have Him continually in themselves though now vanish- 
 ing from their sight, and keep Him in themselves as still 
 living and present among them ; it is Ms icill and wish 
 that it be so, and those who thus in faith enjoy this food 
 given them by Him take in the substance rather than 
 bodily food, Himself into them with his infinite love and 
 power. Thus then is He even inwardly already a dif- 
 ferent being : since He has thus given Himself with all 
 that He yet has of earthly to his own, He has already, as 
 it were, renounced the whole visible world, and now, as 
 one who belongs no more to Himself, goes the more 
 easily and more majestically to meet the outward death. 
 There are moments in this fleeting earthly life, in 
 which the highest experiences, discoveries and intuitions 
 of all mankind are compressed together, and all which 
 anyone in his whole previous striving and working has 
 accomplished, would fain gather into one word and one 
 token, in order thus to last for ever. Such was this 
 moment at the Saviour's last meal in reference to that 
 which for a year and a half had been the great end of his 
 earthly labour, the Church of His own. All at this one 
 moment done by Christ and his disciples goes infinitely 
 beyond its immediate object ; and all earthly matter is 
 transfigured here into the purest spiritual. For the un- 
 fathomed lessons, which through the finished work of 
 Christ and his purest strongest love sought for a home 
 on earth, had long been delivered ; they waited, as it 
 were, only for this moment to be overpoweringly and 
 visibly so far as possible transfigured, and thus found 
 even in the most trivial and smallest occasion the right 
 
298 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 instrument for their most significant expression and 
 never-to-be-forgotten truth ; for the highest meaning can 
 be summed up even in the smallest thing and, to the eye 
 of sense, the least important. But in truth all this could 
 not have gained its highest significancy until the Apos- 
 tolic period. It is evident that the Church, to which He 
 had thus given Himself at the last moment, the more 
 constantly and the more earnestly they afterwards reflected 
 on this moment, could deem nothing more comforting 
 than the remembrance of it, and nothing holier than, so 
 far as possible, to repeat that which had at that time 
 taken form in creative originality. But of the events of 
 Christ's proof of his love on this day, the meal alone 
 could be repeated ; for this the disciples had themselves 
 enjoyed with Him, and they might always conceive to 
 themselves the heavenly Saviour as with his whole spirit 
 present with them ; whilst the washing of the feet could 
 in nowise be repeated, as being something in which the 
 disciples had been purely receptive, and which the 
 Lord's love was only, we may say, to impart with his 
 own hands. The feast of the Supper could be repeated ; 
 and we shall see below, how in the Apostolic period much 
 that was quite sensual could easily attach itself to it : 
 but many Christians certainly accustomed themselves 
 very early, in place of keeping the festival of the Lord's 
 Supper yearly, the last day before the Passover, that is 
 before the 14th of the month Nisan, to repeat it on the 
 day itself and connect it with the Passover, on grounds 
 which will likewise be better enquired into below. The 
 entrance of this custom and, still more, the consideration 
 
XXXVI.] WAS THIS A PASCHAL SUPPER? 299 
 
 of the death of Christ become predominant, had in fact 
 a reaction on the usual repetition of the Gospel history. 
 For after it had become quite usual to name Christ Him- 
 self the Christian Paschal Lamb slain as an offering, as 
 his death had happened as nearly as possible at the time 
 of the Passover, and the first Christians found therein 
 a confirmation of many of their dearest truths : for this 
 reason the account of the first celebration of this Supper 
 readily took the shape of Christ Himself having really 
 celebrated it with the Twelve as a Paschal Supper, and 
 only after it given to his disciples bread and wine in the 
 new higher meaning. This account, in accordance with 
 which several reminiscences took characteristic forms in 
 the separate narratives, lies now before us, in the form 
 it was generally repeated in the three first Gospels ; 
 and a further result was that the fifteenth of this month, 
 or the first great day of the feast, had to be regarded as 
 the proper day of the crucifixion and death of Christ. 
 But, as is always the case with small displacements, the 
 original reminiscence is not entirely obliterated by this 
 displacement, and may be actually again recognised 
 pretty correctly in a broken form under the outer surface. 
 If that Supper had been really an eating of the Passover, 
 then Christ would have given to his own, as the most 
 correspondent token of his body now going to death, 
 the flesh especially, still more if this love feast had 
 entirely coincided w^ith the Passover, as it must seem to 
 have done under St. Luke's representation : but it is 
 only of bread and wine that we are always told. Further, 
 on the night of the Passover, until the morning of the 
 
300 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 first great day of the feast of unleavened bread, according 
 to known laws which the chief-priests of that time might 
 least break, the arrest and the trial could not have 
 followed. And as the day of the death, according to that 
 account also, was a Friday, it agrees in so far with the 
 more correct history (if we presuppose that there was 
 generally a clear recollection that in that year Sunday 
 was the third day from that of the crucifixion). But 
 this narrative, in fact, sets before us no other reasons for 
 regarding the night of the arrest and the following day 
 of the death as the time of the great feast of unleavened 
 bread ; rather, through the reminiscence that the chief- 
 priests had hastened the condemnation in order that it 
 might ensue hefore the feast, clearly indicates the original 
 reminiscence of the real time. But here again it is 
 St. John who, in the perfectly plain account in his Gospel, 
 restored the whole in its proper sequence to its original 
 simplicity. But if he related only the washing of the 
 feet omitted in the earlier narrative, and not the distribu- 
 tion of bread and wine, he does so, partly because the 
 last was universally known, just as he holds it un- 
 necessary to relate in his story so many universally known 
 particulars, and partly because on an earlier occasion 
 (Chap. VI.) he had already explained the higher mean- 
 ing of such eating of Christ's bread and of Christ's 
 flesh and blood, so that it was superfluous for him here 
 to recur to it. 
 
 The contradiction however between the Gospels as to 
 this date, in another aspect to be here referred to, is not 
 of much importance. On more careful consideration, the 
 
XXXVI.] RISE OF THIS VIEW. 301 
 
 whole account which leads to the belief that the evening 
 of the betrayal and the love feast was the Passover even^ 
 ing, as we have further shewn in "die drei ersten 
 Evangelien," may be traced back to St. Mark's original 
 account alone. But we have preserved in St. Luke the 
 beginning of a much simpler account taken from the 
 oldest Gospel narrative. This states that Christ, when 
 tlie day (that is the feast of unleavened bread) approached 
 when the Passover must be killed, sent Peter and John 
 into the city to make preparations for it. The language 
 of this might suggest that the day hefore the Passover 
 is meant ; the preparations besides had to be made in 
 good time. In this case the Supper, which was eaten 
 in the inn thus engaged, would have been not indeed the 
 Passover, but partaken of with minds full of the Pass- 
 over ; and might the more easily be looked on as taking 
 its place, as the disciples doubtless on the following day, 
 amid the greatest horror and extremest fear, found neither 
 a place nor inclination to partake. In any case, the 
 Passover was much connected with the history of these 
 two days, which St. John in his Gospel does not dwell 
 on, because in general everything merely Jewish was 
 indifferent to him. So far may suffice for the more 
 accurate date of this crisis. But in the development of 
 the great history, the sole principal point is that Christ 
 had thus done on his part all which He could, in order 
 that the mortal blow foreseen by Him might not strike 
 the Twelve unprepared, and that they, at least after the 
 stunning blow, might get up again, and again find their 
 way in those eternal truths to found which alone He had 
 come. But the nearer the blow approached, the more 
 
302 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 fearful He shewed Himself in the intimations of it. 
 According to the universal Gospel reminiscence, all the 
 Twelve became silent so soon as Jesus alluded more 
 directly to it, and even those generally strongest in the 
 faith could not admit this view ; as it will soon appear 
 further that even Peter wavered for a moment. What 
 was here to happen, and what Christ prophesied to them 
 ever more clearly, was a blow to all the earliest and most 
 confident hopes of the Messiah ; as in fact the multitude 
 (John xii. 34), from their previous intuitions, readily dis- 
 cerned : how could they be otherwise than most deeply 
 moved and, as it were, thrown out of their balance, 
 when their whole life's hope had most inseparably 
 grown Tip with the Messianic ! It is, in fact, one of the 
 best proofs of the pure goodness and truth of Christ's 
 whole cause, that, with the highest spiritual freedom and 
 clearness to which He Himself had educated the Twelve, 
 in this hour of the severest temptation, the decision of 
 Iscariot alone went wrong; although He had called 
 forth among them neither any false expectations of the 
 goods and honours of this world, nor any perverted 
 national hope. It is not however to be denied, that all 
 this great uncertainty of affairs, whilst, through their 
 already germinating higher belief and their greater in- 
 nocence, the rest of the Twelve suffered less from it, 
 was for Iscariot one of the causes which led him to his 
 horrible act. As in general it is noticeable, that it is 
 constantly not a single however pow^erful a cause, so 
 much as a turmoil and conflict of the most various evil 
 thoughts, which leads a man at last to the execjition of 
 an evil deed long ripening in his soul. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIL 
 
 The Arrest and its Consequences. 
 
 At that last Supper Iscarlot, according to all reminis- 
 cences, had been present. He seemed not to notice 
 when Christ, both before and during it, repeatedly 
 alluded to treachery in the midst of the Twelve them- 
 selves. When he, even towards the end of the meal, 
 after the unfathomed tokens of love which the Lord had 
 shewn them all, was yet silent, Jesus, shocked at such 
 callousness, felt that such a callous indecision could 
 not last. He openly stated then, that one of them 
 would betray Him : all the twelve — Iscariot out of con- 
 fusioQ and surprise, the rest from sincerity — were most 
 deeply moved, and most earnestly assured Him of the 
 impossibility of it. But as Christ did not recall his 
 asseveration, Peter wished, through John the bosom 
 disciple, to get from Him more exact information, went 
 up to him, and whispered his wish. He, as usual, sitting 
 next to Christ, ventured equally secretly to enquire who 
 was intended, and received for answer, he it was to 
 whom He would now give an extra morsel (as if from 
 particular attention and love). Doubtless the wretched 
 
304 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Iscariot had not clearly heard this, whispered between 
 the two, (reported to us by St. John alone in his gospel) ; 
 still less had the others heard it ,* and we may well sup- 
 pose that it was hardly repeated at once by John to 
 Peter. He might yet perhaps have been able to repent, 
 when Christ's love, as it were, overflowed on him ; but 
 he felt now quite unworthy of so much love, and from 
 the unusual jingling him out, felt that Jesus must have 
 completely seen through him ; and on His now adding 
 that he should do quickly what he was conscious of, he 
 ran forth from the company, more strongly feeling what 
 the Saviour might have meant by it, firmly resolved, as 
 he was 'already seen through by Christ, to execute his 
 plan at once. In truth, only a man with a guilty con- 
 science could forbode anything wrong from this last 
 saying of Christ ; for as he, as steward of the community, 
 had constantly all sorts of business to do for them, now 
 especially when the Passover was at hand, Christ might 
 have said this with no hidden meaning, and so the rest 
 actually understood Him. 
 
 What time elapsed between this departure of Judas 
 and his return for the capture we know not accurately, 
 doubtless some hours : and as we know from St. John 
 that it was already night when he went out, the arrest 
 may probably not have followed before midnight. The 
 older account, which looks on that Supper as the Pass- 
 over, mentioned quite shortly what the Saviour said and 
 did after the Supper, and the singing the Psalm which 
 concluded the Paschal celebration during these last 
 moments of his being alone with his own. They went 
 
XXXVII.] AGONY IN THE GARDEN. 305 
 
 this night also to the Mount of Olives to sleep there as 
 usual : on the way Christ did not disguise from them 
 his certain foreboding, that they would all be offended at 
 his fate. When Peter would at least except himself, He 
 who knew him better told him that he was the one, who 
 that night before the cock crowed would deny him thrice ; 
 yet he, like the rest, would not think of the possibility of 
 it. Arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, on the 
 western slope of the Mount of Olives, He left first the 
 rest behind, and went further on with his three especial 
 friends among the Twelve, in order to be at the last 
 somewhat more alone, and in this last crisis to find in 
 God the last serenity and strength ; He retired then 
 a little further even from these three, and only wished 
 they would keep watch that night of the presentiment 
 of death. As He thus felt the completion of the 
 treachery only too certainly as very near at hand, the 
 human fear of death was like once more to seize on Him : 
 all his human feelings were still uninterruptedly strong 
 and healthy ; and if the sense of coming death may for 
 brief intervals overcome every healthy heart, what pain 
 and bitter suffering must He feel would with his death 
 follow for his own ! Was there no possibility that the 
 Messianic cause should conquer in another way ? The 
 thought of this might, rather must, while his human 
 feeling was yet undisturbed, once more penetrate his 
 heart, while He braced Himself at this last moment by 
 thinking on God alone : but it only made Him recover 
 at once in God more absolute true devotion to the 
 supreme Will. But whilst thus at the last hour He 
 
 X 
 
306 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Strengthened Himself by wrestling aloud in prayer, 
 resisting every movement of human weakness and tempt- 
 ation, He had wished in vain that the three at least 
 might be able to resist sleep ; He finds them three times 
 asleep after the strong excitements of the last days and 
 hours, and had to give up even this human hope of 
 finding at least his dearest friends watching with Him. 
 Thus had He at last, quite alone and like one forsaken 
 by all the world, to undergo the sense and pains of 
 coming death — how much more then to bear alone the 
 actual pain of death ! even those nearest and truest to 
 Him could not help Him, not even with their spirit: 
 and if He wished, as a man at least, through their watch- 
 ful spirit to strengthen his own, He had when the time 
 came to give up even this last human hope. In this 
 older simpler narrative some indisputably of the most 
 important recollections of that moment of trembling 
 decision have been faithfully preserved : it is short and 
 incomplete, as Christ certainly, in these last hours of his 
 freedom, might have said much more that was worthy of 
 recollection ; but yet it gives us in some broad touches 
 the clear picture of the purport of such never-to-be-for- 
 gotten last hours. But as in general the history of 
 Christ's last earthly history was early (as the Gospels 
 themselves shew) followed up with particular interest, 
 and in many ways multiplied and put into new forms, 
 so is it the case with the recollection of these last hours 
 before his arrest ; and to suit the grandeur of these hours 
 the representation of the events became ever also more 
 sublime. We see this variously shewn in St. Luke's 
 
XXXVII.] PARTING DISCOURSE. 307 
 
 Gospel. On one side, in fact, it was a favourite alteration 
 to shift to these last hours many of the most important 
 sayings of Christ, so many seemed to occur appropriately 
 then : then it was frequent to lengthen the time between 
 the Last Supper and the move towards the Mount of 
 Olives, as this Supper must have furnished the richest 
 matter for further solemn parting remarks. Thus St. 
 Luke inserts here an important fragment from the 
 Spruchsammlung, and two others from the " Book of the 
 higher Gospel History" (Luke xxii. 21-— 38). On the 
 other hand, the conception of Christ in his agony of soul 
 excited not a little the attempt to paint it less unworthily 
 of its whole sublimity : some grand touches of Christ in 
 this light have been preserved by St. Luke from the 
 same somewhat subsequent Gospel history (Luke xxii. 
 43 f.). 
 
 But St. John goes much further in this. As in his 
 Gospel he always endeavours to entirely exhaust all 
 important matter of more general bearing* so at this 
 moment, in which Christ after the departure of the 
 traitor is once more alone with those quite true to Him, 
 he inserts the most eloquent as well as the most complete 
 discussion of the whole relation between Him and his. 
 It is the purest and tenderest relationship which can be 
 declared in a Gospel, and is also the highest subject of 
 all true religion : but nowhere are these truths in their 
 whole compass transfigured with such depth and ex- 
 haustiveness, as in this crowning passage of that work, 
 which of all the books of the Bible is most absolutely 
 inspired. Doubtless, as we need not remark, in this 
 
308 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 very long discourse of Christ there prevails the same 
 freedom of repetition and putting into form, which mark 
 all such discourses in this Gospel ; in fact, without this 
 freedom it could never have come into being in this 
 upward soaring of the thoughts and entire exhaustion of 
 the subject : there is also no doubt that, as in other 
 passages of this Gospel, St. John starts from certain 
 passages of earlier Gospels as his key-note, and returns 
 to them again, like, we may say, a performer of genius, 
 who transfigures the few notes given to him through the 
 freest and yet the truest and most fascinating variations. 
 But here also, with the elevation of this extraordinary 
 subject, the exposition rises in a manner elsewhere un- 
 known in a discourse of any length. And the funda- 
 mental thought of this long discourse, which through 
 several interruptions only increases in inward clearness 
 and in warmth of expression, is only the same which in 
 other parts of the Gospel serves as so strong an under 
 tone, namely, that Christ's deepest humiliation now, after 
 the traitor's departure, impending immediately and with- 
 out escape, will be his highest glory. But whilst the 
 Speaker, from this thought and from the great Christian 
 fundamental law of true love, contemplates in all its 
 aspects his relations to his own and to God, such as it 
 had hitherto been and must soon perfect itself through 
 the last great change, He first discusses on one hand 
 what He will do for his own, and then, on the other 
 hand, conversely what is their part towards Him. 
 
 His part, if we may so speak, is, even at and after 
 his departure out of the visible world, not to forsake 
 
XXXVIT.] PRAYER FOR HIS FOLLOWERS. 309 
 
 them, but to prepare with the Father a place for them 
 for their eternal happiness, and from thence reappear to 
 them, even while yet on earth, Himself or by the 
 sending of the Holy Spirit : their part, on the other hand, 
 is to keep towards Him, as to one who wishes not so 
 much to be their Lord as their friend, amid all the 
 temptations and trials from the world, that fidelity 
 which seems so hard to hold fast, and yet is really so 
 easy for everyone who completely understands His mind, 
 and has taken it into himself in its heavenly clearness. 
 As however all which Christ here, in such a parting 
 hour, divines and desires for his own glorifying as well 
 as that of his own, if they shew fidelity, can only through 
 the Father be accomplished, the whole discourse changes 
 of itself at length into a loud earnest prayer, which once 
 more, in summing up in pregnant words everything most 
 sublime, must necessarily linger chiefly at the supplica- 
 tion for his own, but at length embraces, even beyond 
 the narrower circle of the Twelve, all the infinite multi- 
 tude who should come like them, and in the way they 
 had come arrive at the knowledge of the True. Thus 
 the principal matter of the sayings of Christ on his way 
 to and in the Garden, as given us by the older accounts, 
 is here by St. John exhausted, looking at the whole 
 scope of this last great concluding discourse and this 
 sublime parting. St. John hence omits (after this dis- 
 course spoken at the conclusion of this Supper in the 
 city itself) the whole further account of Christ's time in 
 the Garden and the mortal agony, which here, according 
 to the older Gospels, falls on Him ; it would moreover, 
 
310 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 after the pure sublimity of this parting address, be hardly 
 conceivable. We have here the most striking proof of 
 how St. John, in the boundlessness of the purely heavenly 
 matter spread before Him to overflowing, throws off all 
 earthly matter. He had moreover had an opportunity 
 of painting how at least the passing thought of another 
 issue had power earlier to agitate Christ's soul. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the part of the enemy all arrangements 
 had been made for arresting Him this night at the place 
 where they expected to find Him according to the trai- 
 tor's information. The chief priests had supplied the 
 traitor partly with Roman soldiers from the company 
 quartered in Jerusalem, partly with a division from the 
 temple-guard, under command of the high-priest (John 
 xviii. 3), the last led by a certain Malchus : the whole 
 company were well armed, and well provided with torches 
 and lanterns, in order not to miss the right man, who 
 might, as they thought, hide Himself. As they were 
 prepared to expect resistance, Iscariot was not above 
 making use of a ruse : he was, on arriving at the Garden, 
 to go in front of the company, and first seek Jesus alone, 
 in order thus to single Him out before the eyes of the 
 leader of the company. The traitor was so lost to shame 
 as not only to look Him out, but even, as if all were 
 between them as of old, to greet Him in the most friendly 
 terms and kiss Him, and so give the token agreed on 
 between him and the soldiers : with short solemn reply 
 Christ rejected his hypocrisy, went rather by Himself to 
 meet the officers, with the question, Whom did they seek ? 
 and freely made Himself known to them. Such courage 
 
XXXVIl.] THE saviour's ARREST. 311 
 
 was unexpected by the high-priest's bailiffs : it seemed 
 suddenly as if a higher fear prevented them from taking 
 that man, who from the midst of his friends had met 
 them quite alone with the open brow of innocence ; they 
 sank, so to speak, to the ground. He may at this 
 moment have addressed them in that solemn saying 
 which the older account has preserved : they should at 
 least know what they would do ; they had come out as 
 against a robber, with swords and staves, to take in the 
 darkness of the time Him whom they might daily have 
 taken much more easily while He taught in the temple. 
 But He wished not to escape from them : He therefore 
 desired them, as their superior officers had bidden them, to 
 arrest Him, but to let his companions go free. The officers 
 could for the present have no objection to this, as the 
 idea evidently was, that through the destruction of this 
 one they should be able to stifle the whole cause. When 
 they would actually lay hands on Him, Peter felt him- 
 self suddenly too excited to remain quite composed : he 
 drew his sword and smote Malchus on the right ear ; 
 but a word of reproof from the Lord quenched his 
 unseasonable and unrighteous zeal. When the Saviour 
 indeed now let Himself be taken quite quietly and be 
 completely bound, horror and fear fell on the Twelve and 
 the rest (who seem to have poured in with the officers) 
 at so unexpected a result. They fled in all directions : 
 and if on the one hand St. John truly remarks how 
 Christ's nobleness had approved itself in, according to 
 his desire and prophecy, no one during his earthly 
 companying with them having suffered injury; on the 
 
312 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 other hand, as the older account tells us, only one young 
 man, not further named, almost naked, just as he had 
 been aroused from his sleep and had come up to protect 
 Christ, followed Him at first faithfully, as if in order to 
 make an alarm and summon all to aid, but, when they 
 would arrest Him, likewise at last took to flight. The 
 enemy's first stroke had now, through the traitor's help, 
 succeeded almost contrary to expectation ; other strokes 
 might soon be expected to follow. 
 
CHAPTER XXXYIII. 
 
 The Condemnation. 
 
 For in the enemy's camp all had evidently been care- 
 fully prepared in advance for a speedy condemnation, as 
 they were in the greatest hurry to prevent any popular 
 movement, and especially to have the execution early 
 on the following morning, before the evening of the Pass- 
 over and the feast of unleavened bread should interrupt 
 the trial and unite the crowd. It had long been known 
 that the people in Jerusalem, always so fickle, were 
 never more inclined to disturbance, nor shewed the ruling 
 powers such bold tokens of their discontent, as when 
 they met in crowds on feast-days, under the protection, 
 so to speak, of the law. The condemnation had to be 
 a double one, as the Roman governor (Nach. s. 14 — 16) 
 had, from his own view of the case, to give his assent to 
 a sentence of death resolved on by the supreme court of 
 the high-priest : Pilate's accidental presence in Jerusalem 
 at that time made, however, this course of proceeding 
 more easy. But further, the condemnation in the 
 supreme court must be preceded by a hearing which 
 settled the principal point in the charge, and was thus 
 
314 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 of the weightiest moment. That a case could not be 
 brought at once before the highest court, is at once 
 understood : but as the intention was to turn the charge 
 in Jesus' case to that of a capital offence against the 
 religious commonwealth, the first hearing had to be tried 
 by the supreme judge. The reminiscence of such a 
 double procedure had survived in the older account also, 
 but dimly : here again it is St. John who distinguishes 
 it all more accurately. For the older account makes the 
 regular high-priest of the time, Caiaphas, preside at the 
 first hearing, which is in itself improbable, because the 
 acting high-priest was only the regulator of all the 
 superior courts, and only in the Sanhedrim had the 
 presidency: but St. John mentions that Jesus was first 
 led to Annas, and tried by him, and then, when he had 
 pronounced Him guilty, led next bound to Caiaphas, 
 and so before the Sanhedrim, that that court might 
 pronounce sentence of death, and send Him to the 
 Roman governor. If we now assume what necessarily 
 follows, that Annas, a member of the Sanhedrim, was 
 at the same time the supreme judge, to which office he, 
 as former high-priest and father-in-law of the present, 
 may have been raised, it is all easily intelligible. 
 
 For the chief-priests plainly endeavoured to make 
 the legal procedure quite regular ; although about higher 
 justice they only too little troubled themselves. If we 
 enquire more particularly according to what law they 
 meant to try and condemn Jesus, it is plain that, sup- 
 posing Him innocent in civil matters, there was no 
 written law which they could have used against Him. 
 
XXX7I1I.] HOSTILITY OF THE SANHEDRIM. 315 
 
 The case of anyone giving himself out to be the 
 Messiah, whether his view therein were more earthly 
 or heavenly, had not been provided for in the old sacred 
 law. Conscientious judges must then have entirely 
 acquitted Jesus, supposing that under pretence of 
 being the Messiah He had not been guilty of any civil 
 offence, which no one charged Him with ; and the 
 breaches of the Sabbath, with which He had earlier 
 been often charged, supposing even He had not been 
 able to satisfactorily defend Himself on this ground, 
 according to the then existing usage, did not amount to 
 a capital charge. It was then On grounds quite apart 
 from the sacred law and the true religion, apart indeed 
 from all laws at that time in force, that the chief-priests 
 were led to insist on the punishment of death, even 
 though no actual legal pretext should be found against 
 Him. It was the dull sense that here was rising 
 a spiritual power, continually in development and 
 advancing, which must overthrow their own existing 
 power, together with their priest-rule. Fools, who, only 
 to have quiet for the moment, overthrew the purest and 
 most divine possible, and hence only brought on a 
 speedier and more irretrievable ruin for their own cause ! 
 If they were once determined accordingly to know 
 nothing more of Christ as He came closer to them, and 
 opposed themselves to Him in ever blinder fury — as in 
 increasing hardness of heart they had done hitherto — 
 there was nothing left to them, supposing they found 
 nothing to be legally brought against Him, except, among 
 themselves and in presence of their followers, to express 
 
316 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 a vague horror at the presumption of this man, who 
 exalts Himself above all existing sacred laws, and 
 makes Himself equal to God ; in presence of the Romans, 
 on the other hand, to feign a strong fear of popular up- 
 roar which this King might arouse, and hence actually 
 great devotion towards the Imperial Roman Empire: 
 indeed, for an acute man who thought Himself excep- 
 tionally clever among these chief-priests, and wished 
 above everything not to throw away the good will of 
 Rome — and such a man was the high-priest at that 
 time — the last reason was quite sufficient (Chap. XXXI). 
 The result of this pretended trial was very easy to fore- 
 see: and doubtless Christ Himself foresaw it with all 
 possible certainty. But it behoved Him, even in these 
 last earthly transactions, to maintain His dignity. 
 
 The hearing before Annas was doubtless held late in 
 the evening, in order to lay the cause as early as pos- 
 sible in the morning, regularly prepared, before the 
 Sanhedrim. The high-priest first asked Jesus of his 
 disciples and of his doctrine : the first question he had 
 no conceivable right to put, so long as the defendant 
 was not charged with being a popular leader; He 
 answered accordingly, briefly, only to the second ques- 
 tion, in the only way it became Him to answer, namely, 
 that his doctrine had long been known. It is only too 
 probable that the blow on the face, of which St. John 
 speaks, was then given Him by an overzealous officer of 
 the court, for supposed disrespectful speech before the 
 court. But as the judge did not succeed in catching 
 Him in his words, he brought forward the witnesses 
 
XXXVIII.] SENTENCED BY ANNAS. 317 
 
 Standing all prepared ; who may (as one of the Gospels 
 styles them) be styled, in fact, false witnesses, because 
 they were put forward with bad intent to state some- 
 thing they had heard from Christ which might damage 
 Him, and yet could say next to nothing against Him : 
 it appeared too, on closer enquiry, that no two of 
 them completely agreed together. The most damaging 
 charge seemed to be the saying about the destruction of 
 the temple, which had been retained from the earliest 
 period of his public activity, and was now served up 
 again : no two, however, who stated it were able to state 
 it with such agreement that a legal condemnation could 
 be passed on their testimony. When now Christ was 
 simply silent to all this witness, the high-priest began 
 to lose patience, reproached Him with his silence, and 
 asked, adjuring Him (for no other means was left to 
 him), if He really believed Himself Messiah the Son of 
 God. But hardly had Jesus, as He could not help, 
 solemnly assented to this, when the judge of the court 
 thought He had thus condemned Himself. On what 
 passage from the law he founded his judgment we are 
 not informed — probably on a passage from Deuteronomy 
 directed against false prophets ; for the attendants of the 
 court jeered at Him now as a false prophet, and pre- 
 pared to send Him as an already convicted false prophet, 
 strongly fettered, to the Sanhedrim for a final verdict. 
 
 During this somewhat protracted procedure two of 
 his most intimate disciples, recovering from their first 
 alarm, had collected about the house in which the in- 
 quiry was going on, following at a distance the band 
 
318 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CITAP. 
 
 which had led away their beloved Lord. The older 
 account mentions this only of Peter. This is, however, 
 merely from its having to tell us how in these terrible 
 hours he stood about the court-house, and in the cold 
 night warmed himself, in company with the warders and 
 attendants, at a great fire kindled in the court ; and how 
 to the question thrice asked by the men outside, whether 
 he were not a follower of the accused, he answered not 
 in the affirmative. Without doubt the much-tried man 
 afterwards often himself told, how he at that time, out of 
 mere human fear, had not freely enough acknowledged 
 his part in the Lord, full of bitter repentance even at 
 what, in so trying a time, seems so small an offence : 
 thus only was it, doubtless, that this recollection found 
 its way into the Gospel history. St. John, in his 
 narrative, adds how it was possible for him to come 
 into the well guarded court of that palace ,* that he was 
 himself known in the palace, and on his application 
 Peter was also admitted. It is thus also intelligible 
 how Peter could be asked whether he also was one of 
 Jesus' disciples ; and, as the recognised head of the 
 Twelve, he had in truth most cause for personal fear. 
 The Sanhedrim itself, as more difficult to assemble, did 
 not meet till the early morning ; but its session was this 
 time pushed through with greater haste, and the pro- 
 cedure might here be quite brief, if Christ, as was the 
 fact, did not appeal. He was accordingly led very early 
 before Pilate (who, according to Eoman custom, was be- 
 fore sunrise present in the Prsetorium for business), in 
 order to get confirmed by him the sentence of death 
 
XXXVIII.] HEARING BEFORE PILATE. 319 
 
 already approved by the higher court : but at the same 
 time, in the statement to him it was plainly desired that 
 he should have the Saviour crucified in the Roman 
 manner^ as a seditious character who was guilty of 
 treason against the supremacy of Rome. For the ex- 
 ecution of a false prophet, according to the ancient 
 sacred law, would have been by stoning, under the 
 initiative of the witnesses : but witnesses, as above 
 stated, were here not to be found ; and if they succeeded 
 in putting Him to death in the Roman manner as guilty 
 of high treason, the disgrace, they counted, must be 
 much greater, and at the same time the public respon- 
 sibility would pass from them to the Roman governor. 
 The proceedings connected with Pilate are given in the 
 earlier account pretty accurately, but far more accurately 
 by St. John : and as Pilate in these proceedings acted 
 quite openly, partly before his court-house, partly w^ithin 
 it, yet always in the presence of several Romans, it is 
 not surprising that for their importance they were re- 
 tained in memory with sufficient fidelity. 
 
 Those arriving with the hurried bill of accusation 
 could not go into the heathen Praetorium, because those 
 intending to keep a feast might not enter the houses of 
 heathen ; for such was their traditional interpretation of 
 the rule about keeping themselves clean for three days 
 beforehand. Pilate then, leaving the accused bound in 
 the house, came out to them before the door, but (as 
 from the indictment he could quickly discover the 
 trifling character of the charge) shewed at first no wish 
 at all to interest himself in the case, and wished to leave 
 
320 LIFE OF JESUS CHEISt! [CHAP. 
 
 it to them to inflict a smaller punishment : they how- 
 ever insisted on his ratifying the punishment of death, 
 that is of crucifixion, which they had called for from the 
 first. He went then back into the Prsetorium, to ask 
 Jesus whether He were really the King of the Jews : 
 and doubtless He could have briefly denied the question 
 so put, if the governor had put it to Him as coming 
 merely from himself. But as He saw that in this very 
 notion rested the charge brought against Him, He de- 
 clared that He was indeed a king, but that his kingdom 
 was unlike any other in this world — it was the kingdom 
 of Truth itself, standing open to every one ; and this, 
 when called upon. He repeated as distinctly as possible. 
 What Truth is — whose kingdom Jesus was advancing, 
 appeared to Pilate of very small moment, as he ex- 
 pressed himself without disguise and almost in mockery : 
 but if he were to treat the accused as one of the many 
 fools, as the chief Romans with extreme coldness treated 
 all the endless systems of philosophy and religion be- 
 coming known to them, he could not look on Him as 
 deserving of punishment by death, and so thought to 
 release Him. 
 
 It was certainly at this stage of the proceeding that 
 Pilate resolved to send Jesus to Antipas — who was then 
 likewise present at Jerusalem for the feast — as being his 
 Galilsean prince ; in the sure hope that this prince would 
 not judge the accused so hardly as the chief-priests : he 
 wished too thus to gratify the Tetrarch, and to remove 
 some ill-feeling which had arisen between them. It is 
 true that St. Luke alone records the interlude ; but one 
 
XXXVIII.] CHRIST SENT BEFORE HEROD. 321 
 
 does not see how it can be purely fictitious: Antipas 
 besides (Nach. s. 14) was at that time living not far off. 
 The vain Tetrarch, who as it happened had never seen 
 Jesus, much as he had heard of his miracles, was well 
 pleased to see Him, but found Him quite silent ; just as 
 the older narrative in the enquiry before Pilate dwells 
 much on Jesus' sparing discourse with Pilate ; and why 
 should He say much ? The Tetrarch then was contented 
 with mocking Him in many ways, with the rough 
 warriors who were present, and at last sending Him 
 back to Pilate, with a mock royal robe of state. He 
 could not better meet the feeling of this Roman than by 
 the judgment it involved, that the man charged with 
 seeking a kingdom was to be treated as a madman : it 
 was remarked among the people, that from that day 
 these two rulers became friends. 
 
 Meanwhile Pilate had repeatedly assured the com- 
 plainants and the rest of the people, who at the instiga- 
 tion of the chief-priests assembled about the court-house, 
 that he could discover no guilt, but also he thought in 
 the worst case he could lay before them a choice, which, 
 as he shrewdly calculated, would necessarily lead to the 
 discharge of the accused. According to custom the 
 governor released yearly at the Passover to the prayer 
 of the people one prisoner : Pilate then would give them 
 the choice, either to set free a certain other Jesus, usually 
 however called Barabbas, a public disturber, murderer 
 and robber, or the other accused ; imagining they would 
 surely not ask for the release of so dangerous a man. 
 And as Jesus now returned from the Tetrarch, Pilate 
 
 Y 
 
322 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 first tried the course indicated to him by the Tetrarch ; 
 had him scourged by the soldiers and otherwise ill- 
 treated, put in derision a crown of thorns upon his head 
 and a purple robe about his shoulders, and introduced 
 Him to the people thus chastised and mocked as king, 
 in hope they would be touched with compassion for 
 Him. But the people, who now became uproarious, 
 wished the crucifixion of Jesus and the release of Bar- 
 abbas ; thus was Pilate caught in his own cunning. He 
 wished then at least not to give his own soldiers for the 
 crucifixion, that it might not happen under Koman ap- 
 proval : he even, when it was called out to him that 
 one who gave Himself out to be God's Son must be 
 publicly executed, like a superstitious man, became 
 afraid, had Jesus again brought into the court-house to 
 ask Him about it, and so finally again gave Him a 
 chance of release. How deeply rooted among the people 
 was the notion of a superstitious fear on the part of the 
 governor, appears from the tj-adition inwoven in one of 
 the present Gospels, that Pilate's own wife, troubled the 
 night before by a dream, sent a message to him during 
 the procedure, to release the innocent man. When, 
 however, on that superstitious question of the governor 
 the Saviour remained mute, he became for a moment 
 angry with Him, asking Him whether He knew that 
 he could kill Him or release Him ? but the Saviour now 
 quietly answered, he would have no power over Him 
 had it not been given by God to him, as the then 
 supreme authority in the Holy Land: and so far as 
 human guilt was to blame, not he, but that man had 
 
XXXVIII.] SENTENCED BY PILATE. 32i> 
 
 the greater guilt who had faithlessly given Him up to 
 his supreme jurisdiction. The governor proposed in- 
 deed to the people once more the release ; but they 
 called out, would he really not punish a disturber of the 
 imperial power? This subdued the man trembling at 
 every accusation at Rome against Him : he made pre- 
 paration for pronouncing sentence from the seat of 
 judgment (s. 14), this probably, according to usage, 
 containing only a short summary of the case. But it is 
 easily intelligible how the simple popular tradition told 
 that Pilate at length yielded to prevent an increase of 
 popular excitement, but before pronouncing sentence 
 washed his hands in public, in presence of the multitude 
 and of the sun just rising, removing from himself all 
 higher responsibility. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 The Ceucifixion and Burial. 
 
 Thus then, without further grace and without the least 
 delay, a punishment of death was to be executed on the 
 Saviour, the most terrible and disgraceful possible. In 
 this peculiar sort of punishment, the criminal at the 
 place of crucifixion was either, as he lay, nailed with his 
 hands to the cross, and generally with his feet as well, 
 and this was then set upright and fixed in the ground, 
 or else he was in this way fixed to the cross already set 
 up. The cross was usually not high, and had in the 
 middle a small wooden projection on which the criminal 
 had to sit, while the cross-beam above likewise projected 
 before the upright: thus he had to stoop forwards, to 
 prevent him with the weight of his whole body sinking 
 too far, or losing equilibrium, whilst at the same time 
 the increased duration of the torment, till death at length 
 appeared, through this small rest granted to the body, 
 became only more unendurable. As a punishment de- 
 vised with such devilish art of torture, as all like punish- 
 ments, it was looked on strictly as the punishment of 
 slaves or others degraded to this lowest order of being : 
 
XXXIX.] TIME OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 325 
 
 the Carthaginians and Persians indeed punished with 
 this those charged with high treason; but by the 
 Romans this most horrible punishment was almost 
 either confined to their enormous multitude of slaves, 
 or in the provinces executed as well against those 
 charged with high treason. To the spirit of the Old 
 Testament religion, and to the old customs of Israel, 
 it was quite strange; so much the more wicked that 
 it was now called for by the chief-priests against a 
 member of their own people, and that too an innocent 
 one. Roman, that is the most civilized, heathenism 
 must combine with the most degenerate and irreclaim- 
 able material of the old community of the True God, to 
 carry out the most fearful crime which could ever be 
 committed. 
 
 When Pilate mounted the chair of judgment to pro- 
 nounce the final sentence, it was, according to St. John, 
 about the sixth hour, that is, about the time of sunrise, 
 or at any rate not much after that hour ; according to 
 the older account it was 9 A.M., as we reckon, when the 
 Saviour was nailed to the cross : and in fact, from the 
 moment of the sentence, in the making the final pre- 
 parations, and then in the procession to the place of 
 execution, two or three hours might well elapse before 
 the crucifixion actually began. 
 
 A part of the preparation consisted, according to 
 usage, in drawing up the statement of the crime to be 
 settled by the supreme authority, which, written in large 
 capitals, had to be fixed to the cross. Pilate commanded 
 to put above the cross simply, " Jesus of Nazareth, the 
 
326 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 King of the Jews," in the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek 
 languages. The chief-priests, who, now reproached by 
 an evil conscience, looked on it as almost an injury to 
 the Jewish name that such a man should be publicly 
 executed as their king, wished he would state in the 
 superscription that He had only given Himself out for 
 it, but never been recognised by them : but the governor 
 did not give in to this too late stirring of the national 
 pride, quite worthy of the whole proceeding in the 
 matter, which seemed to him merely ridiculous. St. 
 John alone relates this more particularly: it is a trait 
 apparently trifling, but very significant for the whole 
 behaviour of the persons active in the matter. 
 
 The place of the crucifixion, where doubtless at that 
 time all such executions took place in Jerusalem, lay 
 not far indeed from the city, but yet without its walls 
 and surrounded by gardens : for the ancient horror of the 
 people at contact with a corpse, a horror ratified by law, 
 would never have sufiered them to permit such a place, 
 no more than the burial places, within the city. It 
 was called Golgotha, or, as all the old Gospels translate 
 it, " Place of a skull"; even St. Luke, who always avoids 
 foreign terms, has merely adopted this name in a transla- 
 tion. The name ^ skull' indicates a bare and barren 
 hillock projecting from the ground; it was indeed the 
 place best fitted for a place of execution : but the name, 
 so far as we know, does not occur earlier, and probably 
 in the modern Jerusalem replaced the name of a hill of 
 similar purport in the ancient Jerusalem, probably 
 the hill Gareb, (Jerem. xxxi. 39). It may have lain to 
 
XXXIX.] PLACE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 327 
 
 the north-west of the city, but evidently at a greater 
 distance than the place where, since Constantine's time, 
 men believe they have discovered the Holy Sepulchre, 
 and since then constantly shewn it. This place lies indeed 
 in the probable direction, and an old reminiscence of its 
 situation may long have been generally preserved. If 
 now the court-house, at which Pilate was stopping, 
 (Nach. S. 14) stood pretty well in the east of the city, 
 the way from it to Golgotha was of some length ; as we 
 can further see from special recollections of the events of 
 that quite unparalleled day of judgment and death. For 
 Christ, like every other condemned to such a death, 
 had to bear His cross from the court of judgment to the 
 place of execution, surrounded by Eoman soldiers and 
 accompanied by two robbers to be crucified with Him : 
 the burden, for the length of the way, was too heavy for 
 Him to bear, and one Simon of Cyrene, just returning 
 from his field and thus meeting the procession, was 
 compelled to carry it for Him, which the older account 
 thinks sufficiently important to inform us of. That 
 a crowd followed the procession, and in particular many 
 women, with loud wailing, we can well understand, as 
 also that among them were many of His truest venera- 
 tors, now seized with horror and deepest grief: but 
 St. Luke is the first who gives us, from a later account, 
 some words of solemn comfort, which Christ directed 
 more especially to the wailing women. The Eleven, of 
 whose doings on this day the history is silent, save for 
 the exception soon to be mentioned, appear to have stood 
 somewhat further off, to escape from the first raging of 
 
328 LIFE OF JESUS CHKIST. [CHAP. 
 
 the storm : He was also Himself great enough to wish to 
 bear his deepest misery alone, and not now to desire the 
 presence of his closest friends. Thus they arrived at the 
 place of execution : the rough soldiers, when just about 
 to nail his hands and feet, and to set up his cross 
 between those of the two robbers, offered Him, as usage 
 demanded, a stupifying drink ; but He wished to bear all 
 his pain in full possession of his faculties, and even found 
 strength for Himself in the prayer to his Father to for- 
 give those who knew not what they did : these soldiers 
 were indeed only the unwitting instruments for carrying 
 out commands whose right they understood not, but in 
 truth by their own guilt indifferent enough not to ask 
 seriously about the right. There were of them — all this 
 we know more particularly from St. John — four, who 
 together formed the watch at the cross : they parted 
 among them as usual the garments of the crucified, 
 cutting his over-garment into four pieces, but throwing 
 lots for his under-garment which was woven from one 
 piece. Now at length, when with his whole cause He 
 seemed humanly speaking lost, the scorn and mockery 
 of the world could pour forth unrestrained, and the 
 malice of the chief-priests broke out aloud. Imagination 
 fails to picture this scorn of men, to which the joy of the 
 feast close by formed an accompaniment ; and the older 
 account relates further, quite simply, how the Roman 
 soldiers, whose imagination would be strongly agitated 
 by the crime imputed to Him of wishing to be the king 
 of the Jews, poured forth all their derision on Him 
 simply as king : the same account tells us how the idle 
 
XXXIX.] THE PENITENT THIEF. 329 
 
 and frivolous lookers-on at the cross in passing by, the 
 chief-priests keeping somewhat further off, and even the 
 two robbers crucified with Him, all according to their 
 several frames of mind, gave free utterance to their 
 insulting speech. But the Christian feeling preferred 
 soon to turn from the thought on these horrors, struck 
 by the all-subduing majesty of Christ's prayer, in pro- 
 spect of such sufferings praying the divine mercy for his 
 torturers : and it seems to have been the impossibility 
 of thinking that all, even of those who had not known 
 Christ more closely, could have been able to join in 
 this derision, which led to the tradition of the reviling of 
 the two crucified with Him being so beautifully changed 
 to the opposite, as we now have it in St. Luke ; accord- 
 ing to whom, one at least of them, brought now through 
 the punishment itself to repentance, and seeing on the 
 other hand the guiltless suffering of the Just, reproved 
 the other for his blasphemy, and asked not in vain for 
 the intercession of the Crucified. And if St. Luke cannot 
 let the thought of the last earthly moments of the Holy 
 One of God be disturbed by the account of the various 
 blasphemies of men — which indeed have no need to be 
 dwelt on — still less can St. John, all the less that in 
 other parts of his Gospel he has sufficiently intimated 
 their historical occurrence. The more fondly does St. 
 John recollect a trait of purest love and tenderest 
 thoughtfulness, which Christ on the cross revealed. 
 Whilst the disciples and other near friends of Christ 
 during the fury of this storm kept themselves further 
 from its scene, the faithful women, who indeed as women 
 
330 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 had less to fear at this moment, stood round the cross 
 somewhat further off: four now of these women, the 
 mother of Jesus herself and her sister Salome (Chap. 
 VII.) with two other Marys and with John from the 
 Twelve, stood somewhat closer. Then in few words He 
 pointed John to his mother as her son, and her to him as 
 his mother, thus cementing a new relationship peculiarly 
 touching for both, and especially for the beloved disciple, 
 in place of the relationship between Himself and his 
 mother now completely dissolved. His brothers in the 
 flesh had not yet become believers : thus then his 
 brother adopted by Him at his departure out of this life 
 took his mother to his own house : and if in his Gospel 
 he determined not to pass over this, and much else which 
 certainly has in the first place only a private importance, 
 he evidently did this not from vain-glory, but at the 
 close of his life it was a sweet reward for Him to bring 
 it all back in livelier recollection : for his readers it is 
 an undesigned proof that he alone can have written all 
 this. 
 
 But the same older account, which, in accordance with 
 its predominant plain simplicity, had not been silent 
 about that deepest derision of the world, has also the 
 depth to comprehend that from this very deepest humili- 
 ation arises the highest transfiguration, and that the 
 infinitely painful turning-point of this whole divinely 
 human story begins where by the world it is least 
 dreamt of. If the infinite meaning here concealed may 
 be expressed in words, we have the simplest and at the 
 same time most beautiful account, how, after that Christ 
 
XXXIX.] CHRIST YIELDS UP THE GHOST. 331 
 
 during the first three hours on the cross had endured 
 the greatest conceivable depths of misery,' just at noon 
 a darkness of three hours, lasting till his death, came 
 over the earth, as though from that mysterious place of 
 punishment for all human guilt there rose already the 
 prelude of future just punishment in the mourning of the 
 whole world for the coming death of the Holy One 
 through man's immeasurable guilt. But the Holy One 
 Himself also (this account goes on), in this terrible dark- 
 ness and nearness of the final death-struggle, cast forth, 
 as if wrung from Him, in the words of the deepest 
 penitential psalm, that human despair, which hitherto, 
 even under the extremest pains. He had always over- 
 mastered ; as though, by that cry of the dying man going 
 through the whole world. He called on God Himself to 
 carry on the work which He on earth must now give up : 
 thus certainly did the purely human feeling remain in 
 Him even to the last moment. And we can well under- 
 stand that his friends standing around, thrilled through 
 by that mighty call of the Holy One, misled by a mis- 
 understanding of one of his words, thought He called for 
 Elias to help ; and that one of them hastened to refresh 
 Him with a drink of vinegar, as though Elias might 
 actually come to save Him. But the last human hope, 
 wherever or however it looked for help, must give way, 
 and with one last mighty cry He breathed forth his 
 spirit ; whilst — as if for a heavenly token that with this 
 life that of all the existing national religion was already 
 virtually at an end — the veil before the Holy of Holies in 
 the temple was rent from top to bottom, and even the 
 
332 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 heathen captain standing by had to acknowledge that 
 here God's Son suffered and died. In this account all 
 is grandly exhaustive and in close mutual connection : 
 and he who will, may further enquire whether the purely 
 heavenly occurrences, the darkness of those three hours 
 and the rending of the veil of the temple, may have an 
 ordinary historical meaning, and from what events of ex- 
 perience they may have been interwoven in the account. 
 But as such unfathomable moments of history as this, to 
 him who will exhaust their deeper meaning, are beyond 
 every attempt to describe them in their greatness and 
 miraculousness, in their connection with all the spiritual 
 and bodily universe, and on this very account continually 
 excite to new attempts; we see accordingly, from the 
 present St. Matthew's Gospel, how further attempts were 
 made to paint the moment of this one death grandly as 
 became the subject. Not only on that noon was the 
 earth darkened, but three hours afterwards, in that dread- 
 ful moment of death, it was so shaken that the rocks 
 were cleft and the graves were opened : and as though 
 this moment were prolonged over all time and the com- 
 pletion of all things, and the last judgment would 
 appear, many of the saints who slept actually arose 
 from out of their graves and shewed themselves in the 
 holy city. Thus truly was this moment of death re- 
 garded as the great boundary line of all time, and as 
 the period of the deepest shaking of the whole existing 
 course of the world. But, as even the sublimest pictures 
 of the importance of this moment never come up to it, it 
 is not less worthy of St. John, that he describes in a few 
 
XXXIX.] TYPES OF .CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERINGS. 333 
 
 grand words the close of the history of this earthly life. 
 And as for all the most prominent features of the close of 
 this history, which was unexpected and to many proved 
 a stumbling-block, he seeks the more carefully for Old 
 Testament types; so he tells us Christ, when He saw 
 that all was accomplished, as though even his last 
 thought without design corresponded to the Messianic 
 prophecies, complained of thirst — as in fact the crucified 
 do suffer much from thirst : when they had put to his 
 mouth a sponge full of vinegar put on a hyssop-stalk, 
 and He had received the vinegar, with the cry ^It is 
 finished' He let his head fall forward and gave up the 
 ghost. Thus is St. John's narrative also a very simple 
 one, but in truth in quite another style from that oldest 
 account. 
 
 This endeavour to find a fulfilment of Old Testament 
 types, especially in the close of this history which thus 
 makes its way into the arena of Universal history, is 
 apparent in St. John once more in the course of the 
 history. According to a legal order in Deuteronomy, 
 criminals hung should not remain unburied after evening 
 fall; there was no legal right to extend this humane 
 law to those crucified in the E-oman manner, but because 
 on that Friday not only an ordinary Sabbath, but in 
 this year the great day of the Passover likewise was 
 impending, on which it was still more essential that 
 great quiet and peace should extend over the country, 
 Pilate was asked for permission to be allowed to kill on 
 the cross the crucified before evening. They hence broke 
 as usual the legs of the crucified : but when it came to 
 
334 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 Jesus' turn, and He was observed to be already dead, one 
 of the soldiers merely thrust his spear into his side to 
 convince himself of death having actually occurred. But 
 that He — who was slain about the time of the slaughter 
 of the Paschal offering, and had fallen as the infinitely 
 nobler Paschal or Atonement offering — thus sacrificed 
 as an offering, was also like the Paschal offering in 
 this unexpected and extraordinary coincidence, in not 
 having his bones broken ; that seemed to St. John so 
 remarkable, that he cannot sufficiently assure us how he 
 saw and observed this with his own eyes. But this re- 
 mark would only be looked on as so extremely important 
 in the Apostolic period, as will further appear below. 
 That the Saviour was really quite dead on taking down 
 from the cross, we have not the remotest reason for 
 doubting. For though the crucified live on over the 
 first even to the third or fourth day, and extremely won- 
 derful spasmodic alterations, nay, even transfigurations, 
 may appear in their whole countenance, called forth 
 by the acutest of all pains, in men of youthful vigour ; 
 yet, to say nothing of the carefulness of the authorities 
 then, under these circumstances so strict, and passing 
 over the express testimony of St. John, Christ had been 
 greatly exhausted by the days preceding, and especially 
 by the night before (as had appeared in his attempt to 
 carry the cross, nay, on the evening before in Geth- 
 semane), so that the earlier coming on of death in his case 
 could surprise no one. Only, from the short duration of 
 liis crucifixion, and as according to all accounts He had 
 a strong voice quite unbroken and loud, we must cer- 
 
XXXIX.] THE BURIAL. 335 
 
 tainly assume that at last a sudden inward convulsion, 
 through breaking of the heart, occasioned death ; and this 
 the flowing forth of blood and water indicates. As the 
 chief-priests, who, insensible as they were towards the 
 higher truth, retained with such anxiety the lower legal 
 truth, had before all to respect the peculiar nature of 
 this day, they had doubtless early in the day asked the 
 governor in good time for leave to finish early the 
 crucifixion ; and this breaking the bones on the cross 
 happened probably pretty soon after three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, or not long after Jesus' death. Meanwhile 
 the Crucified remained hanging until the two others, 
 whose deaths had been thus accelerated, were also quite 
 dead. About this time one of the secret honourers of 
 Jesus, Joseph of Arimathgea, came to Pilate with the 
 request to be allowed to remove the Saviour's body and 
 bury it; the governor, after he had assured himself that 
 He was dead, gave the permission, and the Saviour's 
 friend placed the body, wrapped according to custom 
 with linen towels, in the new rock-hewn grave situated 
 in a garden close by. They could not look for a more 
 distant place suited for the laying-out of the body, on 
 account of the eve of the Sabbath being close at hand : 
 they were satisfied then to place it temporarily in this 
 the nearest place that was suitable. According to St. 
 John, who always follows up the part taken by Nico- 
 demus, he specially contributed by bringing rich incense 
 and aloes : and although, according to the older account, 
 the women also, who staid not far from the cross and 
 
336 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 observed where He had been laid, recollected likewise 
 the last office of love, they came with their profound 
 paralyzing grief too late, as immediately at sunset the 
 Sabbath began. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 The Eternal Exaltation. 
 
 Thus, so far as man's will and power were able, had He 
 been slain as a criminal, who, neither as man, nor as, 
 what none other could be, the Messiah of Israel, was 
 guilty of the smallest offence : He^ who alone appeared 
 as the rightful true Messiah and Israel's sublime and 
 blessed hope, the Messiah for so many centuries ex- 
 pected, — He had been now rejected and treated with the 
 lowest contumely by those who since the last fifteen 
 hundred years were the heads of God's people in its 
 existing form, as well as by the great multitude of this 
 people themselves : He, whose purpose was to found the 
 imperishable salvation of Israel and, through this, of all 
 nations, and who shewed in the only right way how all 
 human salvation can blossom and ripen, had been, by the 
 highest courts both of Israel and of heathenism, branded 
 as the most dangerous deceiver of men ; He, who, against 
 all the errors, the sins, and abominations, which from the 
 beginning of the human race had been for so many 
 thousand years growing ever greater and more unbear- 
 able, had used no weapon, save the highest wisdom, 
 
338 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 purest divine love, and the most inexhaustible meek- 
 ness, had fallen through the combination of the sin of 
 Israel's hardness of heart with heathenism's frivolity. 
 In that nation, which beyond all others ought to be 
 God-beloved, pure and holy, but yet for fifteen hundred 
 years had suffered so many errors and sins to spring up 
 within itself, the whole weight of all these errors and 
 sins grown old and rigid, gathered into one mass, 
 collected against Him : for He fell not in consequence of 
 a single, as it were accidental question, as the Baptist 
 had fallen, nor, as it were by accident, in a sudden rising 
 of the people ; but simply in the one great question of the 
 whole development of Israel, that is of the Church of 
 the true religion, and in the culmination of the struggle 
 for its highest truth and whole existence upon earth. 
 But even the hardness of heart of all the error and all 
 the sin in Israel, as it now took form in the chief priest- 
 hood, could not by itself destroy Him, and had to take 
 as its ally the Roman, that is the most terrible and 
 strongest rule of all heathendom. Thus the weight of all 
 the sins of the whole ancient world turned against Him 
 standing alone, the single, weak, defenceless man, who 
 strove for no human power and majesty. Here are con- 
 densed the most extreme and sharpest contrasts in all 
 previous history — for lieathen history had already insepar- 
 ably entwined itself with that of Israel. And with the 
 single founder of a Church of the completed true religion, 
 this Church seemed, when hardly founded, to be again 
 completely crushed. 
 
 The way however in which, from the very moment 
 
XL.] CLOSE OF ANCIENT HISTOEY. 339 
 
 in which it seemed crushed, together with the King of 
 the completed Kingdom of God— and little striking in 
 appearance was this King — the way in which its un- 
 conquerable power was most miraculously shewn, and 
 how out of the grave of its Founder, killed only through 
 the culmination of all human sin, there rises infinitely 
 more mighty quickening and eternal glory ; to describe 
 and illustrate this in a connected history belongs to the 
 following period. Christ's death and burial are in his- 
 tory phenomena soon over, yet are they the true con- 
 cluding moments of all ancient history. The end of this 
 was not previous to that of Christ's earthly existence, 
 but doubtless they close together as if this grave only 
 closed, in order that the whole period also of ancient 
 humanity should close with it. We may not deprive 
 Christ's death and burial of this its true importance; 
 nor may we confuse the new following life of Christ 
 with the old, now violently interrupted, as though it 
 were the very same : in so doing the deep suffering of 
 this death is lost to us, and its infinite importance for us 
 diminished. Hence, if the Gospels annex briefly some 
 events lying beyond this grave, they do this only 
 because they had then known though only for too short 
 a time this new glorified life of Christ, which first reflects 
 on his earthly life the most brilliant light, being as it 
 were its necessarily following higher side: whilst St. 
 Luke's example, in his second history, shews that all 
 which happened after the death and burial is better con- 
 nected with the history of the Apostolic period. We 
 must therefore say, that all which the Saviour, in fulfil- 
 
340 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 raent of the ancient holy expectation and hope, as like- 
 wise from the true nature of the cause itself, had to 
 suffer, was already completely achieved in all his previous 
 actions, and not least in this suffering and death ; that, 
 consequently, what of Him reaches beyond this grave 
 is the fruit of the earthly completion of his work, and 
 hence passes over into a quite new province. Even the 
 highest divine power, when it veils itself in mortal body 
 and appears in definite time, finds in this body and this 
 time its limits : and never did Jesus as the Son and 
 Word of God take the place of God and the Father, nor 
 presume to make Himself equal to Him. Thus then the 
 ancient Messianic hope certainly, in its grasp of the 
 whole conceivable future in all its circumstances and in 
 its whole extent, contained more than Christ, in this frail 
 body and in this fleeting time, could accomplish. But 
 we must not look for the certain truth of a prophecy and 
 hope, touching the whole of God's kingdom, as to be 
 fulfilled at once: nor is its true fulfilment once in the 
 course of ages and for ever. And thus He had now 
 appeared, who alone at this period and amid this people 
 could be the true Messiah of the kingdom of God to be 
 formed : and not only had He fulfilled what these pro- 
 phesies in their deepest meaning demanded from Him, 
 but, working and establishing, suffering and dying, amid 
 all the difficulties of the period. He had absolutely done 
 far more than any ancient prophet had been able so 
 accurately to foresee and prophesy. That call had 
 struck on his ear, which, going through the whole ancient 
 history of all nations, had been most firmly and clearly 
 
XL.] CHRIST AS THE HEAD OF HTS CHURCH. 341 
 
 perceived in Israel ; through all that people's earlier his- 
 tory that call had sounded with irresistible force — the call 
 that One must first come forth, who, unmoved and un- 
 subdued by the errors and sins which in the whole 
 history of youthful humanity had taken ever stronger 
 root, must completely do the will of God : and, behold, 
 his whole life and working was the answer to this call. 
 The call came to Him, not simply as bidding Him act 
 and take thought for Himself, but in the way it must 
 come to llim in Israel, in harmony with that nation's 
 unparalleled ancient history, as to Him who, unseduced 
 by all the sins of the world, could so follow in every- 
 thing simply the will of God, that He should be the 
 leader of all towards the like perfection, through the 
 founding of the Church of the perfected true religion : 
 and, behold. He fulfilled also this double call so in- 
 surpassably, that it is vain to ask whether He is greater 
 as an individual, or as leader and head of a Church 
 founded by Him. 
 
 When He followed the call, the whole weight of all 
 the errors and sins, which since time began had been 
 growing ever heavier and more hopeless, not only of 
 mankind in general, but of the ancient people of the true 
 religion in particular, threw itself entirely on Him, to 
 hinder his work or to crush Himself: all the perversities 
 and sins in the ancient Church, unremoved since the 
 earliest times, grown ever more fixed and darkened, 
 raged against Him from far and near, and at length He 
 came into conflict, in addition, with the frivolity and 
 stupidity of the most violent heathenism ; then it was 
 
342 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 that the most painful requital conceivable fell on the 
 most innocent even to extremity ; the deepest hatred of 
 the world turned against Him, who had shewn towards 
 it nothing but the purest truth and the kindest bene- 
 volence, as though this hero and this innocence had been 
 great and strong enough to endure what none other en- 
 dured : yet not one moment did He waver, and was in 
 enduring and bearing, in suffering and dying, equally 
 great as in working and combating. He drew friends 
 towards Him, brought disciples into his more intimate 
 circle ; but He had at last to bear and suffer all, even to 
 extremity, quite alone and forsaken by all, only to be 
 pronounced happy in this, that as his labouring and 
 working, so also his deepest suffering, reached their goal 
 not very remotely in time. For all with Him reached 
 a climax in such a manner, that his temporal temptation 
 through suffering, though most extreme, yet also was 
 very brief and sufficient. But if He suffered to extremity, 
 forsaken by all, yet not by the true God, through whose 
 power He alone wrought all and suffered all, to win 
 thereby in the last outward destruction the highest 
 victory. For all those spiritual powers, which in Israel 
 (as the people of the true religion striving with mighty 
 effort towards its perfection) had severally been active 
 and dominant, once more massed together to form one 
 whole, so as at once to throw off all the defects which 
 infected them singly, and whose ever stronger prominence 
 and ever more dangerous combination put a stop at 
 length to all true progress in the development, and 
 prevented the great completion which ought in proper 
 
XL.] PROPHET, KING, AND PRIEST. 343 
 
 sequence to follow. In Him in these late days was 
 renewed once more the prophetic power as the first 
 fundamental power of the Church of the true religion, 
 and that with an immediately divine certainty, such as 
 had never existed since Moses, in proclaiming new truths 
 and creating a new empire, but free from the violence 
 which clave originally to the prophetic activity : every 
 truth shone only by its own lustre, and was recommended 
 by its own goodness, so that even the last trace of the 
 ancient prophetical dress disappeared, and in the most 
 human language there streamed forth only the most 
 divine certainty and the calmest truth. In Him the 
 long-extinguished existence of a true King of Israel re- 
 vived, founding and sustaining a kingdom, with kingly 
 word deciding the hardest question, and with supreme 
 power ruling in all, but establishing and working only 
 through the purest piety as the highest instrument, and 
 founding only the unchangeable dominion of the per- 
 fected true religion, which must go forth out of Israel, 
 but, immediately making its way beyond, must embrace 
 all men and nations ; no longer bound up in Israel, and 
 indissolubly connected with its human weaknesses. In 
 Him also the ancient priestly power gives new might, 
 reconciling man with God, and leading Him purified 
 back to Him, but no more bound up with a purely pro- 
 phetic law, nor with a law holy merely from antiquity, 
 and consecrated through its antiquity or anything ex- 
 ternal, but following only the highest truth, and with 
 the truth's advance continually receiving new life. {Com- 
 pare Matt. xiii. 52.) All however those highest spiritual 
 
344 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CIIAP. 
 
 powers, once dispersed through Israel, united in Him to 
 form one never before existent strong Whole, because the 
 power and impulse of the perfected true religion, in 
 which thej were all included, was at length manifested 
 in Him, as according to the divine will it ought to have 
 been shewn forth from the beginning of all creation, but 
 yet was unable to manifest itself, excepting now, and 
 only in this nation, and only in the first place in this 
 one. 
 
 Thus then He brought the very element, which alone 
 was wanting for the completion of the ancient true 
 religion in the Church, which this Church was long 
 desiring ; namely, the cheerfulness, power, and activity 
 of the purest divine love, to be subdued by nothing, 
 penetrating all knowledge as well as all action, fulfilling 
 all existing good laws, but alive equally to every new 
 divine duty and all new knowledge ; giving to the world 
 the most sensible proof, in ruling, working, helping, and 
 leading, but also in all obedience, all self-restraint, and 
 all self-sacrifice. Thus was He the Son of God in a way 
 none other had been ; in mortal body and in fleeting 
 time the purest reflection and the most glorious picture 
 of the Eternal Himself. He was the Word of God ; 
 through his human word as well as through his whole 
 manifestation and working, speaking from God, and 
 illustrating to the world God's most secret thought, nay, 
 as it were the spirit of his working, with such absolute 
 power and such immortal brilliance, as none hitherto, 
 and as none can surpass : and so He was the only true 
 M essiah, the eternal King of the kingdom of God among 
 
XL.] DISTINCTION AS A TEACHER. 345 
 
 men, perfected for the first time in his person ; the One 
 towards whom, as Leader and Lord, everyone after Him 
 must constantly look and strive, whom the Spirit leads, 
 whether in thought, in labour, or in suffering, to strive 
 purely and wholly up to God. Is the perfect possible in 
 the humanly imperfect; the imperishable and eternal 
 possible in the perishable and transitory ? The answer to 
 this He demonstrates as it has never been before or since : 
 and He will for ever manifest and prove it to all those 
 who do not flee from his light. Before Him, among all 
 the nations of the earth, no one even rightly conceived 
 the task that was to be accomplished. Socrates in 
 a long life hardly succeeded even in rightly discerning 
 it at a distance ; whilst his pupils immediately lost them- 
 selves again in mere questions of science, and hardly 
 among the Stoics did a remote recollection of the task 
 survive. Buddha strove towards it through the creation 
 of the same divided nature in man and in nations, which 
 in Christendom satisfies only the Pope and friends of 
 Popery, and ended by putting Himself in God's place 
 and thus driving every true god from his circle ; the in- 
 ferior gods, and as such less disturbed, were allowed to 
 continue their being. Kung-tso conceived the project of 
 founding and sustaining the best kingdom merely through 
 good instruction, good morals, and, at most, by a striving 
 after the perfect apart from a living true God. How far 
 does He stand removed even from these greatest men 
 outside of Israel ! and if nevertheless the kingdom of the 
 two last endures so wonderfully, w^hat must we expect 
 from the firmness and duration of his kingdom ? There 
 
346 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. [CHAP. 
 
 is probably no nation which might not see at length 
 what they have most zealously longed for during many 
 centuries, and sought for with the deepest earnestness 
 and the most patient striving, achieved at last most com- 
 pletely in one of its members. All its noblest powers 
 and most exalted efforts seem united in this one, and 
 hence mount in Him higher and higher with his very 
 success, most unexpectedly and marvellously: and in 
 every noble and aspiring people a culminating eifort at 
 the close of a long liistory thus gathers most naturally 
 into the condensed kernel-like strength of a single man. 
 Thus all that was most fair and exalted in what the 
 Greeks strove after (a divided effort swaying them from 
 the first) met in the two so unlike contemporaries, 
 Aristotle and Alexander; and the best to which the 
 Komans could rise, in one man, Julius Csesar. Among 
 the Arabians again, Mahomet became such a hero. In 
 Israel also all at length that was most noble and 
 immortal in it, which for hundreds and thousands of 
 years had been striven for and hoped for, was summed 
 up in the working of Jesus of Nazareth : only in this 
 nation could He come, and He came here as the long- 
 desired and expected, for whom the way had long been 
 prepared, though no one before Him was able actually to 
 find it. But as the highest effort of this people, from 
 the time of the founding the Church of the true God was 
 infinitely more exalted and divinely imperative than all 
 which to other nations seemed the highest end of life, 
 and this final goal of all the noblest work of this people, 
 in the course of ages amid all their changing destinies. 
 
XL.] THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. 347 
 
 nay, even amid their deepest troubles and most lasting 
 gloom, was only the more clearly recognised and the more 
 zealously pursued anew ; so now in Him a hero had 
 appeared in the earth, far less imposing, more short- 
 lived and weaker than those named above, and yet in- 
 finitely more exalted, more mighty, and more immortal 
 than any of them. The Highest had now come which 
 could come as the fruit and reward of all the combats 
 and victories of the incalculable host of men of God in 
 Israel, to which more or less distinctly the hope and 
 desire of all noblest antiquity had been directed, and 
 which for the whole future was to have an incomparably 
 higher importance ; but had come infinitely nobler, and 
 hence also infinitely more through Messiah's own work- 
 ing and suffering than through that of all the men of 
 God before Him. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Chap. I. 
 
 The first two chapters were translated by the Editor from an earlier 
 edition through inadvertence. The following corrections are ac- 
 cordingly given here from the last edition. The statement as to 
 Josephus' regret for the putting to death of Jesus has been amended 
 and referred to the rightful subject, namely, James his brother. 
 The amended sentence runs as follows : — 
 
 "They lamented the death inflicted on James the brother of 
 Jesus, and wished it had been left undone. Their dissatisfaction 
 might indeed also have been influenced by the old opposition be- 
 tween the Pharisees and Sadducees, as Josephus was a Pharisee : 
 but although Annas, at whose instigation, with that of his son-in- 
 law Caiaphas, Christ was crucified, was, with all his family, an 
 adherent of the Sadducees, yet the case of Christ's execution rightly 
 seemed to him quite difierent from that of the Baptist, because He 
 had been crucified by Pilate on the indictment of those in higher 
 authority (namely, of the whole Sanhedi-im), and so had not, like 
 James (s. Unten), been executed without the observance of the 
 established laws." 
 
 Antiquity of the Soueces of the Gospel Histoey. 
 
 It is pure prejudice, which in later times has led many learned 
 men to try to establish that the whole Gospel literature was not 
 commenced till veiy late : all more exact enquirers shew rather 
 that it began very early, and was in process of formation in the most 
 various forms before the destruction of Jerusalem, though doubtless 
 it was continued Ion": after that date. 
 
350 NOTES. 
 
 Chap. II. 
 
 If we were able to discover the date of the appearance of the 
 star, it would seem that, we should be able to arrive at the date of 
 Christ's birth. Now the star is generally taken to be the remark- 
 able propinquity of Jupiter and Saturn in the year 747 u.c. Taking 
 this however as the date of the appearance in the heavens, it is dis- 
 puted whether we are to suppose the birth of Christ to have followed 
 shortly after : in this case, the date of the birth would agree very 
 well with the date of the census which, as Ewald supposes, was 
 carried out by Herod not long after 746 u.c. He observes in 
 a note to this chapter, that the time given by the Magi since the 
 appearance of the star, of two years, leads to the inference that the 
 child was nearly two years old when visited by the Magi ; for it 
 was believed that the star which foretels a birth only rises a few 
 months before the actual birth. If to this interval from the star's 
 first appearance we add the time spent by the child in Egypt, we 
 are led to place the birth not much later than 747 u.c. 
 
 It may be said however that though the appearance of the star 
 would be popularly supposed to occur shortly before the birth, it 
 does not follow that it did. 
 
 The chief difficulty, if we allow this long interval between the 
 birth and the appearance of the Magi, is, that we have then to 
 suppose two visits of the parents of Jesus to Bethlehem : we have 
 certainly however no reason for asserting that there were not two 
 such visits. 
 
 On the question of the census, the author in the text takes 
 S. Luke's meaning to have been, that the census was some time 
 previous to the later one which took place under Quirinus. 
 
 The TTpwrr], he observes, before riyejxov^vovTos Kvprjvlov is only the 
 stronger comparative (a similar idiom being frequent in Sanskrit), 
 and the meaning is this census fell 7nzich earlier than the govern-' 
 ment of Quirinus. Compare irpurds fxov (John i. 15, 30, xv. 18). 
 The author rejects the view of A. W. Zumpt, namely, that Quirinus 
 may actually have been governor of Syria, and in that capacity 
 ordered this census ; as we know in fact that he was about this time 
 engaged in subduing the Homonadenses in Cilicia, and it seems not 
 
NOTES. 351 
 
 improbable that Cilicia may have been at that time included in the 
 province of Syria : Ewald however says that St. Luke's words will 
 not bear the meaning which it is thus sought to give them. 
 
 Chap. III. 
 
 On the grand conception of a theocracy, originating with the 
 Jews, Ewald observes in the passage referred to (p. 20) :— 
 
 " In the idea of the theocracy was introduced the sharpest con- 
 trast to aU human kingdoms whose end and aim goes not beyond 
 themselves, which come into existence and pass away only through 
 human power and arbitrary will : here for the first time is a king- 
 dom which itself knows its issue and its purpose to be apart from 
 itself, which has neither arisen nor can grow through human will, 
 a kingdom which, because its will is the divine, contains in itself 
 a germ of eternal duration ; as accordingly, in spite of all following 
 changes, it survives for ever in its eternal truth, and only rises up 
 again in Christianity with new youth and self-complete. But if 
 the individual man find it difficult to devote his life for ever to the 
 service of the Invisible alone, which he needs to keep every moment 
 consciously before him, for which no outward support and hope is 
 of the smallest use ; how much harder must it be for a whole people, 
 without any human kingdom and the outward order and firmness 
 which it introduces, to find its unity and strength only in the in- 
 visible mysterious King, nay, designedly to destroy every other 
 support of its kingdom!" 
 
 On the rise of the Messianic hope, Ewald observes (vol. iii. 
 Schlussergebniss der gansen Koniglichen Zeit) : — 
 
 " The first period of the history of Israel had bequeathed the 
 lesson ; how ruinous was the intentional avoiding of a human king- 
 dom. Accordingly, the establishment and the continuance of this 
 kingdom became the soul of the second period. Yet the true 
 religion was insufficient to prevent the kingdom from degenerating 
 into a tyranny, because it itself sufi'ered from this evil. Thiis the 
 perfected king could not come, whom yet religion now required. 
 But the truth of the religion, so far as it had been won arid secured, 
 could not perish through any outward losses and overthrows : and 
 if the great power of this second period, the kingdom, shewed itself 
 
352 NOTES. 
 
 too weak to bring fortli the perfected King of this kingdom, and if 
 at last it passed away with the overthrow of the kingdom and the 
 dispersion of the people, the perfected King, with the perfection of 
 the true religion and its kingdom, must be continually hoped for 
 and striven for. Isaiah might indeed hope that with the speedy 
 coming of the Messiah all would at once amend; but after that 
 a century had again passed, and the hope remained unfulfilled, and 
 the good Josiah himself in his work and in his death had but in- 
 creased the confusion and sufferings of the time; then must the 
 clear prophetic glance discern that it was not only the coming of 
 a Messiah which was wanted, that the ground of the pressing evils 
 of the people and kingdom lay much deeper : the deficiencies of the 
 ancient religion had in general become apparent, and for the first 
 time the need of a radically renewed religion must have been 
 experienced. In the early days of the people, the individual felt 
 himself supported by the Whole ; Jehovah was only as the God of 
 Israel his God. When now this Whole, after it had gradually 
 through David and Solomon been carried to the highest glory it 
 was capable of, and with the external might of the ancient religion 
 there vanished that confidence which had hitherto been the strongest 
 support of the individual; this very religion must either in its 
 deepest essence perish, or it must habituate the individual to look 
 away from that earlier majesty, and trust purely to the religion's 
 deeper powers, and hold fast in it such new truths which earlier 
 had not become sufficiently prominent in it. But whilst the more 
 concealed enduring power of this religion, questioned and tried by 
 thousands in their thousand needs, now first suffered its treasures 
 to be rightly sought for and called forth, nay, suffered truths akin 
 to it to leap forth exulting, truths which hitherto had not been 
 clearly enough brought into light; it sank with its most peculiar 
 power and certainty ever deeper into the mind and heart of in- 
 dividuals, and taught them, in spite of the vanishing of the national 
 kingdom, nay, midst heathen conquerors and heathen-minded rulers 
 of Israel, to hold fast more simply to their eternal truths. All his- 
 torical traces shew this changed religious tone when more ac- 
 curately examined : but we can follow it out most clearly in that 
 book of the Old Testament, which is the clearest revelation of the 
 secret emotions of the heart — the Psalter." 
 
NOTES. 353 
 
 Chap. IY. 
 
 By the "Great Unnamed One" Ewald denotes the author of 
 Isaiah (xl — Ixiii) : it was he, according to the Evangelists, whose 
 spirit-stirring appeals moved the Baptist to his great enterprise. 
 He looks on him as one of the captivity, but thinks him to have in- 
 corporated in his work some earlier prophecies. 
 
 Chap. YII. 
 
 Ewald brings forward the following arguments for the priestly 
 parentage of the Virgin. St. John was apparently her nephew, as 
 being the son of Salome the sister of oui- Lord's mother : now we 
 have the following intimations of St. John being of priestly family. 
 First, he was known to the high-priest, (John xviii. 15, 16). 
 Secondly, the reminiscence given by Polycrates at the end of the 
 second century (Euseb. iii. 31), that he was a priest and bore the 
 iriraKov, the high-priest's mitre; for, from passages like Deut. 
 xxxiii. 8 — 10, it might be concluded that the Levites were entitled 
 to this at least as an honorary decoration. Though this language 
 doubtless sounds partly metaphorical, it yet does not appear to havt 
 been used of anyone who was not of the tribe of Levi. Epiphanius 
 in the fourth century uses the same expression in speaking of James 
 the Lord's brother, after stating that he was a priest : 
 
 OuTOS 6 'Io/ca>)8os koX ireTaXov eVi ttjs Ke(pa\7Js i<p6pe(r€. 
 
 Adv. Hcer, iii. ii. 14. 
 
 This author states that the Heretics of his day used to ask how 
 the Lord's mother could marry into the tribe of Judah while Eliz- 
 abeth married into the family of the high-priests : his view is that 
 the tribes of Levi and of Judah had the special privilege of inter- 
 marriage, as in fact we know that Aaron married Elizabeth of the 
 tribe of Judah. 
 
 The two Genealogies of our Lord. 
 
 The author, it will be seen, cuts the knot here, instead of trying 
 to untie it. It will evidently be the safest to rest, as he does, the 
 
 A A 
 
354 NOTES. 
 
 descent from David on the general belief of our Lord's contem- 
 poraries, rather than on the witness of these genealogies. 
 
 If only we allow with Ewald the historic truth of our Lord's 
 descent from David, it is evidently a matter of small importance 
 what mistakes may have crept into the genealogies ; except in the 
 view of proving the entire immunity from error of the inspired 
 writers. 
 
 I would here express my entire dissent from the view of Ewald, 
 that the histories of the infancy in St. Matthew and St. Luke are 
 contradictory. They certainly shew, as Ewald observes, entire in- 
 dependence, and therefore we have double reason for assuming the 
 truth of that wherein they agree, as of our Lord's descent from 
 David, and the birth of the infant at Bethlehem at a time when 
 the parents were from home : this is however quite consistent with 
 St. Luke's view that the parents were visiting Bethlehem, having 
 come up from their home in Nazareth : the episode of the flight 
 into Egypt is simply omitted by St. Luke ; he tells us nothing in- 
 consistent with it. 
 
 It is satisfactory to find Ewald protesting against the view that 
 the flight into Egypt was a fiction intended to serve as a fulfilment 
 of the prophecy (Hosea xi. 1) : so far-fetched an application of the 
 prophecy can only, he observes, have been suggested by an un- 
 doubted fact. 
 
 Chap. IX. 
 
 The Eaeliee and the Later Scene of John's Baptism. 
 
 The earlier place was at Bethany (John i. 28), the reading Beth- 
 abara in the Textus Receptus being taken from certain late MSS. 
 on a conjecture of Origen, who, not finding any Bethany on the 
 banks of the Jordan, suggested Bethabara (mentioned in Judges vii. 
 24). It is remarkable that Bethany is read in many MSS. for 
 Bethsaida (Mark viii. 22), as is observed in the remarks on Lazarus' 
 history : the place intended lay pretty far to the north. 
 
 As to the later place of baptism, Mnon, near to Salem, the 
 author differs from Robinson, who, following the Onomasticon, places 
 it at Ainun (" Later Biblical Researches"). He inclines to the 
 
NOTES. 355 
 
 Shalkhim (not Shilkhim) and Ayin, put together as contiguous 
 places (Josh. xv. 32) in the south-east of Judah. 
 
 ^non in any case lay away from the Jordan, as we are told that 
 John found "much water" there. 
 
 Which brother's wife did Herod Antipas take from her husband ? 
 St. Mark asserts that it was the wife of Philip. Josephus (Ant. 
 xviii. 5) asserts that it was Herod, brother of this Philip both on 
 the father and the mother's side. That this Herod was a private 
 man makes it more likely that Josephus is here correct : Philip too, 
 we know, married his niece Salome. It is generally assumed, in 
 order to make St. Mark's account agree with Josephus, that this 
 Philip had Herod for his second name. It does not however seem 
 probable that there should be two brothers named respectively 
 Herod and Philip Herod, still it is certainly not impossible. 
 
 Chap. XI. 
 
 Ewald, it will be observed, adopts the view first suggested by 
 Townson, that St. John reckons his hours, not from 6 o'clock in 
 the morning, but from midnight and noon, as we do. Townson 
 endeavours to shew that this mode of reckoning time was in com- 
 mon use in Ephesus, where St. John wrote his Gospel. He alleges 
 in proof that Polycarp is said to have been martyred at the eighth 
 hour : as the spectacles in the amphitheatre are allowed generally to 
 have taken place early, it is, he observes, more likely that this was 
 at 8 o'cluck (as it would be if his view be correct) than at 2 o'clock. 
 Pionius, who was martyred in the same city eighty-four years later, 
 is said to have been martyred at the tenth hour, or 10 a.m. in 
 Townson's view, 4 p.m. in the ordinary view. 
 
 The statement of St. John xix. 14, as to the time of Pilate's 
 sentence on our Lord, can neither be reconciled with the other Evan- 
 gelists' statement, nor with St. John's own statement (xviii. 28), 
 unless we admit this view. 
 
 Chap. XIII. 
 
 On the Purport of our Lord's Reply (John ii. 19). 
 With Ewald's interpretation of this agree generally the deepest 
 German expositors, Olshausen, Neander, &c; those however who, with 
 
356 NOTES. 
 
 Neander, look on the reply as having been correctly reported, find 
 their great difficulty in the mention of the three days. Ewald 
 would doubtless take these words to be an unconscious alteration of 
 our Lord's words, naturally occasioned by what St. John looked on 
 as their fulfilment. It does- not seem that St. John's remark forbids 
 us to look for a fulfilment of our Lord's words beyond the fulfilment 
 mentioned by him here. It seems to be the especial glory of the 
 Biblical prophecies, that they are ever receiving new fulfilments. 
 What was at one time looked on as a great or perhaps the only 
 fulfilment, is found afterwards quite put into the shade by an after 
 fulfilment. It was only to be expected that St. John should not 
 see, as we may now, in the growth of Christ's spiritual temple the 
 most complete fulfilment of the prophecy; that the undoubted fulfil- 
 ment of it in Christ's own person should have completely satisfied 
 him. There is another instance in which St. John imputes a motive 
 to our Lord, which, as will be seen, Ewald questions — the motive of 
 the question to Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread that these may 
 eat ?" I am certainly inclined to prefer looking on these words as 
 a simple question for information. It is entirely in keeping with 
 the lesson taught us by our Lord's temptation, that he should look 
 for natural means for supplying men's needs before using super- 
 natural. Viewing the question in this light, we get a much more 
 graphic and touching picture of the human heart of our Lord -melt- 
 ing towards His fainting hearers. In thus imputing to the Evan- 
 gelist a misconception of our Lord's intention, Ewald might appeal 
 to the example of Chrysostom, in his comment on the cursing of the 
 fig-tree (Horn, in Matt. xvii). 
 
 Ewald's view that our Lord had primarily Himself in view as 
 "the man" who had no need of human testimony, I have met 
 nowhere else. It seems very improbable that He should thus have 
 spoken of Himself. 
 
 " Ye worship ye know not what." Ewald observes on this : — 
 " This can only describe a religion which is actually ignorant of 
 what is the exact purpose and final issue of the truth which lies 
 or may lie in it; whilst the Jews, amongst whom alone the Mes- 
 sianic hopes flourished with their original vigour and certainty, 
 possessed, at least in these, a clear and certain religion for all time 
 to come : and only such a religion which embraces also the whole 
 
NOTES. 357 
 
 future development of its own living subject, and contains an eternal 
 living hope, can be a tiTie religion. Very analogous is St. Paul's 
 saying to the Athenians (Acts xvii. 23)." 
 
 " Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours." 
 Ewald notices this as an instance of our Lord's delicate modesty 
 that He will avoid the use of the pronoun I. He finds another 
 instance in John iii. 11, "We speak that we do know." On the 
 general sense of the words he observes, Christ is Himself a reaper 
 (v. 36), but still more His disciples (viii. 37), and Christ only as 
 Christ glorified is the reaper ; so that in this is a fulfilment of the 
 proverb. No one can at once sow and reap, and the sower is always 
 other than the reaper. 
 
 Chap. XIV. 
 The Healing of the Centubion's Son (St. John iv. 46 — 54). 
 
 This is taken by Ewald to be the same occurrence as is recorded 
 by the first three Evangelists ; the boy is by St. John called the 
 Centurion's vt6s, by St. Matthew his irah, by St. Luke his Sov\os. 
 Ewald observes that St. Matthew's term might denote a son, while 
 it might at the same time have been taken by St. Luke to signify 
 a servant, and been in consequence by him changed into SovXos. 
 
 Chap. XV. 
 The Temptation of oue Loed. 
 
 The view of our Lord's temptation as an inward, not as an 
 outward one, is held by Neander, Olshausen, and most of the 
 modern German commentators. By way of further elucidating 
 Ewald's views, a passage is here given from " Die drei ersten Evan- 
 gelien." " In St. Mark's words the Spirit drives Him into the 
 wilderness : that mighty Spirit itself which had now come upon 
 Him, and leaves Him no rest till He has accomplished all to which 
 He was called, drives Him at once not into public life, but, on the 
 contrary, first into the profound solitude of the wilderness, where 
 fitting quiet reflection is possible, and where the true composure of 
 spirit for the execution of the work can be won. The wilderness is 
 
358 NOTES. 
 
 the land of every horror and of every want, of wild heasts and of 
 hunger and thirst; and its terrors and its wants become greater 
 when one is quite alone in it, as the Saviour was there, and retires, 
 as He did, into its most remote waste places ; it is therefore the 
 land of evil spirits, as the New Testament also often tells us ; where 
 consequently Satan is ever near enough at hand. But yet quite 
 other temptations than these outer terrors and wants lay in the 
 solitude itself, and in meditation on the carrying out of a resolution : 
 every meditation of the sort brings before the mind's eye the wrong 
 means and ways also, which likewise are very near to the spirit, and 
 Satan is ever waiting with his temptations on the mere thought of 
 what is wrong (Matt. xvi. 23). Nay, especially so long as the right 
 and safe way has not yet been found of meeting a great Divine 
 undertaking and work, so long waits (we may truly say) Satan 
 continually at hand with his temptations and snares." 
 
 He explains as follows the lessons taught in the accounts of 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke. There are three special dangers which 
 meet the spirit in all public working, three weaknesses and passions 
 which every man must overcome, if he will work with the Holy 
 Spirit for a providential end; three true and lofty virtues, with 
 whose help he must fight in order to win the final victory; and 
 these three have a deep inward connection, but do not come before 
 the spirit successively until the development in time of a great 
 public activity. When such activity begins and its impediments 
 also appear, the man would, to meet these impediments, retain all 
 his eagerness for and dependence on external necessities, and apply 
 every means in order to satisfy his craving, and to remove in the 
 best way rising difficulties ; whilst, on the contrary, independence of 
 all external resources, forbearance from and renunciation of every 
 false means of removing a rising difficulty, is the first requirement 
 and the first lofty virtue for manifesting rightly and successfully 
 a great activity: but when the spirit, thus severely self-contained 
 and independent of external means, has already accomplished many 
 a lofty project, and is at its most successful working, then it readily 
 becomes fool-hardy, and in rash confidence tries even the most 
 desperate actions : whilst, on the very contrary, with the growing 
 success, moderation and collectedness need to grow all the more. 
 And when at length through that success he has won the highest 
 
NOTES. 
 
 359 
 
 power possible to him, there lies in it for him the last and worst 
 temptation, that namely of using the very power won, as a means 
 for satisfying his own ambition and other lusts ; whilst, on the 
 contrary, the most single eye to the service of God must direct 
 power at its greatest elevation, in order that the eternal divine 
 purpose itself may be thus accomplished without disturbance."— 
 
 Ewalcl. 
 
 As applying the general lesson to Christ's particular case, we 
 may say with Neander, the first temptation was the temptation to 
 work miracles for his own comfort or advantage, the second to work 
 miracles in order to prove Himself the Christ, the third to estabUsh 
 His Messianic kingdom by human means and devices of human 
 expediency. 
 
 Chap. XVI. 
 
 The author considers the naiTative in St. Luke, of Christ's call 
 to his first three Apostles, to be coloured by the recollection of the 
 later experience of the Apostles. He considers the reminiscence de- 
 scribed by John (xxi. 6-22) to be the foundation of St. Luke's narra- 
 tive here. The connection which, according to our Lord's teachmg, 
 ought always to be found between temporal blessings and spiritual, 
 was no doubt present to St. Luke's mind. 
 
 Are Matthew and Levi diff^erent names of the same man ? The 
 narratives in St. Matthew of the calling of Matthew the publican, 
 and in St. Mark and St. Luke of the calling of Levi the publican, 
 seem certainly to refer to the same event. There would be no 
 difficulty in supposing that Matthew was the name adopted by Levi 
 after his calling, were it not that in this case we should have 
 expected the Evangelists, who had abeady spoken of him under the 
 name of Levi, would, when speaking of him under a diff^erent name, 
 inform us of the identity of Matthew with Levi. Still this hypo- 
 thesis seems preferable to that of Ewald-that the name of Matthew 
 was inserted by its last editor in place of the less known Levi, who 
 knew that their former position in life and their caUing had been 
 similar. 
 
360 NOTES. 
 
 Chap. XYII. 
 
 The narrative of Christ's day's work, given, according to our 
 author, as a specimen of the nature and activity of Christ's daily 
 work, is given in the first three Gospels in essentially similar form, 
 as well as the healing of the leper. But in St. Matthew this last 
 event is recorded as an event not followed by any particular con- 
 sequences. St. Mark and St. Luke both tell us, as the consequence, 
 that the Saviour avoided going into towns. Ewald supposes this 
 narrative was placed by St. Matthew in its present place to avoid 
 the inference from the other Gospels that it happened in a town. 
 
 The healing of the centurion's son (or servant), if it be taken as 
 identical with the healing the nobleman's son (John iv. 46 — 54), 
 brings the two narratives at this point into contact. 
 
 Chap. XIX. 
 
 That the Saviour was excommunicated about this time is not 
 stated in the Gospels, but, with the growing enmity of the spiritual 
 rulers in Jerusalem, we can hardly conceive it to have been other- 
 wise : we know that this punishment was at a somewhat later time 
 inflicted on any who believed in Him. That the punishment did 
 not extend to general exclusion from the synagogues is certain, 
 since we find Christ later constantly teaching in the synagogues. 
 See especially John xviii. 20. 
 
 Chap. XXII. 
 
 Ewald, as might be expected, has no doubt of the identity of the 
 similar discourses given by St. Matthew and St. Luke, known as the 
 " Sermon on the Mount." He, it will be observed, looks on St. 
 Luke's intimation, that a part of the discourse was delivered " on the 
 plain" and in the audience of the multitude, as a true reminiscence. 
 In fact St. Matthew tells us at the conclusion of this sermon as 
 reported by him, that the joeople were astonished at his doctrine ; 
 whilst yet the words with which He introduces it, and much of the 
 discourse itself, seem to shew that it was addressed exclusively to 
 disciples. The only conclusion seems to me that it was never 
 
NOTES. 361 
 
 delivered by our Lord as a whole in the form given us in St. 
 Matthew. St. Luke confirms this view by inserting fragments from 
 it in his Gospel at other periods in our Lord's life, in that portion of 
 his Gospel especially between Chap. ix. 51 and the end of Chap. xvi. 
 Ewald believes that a report of the Ordination address originally 
 existed in St. Mark's Gospel between iii. 19 a and 19 b. He be- 
 lieves that St. Luke took it from him and abbreviated it. In " Die 
 drei ersten Evangelien" our author gives an admirable running 
 commentary on the " Sermon on the Mount." 
 
 Chap. XXYI. 
 
 The Childeen's Plat (Matt. xi. 16, 17). 
 
 Ewald observes : " This play here alluded to was, as far as we can 
 see, a guessing game, in which the one party, which sat and 
 represented the judge and king, had to give up their seats when 
 they had twice failed to guess the meaning of what the other party 
 by action and movement represented ; e. g. if they had understood 
 neither the sound of the flute nor that of the weeping, and had 
 failed to give the corresponding action." 
 
 Who are the children of Wisdom here who justify her ? 
 
 Our author takes them to denote the self-imagining wise men of 
 our Lord's generation ; who, by their rejection of God's message in 
 whatever guise it might come to them, obviated the possible objec- 
 tion, that the message was not received because God had not sent it 
 in the wisest and most taking way. 
 
 The remark thus understood seems to fit more naturally into the 
 narrative than if we take "Wisdom's children" to denote the truly 
 wise, and understand her justification in a subjective, instead of, as 
 in the other view, in an objective signification. 
 
 Chap. XXYII. 
 
 It will be observed that in this Chapter the author places the 
 return of the Twelve shortly after the mission of the Baptist to 
 
362 NOTES. 
 
 Christ. St. Matthew, it is true, does not mention their return, but 
 neither does he mention their going out, as do the other Evangelists. 
 If St. Matthew then omitted the one, it is likely he omitted the 
 other, which yet found place in the original narrative. 
 
 St. Luke records the return of the Seventy immediately before 
 this outburst of joy from our Lord. Ewald believes St. Luke to 
 have taken the address to the Seventy from the same narrative of 
 the Spruchsammlung from which St. Matthew quotes more at length 
 in his report of the address to the Twelve. Without agreeing with 
 this, we may suppose that the time appointed to the Seventy for 
 their return may have been the same as that appointed to the 
 Twelve. Our author finds a confirmation of his view of the de- 
 pression of our Lord being succeeded by exultation, in God's general 
 dealings in meting out disappointments and hopes to his servants. 
 " Thus contrasts in life follow close on each other ; a troublous event 
 is shortly succeeded by one which dissipates all trouble." 
 
 Chap. XXIX. 
 
 What Place is denoted by Dalmanutha? 
 
 St. Matthew gives in place of this name the doubtless more 
 familiar name of Magadon, which is supposed to be the same which 
 by the Masorites has been written Megiddo. In fact, in the 
 Apocalypse xvi. 16, this name Megiddo is written Magedon. It lay 
 in the plain of Esdraelon which was situated to the south-west of 
 the lake of Tiberias. Ewald suggests that Dalmanutha may have 
 been a Galilsean form of the name Tsalmon, in which, according to 
 the Mishna, many Jews dwelt. As we are told that there were 
 fruitful vineyards here, we are naturally led to place it in South 
 Galilee. 
 
 The way in which the author takes the words of Mark ix. 29, is 
 very far-fetched, referring the term tovto rh yivos to the Pharisees 
 instead of to the daemons. The sense given, by those who take this 
 view, to e|eA0e7j/, "to go to work," seems quite unwarranted. 
 
NOTES. 363 
 
 Chap. XXX. 
 Will He go to the Dispeesed among the Gentiles and 
 
 TEACH THE GenTILES ? 
 
 The author refers to the earlier part of the volume, p. 57 in the 
 original work (Second Edition), for some account of the intercourse 
 and acquaintance of Jewish teachers with Eoman. He observes 
 that in the reign of Augustus (Suetonius August, c. 76 and 93) 
 a general desire had seized on all Romans, including the Emperor, 
 to be initiated into the Oriental religion and mysteries; many 
 women were engaged in the study. The grounds indeed which 
 moved them thereto were often impure, and much empty curiosity 
 or even worse was mixed up therewith. Accordingly a Jew of had 
 reputation, on account of offences against the laws forced to fly from 
 Palestine, came and settled in the metropolis of the world, and 
 advertised himself as an expounder of the laws of Moses. He was 
 convicted however in Rome of being an impostor, and of swindling 
 Fulvia the wife of Saturninus, a man of high influence. This event 
 happened about the same time as the frauds of the priests of Isis, and 
 concurred with them in leading to the banishment, in the nineteenth 
 year of Tiberius, of all Jews from Italy. 
 
 Chap. XXXIV. 
 
 The giving up of the Ass's Foal by its Ownee to the 
 
 Messiah. 
 
 Our author compares the presents made to Saul just after he had 
 been anointed king by Samuel. The presents thus freely offered to 
 him were foretold him by Samuel as auguries of a prosperous reign 
 and the willing devotion of his subjects. It is on this account, he 
 observes, that the Evangelist lays such stress on the free offering of 
 the animal to Messiah for His royal entry into His capital. 
 
364 NOTES. 
 
 Chap. XXXVI. 
 
 What was the Fate of Judas? 
 
 There seems some difficulty in reconciling the accomit of Judas' 
 end given in the Gospels with that in Acts (Chap. i.). The dif- 
 ference in the accounts as to the manner of his death is not of much 
 importance, and prohahly, if we had fuller particulars, the two 
 accounts might be found compatible. The most important difference 
 is that the Evangelists seem to speak of the traitor's death as 
 following directly on Christ's condemnation. But roVe is often used 
 in a vague sense, and seems often used to imply rather a connection 
 in the thought of the writer, than an immediate connection in time. 
 It seems clear however that Acts i. v. 18 does not give us St. Peter's 
 words, but is added by way of explanation — probably it was originally 
 a gloss. 
 
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